Auto-vacation = Hypocrisy

I notice today that when I was trying to go on vacation (legitimately) the message saying that I can't go on vacation unless it is not my move in any games. This is supposedly to "prevent abuse."

That's bullshit. Autovacation happens no matter how many games it's your move in, so it's really a feature to protect the advantage auto-vacation gives paying members.

Fix it. Any player should be able to declare a vacation no matter whose move it is, or else NO one should (automated or otherwise).

Again, I've NEVER seen even the most sensible ideas implemented (nor even acknowledged), so I expect nothing to change... but I don't give a **** because as soon as chesstempo adds their online play feature, I won't be coming here anymore for any reason.

Smoof_Bishop is right. I'm sure that autovacation is one of the key incentives for many users to get a premium membership. This is a commercial site, so what do you expect?

What do I expect? I expect the out-of-game benefits (training tools, chessTV, mentor, etc.) to be sufficient to attract subscribers, NOT the promise that you too can buy immunity from time losses. By this logic, OTB tournaments should have a "premium entry" tier, where if you pay extra money your clock can never run out.

In any case, I won't be starting any new games here, and I'll miss this site about as much as it will miss me. Good riddance all around.

OTB tournaments are not correspondence chess. In correspondence chess the clock traditionally doesn't play a significant role. Chess.com online chess clearly resembles correspondence chess. If you run into clock issues, play longer time controls. If you don't like longer time controls, then you are probably right that you should play somewhere else.

And yet, here the clock DOES play a significant role. And it's significance is intentionally exaggerated.

The issue isn't a "clock issue." It's a legitimate vacation issue, which this site purports to value. The message I get claims that a feature that serves only to preserve a paid advantage is actually there for the opposite reason.

Any time I go on vacation, I have to rush ALL my remaining moves, and I lose ALL of the remaining time I had to consider alternatives. Playing longer time controls simply means I'd be losing MORE time, so that's not a solution.

But thanks for defending the site so its masters don't have to.

... as indicated at encyclopedia dramatica ...

you could have spent the time you used arguing in this thread to make your moves. then you could go on vacation.

This is the crux of the issue of fairness.  It's not auto-vacation vs manual, it's the restrictions on premium vs. non-premium re: not being able to enable vacation unless it's not your move in any of the games.  Against a line of conditionals or a handful of online and active opponents this could potentially prove near impossible.

I've always thought that to "prevent abuse" a simple rule, which should apply to all, would be to force a user to make at least one move in any game in which it was their move when they last came off vacation.  Simply stated, this would ensure that games are advanced between consecutive vacations, while leveling the playing field and not being too restrictive.

Maybe someone should warn chess-tempo what's coming at then?

Warn away.  At least their webmaster responds to user concerns and suggestions, rather than crowd-sourcing them into the forum that staff ignores. 100% improvement.

You sound like an angry person.  But yes, I agree with your basic point. 

You do have a point agree (vacation) but bottom-line is that here is a commercial site so will use such mechanisms to encourage (coerce?) non-members to take out a subscription.