I just had a frustrating result in a correspondence game. Games that require scoring attention – i.e., that are in danger of “auto-accept” – don’t seem to have prominent placement on the “home” page. Case in point, earlier today I did a quick check to see if I needed to make any moves in the next 24 hours. I made the moves that were needed in the next 2 days to cover the rest of the weekend, and then left.
Apparently my opponent had recently passed, entering scoring mode, but it wasn’t in the “needs attention in the next 2 days” section of my homepage, and a few hours later OGS “auto-accepted” on my behalf:
Since my opponent didn’t know that one of his/her groups was dead, we ended up with an incorrect score. (I’m new on this site, and didn’t know about auto-accept, or its short time frame.)
- If there’s some sort of timer for scoring, it should be used for sorting the games on the home page. Even better, put all the “scoring mode” games right at the top in flashing yellow.
- For correspondence games, a 24-hour auto-accept is quite short. Instead, it should auto-accept only when the game time runs out. I understand there’s a concern about escapers, but really: if it reaches scoring, these games have taken weeks or months to complete, so waiting for the opponent’s clock to run out isn’t a big deal. Just my opinion.