Proposed Vacation Abuse Solution

It does get tiresome to read the same thing over and over again; here is an interesting statistic, if you feed all the text available on this system into a program (this was done months ago to prove a point) and filter out the words pay, membership cost and free you could eliminate 58,391 lines of text (I am sure that this has doubled by now).

 

Not that it matters, but just in case, some_british wanted to know the numbers support his statements.

erik wrote:

ok. i'll refine this idea a bit more, but we'll probably start with ~10 days of vacation, and you earn more with time (not # of games, as some people play very few).

additionally, we may allow those who are being affected by vacation abuse to report it, and if we find that the abuser is dragging it out intentionally (lost their queen with no compensation, has no chance to win, etc) then we will force the loss and send a warning.

 

thoughts? :)  

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I think that being able to report vacation abuse is a good idea. Certainly, at the very least if a player has been reported by several different players on numerous occasions they could conceivably  lose their status as members. Or maybe be warned and put on some form of probation before they are ousted. I'm in a tournament right now that out of 20 pairings I'm the only player it seems that is being faced with a player on vacation mode. Does this happen often in tournament play?

I like the fact that you are attempting to resolve a known problem - and it is real to most players using this site.  You can always try it and if doesn't work out, tweak it...

 

...or is it legit to see how they do it on other chess sites, and if their idea is good, just "borrow" that one?   But I like PuddyCat's idea of implementing something, and then tweaking it as needed -- at least you've got something in there.  Unfortunately, no matter how good your plan is, there will always be whiners.

KnightNotHorse> how they do it on other chess sites

ICC and FICS both have adjudication teams that look at games upon request. ICC"s adjudication teams are slow to act against paying members... I've been waiting over 6 months to get one game adjudicated. FICS is run by volunteers and has no paying members, so they usually act within 1-2 weeks.  ;)

 

chesschat.org doesn't have automated ratings so it's pretty simple... if someone doesn't move in time, you can say "Time's up... you lose!" The tournaments are also completely run by humans so it's not really comparable to here.

erik wrote:

ok. i'll refine this idea a bit more, but we'll probably start with ~10 days of vacation, and you earn more with time (not # of games, as some people play very few).

additionally, we may allow those who are being affected by vacation abuse to report it, and if we find that the abuser is dragging it out intentionally (lost their queen with no compensation, has no chance to win, etc) then we will force the loss and send a warning.

 

thoughts? :)  

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 I definitely support the reporing of abuse option for specific cases... but I think the vacation amount of 40 days should be left alone.

BassThumper wrote: RetGuvvie98 wrote:

(Long post edited for space) 

You don't need to tell me why you find yourself unable to pay a fee of less than......   wait a second:   let's see here:    $29.95   for chess per year...   divided by 365 days a year, less some 40 days vacation time, so let's use 325 days a year, and give some more days off, 3 weeks of NO CHESS,  still more than 300 days a year for chess - - - - then, your 2995 pennies a year figures out to less than ten cents US per day.  approximately one tenth the cost of a coke or a cuppa coffee.  (small can or cheap coffee - not Starbucks).    Let's see, what does five gallons of gasoline cost in England (or europe)?  more than 30 bucks US ??   

 

and some folks attack me for suggesting that they CAN afford that in order to enjoy the perks of paid membership???    

 

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I'm not sure that anyone is attacking you for WHAT you said... it's HOW you said it.

 

"Freeloader" is not a very friendly nickname, and presuming to know every non paying member's financial status or motives isn't the nicest way to come across either. Whether you meant to or not, you came across that way, and it is somewhat harsh and condescending.

 

Don't get me wrong; I completely understand, and to an extent agree with where many of your points are coming from.

Unfortunately for a lot of people, it's not always as simple as pulling a dime out of your pocket when you wake up every morning. People have financial priorities, and sometimes paying to play board games on the internet doesnt reach the top of the list.

Besides, if everybody thought of every purchase, bill, debt, donation, etc... in terms of pennies per day, and on top of that were able or willing to set aside said amounts, the amount of financial strain in the world's economies would reduce dramatically, if not altogether go away. 

Personally, I'd say MY biggest issue is that if I was able to access all of benefits that paying members receive, I would spend WAY too much time on this site!

 

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 Exactly.

I persist in considering that the "turn-based chess" games are the equivalent of correspondence chess, which has been around for over 100 years. How do vacation and win/loss by time-out work in that real-life environment? I am sure these issues have been ironed out years and years ago.

Maybe the solution is to allow members to set a maximum vacation duration when they issue a challenge or set up a tournament; or automatically set it to the equivalent of one or two moves (3 or 6 days on a 3-day-per-move game).

