It really makes me angry when someone puts up the vacation sign, and then you see them on line, but they dont make a move, even worse are the ones with their vacation sign up, but they are on line playing live chess all day.

Would it make a difference if their online status was hidden?

Chess players should not be allowed to take vacation. What is so tiring about pushing wood? Tell me.

It probably would not be annoying if I did not know about it, but is that in the spirit of the game?

Reviving an old post here. 

The_Power_In_Me:  I agree with you.  People should not be able to play live chess if they are on vacation. 

To Chess.com:

Do not allow people to play live chess if they are on vacation!

How pathetic, it's not like they can go on chesscube, playchess, icc or a million other sites. If you don't like vacation, play no vacay.

I'm sorry you feel I'm pathetic, and I mean no disrespect.  I simply do not understand why a player would have plenty of time to play live chess, but at the same time must be on vacation for correspondence chess. 

Vacation is time off from correspondence chess and nobody is obliged to give you an explanation for why he is taking it.

If I take my annual vacation at work and just choose to stay home and sulk, my boss will not come after me to tell me I might as well have gone to work.

The simple solution is - play no vacay. You are not pathetic, but your "problem" sounds silly and besides your "solution" is ineffective.

I assume "play no vacay" means play your games with no vacation allowed, (you have mentioned this twice as a solution) I dont think you can do that in normal challenges, so that "solution" is ineffective.

so what is your solution - have vacation time removed?

and what if someone needs to go abroad for a few days without time or opportunity to log on?

to me vacation time is a necessary evil, and trying to stop people from playing live chess whilst on vacation seems childish.

@OP and sirbabalot: Someone could have legitimate reasons for going and staying on vacation while playing other (Online and Live) games on this site.

If someone has many games or important contests (such as match or tournament games) in addition to more leisurely games, he may desire to devote more time to the weightier games than to the others. The player may not have time to fully analyze the more meaningful games.

For example, a player has 50 games in progress, and five of them are tournament games that he's very motivated to win. Life is going smoothly, and his routine allows him to play in all games regularly for a while. Then, life intrudes, and he finds himself having to deal with an unexpected crisis. His energy is somewhat sapped, and he has less free time for chess. Still, he'd really like to win those five tournament games. He goes on vacation to preserve his chances.

Maybe some days, this hypothetical player would find that he has a few minutes of free time to spare. This might not be enough time to fully analyze significant, weighty tournament games, but it might be the perfect amount of time to play some blitz Live games, which can provide just the break he needs.

This is only one of many different scenarios that these alleged "offenders" could be experiencing. The given example certainly does not embody "abuse." If an intrusive exigency suddenly arises in your lives, you would certainly be grateful for a lenient attitude being extended to you. We should not judge people as maliciously abusing their vacation time when we do not know that they are simply blowing us off.

An allegation of vacation abuse is only substantiated when someone is needlessly prolonging a game whose result is inevitable.

@ciljettu: I wouldn't consider vacation time an "evil" at all.