The rule is definitely a bother for some players.
I wouldn’t tell that it’s “unpopular amongst players” because OGS has a lot of players (fact) and a very small portion of them participates in the forum (fact). And, as you can read above, there is at least an equal number of forum users that don’t complain at all against the rule or even approve it (fact).
I would rather say that’s an unresolved matter and the more we drag it on, the more the discussion will get harsh. (opinion)
I think the reason why so few of them complain is simply because THEY DON’T KNOW THE RULE IS THERE. The last time I asked a few months ago it’s not written out anywhere, and the admin purposely kept it that way. I think why he did that is not hard to guess: because he knew people would abuse it.
I agree that it is possible that many people might not be aware of the rule. In fact, as I mention above, there is a known bug (reported on GitHub by @GreenAsJade, see the link I shared above) where the timeout annulments are not indicated in any obvious way (except for the lack of change in the rating graph).
However, I would not go so far as to allege a conspiracy by the site admins to keep it hidden. I think it is merely an oversight.
I actually like the T rule a lot.
I’m a slow correspondence player, and i daily find myself short of time in a couple of my games. Its not that uncommon for me to have my weekend trips to drag on for a bit longer than i’ve expected, or simply sleep late and not have the time to open my laptop on the morning.
Simple accidents like that has and will caused me some timeouts occasionally, i think the longest timeout-streak i’ve had has been 7 or 8 games. It’s not because i’ve wanted to “escape” but simply because accidents happen.
You may argue that it’s my own fault (like it is) and i would “deserve” to have my rating drop with each of those timeouts, you may even argue thats it’s not that big of a deal to just beat couple of weaker players to get my rank back where it belongs, but i personally feel it’s already a harsh punishment to get my ass kicked out of ladders and DQ’d from tournaments.
It is NOT a punishment if you agree to a match with certain rules and then lose according to the rules both players agreed to. If your clock runs out during a real-life tournament, losing the game is also not a punishment, it is what you agreed to.
I also note that your whole post completely ignores the perspective of your opponent. In your language, your opponent gets “punished” for your weekend trip.
I would argue precisely that since you agreed to the time controls, you deserve the consequences that come with not fulfilling the agreement - a loss.
Yes, because i can’t influence other people, so there is no reason for me to take it into my perspective. I wouldn’t mind if they would get the rating points for the timeout wins, since that makes no difference to me at all.
But the rule that you are defending IS affecting other people, and it is affecting those other people solely because of your behaviour, they can do nothing about it. So do you agree that it is “a harsh punishment” to have a game in a won position annulled because the opponent took a weekend trip or not?
It’s as harsh punishment than having a game annulled on move 5. It’s always a sad thing to not being able to finish a game that have started.
How is that not a punishement? 
punishement = a penalty inflicted as retribution for an offence ← that’s a textbook definition
Now to try and be constructive:
- everyone please stop taking this thread to personal levels and try not to take things personally, stay strictly constructive. It is massive thread enough already, I will start mercilessly editing/muting for these remarks. It’s not helping anyone, you just clutter the thread and annoy people.
Yes, I think I remember that. I loved it. It was finally something at least approaching factual data. Unfortunately unless I am very much mistaken it was only a simulation about a couple of same rank players timing out, which in my personal (and far from any expert) opinion is expected not to mess up much, since nothing unexpected is happening when same rank player losing to same rank players… Having a stronger player timeout to several weaker ones would be much more interesting also to know how many games will it take to get back to rank thus how many people will be affacted by the unfair “sandbaggy” games. Also the possible distortion is not the only problem.
I would have no illusions about the rule being poppular by the masses. It is an unlikable rule. But that in my own personal book is not a reason enough to cancel it. Nobody likes taxes for example, but they are needed.
Me too. In my personal opinion I still very much doubt the rule is widely misused to cheat. I am sure there is a few cases, there always are, but anything substantial? I do not think so. It would require planning ahead, possibly stopping to play for several days, actually knowing about the rule first and for slow and uncertain results, as you still won’t win higher ranked games, you have to slowly rank up on lower ranks. Any real evidence is lacking. Simply put, there are much faster and easier ways to cheat if one wants
Not true technically, her opponent simply does not get rewarded for the win (provided it was a certain victory). Unfair, yes. But so would be all the games opponents of _KoBa will be playing while she ranks back up. Still unfair, in my opinion possibly even more.
Matter of opinion I guess, but again, this is NOT what we are going for. The ranking is designed to reflect strength as best as possible, not punish players.
And please stop comparing correspondece games to real life tournaments I don’t think the analogy works at all. Live timeouts count here as well, it is exactly the very different proprety of correspondence that causes all this. I bet if one could timeout 20 live AGA tournaments at once by one accident they would cut them some slack in the official ratings too
There are a few very angry, very vocal people who want the rule gone and many people who seem to be quite content. 
Well, I’ve seen what can happen if someone resigns from a tournament and a losing streak like that (which serial timeout would mirror) results in a serious rank hit which, in the case of slow-af correspondence would take ages to repair.
