If they were colluding in private pretending to not be doing so I would agree, that's a problem and needs to be dealt with, but openly agreeing to check it down, I don't think counts as 'colluding'.
This would not be tolerated in any poker tournament I am aware of. Where have you seen this done in tournaments?
Ahh, that's the piece I was missing. I was assuming a cash table. Tourneys, of course, are different. My mistake.
-- Smoov
edit: but, if all of the other "players" are disconnected ones who's stacks are just being blinded off, I don't count those as active players. In the real tourneys I've played, stacks that have been blinded down up to the cutoff for new entrants to join, got removed from the table. Stacks for players who have joined, but are just gone, won't get removed, but IMHO, if you can't even be bothered to be there and play your stack, you don't really have a right to complain about the other players who are there, choosing among themselves, to check down until your stack is gone. That's probably my #1 gripe about people joining tourneys, never showing up, and their no-play stacks out-last people actually playing to survive into a paying position. Still not relevant to your issue tho, but it came to mind.