"How to tell between hardcore players and cheaters?"

#PokemonGO: Within the past week or two I've noticed the same 12-15 players taking over the gyms around town. This includes gyms that are usually hotly contested and rarely held longer than a few hours even after raising levels. The game has been around long enough that hardcore players could have enough high power Pokémon to put in multiple gyms. With that said, today I was trying to knock one down a peg or two. It started out at level 9 (almost 10) and I got it down to level 8 before I kept getting error messages. I gave up and went to visit friends nearby. I checked the gym about 30-40 minutes later and it was back to level 10 with the same familiar names filling it up. The gym isn't close like the others they hold but not so far out it would be far fetched that someone might come along and train. I don't want to report legit hardcore players but the probability that they are maxing out gyms all over town and defending all over seems less and less plausible to be legit. Any help? via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2dzDBtW