When the total number of passes in a game exceeds 4, send to both players a notification (whether that’s a message in chat, an OGS notification, or something else is implementation detail) explaining what a player dealing with stalling can do to handle it (so the situation with one accidental early pass, opponent plays the endgame they missed, both pass, end game, does not trigger this notification, and the situation with both passing, disagreeing on score, resuming to resolve, both passing again, and ending game, also does not trigger this notification, but anything more than that would trigger it)
Here’s a proposed rough draft of the notification:
OGS has detected that there may be intentional stalling going on in this game. If this is a mistake and you are both still playing in good faith, just ignore this message
Stalling is when a player refuses to end the game either by scoring or resigning (or timing out in particularly fast games, but that’s a fine line between a normal part of fast time controls, and intentional escaping, which is a different but related infraction). Please note that there may not be malicious intent on the part of the players; it can be difficult for newer players to know when it’s time to end the game
Ways to deal with it:
- Talk to your opponent. This may solve the issue, or it may not, you’ll have to use your best judgement as to whether or not this looks like it would work
- Make yourself pass-alive everywhere, and then create 1-space eyes everywhere. This is the classic slow but sure method of dealing with it. Even in rulesets which allow suicide, playing in 1-space eyes will quickly result in triggering the ko rule. If using a ruleset which does not allow free infilling after the game proper has ended for to resolve scoring disputes, be wary of losing points by doing this. It is not recommended that you do this in general, as a resisting opponent can drag the game out a very long time while you’re setting this up, but it may be useful on smaller boards (especially 9x9), or against beginners who you’re trying to help understand scoring
- Make yourself pass-alive everywhere, and then pass 3 times in a row regardless of what your opponent does. If you are winning by at least 10 points, OGS should give you the option to call the game via strong AI. This is the best option in general, but is only available if you’re winning by at least 10 points. You must be careful about losing points setting this up if using a ruleset which does not allow free infilling after the game proper has ended for to resolve scoring disputes, but setting up this option is much easier in this respect than setting up option 2
- Report the game. This will not actually end or even pause the game, and once the game is ended, the mods will have no way to correct an incorrect result, their options will be to leave the result as is, or annul it completely, so whenever possible it is recommended to use this in conjunction with other options, rather than alone
These options can be combined, and in the event that you believe the stalling to have been malicious, it is recommended that you report it regardless of what else you also do
Any methods of dealing with stalling I missed? ways things could be clearer? inaccurate information?