Feature Request: Restrict players who have recently timed out

Yes, you did misunderstand. I am not proposing a program, merely pointing out that information discovered incidentally in the course of watching games could be put to use rather than ignored.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. “Many timeouts” referred to those in the whole population of timeouts, not to many timeouts by one person. I, too, would be suspicious of many timeouts by one person, unless they were extreme blitz players like those I referenced above. You know, even Haylee timed out once in her Live Go videos, because she got distracted and thought it was her opponent’s turn.

I, for one, never said anything about what you “should” do or be “required” to do. I merely passed on some facts about what some people actually do to ameliorate the issue (which could conceivably be helpful if your proposal is not adopted).

My only concern is with the potential stigmatization of the innocent. I myself timed out of an IRL 9x9 a couple weeks ago when I lost track of the time (BTW, I play almost exclusively IRL).

Between a convenience and the honor of the innocent, I choose the innocent.

Well… the bar for notorious time-outer does not have to very strict to catch the abusers.

The player above wasn’t hard to find. I just checked coderjoe game history and looked at his most recent game won by timeout. The fact is that such players are in extreme minority, but because they are unable to adjust to social standards they spoil the experience for many more people.

I agree. I’ve seen many game histories like the above (they often go together with other troll-like behavior). So far, however, I haven’t seen any concrete proposal that would address the issue without stigmatizing the innocent.

Let me be frank. You are presuming your suggestions are helpful. To me they are not in the least. As a casual player with limited time on my hands I am unwilling to jump through so many hoops just to avoid the frustration of having my time wasted.

It’s much simpler for me to just play games on other servers which do have systems in place to deal with this…

You seem to perceive this as some moral victory over unjust punishment, I don’t understand why. This is a feature that exists on other servers in the form of either more active moderation, or actual rank implications of regular timeouts.

Nobody is suggesting “stigmatizing the innocent”.

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I don’t think that’s quite right: I think they simply don’t understand that what they are suggesting doesn’t address the problem you raised. Probably mostly because they don’t experience the problem.

To someone who does experience the problem you stated, it is blindingly obvious why the other solution suggested misses the mark.

This is a very common thing in any software. Someone has a problem and suggests a solution, and there will always be people who don’t experience the problem and therefore proceed to knock back the suggestion via multiple arguments: that it isn’t a problem, that the proposed solution won’t work, or by suggesting solutions that fail to appreciate what the problem is.

Because they don’t experience the problem in the first place there is no means of persuading these people that anything needs to change.

There are two things that I’ve found to do in this situatino

  1. ignore these naysayers and find out if there are in fact other people who support the proposal, and develop enthusiasm this way.

  2. withdraw the suggested solution, so that debate stops, and return to the problem itself. Often stating the problem without the solution takes away a target for people to shoot at (your solution) and ends up with the solution you had mind being suggested, or an even better one that you didn’t think of that more people like.

GaJ

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You know what? You’re probably right. In addition to that, because any conversation is a two way street, it’s likely that I’m misinterpreting their comments as well.

That said I’m well beyond what time and or effort I’d be interested in investing in solving this problem. I’ve made my suggestion and probably spoken way too much already.

It may just be that given the gameplay experience I’m looking for, occasionally OGS is the wrong place for me to play. It will always be my first choice but it probably shouldn’t be my always choice.

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No, I am not. First, I said that my comment connected with watching games was irrelevant if one does not watch games. Then I said that the ideas mentioned “could conceivably be helpful if…” “Could conceivably” is about as far from a presumption as one can get within the limits of the English language. It’s not beyond the scope of imagination that someone (not necessarily you) might find them useful. And the contingency (“if your proposal is not accepted”) is crucial, because the alternatives are to continue suffering, or to flee to another server.

Your proposal, “Restrict players who have recently timed out,” does stigmatize the innocent because it lumps together escapers with people who have timed out for legitimate reasons (such as running out of time while thinking).

If other servers have nuanced strategies that deal with this issue without stigmatizing the innocent, then please elucidate.

Conrad, you’ve come into this discussion not asking what I would want or how I would implement, but by presuming my intent by stating that my suggestion punishes people unfairly.

Likewise I’ve responded presuming (incorrectly) that your intent is to shut down my ideas before inquiring as to my intent or how I would want them to be implemented.

While you are correct that you did clarify your points, you always did so after the fact. Your original comments which set the the tone for this discussion were far from conciliatory towards my concerns.

That aside, since I think we both did a pretty bad job communicating (probably me more than you), you’ve made some good points.

If you’re interested in seeing how other servers deal with this problem of wasted time your best option is to check out the escapers systems on KGS, Tygem, or IGS/Pandanet which solve the behavior in entirely different manners than my suggestion. Potentially much better systems.

I believe both Tygem and IGS handle it the same. If you disconnect the clock pauses for both players for a maximum of 5 minutes. If you do not reconnect after 5 mintues you forefit the game. If you continue to disconnect in an attempt to gain more main time via the 5 minute pause you automatically forefit after a set number of disconnects.

KGS has a much different system described here: https://www.gokgs.com/help/faq/escapers.html

I hindsight these systems may all be better than my own suggestion which made with potentially incorrect presumptions about how much of OGS I’d want to change to solve this problem if I were the developer in charge.

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The Tygem/IGS system seems to handle the situation in a simple and effective way, with a minimal loss of time and no stigmatization. Of course, really dedicated trolls (which is what escapers really are) can always game the system by leaving their window open—but life isn’t perfect.

I agree, having to sit through a maximum of 5 minutes is much better than occasionally having to wait through 10-20 minutes for an escaper to time out while they go on to play a few more games.

I’m not worried about those more dedicated trolls because that sort of action would be easily detectable by the player being trolled (and the troll is giving them the free time to check), and easy enough to confirm and report to a moderator.

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Personally I prefer the KGS system because there’s no waiting at all and innocent parties can easily resume the game. Probably harder to implement on OGS though since there’s no game resuming capability that I’m aware of.

just had annoying case when I accepted 30m+30s/move match. Opponent left (funnily in unclear position, just things didnt worked as he wanted) and started new game, by the time he timed out he managed to do same thing twice again. He have over 2k games played and it looks like this behavior is norm for him.

I know this was avoidable by checking his game history, but I hate to do so.

Is startting new game after leaving norm for most escapers or is it rare? If its norm there can be easy non-violent solution - just dont allow them to start new game when they have unfinished live game - it might actually “correct” them.

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That is such a great idea! (Doesn’t help correspondence timer-outers, but sends the right message)

The only situation I could see this being a problem is for people who want to occasionally play simultaneous live games as some popular streamers do. Otherwise I think it’s a great suggestion

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there should be limit of timeouts (like 2-5 in last 50 games) for this to happen. If someone is good enough to play simultaneous live games, he should be good enough to keep track of his time too so no damage to streamers.

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I’ve had this happen once exactly as coderjoe described it. I was playing a higher-ranked player, he had a bad start and abandoned the game. When his clock had almost run out, he comes back, makes a single move and leaves again This is shady behavior, if I had gone AFK I would have lost on time instead of him.

I know he escaped intentionally, because I went to his profile as soon as he timed out and he was already in the middle of another live game.

A good solution is always automatch with Fischer time. I find the default settings for Normal games very reasonable (+ 30s per move, caps at 5 min), and if your opponent escapes, you have to wait max. 5 minutes for the timeout.

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