I cannot remember who suggested this, but I like the idea of setting a number of moves per time-period, e.g. 3 moves every 3 days, as opposed to 24 hours per move. If you can track the accumulated time it takes for each player to move (like a chess clock basically!), this would be a nice solution.

Rob

Wow...all I can say is it seems like alot of thought for something I saw as a gift to begin with.

To me the vacation days are like an extra bonus. I feel if you start a game and can't

 finish then it should be up to both people involved. If one player wishes to go on vacation then out of respect for his or her opponent he or she should request it from him or her. Then the time limit could be set by both of them. Having days to use whenever you wish is basically giving someone the right to abuse them.

If we were playing as friends face to face and you needed to take off for something

then it is your loss if I choose not to wait for you. The games have a time limit and if one side

cannot finish the game in their alotted time then they lose. 

Stuff comes up like we all know but does it come up enough to really affect things,

such as your precious rating?

If it does in your life then maybe you have too many brands in the fire and never should have

started that game of chess. Be responsible and accept the consequences.

If you start a game and can't finish it it is on you. If your opponent agrees to put the game on hold 

then great. if not, then either you make it back or you don't.

So, in a nutshell Eric, I propose that there be no vacation time and let the people playing

each other decide per game. In essence you can have all the vacation time you want or none at all.

 

 

 

No vacation time for tournaments period. 

Do not join them if you cannot finish them and if something comes up,

well...it would not be fair to hold up the tournament because of one person. 

 

wjones4, I see where you're coming from, but I don't agree with you.  Like someone else in this topic said (can't remember who, too lazy to go back and look  ), what happens if there's an emergency?  Say you have 30 games going at 3 days/move, and someone in your family dies, so you have to go away for a week or so to arrange everything?  Should you lose all 30 games?  Or what happens if the power goes down in your area and they can't fix it for four days?  Rating means a lot to some people.  It's like a symbol of their intelligence.  Would you walk around at your job acting like a mentally retarded person?  Of course not, so why would you want to "walk around" on a chess website with a rating 500 points beneath where you actually are?  Would you want to advertise to everyone that you only have a 1000 rating, instead of 1600, where you are right now?

good point emh0114,

I would like to think that the family emergency thing would convince

 the majority of your opponents to agree to a vacation, but maybe not. 

 

I still feel that if you start the game and cannot finish, irregardless of the reasons,

you should be responsible enough to accept the consequences. 

 

I do realize rating means alot to some people and I can relate, but to me it all 

falls back to responsibility. If you can't finish then you lose, simple as that. 

As I said in my first post, the vacation days to me are a bonus and I am very 

happy to see they offer them but I still think it is wrong to make your opponent wait until you are ready to finish, or 40 days. I feel if you have to go for a "family emergency" then so be it but I would take the loss instead of making my burdens affect someone else. I do not feel it is accepted behavior to inconvenience someone else irregardless of the circumstances. I accept responsibility if I can't finish the game.

And if your power is out for 4 days I think you could care less about your chess rating.

 

wjones, you're being pretty short sighted. With time controls of 3 days/move and 5 days/move being typical, games will potentially last several months. If I have to be certain that I will not take any vacation in the next 4 months in order to start a game today, I wouldn't play any chess here at chess.com and I suppose many other people wouldn't as well. This site would be pretty lame if no one was willing to play.

 

I would rather people take vacation when they need it and come back to their games when they can rather than just accepting a bunch of losses, and it has nothing to do with ego attached to rating. It has to do with the quality of the rating system. The more games you have decided by someone taking a real life vacation and not able to go on vacation on chess.com, the less accurate the whole rating system becomes.

Loomis,

I think I did not explain myself well.  Maybe I have too much trust or belief in others, but I would think that your opponent would not have a problem with you taking a vacation, I for one would not have a problem with it. All I was suggesting was that the two players decide on the vacation not just the one. And if you cannot reach an agreement with your opponent then you have to take the loss. I think that is the responsible way to handle it. I just do not feel that it is proper to make someone wait for you. I feel it is rude and presumptious to think it is okay to make someone wait.

 

Would you get up in a middle of a game at home and say 

ok, I'll be back in a month see ya!!! or better yet, just get up and leave and expect the game to be there in a month. I am just thinking that a little respect for your opponent should be involved somehow.

I also don't see having to take a vacation as being something that springs up all that often,

maybe my life is too uneventful?

irregardless, we agree that vacation time is something that is needed, 

how it is used we can disagree on.

 

Not to mention there will always be rude people and those that will take advantage of anything.  

