What is the rule about time out now

I just won another game by time out. It is the 5th in a series of time outs for that guy. It says the game is “ranked”, but it’s there any way to know if it is counted? If under the current rule it is not counted, shouldn’t it be marked “annulled”?

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Hi, Andysif. The way I know is by watching my rank when I get the blue notification, clicking refresh, and my rank should improve for the win; with serial timeouters, my rank does not improve for the win. If you didn’t watch it closely and at that specific time—you only get one chance to see it—likely you didn’t notice that you didn’t get the rank bump. I think most people don’t even notice their lack of rank bump for the “win”.

As you state, we still get the “Win by Timeout” notification, which is salt in the wound if you’ve played a long game and chosen ranked as an agreed upon commitment since the very beginning of the game. I’d wager that, if “Annulled by Timeout” was sent by OGS instead of win, as you appropriately suggest, there would be a huge outcry to change the unfair rule immediately from dozens and dozens of players. You’re right, annulled is what is essentially occurring, even though you did exactly as you agreed upon when you took the game, and you just spent days to weeks on that game.

Frankly, that’s part of the issue: since it’s not obvious that one’s rank did not change, the cheaters can continue the ploy indefinitely. For every player than knows the rule and blocks that opponent forever, there are many players that are oblivious that they’ve just been “had” so they welcome new games with the same opponent, allowing the opponent to not only clear their “Recently Timed Out of a Game” badge, but also so they can “rinse and repeat” the dishonest process.

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This is the part I hate most in the whole discussion, even more than the rule itself: the fact that it is not clearly pointed out. It is not printed in a Rules or FAQ page. It is not marked in the game result box. Not everyone goes to the Forum. You can even say the Admin is trying to hide it.

If you thinks you are righteous, then states your points out loud for chirt sake. If you have to do anything in a secretive way, then I will see it as unjust and scandalous.

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What’s the purpose of the current system anyways? To protect the rank of a player that suddenly timeouts of many games consecutively? If these players never come back, why does it matter? For those that do come back, I suggest that a better solution would be to handle these on case by case basis, and potentially allow the moderation team manually fix their rank.

I support the suggestion to clarify which ranked games have no impact on the ranking system. Such games should be clearly labeled as “Annulled” and I think reporting the outcome as “Annulled by Timeout” is a good suggestion.

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Hi andysif,

I’ve had a glance at game history of the chap who timed out on you.

I’ve played the guy and lost 3 out of 3 games :frowning_face:

In the context of this thread he’s not a serial timeout offender.

Over the course of 2 days he timed out 10 times. He is now on vacation.

I reckon he became unavailable for whatever reason and just forgot to go on vacation in time.

I recently went away for 4 days to a location with no mobile reception and only intermittent wifi. If I hadn’t remembered to set my vacation on I may well have a number of timeouts.

Specifically regarding the game that you ‘won’ with him… With respect you were both only 28 moves into the game and it would be too early to say who would have won.

Looking at some of the other games that you ‘won’ by timeout… One of them didn’t even start, another game, dare I say, looked even when the timeout occurred, one game had only 10 moves, another just one move, etc, etc

Look guys, sure, I appreciate the feelings of being ‘robbed’ of a rank increase in a game where you are clearly leading and to have your opponent timeout near the end. It sucks but you really do just have to move on and treat it like the game never happened. It’s happened to me and I done it on some of my games. And certainly never deliberately.

I can remember long ago (I think on the old OGS) feeling very pleased when on the rare occasion a higher ranked player timed out on me because I got a very nice undeserved rank boost!

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Well If you REALLY wanna know you can scroll up in this endless thread where I tried to explain or just send me a PM and I will try to give you a short version.

I think this thread has gotten way out of hand, is no longer usefull to anyone, and I will probably close it soon. Kosh had a nice idea in another thread that might be a good compromise Automatic Vacation After Multiple Time-outs (Correspondence) - #8 by smurph we will be looking into that one. For the time being you will have to make do with the current rule. I am sorry if it is bothering you a lot, but we are convinced that it is way better than the simple alternative.

:smiley: we are not really hiding it, as we are still lacking documentation alltogether. But on the other hand, since we know that the rule might be misusable maybe not showing it too obviously is a good thing, since less people will be tempted to do it. :smiley:

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So is it official or just your understanding? :slight_smile: The whole point of this thread was to get an official statement from the mods, and here you say that there is a official position, but it’s not stated anywhere. I think just having it phrased out clearly, ideally with games marked as ‘Anulled due to timeout’ was the ask, wasn’t it? No changes required.

Is this official? :smiley:

Any subsequent games that time out in correspondence are not counted towards player’s rank. That I can now say officialy since it is coming directly from the dev team. (To which I had no access before and was only guessing at that time). We are aware of the community feedback on the matter and are looking for alternatives but for the time being the rule stands. And reversing it to where all timeouts are counted is not an option. (and I agree with that decision - don’t hate me for it :smiley: )

The rest is just me being cheeky as usuall (hope cheeky is the right word, I am lazy to google :smiley: )

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I was asking this question rhetorically to make the point that the current system works to the benefit of those that serial timeout, either accidentally or intentionally, at the expense of those that play normally and commit to avoid timing out. I have seen your argument above, but find the counterpoints discussed above more convincing.

Please do not close this thread. I think its size and level of activity indicate how much people care about this topic and want to actively engage on it. I believe people are mainly trying to: 1) seek clarity about what the system is, and 2) offer/debate proposals for improvement. I disagree with your assessment that this discussion is no longer useful. If you wish to relocate the discussion to some other thread, please advise.

