Last time I played, someone refused to tell me how many skill cards they had, saying they didn't have to. I always assumed this was public knowledge. It needs to be known to enforce the 10 card limit, plus it just seems like I should be able to find the number of cards in any pile at any time, including a hand. Thoughts?

It seems obvious to me that its public knowledge. The point of secrecy isn't to be annoying, its just to make sure cyclons aren't revealed instantly, the number of cards one has is not important to keeping hidden as a cyclon.

Locutus Zero said:

I'm not sure that you should be able to find the number of cards in any pile at any time. The rules don't seem to mention this one way or the other. But I would discourage card counting in my games. For instance, if someone wanted to count how many cards were left in the destiny deck or the piloting deck, I'd flat out say no way. If they wanted to know how many cards were in my hand, I'd say fewer than 10 (or 8 for the chief).

The secrecy rules don't directly address it, but the spirit of the secrecy rules is for information regarding other players' hands to be vague.

Locutus Zero said:

I would think number of cards in hand should be public knowledge. We play that way, heck we often say it ourselves as a way to "tell" how much you can contribute to a crisis. ("I've only got one card" is a legal way of saying you won't be adding much value to the crisis.)

As for the piles, that would be public knowledge too I would guess but not sure why that is really needed for the strategy of the game. It would just bog the game down ...

Number of cards in hand is public knowledge. I had this confrimed by Corey before I began my play-by-forum games on BGG.