Why does "restrict rank" allow ? players?

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I can see that we have strong feelings on either side of this but I think we should try to phrase the discussion and responses in such a way that no-one feels like

I can understand the OP and snakes point of view. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for some players to want to make sure they don’t have to play against ? Players. I think enough bad experiences can make somebody want such a feature, and it’s not just about not wanting to play against beginners but trolls and alt sandbaggers.

On the other side of it I I’d like to clarify my understanding of what was likely intended by “hostile”. I don’t believe any one player should feel like they are the one being hostile toward new players/accounts should they choose not to play against these players.

But I think if a significant fraction of the community or a significant fraction of a particular active rating range, say the players around 6k decided not to play against ? Players, then I could understand this as being a “hostile” approach as a community (not as a single player) toward new players. Hostile might be a bit strong, but maybe inhospitable or unwelcoming might be a bit more on point.

In any case the discussion can be useful, but I wouldn’t want it moving into a too heated state :slight_smile:

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The pseudo ranks for provisional (?) players, starting at 6k, are visible in one place: the thumbnail boards in the overview.

Some additional clarifications of points raised by others:

It is unclear why ranked players get to play ranked games against bots. That is a source of tremendous abuse by rank manipulating sandbaggers. In another thread I supported the idea of restricting ranked bot games to provisional players only.

Alt sandbagging, where OGS players create a new, provisional account in order to sandbag, is a huge problem. I have over 1,000 names and IDs of alt sandbaggers, involving tens of thousands of accounts. Many of these I never had time to ban (or they were still on “final warning”).

Strong players who are truly new to OGS also constitute a significant number of provisional players.

All that being said, the majority of provisional players probably are true beginners.

I agree that not wanting to play beginners because the game will be boring is a selfish and unwelcoming attitude. However, an important motivation for not wanting to play beginners is being overlooked here. CAUTION: what I am about to say is descriptive, not an endorsement of a viewpoint.

A great many beginners violate site rules in several annoying and timewasting ways. A couple of these are understandable because they are beginners: (1) escaping, and (2) stalling by playing endless self-atari moves or infilling rather than resigning or going to scoring (I really think some beginners don’t know about passing). Other violations, also very common among beginners, are simply cheating: (1) egregious stalling by rejecting the score and restarting endlessly, and (2) score cheating during the stone remove phase. You don’t need a three-digit IQ or any game experience to know that these actions are cheating.

I suspect that most players who don’t want to play provisional players want to avoid the foregoing problems.

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I think there is big problem in [?] design. There should be rank before “?” that new users able to choose. (when “?” disappears, rank replaced with actual rank)
[20k?] and [5k?] will work identical to how [?] works now. But, opponents will know what to expect. OGS should trust new users at least a little.
So if rank restriction on custom game is 9k-1k , [5k?] will be able to accept, [20k?] wouldn’t.
It will be better for everyone.

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It is not a part of OGS in the sense that people don’t have/shouldn’t feel a responsibility to play (?) players. It is a little unfair to say that the culture of OGS is to play (?) players when it is so easy to make a new account, when there are so many alt accounts, trolls in those ranks. Most players don’t want to face tsudodo over and over every day. :stuck_out_tongue:

I can understand how you think they are 2 different things.

Groin basically equated “it being a part of OGS” with that responsibility, to which I was responding by reminding that there are other encouraged ways of getting rid of (?) rank.

One of the main reasons I was given for having bots in ranked pool was that they help newcomers get a rank without this responsibility falling on unenthusiastic shoulders. There must be lots of complaints from people who play against (?) players that OGS would formulate a policy around it. I find saying “playing (?) people is a part of OGS” a little exclusive towards this big group of people who don’t want to play them.

If i had to play 6 games with a bot to gain access to the OGS rating system maybe i would never come here.

I knew when i wrote my first answer that you can cancel as a trick to avoid to play with a (?) but i deliberately didn’t mention it. In my opinion giving an option to chose to never play with (?) would be a disaster as a huge incentive and will become like the default setting. Until now i think OGS is much better in that aspect as KGS and i hope it stays so.

Nice little trick, but only available when you have the chance to see them playing. Not always convenient.

I thank @Conrad_Melville to give us a precious report in the eyes of a moderator and i feel voiceless about alt sandbagging.

I appreciate the detailed analysis of the different attitudes of real beginners he gives and that push me to believe that a Tutor system like i proposed already could annihilate a big part of the reluctance to play a (?) and alleviate the mods from a lot of alt sandbagging problems (not all of them i agree)

On my own more general view of how to integrate better the beginners in OGS:
Let’s make OGS even more friendly with beginners

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Former moderator.
You’re welcome.

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I probably wouldn’t have started playing go, if OGS required playing bots to integrate yourself into the system.

I disagree with your decision to not tell them this “trick”. Sure, you’re not a cop reading them their rights but you’re not a helpful party in a conversation either when you know the answer to someone’s question but try to partially manipulate them into your idea of how things should be (to be fair, you did give them links so they can explore).