I do like that proposal, and that would help out people that accidentally serial timeout, but I’m not so sure that it will address the issue of intentional timeout abusers, unless other changes are also made along with it.

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How about having the ‘consecutive timeout streak’ end as soon as a move in another correspondence game is played?

Then a player that is really timing out of all his games both winning and loosing, because of not being able to play for whatever reason, will not loose his rank.
And the time-out abuser that lets only timeout the games he is losing, can no longer abuse the system because he needs to keep on playing the games he is winning. And as soon as he played a move, the next timeout will count as a true loss again.

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@mirreke 's proposition is by far the best I’ve seen in the thread. Easy to implement, gets the job done, everybody’s happy kind of solution.

Just keep track of last activity date for the player (whatever the last activity would be, it can be most recent move, most recent login - anything @anoek finds appropriate) and then compare that last activity with previous timeout when deciding if another timeout should be voided.

You could still game this by orchestrating all games to timeout roughly at the same time, but it would be way more difficult than with current system. Additionally a little buffer could be added to make it even more difficult, for example “last activity needs to be at least 3 days before the most recent timeout to void another one”

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:+1: This seems like an eminently worthwhile and easy to implement suggestion. Just a change in the flag condition.

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Crikey, which discussion thread to post this on, there are so many threads talking about the same thing!

Can someone point me to a bona fide serial timeouter?

I’ve glanced at Tongue’s game history and this is my assessment for what it’s worth…

LulluFu has had 2 timeouts in 250 games.

SuzieKyu - I don’t really think she’s a serial timeouter

JadahKRush - ok a bunch of recent timeouts but really? Is she/he a serial timeouter?

cassidoo - I don’t think she’s a serial timeouter

Ingrid is certainly not a serial timeouter (and she was winning!)

Ovudra timed out 4 moves into the game - a number of timeouts in the game history but really??

Shades - ok a number of timeouts in last 50 games but a random look shows games too early in the game. If this guy is a serial time outer… well I really don’t care

Word Office Assistant - 4 timeouts in last 200 games all spread out.

I’ve played around 2500 games on OGS since 2009. I’ve mostly been DDK and I’ve never once felt that the issue of a serial timeouter was something to be bothered about. In fact it’s only come into my consciousness since reading these threads about it.

What I do know is that in the days when timeouts affected rank, it was no fun to lose to an opponent who was significantly lower than you because of a spate of timeouts, to then have your own rating take a hit.

Sure let’s come up with some code to implement a system that allows timeouts to count but somehow allows for all the problems that it creates to be mitigated against, but… lets leave it as it is!

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There is no need to scour our records to check if we are “robbed” of a game. For the record I never claimed I was winning those games. BUT, even if it didn’t happen to me personally, I am sure if I ask all the players who have been robbed of to list out their records it will probably flood the page. Would you like to see it?

This is exactly the problem I found when I started this thread. That guy was timing out some of the games while playing others. (Not saying he was losing those games though). Guess he must have hated my avatar then. Your suggestion will probably make him think twice before timing out.

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I think there are better suggestions than the streak one.

It seems enough to line up correspondence games so you finish the ones you are winning, playing slow in the ones you are losing (which people do anyhow, so it would not look suspicious) then timeout all the ones you are losing in one big go.

If we’re going to fix it, don’t tweak around the edges.

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Not sure if you mean one who is a cheat or one who is innocent, or both. However, an example of an innocent serial timeouter is claudia (player 319815), who timed out of all 20 of her correspondence games, disappearing from OGS. I feared she may have died, but I now suspect that her parents banned her from playing in order to concentrate on her schoolwork. She was/is a fine and gracious player.

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I think he means “for all this worry about serial timeout cheating, we have yet to be pointed at one real case. Could someone please point at a real case?”

Which is a fair request, of course. I have had a couple in the past I recall thinking they were likely suspects, but it is a real trawl to try to re-find, so I am waiting to see another suspect case…

Moderator Adam, I cannot fathom any consideration to close this thread when valid ideas are still being offered, no one is being offensive, and no harm is being done by keeping this meaningful subject open.

I think there is some confusion about “serial timeout”. Serial timeout means more than one time out in a row, i.e. in a series. It can be a repeat cheater using the rule to their benefit over and over, but it can be a one time or infrequent “timeouter” who times out a set of games for any reason, such as the person andysif played that timed out of five games at once, or the young lady mentioned above that simply abandoned her twenty games and left the website. Even if a person is playing two games, and legitimately forgets to return to the website before both games time out, the second game is not counted…in essence, it is annulled.

:point_right:t2: I ask this question: If serial (more than one in a row) Timeouts adversely affect the rating system, then in live or blitz games on OGS, are more than one timeout in a row not counted toward ratings (I.e. annulled by the OGS system):question:That is, if I play and time out on two or more live/blitz games in a row on OGS, is only the very first game counted toward ratings?

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I haven’t followed this thread … but isn’t any discussion of “serial timeouts” and their effect on rank only relevant for correspondence games?

In the hopes that I understood the question and am not wasting time on something irrelevant :smiley:

The whole subsequent timeout rule is relevant only in correspondence games. Timeout itself does not affect anything. And one can hardly time out 20 live games in succession by accident. Live games require both players to be present. And are played one at a time.

The whole problem is (as discussed far above) that in correspondence it is common for players to have 20, 30 or even 50 correspondence games active. And every so often (and it is not uncommon) these players just stop playing, switch to different account, forget to set their vacation or whatever. That’s what causes the whole problem.

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