What do you mean fourty to sixty is a lot?Uh so I have like one hundred and eighty going on.
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I’m 56 years old, and I restarted learning Go a few years ago - basically hoping to get yet another intellectual hobby to fight dementia in a decade or so when I need to retire. For me the idea of playing a correspondence game is to have a few hours of time to think about the next move and analyze it! Basically as a learning experience.
With such vastly different expectations and approaches to using the site it’s no wonder that there are surprises. Thanks @KAOSkonfused, @Atorrante!
May be this could be explained in a FAQ? I didn’t find it there, but all clear now anyway.
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For me it was a lot.
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No…I play a lot of games (currently 95, maybe more in the future), but I play it all the time. I didn’t abuse my vacation.
I just join new tournaments, do new ladder challenges, create new public match invites, auto-match, etc. after all current corresponding games have been moved.
I absolutely hate it when someone cancels my game for no reason. (at least you should tell me why)
If you do this (and for no reason), I will block you (can no longer accept my open game invites).
Well I’m glad that’s cleared up.
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Wasn’t able to read everything here.
BUT …
I feel a little bad now:
For the past few years I’ve often (well, chronically) been suffering from stress, easily being stressed out, yet have sometimes had up to almost 50 corr. games. Currently (and fortunately) only ~25. Trying to get the number lower still.
Sometimes, when it was all too much, I switched to vacation mode, but STILL sometimes played a few moves—namely in those games where the next move seemed easy to decide for, without much thinking.
Might be worth mentioning that my “Home” page is set to show miniatures, so, when I sit in front of all my running games, in sort of trance, I let my eyes wander over the several boards … and when I notice that one board SCREAMS at me with a move that seems to be the only (or at least the best) move, I click it and play the move.
Other games have to wait then … because I feel I owe it to my opponents to play the best move I can find.
All this in vacation mode (but it’s actually no different to what I do when I’m not in vacation).
@Gia, if you feel this case fits in what you’re describing, please say so here, I may have to reconsider how I handle things.
It makes me feel sad and disappointed that only 2-3 people actually understood my (very clear, I would say) point.
My issue was not vacation. Vacation is a fine setting, I use it, everyone should use it, and if people don’t know they can use it we should let them know. We all need time away from OGS, because [enter whatever reason here].
My issue was people who hoarded 200 games, went on vacation, on the same weekend signed up to another 5 tournaments and stayed on vacation (I don’t think it’s too much to ask to expect for a 2 days/ move tournament game to start shortly and not after two weeks) and on the same weekend those people had time to play 10-15 live games.
My point was, don’t sign up for every tournament and then always be on vacation as soon as your vacation clock fills up, because you can’t resist taking a game (not you-you, @trohde, general “you” 
).
However, it’s very funny that this thread was zombie’d after 3 YEARS and looking back at the posts is a trip down memory lane, how many things have changed since then, and how we all have changed.
Rengo now has a separate setting for vacation, who would have thought! 
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If I understood the issue correctly it’s that people use the vacation time system for other (unsportsmanlike) purposes than to simply take a break from correspondence for an extended periods of time (i.e. longer than naturally allowed by most time controls).
So an obvious solution to the vacation time abuse would be to add some simple cooldowns and limits e.g.:
- After coming back from a vacation you cannot enter another vacation for X days.
- After entering vacation you cannot start another correspondence game, enter a tournament, initiate a ladder challenge or play moves in any existing games.
This would incentivize people to not toggle vacation willy-nilly and prevent it being used as a tool for time-suji/cheating/procrastination/trolling.
I think these would be an improvement.
I don’t know about the “no moves”, because when I’m on vacation I usually have time for a couple of moves anyway, so why punish my opponents to wait if I can play a few moves per week.
Also, it should be taken into consideration that we can’t know when tournament rounds start. Even absolute time ones can start earlier if everyone plays fast.
I think not being able to enter new AST tournaments, can’t accept challenges and can’t start ladder games would help a lot.
About individual tournaments, I understand it’s not a priority but I hope we get a vacation toggle that the organiser can use to make their tournament exactly how they want it.
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I’m strongly opposed to this. It would basically tell people who may have other responsibilities on short notice: don’t play here.
