Is losing by timeout different?
A couple days in a row, as soon as there was a big turn in my favor, the opponent just let it time out.
I get that people can lose internet connectivity - but the timing has been very conspicuous in multiple instances.
1 Like
Losses by time out are usually treated the same as losses by resignation or scoring. The exception is the case of a string of consecutive time out losses in correspondence games.
Sometimes people quit games out of frustration choosing to time out instead of resigning. Sometimes this is deliberately done to frustrate their opponent, by forcing them to wait. However, sometimes, people might just coincidentally lose internet connection or have some other emergency come up.
If you find yourself in a situation of waiting for a player that has apparently left to time out, you can report the game, and a moderator might be able to help you end the game earlier. Also, if a player seems to be doing this deliberately, we can warn them not to.
4 Likes
Why is a difficult question to answer without some serious study.
One can just emit some hypothesis linked to the specificities of OGS.
@Dai_Denuo: Timeouts are, of course, perfectly legitimate in blitz games, absolute time games, and games where people get lost in thought in the last byo-yomi period. Loss of connectivity is comparatively rare, and it is not very believable if it happens repeatedly when someone has had an undo denied or has just lost a large group. Also, some beginners just don’t know how to end properly.
Other than the foregoing exceptions, timeouts are very commonly a form of revenge (to waste the opponent’s time), or possibly motivated by a rude player who thinks that “Timeout” looks better in his history than “Resignation.”
1 Like
Correspondance games are still a big set of OGS.
Lot of players have a bunch of games opened at the same time, something (family, work, studies, etc ) can compromise the whole thing.
Besides when you have difficulty in the game but a long time setting to answer you may want to pospone your answer, give yourself a night to get some freshness and sometimes then simply “accidentally” time out. I wouldn’t call it revenge or bad spirit.
2 Likes
There are a few malicious reasons and lots and lots of legitimate reasons.
Internet connection is not a joke. As someone who works online, I know how internet connection can behave and I know it can go dead at random times and never asks if its inconvenient or outright disastrous for contracts. How am I supposed to excuse five disconnections in five days, same time? (well, one day was a national parade, they sort of secretly block signals when the jet fighters parade, next day was some foreign dignitary visiting and they sort of block signals at every stage of the route, next day I believe it was just a wifi trouble, next day there was a nasty storm etc etc. No malice involved.)
Also, there are family matters or personal matters that can take one’s mind away from the game and when this happens, a board game is the least of someone’s problems. Can you say that we can schedule when family matters or health matters will crop up and fit them into our game schedules?
Also, overtimes. I have personal experience of having to do overtime where the time passed in a whirl of stressful work tasks and I didn’t even notice it was beyond public transport night time, let alone game time. Also, in the recent years, companies require that we lock our phones in a company locker until the end of the shift. If the employee can’t leave for 5’ to go to the loo, do you think it is convenient to leave to text a go player that the timeout is innocent and there is no malice involved?
Or if there is a delay in transport and I’m inside the subway car, or if I’m meeting with friends and we lose track of time, or if someone calls me and it’s important, or…
Anyway, what I mean is that there are tons of legitimate reasons and, although most times we all try to be diligent with our social obligations and netiquettes, life is life and it gets in the middle and there is no malice. Maybe negligence or even some procrastination.
3 Likes
I shouldhave explained that these were 9x9 games and everything was getting done near instantaneously for more than half a game - then a large group is lost and it just counts down for 5+ minutes and the byome
1 Like
Yeah, typical maliciousness, usually preceded by an escape. The various special pleadings, all possible of course, would not usually follow such a pattern.
1 Like
Please report when this happens, our moderators are well aware how to handle this.
I hope you still will have a lot of fun with games here.
2 Likes
Oh yeah, I love games here. I used Yahoo go years ago and it was so bad it put me offonline Go fo a long time.
4 Likes
Yahoo loool. That was the kingdom of sandbaggers, a remote corner of the jungle. So wild.
It was!
Another reason (apart from the main one of real life intruding) I timeout is waiting for my opponent to respond to my chat asking for them to undo their move so that I can undo my move to workaround OGS not letting you request an undo on your move. Allow undo request on your move