I have Zen Mode setup to be my defailt view when playing games as I either play on my phone or a tablet. After a game is finished and post-game UI becomes available, i realize that the other player has sent messages, either to greet, say thanks for the game, etc.
I find myself feeling rude and not having good etiquette for greeting the other player or responding to their messages (some of which could be important like asking for a pause!). I understand Zen Mode is used to remove distractions and i dont suggest notifications when messages are sent.
Unsure if this is possible but what if when two players are put into a game, one of the following occurs:
There is either a status icon by their avatar whenever they are in Zen Mode to show they’re in Zen Mode (like the red disconnected wifi symbol)
The game chat sends a status message when a player enters or leaves Zen Mode? This would allow a player not in Zen Mode to know why they havent been responded to, preventing misinterpreted bad manners which could also affect their overall.
I often find myself feeling incredibly rude for not saying hello, or glhf after my opponent has initiated a greeting.
Other suggestions or ideas are totally welcome. I hate feeling rude and I wonder just how many people play in Zen Mode and how much communication between opponents is missed or misinterpreted because of no reply.
It is a logical sounding request, but past discussions have concluded that it is not practical, nor would it solve the poblem
The root cause of a perceived problem is:
this is unfounded. There are numerous reasons why the other player may not greet us: it is mistaken thinking to find it rude.
These reasons include:
Some players are simply not allowed to chat on OGS
Some players find that they don’t see chat due to the layout of the chat on their device
Some players are feel uncomfortable greeting across the language divide
Some players don’t want a conversation, and fear that a greeting would be mistaken for an invitation to chat
In addition, there may be clients that don’t support chat.
If we implemented a notification that the other person has Zen mode on, it would imply that if this notification is not present, then the person is seeing chat and chosing rudely not to respond to it. That would not be true.
Why not greet your opponent first by saying something like
“Have a nice game! I’m going to switch Zen mode on, so won’t be able to read the chat during the game.”
Then we could have a more general warning, something like “your opponent cannot communicate with you” and it could be simply put in the chat window.
My tablet is e-ink and typing takes too much time. Also been a bit traumatized on Fox that if you don’t play a move within the first 2 seconds, the opponent leaves.
But you’re not wrong. Communicate before going in Zen is also a solution.
This could only be by “opt-in” . IE by providing a button that we press to say “I’m not avaialble to chat”.
This is for two reasons:
We don’t always know if someone is not available to chat. For example, if they simply prefer not to.
It’s not OK to publicly share that a person has had chat removed from them - that’s their business only.
Also we can predict that showing a sign like “I’ve opted not to chat” will draw the ire of folk who feel we “must chat” (there are these folk).
Personally, I think people just need to get “over” the idea that there’s some obligation to in-game-chat in a worldwide server.
1: we don’t have to cover all the cases, just the ones that we know for sure. The ones you describe as chosen by someone, like the ones resulting from a ban or Zen mode. Who cares to be exhaustive?
2: I don’t get this point. Seems important to me to know if I can reach someone when we have an activity together. What will not be ok is to start writing things which he can’t read, and when I could have been warned.
People who must chat will be better warned as disillusioned
If you have the idea that you will be informed when someone cannot chat, then you will think that they are rude if they aren’t chatting and there is no warning.
I have the idea when it’s sure, because of a setting. I don’t need I have to be warned when player is not chatting, what are you trying to tell me?
I mentioned that this case can be included, as the main question from OP is about Zen mode (and you added the case of banned people from chatting too)
I’m trying to point out the result of providing an indication that “Zen mode is on”.
Sometimes: The other player sees the indication and thinks "Oh, OK, this person is not rude, they are just Zen.
Other times: The other player knows that there is a Zen indication, and does not see it, and does not see chat from you, so they think “this person is rude”.
Often what happens next is some kind of retaliation: abuse in chat about being rude, or escaping without playing “because the other person is too rude to say hi”.
These “other times” are what I would like to avoid causing.
IF we add a Zen mode indicator we feed the idea that “the other person needs a reason why we are not talking”.
This is false.
There is no justification required for choosing not to chat.
Fortunately this discussion doesn’t really matter, because the OP has an answer: use the “canned message” to tell your opponent you are using Zen mode, if you feel guilty about that.
I pretty much agree with this being unnecessary. But…bots have configurable messages to automatically send to chat at the beginning and end of games, and it would be kind of cool for humans to have that feature in their OGS cockpit too. Then anyone could use it to explain whatever they want about themselves, whether they have Zen-guilt or not.
Personally, I find it hilarious (and underscores how pointless this is) that the “I refuse to play with you if you don’t greet me - it’s rude not to greet” people would be placated by an auto-greeter
But - I can see the appeal of an “auto-greeter-to-type-what-I-usually-type-about-myself” … if I were the kind of person that types anything about myself
That being said, the next thing would be “I want a couple of options and some way to control which one I’m using now” …
… at which point I’d say “why not just put this in the custom greeting and chose it each game?”
So if we implement this, and you start seeing “you opponent cannot talk right now”, will you feel they are being rude if they don’t chat and this is not showing?
I think that the “you have to talk, it’s rude not to” people will think that.
The presence of a message like “your opponent can’t chat right now” implies that if the message is not there then your opponent can chat … which will lead people to assert that “they should, it’s rude not to”.
I’m not making this up: we have people who do things like creating games with the title “no talk, no game”, or putting “you didn’t say hi so bye” in chat and cancelling out.
What counts to me is to keep the state of communication as clear as possible without having to explain why. I’m ok if people write no hi, bye. It’s clear at least.
We shouldn’t care about what people could start to think by themselves, what counts is to know if I am talking in the vacuum to prevent misunderstanding.
Well considering the habits on OGS no I won’t feel especially rude. And in a broader way, the tradition is to not talk during a game. (Feet of the goban are sculpted in a flower shape, that to remind to stay silent). Anyway too many fear of the human guesses to me, I will talk if I have to, like about some external constraints I have to share interfering with the game. If I write something but the guy is on zen or another reason, all those I don’t have to know, I would prefer spare my energy if system will warn me.
Yeah - people do, but I’m not enthusiastic about setting up systems that support the belief.
Anyhow, and once again, the point is moot.
Some players who want to notify their opponent that they won’t be communicating can do so by using the custom canned messages. Players that don’t have this option forfeited it anyhow
