Escaping by Timeout

In the end we all benefit from acting in good faith. If we suspect ill intent everywhere…

  • Someone didn’t greet you at the start of the game? Probably hasn’t registered an email yet. Clearly rude.
  • Someone only makes a move 5 minutes before his time runs out? Must have a busy schedule. Clearly wants to annoy you.
  • Someone continues the game despite a lost position? Ah, doesn’t know any better. Clearly griefing.

DGS offers the option to be benevolent.

Now I don’t know if this would help much, but maybe we could implement that, with a little twist. Users get a “balance” of wins they can give themselves by accepting the timeout. This balance might increase with every loss people voluntarily give themselves, or annulment or whatever.

The ostensible loser of said timeout would be notified that their game is on hold and they have some time, say 24 hours, to either accept the result (whatever that may be) or come back to the game (in which case the x hours it took them to react will be deducted from their vacation).

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Thankyou for further illustrating my point. ie “total consideration is being given to the mathematics and no consideration is being given to the psychology”.

We already have a ranking system that 99%(not a statistic) of users could not possibly understand. It is therefor equally important to consider how the system is Perceived as well as how good a ‘best fit’ it is. Is it perceived as fair? Is it perceived as having legitimacy or is it perceived as being an esoteric system for the interest of mathematicians and programmers?

When I hear directly from Anoek saying that the SOLE purpose of the ranking system is to optimise handicap matches and that he is completely unconcerned with how the system is perceived by users, then I will stop exploring ideas that exist in-between ‘Yay and nay’ that might improve the system.

My attempt at comedic relief (click here)

Why do Go players insist on trying to make issues ‘Black & White’?

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I’m certain that the old OGS had something along these lines but how exactly it operated I can’t recall

What is the difference in functionality between separate accounts and separate rankings for live and correspondence, just as we had not so long ago?

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I find the separation idea to be a red-herring. For a start, I only play correspondence :slight_smile: And secondly, it seems to be arguing that only a live rating matters, and it’s OK for correspondence ratings to be subject to arbitrary impacts like “oh, you didn’t get that game because your opponent ran away”.

This whole debate is only about correspondence games, the rule only applies to them. So the idea of farming the problem off into an account that “doesn’t matter” seems odd.

There is actually a premise underpinning this whole thing: that we care about our correspondence rank.

Much of the line of argument that smurph is presenting can be encapsulated as “you simply shouldn’t care so much”.

The suggestion of “let’s just be able to arbitrarily give up some rank to receive later” etc comes from this approach. It builds on the idea that “your rank really doesn’t matter, just relax about it”.

I totally acknowledge the benefits of this philosophy.

But that being said, “you should see the world the way I do” is another way of saying “your experience of this problem is invalid”.

This way of solving someone’s problem is often less than helpful.

Actually people do care a lot about their rank, and they work hard to grow it. Those people do experience the problem being debated here acutely.

While we can give them philosophical advice to rectify that, I think it’s equally helpful to explore ways to actually fix the problem that they are experiencing.

Separating the problem into a separate account, or introducing new means to undermine the value of someone’s rank don’t seem do that.

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I mentioned that because separating the game types by account seemed the easiest way to get rid of an “overall rank” that includes correspondence. I’m not saying I want that, but since the effect of the correspondence timeout rule on the overall rating appears to be the main objection to the rule, this would be a way to address that objection. An added advantage would be that it would simplify keeping track of the two types of games for people who play both (some people who play both may already do this).

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Unfortunately it doesn’t address it. If your overall rating is your correspondence rating, it doesn’t really help to remove the correspondence part.

Under the idea I offered, the rule would be abolished, so correspondence games would no longer be “subect to arbitrary impacts” because people who ran away would get a loss that counts.

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Ah - I hadn’t absorbed that part of it properly.

Now it’s an interesting concept. :slight_smile:

But why would be be unworried about the effect of mass timeout on our correspondence rating?

