Live Chess - LOOOONG Games... should we make you confirm?

I can't agree more with this idea! Excellent!

I agree with this and think that it is the ideal solution. It being a button that shows up after five minutes sounds great to me.

I'm against all of this. People agree to a 20 min game. I take ten mins. on a move, I don't want to be interrupted in my thinking, at all. The "button" doesn't solve a thing there, and it makes me have to chat. I sometimes don't want to chat, I want to play without having to be checked on every five minutes or having to tell my opponent what is going on in my life. Sometimes I'm not getting something to eat, and I'm not watching babies. If I'm having sex, do I now have to lie about what I'm doing? You have 20mins, 30, 60, etc., that means the opponent should be ready to play 40mins, 60, 2hrs., without having to say a word, or be interrupted by buttons. In my tiny opinion

Do you often type messages during coitus, trysts?  Boy, Midwestern men are horribly inept...

No, and I don't want to be concerned with any other buttons, theoreticalboy

 You'll have to give me more than 20 minutes just to make it an even game! I don't think any changes should be made. Either of the proposed features could be abused the way the time limits are now. If you don't want to commit 30 minutes to a game, don't play 15 minute time limits. (I know the 15 minute games can actually go longer than 30 minutes, I was just using an example.)

I would like to be able to filter out players who have lost a % of games on timeout where their last move before timeout was over 5 minutes.

I'd be for the are you there button if I thought it would solve the problem, but it wouldn't.  People wills till stop making moves, will turn on the TV, and just click confirm every 5 minutes while watching TV.  It won't necessarily stop the problem it seeks to correct.

How about creating another type of game, called something like "interactive standard", with the confirmation button.

I would find a popup "Are you there?" extremely annoying.  I don't actually play much Live Chess here, but it would probably be a dealbreaker for a site.  I prefer long games myself, because they give me time to think.  Nothing disrupts deep analysis like having to interrupt because my opponent is too impatient and/or foolish to deal with playing with a chess clock.  If you implement this, please provide a means to turn it off.

I'm for it.

There should definitaly be some sort of option of turning it on/disabling it for the other person.

Plus the whole karma thing will help out new users a lot, figuring out who actually will tell them what's what and where.

I like having the clock burning opponent confirm after 5 minutes

It seems that the ONLY fool-proof way of containing this situation is having a couple of administrators online to look into this situation. You need a couple in case multiple situations come up at the same time. When the admin reviews it and makes the decision to give him/her a win, he/she will have the power to do it right then and there. Now the conflict of whether or not it is a sure win can be fairly.....I don't know....confirmed isn't the right word, but a quick look at the ratings SHOULD give a REASONABLE guess as to whether or not the game is an EASY win. Also, maybe there should be a piece limit, say, there has to be fewer than 8 or so pieces on the board before it can be reviewed. And maybe there should also be a thing about the time the opponent away has to be a set amount, such as 5 or 10 minutes for a thirty minute game, and more for an hour game, or it can be made to be a percentage of the total time allowed, if the game is above 15 minutes or so of course. A percentage of a 5 minute game is pointless.

Now about the review option being abused, then if any of the conditions stated/made are not met, the game is an automatic loss to the challenger, or a penalty similar. 

Technically there is an "are you there" button already...simply type in the chat box "are you there?" or something of that sorts, and if he/she's not responding, then he/she's not there. 

I think a way to make the "Are you there?" feature better would be to only make it appear after the idle opponent is (say) 10 points down in material. Because if the pieces are close, the opponent shouldn't have any intentions on abandoning the game.

What do you think?

sometime (like me) i am in a live chess game and i have to eat dinner, so i leave the games for a few minutes, and then the opponent (not naming names) are you there??? COME ON!!! any year now!!! i said "sorry, had to eat dinner" and he says "do i give a ****, MOVE"

Now something like that may be interesting. Because it would make an opponent go for material, adding to the psychology of the game. Hmmm... Very interesting. I think I like it!

The key is if your going to be away for any extended period of time it is good to alert your opponent to this. Even during an extended think I like to make some remark to my opponent to this effect as long as chat isn't disabled.

I like option 2 Erik.

Before the players would disconnect,

Now they just let the clock run out.

Just have a thumbs up /thumbs down icon, or a turtle / hare icon next to each player

and they can be rated right then and there for speed and sportsmanship.

There is one slight problem with getting admin to decide if the game is won after your opponent walks away. How do you determine if the admin making the decision is competaint enough to make said decision?