Would it really be a disaster? If people were given a clear option to not play (?) players, perhaps the people who actually choose to play them would give these newcomers a warmer welcome.

I love that idea for a tutor system in theory, but I wonder how viable it would be. Would we be able to distinguish the actual newbies who are actually interested in the game from trolls? It doesn’t even have to be a troll to be frustrating for the tutor - I imagine many newcomers only come by once or twice and disappear. I’m not sure how many people would volunteer to tutor a completely new account due to the uncertainties. It sounds very tiresome and with very little return. Do we have such a pool of players who are into tutoring?

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If well implemented (like indicator of online presence, easyness to communicate… ) the tutoring will discourage trolling and sandbagging because
1 it’s a declaration coming from the newcomer himself, not something assumed or estimated by others and in that way that will refrain a big part of lyiers.
2 It’s so easy to identify a full beginner for a 15k + tutor. To have to mimic this level of play in front of the tutor may discourage furthermore.
3 If the troller/sandbagger is still alive after that, the tutor is here to help and if any doubt can reconfort the (other) beginner, contact a mod…

There are many more 15k+ players around as full beginners every day so i can’t say for sure how many will be available for tutoring but i do hope enough will volonteer a few of their time.

Mods who are defacto tutors already will have a new tool, the list of declared beginners to help them. And better job if other players know who to help and if less problems mentioned by conrad. And less sandbagging.

After having explained the rules and started a game a majority need a bit of human help for really being able to play. On the side the tutoring is a good incentive to use good behaviors like no futile cheating.

The tutoring doesn’t remove the system we have so It’s no big change and involvement to put in it.
It’s simply an add-on to make the life easier for the beginner and not only. Like other tools of OGS (ladders, AST, chat…) it may make internet feel a bit more human, generate (better) social links…

I see many advantages all in all, much more as inconvenience.

And i know that nothing is perfect. For ex, with an accomplice tutor, a sandbagger can go through but at a higher cost to have to share his misbehavior.

Last i will never insist enough on that: besides a tutoring system a beginner should play his games with other beginners and be first registered automatically as 30k. Which is not the way it works now.

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As a new member…I am in favor of an ability for more experienced players to dodge games with ? ranks. I have had a ridiculous percentage of my ranked games so far end in a timeout by the opposing player - and in one case, they challenged me. This meant they hung around on my home board keeping my hopes up that they would actually play another move (and since they were generally site ladder challenges, this means they were there for days) only to resolve in a very unsatisfying way that affected my provisional rank, if it went beyond the first couple moves, even though it didn’t necessarily indicate anything about my skill level.

So yes, it is a problem for the provisional players too. I would prefer to actually be able to play a game with someone, then to be stuck sitting here hoping they’ll make a move only for them never to do so because they noticed I was provisional, and didn’t even bother to post in the chat saying they weren’t going to actually play. If players could dodge games with provisional players, maybe those of us new to the site would get fewer timed-out correspondence games?

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I dunno if these players realize what a ladder is.
You are supposed to accept whatever challenge you get, you can even not cancel a game in the very first moves like outside the ladder.

Edit: you can. Position in the ladder change but you are not kick out and the rating stay same.

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This would explain my confusion with everyone talking about ‘canceling’ XD I figured the leaving-it-to-time-out was what was meant. I suppose that’s possible, given that I’m pretty much at the bottom of the ladders I’m participating in so far, but not all the people I was up against were newbies - or at least, not all of them were still provisional.

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In a rated game you can cancel a game at move 1 and 2. At move 3 the green big button cancel change into resign.

In the ladder when you time out you lose but if you have a long list of timing out then only the first count as loss, the next are cancelled.
It’s to ensure more global stability of the ranking system when facing a mass timeout from players involved in many games who suddenly stop playing

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Good to know, thanks for the info!

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You re welcome. I may add that facing mass timeout cancellation in ladders is probably not linked to your provisional status.
It’s a bit difficult to anticipate and avoid a mass timeout from an opponent even when checking his profile, you can privilege active players but It’s no real guarantee

Also good to know. Is it safe to assume that the higher up the ladder I go, the less likely it will be?

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Probably

Alright, was planning to aim on getting higher over time anyway :slight_smile: Aaand this has drifted rather far from OP’s topic, so I should probably stop there XD Thank you for the help!

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I’m pretty sure this is not true. You can cancel a ladder challenge same as any other game. It just means the challenger moves above you on the ladder. You don’t have to play out the challenge. And I think it’s annulled in the same way as other games if cancelled in the first move or two.

Also you get kicked out of the ladder of you time out a ladder game

Players are not supposed to deliberately time out by leaving the game. That is called escaping. Nor should they deliberately time out by hanging around (blitz games or difficult positions excepted, of course). That is usually a cheat hoping you will get tired of waiting and leave, or a vindictive person who wants to annoy you for some reason, In either case, you can report them to the moderators, who will either admonish them or instruct them in the proper action if they are a beginner.

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