If we dont have to worry about it, then we should just get rid of the rule.

If we do have to worry about it then… we have to worry about it?

Or is this a bit like “Oh, correspondence isn’t a real rank it doesn’t really matter, so who cares?”

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My personal opinion is that correspondence ranking is and should be completely separated from blitz/live ranking.

Why? Because I (for one) play much better when I have more time to think about my next move(s). And in correspondence there is not only much more time but also the possibility of consulting all sorts of outside sources that just would not work in blitz/live games. This is then no real estimate of my skill at playing Go! :frowning_face:

I really am not so sure that correspondence rankings can be so easily compared to blitz/live rankings because no one knows for sure how much “outside assistance” is being used in the correspondence games. The correspondence ranking then can become more of an indication of how good is some player’s collection of Go literature rather than how well that person can actually play Go. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Someone once said…

Not sure I’d agree to that, but I can agree to “The needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few”. :slight_smile:

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Obviously this is only useful if you have any measure of who the many and the few are :wink:

Since I am playing only correspondence here these days, I certainly don’t devalue correspondence. The idea I mentioned was for the purpose of making it possible to abolish the rule without affecting live game ratings. It admittedly doesn’t address whether or not the rule is inherently good; the debate on that would go on. However, if the rule were abolished under these conditions, those playing correspondence would know what they are getting into, while removing the live game accounts from the debate.

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Unfortunately, smurph plays correspondence :smiley: :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:

^^^ c’mon it’s a joke!

What I mean is all seriousness is that before this idea could have legs, we’d need to understand why it would be OK for the correspondence ranking pool to be inflated by mass timeouts, when it’s not OK for the overall pool to have that effect.

Because all other debate aside, this is the key point that any solution has to address, because it is the single factor that forces us to have the rule in the first place.

If the ultimate effect is “your 1d OGS correspondence ranking means nothing, because those ranking are ridiculouly inflated” then that’s probably the wrong outcome…

But wait, I just thought of a question.

Why do we care at all that the rating pool inflates?

Ratings are only for matching people for games.

If this throws our rankings out, then wouldn’t we just adjust the calibration factor?

Guess what happens if one day all ranks are reduced by one or two ranks :wink:

In my opinion the problem would not be a overall inflation of the whole rating pool. The problem would be that some players would have inflated ranks and others not. This could happen due to different match making methods. For example someone playing only ladder games will rarely encounter any timeout, while it is rather common for tournament games.


What are the ranks for anyway?
If it is because we want to play against equally strong players, then we should try to get the rank as close as possible to the true strength of every player.
If the ranks are a measure of well behave then why do we mix it with the playing strength? Are stronger player better people?
What would a rank of 12k tell me about my opponent?


PS: the last question is something I really want to know. What is the 12k behind my username telling about me, and what the 12k behind my opponents name? (now and after we count all timeouts as losses) I feel like I’m getting something wrong there.

You guys are mad, you know? :smiley:

Back to data: I checked last 10 games in my own history that were not ranked because of the TO-rule.
Here the results of 9 of them:

  • number of moves played: 4 to 79 on 19x19 board
  • won/lost? None of them was unbalanced enough to say
  • TO-rule: yes, all of them
  • games involved in the TO-streak: 3 to 70
  • cheaters: none

10th game was a 9x9 ladder game, ended by timeout after 3 moves.

Until now I found one major cause to most of them: tournaments!
Someone subscribes to one or more correspondence tournaments and later on he discovers that he isn’t able to manage so many games for so long time.

I will go on checking the rest of the list, but I don’t expect big surprises.

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When you say “no cheaters”, I guess you mean you couldn’t see evidence that they lined up the timeout of all their losing games?

But isn’t it cheating simply to escape from tournies without finishing the games?

Or did none of the mass-timer-outers return to play at OGS?

To escape from tournies without finishing the games is rude, not cheating. (At least if I don’t miss something)

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