Poll: [REDO] Pick your favorite time control settings for all future correspondence ladder games

Alrighty, attempt two at this poll, we didn’t have enough options… Pick what time control settings you like best! Note: If you made a vote on Poll: What time settings do we want for correspondence ladders? make it again here!

There are really two polls in this thread - the first are the options you see here, and the second will be a ‘favorite’ counting poll on whether or not you want the clock to stop on weekends or not. Pick your choice here, then scroll down and ‘heart’ one of the two replies to vote on whether you want the clock to pause on weekends or not. (Remember, you can always make moves while the clock is paused, and time will still be added to the clocks if you do, they just won’t run down over the weekend and folks might not feel as inclined / obligated to make moves.)

  • 1d max, 8 hr increment
  • 1d max, 12 hr increment
  • 1d max, 16 hr increment
  • 2d max, 8 hr increment
  • 2d max, 12 hr increment
  • 2d max, 16 hr increment
  • 2d max, 1d increment
  • 3d max, 8 hr increment
  • 3d max, 12 hr increment
  • 3d max, 16 hr increment
  • 3d max, 1d increment
  • 4d max, 8 hr increment
  • 4d max, 12 hr increment
  • 4d max, 16 hr increment
  • 4d max, 1d increment
  • 5d max, 8 hr increment
  • 5d max, 12 hr increment
  • 5d max, 16 hr increment
  • 5d max, 1d increment
  • 7d max, 8 hr increment
  • 7d max, 12 hr increment
  • 7d max, 16 hr increment
  • 7d max, 1d increment

Heart this reply if you want the clocks to pause on weekends

17 Likes

Heart this reply if you do not want tthe clocks to pause on weekends

21 Likes

You may want to post a banner on the start page of OGS with a link to this poll to get the non-forum-readers chime in too. I assume that the devs can see who the voters were. Before simply picking majority it might be good to see what the majority opinion of the subset of people actually playing in the ladder is. And I also think that stronger and weaker players have different preferences. Up to you to take this into account or not.

Nope we can’t (not without a lot of work digging through the raw database at anyrate), which a good thing, we wouldn’t want any bias of polls :smile:

1 Like

Is it not possible to just add a second poll to the thread for the weekend pause option?

It might be a nice feature to allow group admins to customize the time settings for their own ladders.

Although, we still have to figure out what’s best for the sitewide ladders.

2 Likes

Somebody wants hearts. :wink:

2 Likes

Nope :frowning:

I do love me some hearts :slight_smile:

3 Likes

here are a few :heart: :heart: <3 :heart: :heartbeat: :two_hearts: :sparkling_heart: :heartpulse: :blue_heart: :green_heart: :yellow_heart: :purple_heart: :gift_heart: :heart_decoration:

:smiley:

3 Likes

How about 1d +4x2d byo-yomi? This gives you 3 days to make your first move and it guarantees that you can take a week long absence without timing out, yet prevents such long absenteeism from happening more than once. You wouldn’t feel rushed, as you would only have to make 1 move every two days to avoid the loss of a byo-yomi period, and the rate of play would be relatively consistent. (On a personal note, I prefer that my opponent is consistently playing one move every couple days rather than playing a couple moves one day, then nothing for the next few.)

Another option in a similar vein would be 0d +3x3d byo-yomi, the main difference obviously being an expected slower rate of play. In the opposite direction, 0d +9x1d byo-yomi would motivate players to play once per day while allowing for a few longer absences.

Anyways, I’m just saying that some thought could be given to using byo-yomi as an alternative to Fischer for correspondence games.

edit: Is it not possible to have additional ladders where the time setting is different? I can imagine that there is a group of hyperactive members who would prefer a faster pace for ladder games compared to the general membership.

Thought was certainly given: Since Jan 1, 2014 75.9% of the correspondence games not part of a ladder or tournament (ie games created between two people where the time control settings were chosen explicitly) used Fischer time, whereas only 6.1% were Byo-Yomi, so I think this is a good indication that Fischer is probably the best option for ladder games. (For the curious, no time limits came in 2nd with 11.2%, then byo yomi with 6.1%, simple time with 4.7%, 1.2% for canadian, and last came absolute time with 0.9%)

Well this has the effect of changing the rules on players as they advance, which we certainly don’t want to do. Also, those hyperactive members will happily play out games much faster than the time controls enforce, so really the clocks don’t matter so much to them so long as they’re playing other hyperactive members :smiley:

1 Like

To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting the rules change as people advance. I was suggesting that it should be possible for groups to create their own ladders that use their own time settings. If someone wants to join a fast paced ladder where everyone else is known in advance to be very active (by virtue of being in the ladder to begin with), then shouldn’t they be able to? (Note: I don’t know if this is possible already. I apologize if that’s the case.)

I was also implicitly suggesting that there could be sitewide ladders that operate using faster time settings. Such ladders wouldn’t supersede the main ladders, but would provide a parallel alternative for people who don’t like the main ladders’ time settings.

I say this because I myself check OGS several times a day to see if anyone has made a move. It would be great if there were an official sitewide ladder to group people like me together. It’s not like I can’t challenge more people and get more action for myself overall, but I prefer fewer games with consistently active opponents rather than several games with opponents who play infrequently.

By having different classes of ladders, those who like having extra time to make their move can be satisfied as well. Basically, I just want OGS to have more variety as far as ladders are concerned.

To be fair, Fischer is the default when you select correspondence game. The fact that it’s used the most doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best.

2 Likes

We’ve thought about alternative speed ladders, I don’t think we would have alternative speed site ladders that still use correspondence time controls to keep from fracturing the main site ladder. A more likely scenario would be to have a live ladder which presents some serious technical challenges regarding negotiating the playing of matches and whatnot… possibly something we’d do in the future but not soon.

I’m not against having groups select their own time settings for ladders, but this also gets a little tricky. Do we allow them to reconfigure the ladder after it’s initially set up? To run multiple ladders? I typically don’t like the prospect of admins/directors changing the basic parameters of tournaments after people have joined (which is why we don’t currently allow it). However it would seem necessary to allow this for group ladders in case it needs to be tweaked later. This still needs some thought and just isn’t high up on the list of things to work on immediately (people aren’t really clamoring for it).

A lot of work is currently going into the basic tournament system which is getting a large makeover and some awesome features. Work on the ladders will have to come after this work effort. We certainly understand the desire to have more flexibility there and in no way are we marginalizing these requests but at the moment we are just looking to make small tweaks to the ladders to make them work in the best way for the majority of people until we can come back to them and work on them in a well thought out way.

We actually didn’t make this decision lightly when presenting the defaults. We did a lot of research and experimentation and found that, in our opinion, Fischer works best for correspondence while for live games people prefer BY. Of course, this is also subject to individual’s personal preference.

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Everything you say is reasonable. For the record, I’m just making a suggestion, not complaining :smile:

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BTW, do I understand correctly that this poll is just about the default settings for such games and not about a general restriction to what’s being voted for?

No, this poll is for the time settings of ladder games

1 Like

Is there an option to play only at weekends?
I prefer byoyomi over Fischer.

The use case I’m worried about is people who regularly play moves fast enough to accomodate a 3d+1d control, but once every few months they miss a few days.

3 Likes