An apology, some thoughts, a few ideas and a workaround.
To all those who have persevered with this thread, let me start by saying, ‘I am sorry for those occasions when my words have gotten harsh.’ I feel confident that everyone involved shares a desire for OGS to be the best it can be.
There’s a few ideas that I would like to stick together in this post so grab a cuppa 
or skip the post if you prefer.
It seems to me that the challenge we face is creating a system where players with very different approaches to the game can coexist productively/enjoyably and we want to achieve that without disrupting the ranking system’s ability to accurately assess Go-strength. Some players want to treat every game like a titanic struggle for the fate of the world (ie. seriously) while others wish to ‘take it easy’, ‘go with the flow’ after all ‘it’s just a game’ and not stress when they have other priorities (ie. casually). Neither of these extremes is inherently wrong but they work better when paired with like-minded players and of course, there is a full range of players in between.
Idea A
Incorporate into the profile page some kind of indication as to the attitude of the user.
This site: g0tStats? already provides something of the sort including:
but unfortunately that site doesn’t distinguish between blitz TO’s and correspondence TO’s which are of course very different.
All I’m talking about is a number or rating of some kind that reflects the likelihood of a person timing-out of a correspondence match. No diagrams would be required. It could be as simple as looking at what % of their correspondence games over the last n correspondence games have been lost by TO. That number could then be normalised for the general OGS population, or not.
Just on it’s own, this idea could assist mods in automatically identifying the most extreme examples without waiting for complaints to come in and for that, the stat doesn’t necessarily have to be visible to the general population. If it was visible then players would have the option of looking at it before investing time and effort into a game.
Idea B
For tournament games, when player A’s TO% is significantly lower than player B’s. Give player A the option to change the game to unranked or cancel it before they play their first move. A pop-up something like this when they first open the game:
Your opponent has a significantly higher tendency to time-out than you. Would you like to:
- A: Proceed with the game normally
- B: Change the game to unranked
- C: Cancel the game
Nb. game results will still have the usual effect on the tournament but will not effect your site-ranking in the case of B & C.
[Box] Tick this box to never receive this option again
and a tick box for it in settings.
It’s just a crude mock-up but you get the idea. Maths wise all we are doing is removing a little bit of data some of which would have been garbage anyway so negligible effect on the ranking system.
The main advantage of this idea is that it empowers the first player to decide how seriously to take the game. They can choose to unrank it (B) and then have a casual game with their casual opponent or even if they proceed normally with the game (A) they will feel like it was their choice.
I don’t really see this idea taking off because I’m guessing there would be a significant amount of coding involved but maybe someone else can evolve the idea.
Idea C Workaround
Allow players to cancel tournament games before playing their first move. Currently; if you are White and Black has already moved, you can’t cancel, you can only resign with full consequences (in tournament games). I have sought clarification of this in this thread. Dare I say it, the current situation actually distorts the ranking system.
Soon after I joined the forums I was made to realise that for many, tournaments are just a convenient way to arrange new games in bulk. The tournament result may be utterly irrelevant. We already have Quick-Match and Custom Game players who prefer to check out their opponent first and then cancel if they don’t like what they see.
So i’m asking the mods who read this thread; As a workaround. If a person resigns a tournament game without playing their first move, is it reasonable to use the in-game call mod button to request an annulment in those cases where it is not automatic?