We've made a very minor change to how ratings and statistics work: A game no longer counts in the stats/ratings if each player hasn't made at least one move. Since May 2006, we have been counting all rated games regardless of how many moves were made (whereas prior to that each player had to make three moves), but you could "cancel" a game within the first few moves using the "Cancel" link under the board. Now, even if you don't use the Cancel link, the game won't count if each player doesn't make at least one move. (In tournament games, the outcome of the game is still relevant to the tournament.) Note that resigning a game counts as a move, so -- as always -- don't resign a game to make it not count -- use the Cancel link.
Why the change? Well, intuitively, if at least one of the players has never made a move, the game wasn't really "won" or "lost" so much as not played at all. And sadly, we did find a couple of players who were manipulating their stats by taking advantage of the fact that all (rated) games counted: They'd find other players who hadn't been on the site for a while but still had unexpired open invitations in the waiting room, repeatedly accept the same open invitation until the invitation's limit was reached (the default is 100 games!), and then make a move in those games. Since the other player had probably just stopped playing at Pocket-Monkey entirely, eventually those games would expire and the manipulating player's stats would get bolstered. This is not good gamesmanship (to put it mildly). Making this change prevents that particular way of manipulating one's stats.
In any case, as a result of this you may notice that your rating in various games has changed. This does not mean that you are in any way suspected of having been manipulating your stats, it's entirely possible for your rating to change as a side-effect of other players' actions (see this entry in the Statistics FAQ for more on that).
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