Annulled and unranked mean two different things. To turn one into the other simply confuses the meaning of language. If a score cheat wins a ranked game, the game is annulled, not turned into an unranked game. If the cheated game were merely changed to unranked, the display in the history would imply that the win was legitimate but unranked. Similarly, non-games under six moves would appear to be legitimate unranked games. Aside from the moral distinction, there is a practical one. A person’s history can be quickly vetted by scanning for scored games that were annulled.
Until recently, correspondence games subject to the serial timeout rule were simply left as is in the history display and the game tab, but no rating points were awarded. Going back to that status quo would resolve your objection with no violence to the language.
However, I want to take the opportunity to suggest a better solution: ABOLISH THE SERIAL TIMEOUT RULE.
The Forums had quite a lot of controversy over this rule 4 or 5 years ago, which brought to light a substantial amount of abuse of the rule. The abuse consists of deliberately timing out of a lost game and then consecutively timing out of more lost games in order to avoid losing rank due to those losses.
The intent of the rule, as you probably know, was to mitigate the effect of a catastrophic emergency such as dying, being incapacitated, having one’s computer stolen or wrecked, etc. At the time of the controversy, I argued in favor of the rule, because its purpose of preserving the integrity of the ranking system seemed good, and because it seemed the compassionate thing to do. I now think the rule should be abolished because of four considerations.
First, legitimate cases triggered by a real emergency are rare and/or the number of games involved are comparatively small. In other words, even in the extremely rare case of a person with hundreds of games in progress, the hit to the ranking system would be small. I base this on my observations as a mod (when Eugene and I handled all or nearly all the abuse cases) and afterward as an observer of lots of games.
Second, I strongly suspect that most mods have no experience in recognizing the abuse. When I reported the clearest abuse I ever saw, where the player had serial timeouts in clumps 5 times in 4 months, two mods did not recognize it. If that case does not meet the standard of proof, then no case will, which means cheats on OGS have a free rein to abuse the rule.
Third, virtually all cases of abuse are reported to mods (when they are reported at all) as escaping (i.e., deliberate timeout). However, escaping from correspondence games is no longer a reportable offense. Therefore, there is no way to detect abuse unless you happen to watch games as I do and accidentally stumble over an abuse case (e.g., when looking at someone’s history). Again, this gives abusers free rein to cheat.
Fourth, since escaping is no longer prohibited in correspondence games, it seems philosophically inconsistent to prohibit it in cases of abuse of the serial timeout rule.
Solution: Abolish the rule. It serves no good purpose, and its enforcement is practically impossible.