I just came back from vacations and just learned I have to go on a business trip in a few days. So this isn’t just a theoretical problem.
Fully agreed on the ‘no tournament entering and ladder challenging’ though.
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Yep also that, I forgot to include.
I’m opposed to this on principle, but also realistically if someone goes on vacation for health reasons or an emergency, it makes sense to use the vacation feature in segments.
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Back when I played correspondence on OGS I did sometimes set my vacation flag when I was short on time in difficult games and wasn’t actually going on holiday. (most of my games were title tournaments or ladders at 1 day a move). Whilst I can appreciate the point of view this is disrespectful of opponents time, anorther point of view is I am respecting their strength so you could take it as a compliment that you are playing good moves which cause me trouble.
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The 2nd limit just loses a lot of its effectiveness if players can go on/off vacation at will (e.g. go off vacation, register to a tournament, and go back on vacation). The X here could be as low as a few days. The weekly AST gives you max. 3 days a move, so we could start with something as low as X=3.
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I did that last year. I had to go to the hospital, so I activated my vacation to avoid timing out of some games.
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Sometimes people need a break. SnaildoSoCool noticed that the quality of their playing was getting a bit more poor. After taking a vacation they were doing much better.
Edit: Go Go Snaildo!!
Outside of tournaments, I think that what needs an adjustment is people’s idea of what correspondence games will be like.
There’s the Fast Correspondence group for people who are like minded. Outside of that, people take vacation during correspondence games: get over it? What’s the rush?
In tournaments there is a real problem of them being delayed by vacation. This also has a solution being used: no-vacation-tournaments.
So what actually is the problem?
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Maybe people should get over the idea that when it’s them, their time is precious, when it’s their opponent, “get over it”, “what’s the problem” etc. I’m really still surprised (although I shouldn’t be) at the entitlement. Where did basic respect for the other person go to die, in Go ranks?
Also, maybe people could adjust their expectations when they choose to play something that involves the risk of timing out. They may time out sometimes, it’s not the end of the world, they should get over it.
By the way, correspondence games are supposed to take a long time, but they are also supposed to be played.
Since games are cancelled all over the place anyway, and frequently both players are not the wiser about it, maybe we should have the option to cancel a game in move 100, if our opponent is a serial game hoarder that just accumulates time to go on vacation again and seldom plays.
Especially when they enter fast setting tournaments all the time and then go on vacation all the time.
Also, I have very clearly explained the problem. I don’t know why you pretend I’m saying that vacation is a problem as it is. I’m really starting to wonder though.
Kind of off topic, but how fast does vacation accrue? Like it shouldn’t be possible to go on vacation all the time, but maybe even 50/50 is too much? Could just be an American perspective 
Edit: according to this post it’s 8:1 for non-supporters, 5:1 for supporters, which seems reasonable to me.
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Hmm - I can’t tell if we are in raging agreement or disagreement
The “get over it” that I am referring to is asking people who play correspondence to “let go” of the idea that correspondence games will be finished quickly, unless they agree with their opponent about that in advance.
I’m not seeing how this is a disrespect of the opponent’s time? The opponent spends the same amount of time on the game irrespective of how long the game takes, don’t they?
So perhaps what it is not respecting is the opponent’s desire for rapid fulfilment from each game that they play?
The challenge we have is that this desire is not based on a reasonable expectation.
If I start a game with 3d + 3d/move then I should expect that this game will take about 150-250 x 3days plus 2-3 weeks of vacation per year. That’s just the maths of how it works… and the vacation period is insignificant compared to the number of moves times the time per move.
Yet somehow folk playing correspondence seem to expect these games to finish in under a year. Why?
This is the same as someone signing up for a 10min + 1min/turn game and saying hurry up to their opponent when their opponent thinks for more than a few seconds, isn’t it?
(This does happen)
Surely the right answer is to select time settings that give you the effect that you want.
Maybe we should have a “no vacation” option that players can agree to - I can see some sense in that, so that it can be done formally rather than informally? It’d be interesting to see who’d agree to a year long game with no vacation…
edit: and if we did do that, wouldn’t we just have more “serial timeouts” when the people who thought that they didn’t need vacation find out that they really do?
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A site supporter gets 1 extra day of vacation every 5 days, i.e. 20% extra time on average. That’s not so much.
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