ChessTV -- POB Topic 4: Internet Chess Ethics!

This is also the case at chess.com. You can't set vacation for individual games. Either you are on vacation and you can't make moves in any game, or you are not on vacation and your clock runs in every game.

Save for games from no-vacation tournaments, which you simply can't stop the clock on, even if you are on vacation.

Oh, I guess what the Grobe points out after your post was what confused me on that.  I don't disagree with no vacation tourneys.

This only applies premium members -- in principle I believe that this ability should be extended to non-premium members as well, but that's another discussion altogether....

The problem is that a non-premium member with a sufficiently large game-load against active opponents might find it downright impossible to clear all of their games in order to turn their vacation on.  It's really a matter of fairness.

If you recall, in a prior thread my suggestion was to allow any user, regardless of their membership level, to go on vacation no matter how many games they had left in which it was their move.  In order to address the risk of using this ability to stall specific games (as premium members can, and do today), the requirement to advance your games between successive vacations would be implemented in its place.

The new one-day-minimum may well serve as sufficient deterrent to this behaviour that a rule like the one above need not be implemented, but I still think that as a matter of fairness the ability to go on vacation when you have moves to make in some of your games should be extended to all users.

I disagree -- they've not shown up empty-handed, they're providing game liquidity and in many cases content in the forums.  Non-premium members should not be viewed as leeches regardless of how many games they play -- many are active and valued members of the community that still contribute ways that are not monetary.  Not everyone here makes the same kind of money that you and I as westerners undoubtedly do.

I think it is rude, annoying, and very childish.

I think that there should be a way of reporting stuff like that to chess.com and get those "Sore losers" baned.

However, it is posible in a bullet game that you are in a total losing position but are trying to think and run out of time.

The quandry is this:  On the basis of an individual game, how do you tell the difference between abuse, and the legitimate scenario you've just described?

Edit:  QuandAry.  I meant QuandAry.  Thanks BigPoison....

I've played numerous OTB games where a complex position arose that had me analyze for 20+ minutes. I would never acknowledge anyone's 'right' to assign a forfeit simply on the basis of use/non-use of clock time.

Very good point. I think that prehaps we could show the time between moves.

Example, between move 1 and 2 I take 10 minutes, that's obviously abuse. But if we can see what the time control was, and what time was left before the timeout, then it is possible to determin abuse from legit time out

Is there a stat that could be captured and published on a per user basis that would provide visibility into this type of thing so that frequent abusers could be identified and avoided when accepting seeks?

Timeout percentage is used in a similar way for turn based, but can't really apply to live since timing out is a common and integral part of the game at those time controls.  How about showing something like the average time the clock ran down on the last move across all games in which each user timed out on their profile?  Either as an absolute, or a percentage of the total game time?

But if the company was lousy or sparse, many who had food would not show up and you would also have no dinner.

Yeah, I don't know how many times at my club I'll get into a terrible mess, then take tons of time trying to figure out the most effective way to cut my losses (it's not always as bad as you might think) or find the most complicated line I can so give myself some practical chances... against peers anyway I've pulled off some nice reversals this way  

But yeah, it does usually take >half my clock for that one move once I start losing.

I have to wonder too how much my opponent may get board and turn their brain off heh, when I'm spending 10 of my 15 minutes like an idiot

At a certain point the analogy breaks down.  The community is one of the biggest draws of this site.

Non-paying  members have to look at the advertising, which generates revenue.

I agree, so long as those extra benefits don't result in any inequity during game play, as I believe this one does.

I've also always been of the opinion that non-paying members should never be restricted from providing content, since that only adds to the value of the site.  This includes limits on the number of games and restrictions on posting in the forums.  Incidentally, I also believe that the cap on tournaments joined should be removed for the same reason -- you'd likely see less delay on the commencement of tournaments, and less tournaments cancelled.

We may just have to agree to disagree on this point though.

My opinion exactly -- the question of benefits and charging for premium memberships isn't so much a question of fairness/social obligation of users, but practicality.  The site has overhead that the owners must cover.

That's how I see it anyway.

What a refreshingly congenial disagreement.  Cheers.

In Live Chess how about implementing some optional time controls to prevent stalling?

For example, allow the originator of the game not only to select total game time and increment, but also optionally to select a maximum time per turn.

I know this is possibly anathema to chess players who traditionally like to pick and choose the moments for their "long thinks", but I have used this system in other games (most notably Arimaa), and I think it works quite well, especially online where stalling is so prevalent.

In fact, I like Arimaa time controls so much that I coded a little chess clock app for my laptop that implements them.

Amy