Obviously the issue is complex. There are 2 types of timeout :
Player had a connection issue, or other computer/browser related issue.
Player had a good connection but still didn’t play before the end of the allocated time. Here we also have 2 possibilities:
a) Player was thinking and didn’t notice he was timing out, or player didn’t manage to find the appropriate move in time, despite trying his best.
b) Player let his clock run out on purpose.
The problem is that we are only trying to punish players in situation 2b), while situation 1) and 2a) are ok.
One technical solution could be for the server to listen to the events that indicate that the browser tab, or window has been closed, or if the player went to another URL, without closing the window or tab. This would indicate that the player left on purpose.
Another solution could be to increase the penalty for timeout, in non-blitz games.
Another solution could be to verify how much time passed between the last move of player A, and the timeout of player B. If the time turns out to be 10s, or 30s, or 1min, it’s different than 5 or 10 min.
Someone mentioned the things on the player’s profile mentioning if the guy timed-out recently. That thing doesn’t help at all, because :
I never check the opponent’s profile before clicking on “accept” (by the time i’m done checking, the game will be gone)
This does not differentiate between someone who timed out for technical reasons, once, and someone who times out on purpose all the time. Yesterday i checked one of my friends profile and it said “timed out recently”. Turns out he has been having connection issues.
“One technical solution could be for the server to listen to the events that indicate that the browser tab, or window has been closed”
I’m pretty sure OGS does that already. That’s when players get the lightning symbol and five-minute timeout that ends in “resignation”, rather than their whole amount of remaining game time having to be spent and them getting “timeout” as a result. That’s enough of a solution if we just lower the five minute time limit a lot. I suggested two or three minutes earlier in the thread but perhaps even one minute would be fair. And if it happens and you’ve just killed their group or something so it’s fairly obvious that they’re salty, you can easily block the player and report them to the moderators.
Actually, your category 2b (escapers) has two divisions. Most escapers (2b1) are bad sports who disconnect when they leave. The lightning bolt deals with these (the amount of time of the bolt timer is a separate issue). A few of the 2b1 escapers are cheats who come back in the last 30 seconds, hoping the opponent has also left the game, so one is well advised to wait out the lightning bolt timer. A very small number of escapers (2b2) stop playing, but stay connected to avoid the lightning. These people have turned troll, typically because some perceived rudeness annoyed them. Although I’ve observed many 2b1 escapers (I watch a lot of games), I have seen 2b2 escapers very rarely. More typically, such people will infill stones or self-atari to prolong the game, in which case a moderator can be called immediately.
In my experience this is pretty rare on OGS. There will always be discourteous people - in Go communities, as in all communities. You can’t avoid them completely, you just have to put up with a certain percentage of boors in the people you encounter, and avoid them in future.
At least OGS is much, much better than KGS, because KGS has what I regard as “escaper-friendly” policies (a player can “escape” a certain fraction of games without any of them being counted as losses). That’s why I changed from KGS to OGS and I think it’s why the OGS community has grown while the KGS community has shrunk.
Mafrano3d wrote:
In my experience this is pretty rare on OGS
In my experience it is not pretty rare, but, in fact, just common enough to be an absolute headache. Playing 200+ moves against an opponent over three weeks, only to have them serial timeout and my “win” being totally unranked is excruciating.
It just happened to me now, latest example. 256 moves in over a few weeks, Im 18 points up, game nearly done, I’m thanking my opponent for a game well played…ABANDONED. Repercussion for opponent: zero.
Because of things like this I find it amazing that so many people even play correspondence games. I know that I will never play any until this gets corrected somehow.
Well, I dunno if it’s just good luck, but lately I play almost exclusively correspondence änd I remember only one instance where my opponent timed out. Usually people are quite pleasant and we can even exchange a few lines of dialogue since there is no rush…
And to be honest I find it much more annoying during live games, where you have to actually wait the five minutes to see if he comes back by any chance. In correspondence I just regard it as a resignation and do not waste any time. It was a still a good game
Maybe, if you shift your attention from winning and collecting rating points towards learning and finding joy in the game you wouldn’t take so much issue with that?
You know, while I mostly agree with the statement myself, I don’t think that’s fair. It should not be an excuse for an unfair system. And fairness is also something that should be valued…
I’ve expressed before my doubt that the system really works as described, because I ranked up when my opponent timed out in a correspondence game, even though I was 19th of 20 timeouts. But I guess it’s just a mystery since everyone says otherwise. I agree that it is a terribly unfair policy. Until it is changed, it seems that the best course would be to play correspondence games only with people you know (more or less) who have demonstrated good character.
Your opponent timed out of two games, and doesn’t appear to time out on a regular basis. Perhaps they should’ve resigned, but it doesn’t look like they were trying to intentionally game the system.
They made rapid moves throughout the game and only stopped completely, and with two full days to make one single move on our game clock, when I had the game in the bag and thanked them for the game. It was intentional.
There have been instances when a player has played 20 games at once, headed toward a win for 8 of them and headed toward a loss on 12, then play the 8 games to completion quickly, play the 12 games slowly (every move using nearly their full allotted clock time), then when all 8 winning games are completed and their win rating bumped up for each them, the player simply abandons the other twelve games and lets them all time out. Consequence: only the first timeout dings their rating, the other 11 do not, and the 11 opponents are notified of their “win by timeout” by OGS and yet their rating in unchanged (those who say it’s never happened to them likely are not watching their rating enough to notice). Did the offender break a rule? No, because the OGS system allows them to do exactly as they did.
TBH, if somebody wants an inflated rank, they can have it IMO. Ratings are just a pairing tool for me. I understand the feelings of injustice though. Perhaps leave it to the opponent of the person who timed out to decide if they believe its a clear win or no result?
I hope the discussion hasn’t started concluding that timeouts, especially in live games, are anything other than perfectly normal.
The only problem with a timeout is when it results in the game not counting for rank.
Other than that, everyone has completely the right to use all the time that they are allowed by the rules, and if they can’t get their turn in in that time, then they lose. That’s the rules.