And no, 2-3 posts a year don’t constitute conclusive evidence of anything.
The most important point is still that a rating system exists to (predict the winner) match people in a way to maximize the probability of an even game.
If people cheated their way out of losing, they would rank up and encounter opponents they would lose to about 70% of the time (1 rank). If they serially timed out all those losses, their timeout ratio would skyrocket. So if you can’t find anyone whose timeout ratio in their last 100 games or so is above 70%, as far as I’m concerned, you don’t have a case. Even the milder assumption (rank preservation) would require 50% timeouts and I can’t see any evidence of that, either.
Please, quantify “serious” rank hit.
Please, define “slow-af”. (google didn’t help, sorry) 
Wasn’t Glicko chosen just for that? Usually we talk about “super responsive” rating system on OGS.
By the way, @flovo provided to me some factual data.
I can tell you all that in my whole history on OGS I have 33 games that could match the T-rule.
We aren’t 100% sure that they are, so I’m gonna check them one-by-one.
I’ll let you know.
My post is directly above yours, you don’t have to block quote everything… 
The serious hit was around 5 ranks. Can’t find the thread now but he was talking about ethical concerns of resigning from a tournament or something. Edit: Thanks, @flovo. That’s the one. (See below)
Well, if the fastest correspondence games take approximately 7 days and the slowest take a year (still a modest assumption), then they take about 500x up to 26208x the duration of my average game. I think that qualifies as slow af.
Glicko does not speed up the games, it just speeds up adjustment. You’re still gonna be playing for (most likely) months to get back your rank. Most people I’ve talked to who play only correspondence do so because they only have a few minutes every day or so; corr is their only option.
It’s this thread:
and the drop is 4.0k → 9.0k with 16 games.
That’s right.
Vsotvep resigned against me just recently in that batch resignation. And now if/when they are back playing at the deflated rank of 9k (I’m currently at 10k - after clawing my way back up) and I play them, then I will most likely lose and take a hit in my rank…? Would that be correct?
It’s a shame that the discussion has become so polarized. People on both sides do clearly feel quite strongly about this issue, but we should not let that get in the way of finding common agreement and compromise.
I think it is important to consider the distinction between accidental vs intentional timeouts.
Those in favor of the current rule have a valid argument in that accidental serial timeouts should not be too harshly punished. A string of accidental timeouts are probably often a mix of winning and losing positions, and marking them all as losses could distort the ranking system.
Those in opposition to the rule also have a valid argument in that intentional serial timeouts could be abused by cheaters to escape from losing positions. By selectively avoiding losses, these cheaters could also distort the ranking system. Further, the potential to abuse this rule might actually encourage more timeouts to happen.
I hope that a common point of agreement is that we do not wish to see serial timeouts (either accidental or intentional) distort the ranking system. However, the difficulty is that each case needs to be handled differently.
I think the heated argument over this issue has created an impression of a false dilemma: that the only thing we could do is change nothing or fully repeal the rule. Each would come at the cost of the other concern.
I think an ideal system would be one that annuls all accidental correspondence timeouts but does not annul any intentional timeouts. Of course, it is impossible to determine with absolute certainty in all cases whether a correspondence timeout was accidental or intentional. However, some situations are more clear. For example, if a player is still logging into the site (and maybe even playing moves in other games), but ignoring some correspondence games until they timeout, then I think those timeouts should be assumed to be intentional. Ultimately, I think an intentional timeout should be handled no differently than a resign.
Earlier in this thread, I mentioned a compromise proposal (first suggested even earlier in another thread by someone else) that may help distinguish between many cases of intentional and accidental timeouts:
This would prevent abusers from continuing to use the site and play other games while selectively timing out their losing positions. This change also would not affect the situation for accidental serial timeouts where the player has simply disappeared.
Another related change to reduce the risk of accidental serial timeouts is to automatically activate vacation time when a correspondence timeout is imminent.
The entire crux of this disagreement is that I don’t think longer time controls are actually different enough from short time controls to justify cutting people slack. The current rule encourages a bad behavior, and I am not convinced by any argument that I’ve seen that this rule is objectively better than the possible consequences of changing it.
@yebellz that was just beautifully put.
Well I for one think it much easier and more enforcable for people to plan ahead for ONE 30min game than for 20 games possibly spanning a month, you do not? 
Similarily I am not convinced by any argument that canceling it would be objectively better than keeping it. In such a case it makes no sense to cancel for me as there still could be unforseen complications. I think Yebellz summarised the issue perfectly.
I am not against changing it. In fact I believe I have on several occasions expressed that I am FOR change. I am against CANCELING it.
If someone can’t be bothered to login and check their games when they know that they have active games, that is their problem, not mine. I also think that the suggestions given for potential alterations to how the rule function are a reasonable compromise that could go a long way to discouraging intentional abuse.
This sounds great, it would also stop all the “hey what does the T after my rank means” questions on chat.
Auto-vacation is also a great idea, and according to @anoek, its in the to-do list (since november 2014)