Correspondence game "timezone" preference

[yebellz]

Note that the website already does this sort of time zone conversion in several places, like timestamps on when games start/end, chat messages, tournament start times

[calebjdastrup]

That is exactly what I had in mind.

[Feijoa]

@yebellz

Note that the website already does this sort of time zone conversion

I think the existing conversions are all from UTC to local, which is relatively easy.

Re-localizing a local recurring event like “2:30am Pacific time” is more of a challenge that common timezone libraries usually avoid. For example, what do you do on the day in spring when that time doesn’t exist? Or in the fall, when it happens twice?

If we do it right, though, this would be a great feature!

[yebellz]

I think that the backend for various OGS functionalities is just handled all in UTC, for things like the regularly scheduled tournaments, the beginning/end of weekend pauses.

One wrinkle is that some regions observe daylight savings time, while others do not, and the beginning/end of these periods vary around the world. One way to handle this is to just fix the pause schedule according to UTC at the back end (while still translating to local time for user views), which would mean that it would shift (relative to local time) during DST transitions, in regions that observe these.

Supervillain Plan

[siimphh]

So the test tournament we nominally held in “Atlantic time zones” finished a little while back: Fast correspondence - Atlantic time zones

The tournament ran with Fischer time, 6 hours / move. There were 13 participants, 3 disqualified for timeout, 1 player deleted their account (hopefully not because of the tournament :)).

Some stats:

• 16 total games, 1611 moves
• 10th percentile move 40 seconds, median 42 minutes, 90th percentile 10 hours
• Per-game maximum move times:
  ['69.4h', '5.2h', '13.4h', '8.7h', '21.9h', '4.2h', '0.8h', '20.5h', '104.8h', '12.8h', '97.9h', '42.9h', '75.9h', '206.5h', '13.7h', '53.3h']
• Per-game 90th percentile move times:
  ['14.7h', '5.2h', '5.7h', '3.9h', '7.2h', '4.2h', '0.3h', '1.3h', '50.7h', '7.2h', '18.3h', '23.9h', '9.7h', '21.2h', '4.0h', '22.3h']
• Per-game average move times:
  ['5.2h', '5.2h', '1.4h', '1.5h', '2.4h', '4.2h', '0.1h', '0.7h', '21.7h', '1.9h', '7.1h', '9.7h', '4.9h', '11.4h', '1.4h', '7.3h']

The games ending in timeout were those with index 5, 8 and 11 (average move times 4.2h, 21.7h and 9.7h). I think the 11.4h one was one the ones that was using a bunch of vacation that to not have timed out.

IDK how big a difference it made that “please be somewhat close to the Atlantic ocean” was explicit in the tournament title and text, but IMO the 6h/move didn’t work poorly at all. Looking at the move timings, I think 4h/move would have worked for most of these pairings too.

[LetMeUp]

I’m against this idea.
Whether players play fast or slow has nothing to do with time zone.
Even if the other party’s time zone is the same as yours, what should I do if he only opens OGS once a day, moves all correspondence once and then turns it off?
Trust me, a lot of people do this.

@Farraway

I don’t think your proposal would solve this problem. Some opponents reply quickly. I suspect this is because they check their boards more frequently and that timezone is fairly irrelevant.

Yes, if a player is in OGS 16 hours a day, it doesn’t matter which time zone it is.

@GreenAsJade

I wonder if we should create a “conditional moves” Group, where it’s a requirement to always include conditional moves in your games

I object…
If I only had three games, I would probably use conditional moves.
However, I have 150 games and it’s impossible for me to set conditional moves for each one…

@calebjdastrup

I had a similar idea for fast correspondence games. The weekend pause feature could be extended to “pause at night”

I agree.

[BHydden]

@LetMeUp

impossible for me to set conditional moves for each one…

You wouldn’t need to use them in all your games, only the games you play in that group.

[LetMeUp]

@BHydden

You wouldn’t need to use them in all your games, only the games you play in that group.

Well, I don’t see that it’s not mandatory.
I thought the proposal here was to ask for a system feature that, when turned on, would force players to set up conditional moves before committing a move.

Then I think there are several problems with this regulation.

1. Is it illegal for a player to move without setting conditions? How to check? How to punish? Is it reasonable to lose qualifications because the conditions are not set for moving?

2. How do I know from the hundreds of games I’m playing that I’m playing a game that requires conditional moves?
   It is impossible for me to open the game information every time I move to check whether the game is a conditional move game.

[BHydden]

@LetMeUp

Well, I don’t see that it’s not mandatory.

The statement you quoted said

@GreenAsJade

I wonder if we should create a “conditional moves” Group

This is very different from

@LetMeUp

a system feature that, when turned on, would force players to set up conditional moves before committing a move.

It is simply proposing an OGS group whose members voluntarily agree to abide by the group preferences. Much the same as joining a fast correspondence group doesn’t prevent you from also playing slow corr outside of that group.

[LetMeUp]

@BHydden

The statement you quoted said

@BHydden

This is very different from

@BHydden

It is simply proposing an OGS group whose members voluntarily agree to abide by the group preferences. Much the same as joining a fast correspondence group doesn’t prevent you from also playing slow corr outside of that group.

So I said I didn’t see it, or I didn’t see it clearly😂.
What I said later is that I think that’s what he originally meant.

In addition, I would also like to discuss the difficulty of complying with this rule.
It’s not like fast correspondence, which I can simply comply with as long as I don’t use pauses and holidays.
It requires contestants to make conditional moves, the question is how to comply?
First of all, it is difficult for the creator to verify that the contestants have set conditions for movement.
Secondly, even if it can really be verified, is it reasonable to rule out disqualification because no conditions have been set for the move?

[BHydden]

I don’t think you can verify. It would just be a gentlan’s agreement. Best you could maybe do is post all your conditional moves in malk log I suppose.