Isn’t there instances though (I’ll look for the threads**) where the last game in a round is actually artificially ended. What I mean is, maybe there’s only one game left in a round and they’re on vacation for weeks, or maybe have left the site etc.
In that case in principle one could know in advance that the round is going to happen.
So I think we can rule out staggering as an option. Then instead can we automatically send a notification that a new round of a tournament is starting in the same way one is sent for the start of a tournament?
Or what about a notification saying “There are only x games left in a round of this tournament”, where x is a suitable number given the size of the tournament. x=5 might be reasonable if there are hundreds of people in the tournament, while x=1 might be fair if there’s only 10.
It would in principle give you an idea that the round is nearly over in a correspondence tournament, although of course there could still be a lot of moves left to be played out in those games.
I’m just suggesting ideas and I do appreciate the feedback. To be fair though, the advice is essentially
“If you have played in an OGS title tournament in the last couple of years, don’t join a new one if you’re not comfortable with the possibility of getting twice as many games as you’re signing up for - a new round of that tournament from last year could start any minute”.
Edit: ** I guess this one was a polite ask to finish the game. I’m not entirely sure how the games mentioned in this thread were resolved but it seemed like paused games holding up a tournament where players may have left.