 

 

 

and one more thing about the power outage issue...I am under the impression that what

was meant was that for some reason you could not get online for over 3 days. If that

is the case then how would you go on vacation to begin with?

 

 

there is no way on earth we are going to have people ask their opponents for permission to go on vacation :)

ok! i think we got good feedback on this thread. thank you! 

wjones4 wrote:

and one more thing about the power outage issue...I am under the impression that what

was meant was that for some reason you could not get online for over 3 days. If that

is the case then how would you go on vacation to begin with?

 

 

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For premium members like yourself, vacation comes on automatically if it looks like you're going to time-out.

 

Like I said before, I think that if tournament play is the real context here, then maybe the best idea is to implement a "Maximum vacation days allowed" field on the tournament definition page.  Default it to "7" or something, but let the tournament director make the call by entering a value between zero and forty.  Publish the data so that entrants can know what they are getting into, and be done with it.

 

Vacation abuse outside of the context of tournaments is a thornier issue, and may often be largely a matter of perception.  I'm sure that chess.com staff have better things to do than engage in 'vacation moderation' or create & enforce some definition of 'conditions of use' for vacation days.  I'd say leave it be.  Don't think of it as abuse at all:  If your opponent wants to squander their days being dilatory (and undermine their time-out protection for the rest of the year in the process), then more power to them.

wjones4 wrote:

All I was suggesting was that the two players decide on the vacation not just the one. And if you cannot reach an agreement with your opponent then you have to take the loss.

Not to mention there will always be rude people and those that will take advantage of anything. 

 

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 You don't see how these two statements are contradictory? You suggest that I should say to my opponent "I am going out of town, may I please go on vacation?" and not expect they will say "tough luck, I win."

 

I think the comparison between a correspondence game and an in person game is a silly one. When you sit down to a game of chess you agree to reasonable parameters. If I sit down with you in person, we'll probably use a clock and if you want to get up and leave you can expect your time to be expired when you get back. When I start a correspondence game that might take several months it is reasonable to believe you might be out of town at least once in that time.  If you want there to be respect among players, let's start with respecting everyone's personal lives that will inevitably include time away from the Internet. I think it would be more disrespectful to make me ask my opponent if I'm allowed to go on vacation than for me to ask my opponent to wait a few days until I get back.

 

Taking the full 40 days vacation simply to postpone the inevitable loss of the game is, of course, rude, annoying, disrespectful, and abusive of the system. But, it's in the rules, which is why Erik, the rulemaker, is considering a change to the rules. 

Seems like a tempest in a teapot to me.  We're basically playing corresspondence chess here without the postcards and stamps.  It really surprises me that someone can start a 14 days/move game and then get annoyed that they have to wait two weeks for their opponent to move -- even if their opponent's position is hopeless.  Sure, I can get annoyed if someone is more than a rook down and wants to make me prove the win, but that's their right under the rules.  My policy is to simply shrug, ignore it, and make sure (with maybe a touch of malice included...) that I make a good move whenever it's my turn to move.  Think of it as an opportunity to work on the efficiency of one's technique.    The problem *WILL* eventually take care of itself.

 

If tournaments are the problem, limit (or ban it altogether) the amount of vacation time people can use during a tournament (as a parameter during the setup process) without the Tournament Director's approval.  I'd like to think that if someone's mother died, most TDs would be reasonable and let them take an appropriate amount of (additional) vacation time and that other players wouldn't get too bent out of shape over it.  Of course, you want to keep a file where a TD can look up all of a person's previous requests:  if someone's mother has died three times already, the TD might be justified in viewing the request with a bit of skepticism...

Sounds a bit like another way to make money :S

I have not upgraded my membership as I can't afford it (being 16), and don't like it erik when you say that upgrading is confirming you "care about your reputation".

I think of myself as an active member of the chess.com community, and feel I deserve an equal ammount of vacation time. When I go away in July for 7 days, should I have to lose the majority of my games, for not pay £x?

someone_british wrote: I don't really think that's a good idea personally. I think instead maybe you can add a feature for easily reporting abusive users, instead of making the rest of us suffer. Personally I sometimes have to go on vacation for periods up to 1-2 weeks because I'm sometimes very busy at work, and I don't want to lose all of my games on time... it's not my fault some users use vacation for the purpose of postponing losing games, but most of us are using it for legitimate purposes, and so I think the 40 day vacation time should be left alone.

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I agree we should have 40 days for our family holidays and legitimae purposes.

All I ask for is my 40 days a year no more no less.

Zhane, read carefully the proposed change. You will still have 40 days per year of vacation.