I noted a few examples on the current-live-games page (nice to be able to sample all the games currently going on at once) of something I used to see on some chess servers when games-rooms online first started going mainstream in the late nineties.
If a server has no way to just end a game within the first few moves without penalty, some people find it amusing to set games with long time controls, then wander away from the game for long periods of time.
I saw at least one instance of a 9x9 game with 30 min time controls with a player sitting waiting for his/her opponent to move for ten minutes before I stopped watching.
I don’t know if it should be part of server design to allow players to cancel a game or not … I understand that the current philosophy of devs here is trending towards not allowing games to be backed out of at all, and I think that’s an interesting way to go. I just wonder about this sort of bad sportsmanship, if there’ll be some way to handle it? Black marks against players, or some other sort of karma system like Kaya GS was trying out when they vanished, or what …
This is one example of bad sportsmanship (which could occasionally simply be a person’s connection going down quite innocently but becomes a pattern after a while no matter the circumstances of the player’s connectivity), I’m just wondering when it’s time to think about putting some sort of system into the server to handle it, and how.
Cancelling a game is already a feature. If a game ends in the first few moves, either through time or resignation, it is annulled and does not count for anything. Feel free to resign if this happens - that is how you cancel a game.
The issue here is that maybe this should be made more explicitly clear.
Good reason to play Fischer timed games ! Instead of 30+530 byo-yomi, play Fischer 5+30. Move time is about the same but the most you could wait is 5 minutes. I once had a game on another server which was 45+530. The opponent started then declared he was going off to take a shower and strolled back 20 mins later . Totally disrespectful but a useful lesson. Play Fischer timing.
Within at least the first ten moves of the game, the “resign” button is renamed to be “cancel”, which annuls the game with no impact on rank, points, or win/loss records. Timing out within that time frame does the same thing.
However, when you pass some minimum move threshold (not sure what that exactly is), that button changes from being called “cancel” to being called “resign”. If you resign at that point, I think it will register as a normal loss.
We’d welcome any ideas on how to better address the problem other than the cancel button and a call-for-moderator button. We’re also going to add an escape timer so that if someone closes the game page for more than 5 minutes on a live game, they’ll lose by time regardless of how much time they had left on the clock - however that doesn’t really fix this problem since folks can just leave the game open in another tab and wander off to do other things just as easily. I’m personally a fan of fischer time like @Halibut mentioned because it doesn’t really allow for this scenario to begin with, but since byo yomi is still pretty popular we’d love some magic bullet to keep the trolls away if anyone has any great ideas.
Bad idea, IMHO, since browsers and systems can—and do—crash. Sometimes takes a little more than five minutes to get my system back up … (not that I’ve had such problems with games here, though)
Split the difference and pop up a “claim win” button after five minutes or whatever interval? Then its up to the player left waiting how long they care to be patient.
On a related subject: are adjournments possible yet or planned for?
There is a pause button for that. I also suggested a “sealed move” feature (fūjite). That post has been deleted because it was in the beta 4.0 category, but if someone likes the idea, I’ll repost it in OGS Development category.
