Has Chess.com ever had a worse idea than Vacations?

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Well until i had a storm come my way i would agree. I had almost 100 games being played at the moment and just reached my highest rank ever and had setbacks up to that point. I had no idea how hard or when it was going to hit. Worse no idea how long it would last and the damage it would create.

Say it was starting off mild how would i know it would get worse. It would be a real distaction as i played. It was either ignore the storm all together and play or not play at all. Without the Vacation option and not playing by rank would have dropped seriously and would take over a month to get it back.

Now what Chess.com could do is create types of Vacations. Say like 5 types. Obvious one for disasters as this could be checked. The Vacation option could start immediately 2-5 days before that event would start. Another would be Vacation for a job in which case we know it is 1,2,3 or 4 weeks and they have to enter it as such. Bringing us to cased where players are sometimes tired. We can call this a rest Vacation and they enter the number of days before hand as the opponent will know how long they will be gone. The one could be general Vacation. The last one listed as other Vacation and a written reason why should be enetered and only seen by chess.com.

Ok i kow it is not that simple. Players when they are losing use it out of spite sometimes. Chess.com needs a stat of frequency on use of vacation for all to see or just them to reduce abuse of it. In tournaments this is real important and the TD should be the only person besides chess.com to see it. And give the TD the option to remove that person from entering the tournament as it seems they are a frequent user of it. When the frequent use it goes below a level then the icon will not be seen by the TD(tournament director).

I second the motion on TD's having the option to remove or replace a player. I had the first tourney I created held up for 2 months by a premium member who abandoned his account...

Eevrytime someone takes a vacation, we could have a vote of all the members (unless it occurs on a weekend or a Wednesay (obviously), then the vote would only be of paying members), members voting would be given a list of options, much like a butterfly ballot, the results of the vote to determine if the player taking a vacation will have free vacation time added both to him, and to his opponent, or if his opponent(s) will have time subtracted from their time not including vacation time they take DURING his vacation (which of course will be subject to a further, seperate vote.) Voting has to be done within 1 hour, non-paying members who fail to vote will automatically have their opponents go on a 24 hour free vacation, unless their opponent is also a non paying member, in which case the game is simply delayed for 3 days. Paying members will be given full refunds everytime their vacation time is extended. Non paying memberes will be given trial premium mebership for 90 days if they vote unanimously to extend the vacation time of anyone who is playing in a tournament that rhymes with the words "orange" or "petunia".

i think these are simple changes we can all get behind, or atleast vote on.

Now way to vote unless a category on Type of Vacation. As players have different reasons to take a vacation.

If a stat is created of on the number of times a player takes a vacation say the last month and another the last 3 monts we could have a more accurate chance to determine why they take 2 or more vacations.

At one point i had to take multiple 1-2 day vacations as i was fatiqued from having near 100 games and working to reduce them which is not easy at all. I tried several methods.

In tournaments this should be up to the Tournament Director. An the players entering the tournament can ask the that the TD not have this type of player in it or they want out and join another tournament. An that person can be attacked directly thus keeping this a friendly site.

In Team Matches this can be left up to the SA  Super Admin as they could see an Icon created that show the player is a frequent user of vacation or takes long vacations.

Now in Open Seeks. Some staff has said just add a couple games and not wait for them to get off vacation. Problem with that is if that is your last game and you want to go on Vacation by finishing that game off leaving you with no games to play. And using your vacation against this same player would be a waist. Which is why i mentioned they can only come back at a certain time depending on which type of Vacation they are using. And that would elimante the player waiting from being frustrated and that is the whole point here. Right?

I think it would be easier for chess.com to hire a private eye, and have him peep on members while they are on vacation. 

I have noticed this guy hanging around when I click "vacation"

Yeah he is one of my favorite!

No they just need 2 type of stats on Vacation:

1) Usage in last month

2) Usage in last 3 months

Now those specific stats Chess.com can make only viewable to that player and chess.com. Now if it is frequent only the SA, TD and chess.com will see the icon showing it.  And players can ask if any of those type players are playing but the can not be allowed to identify them keeping the piece here. Then the person iquiring about the status of whether that player will be removed. From that point they can decide if they wish to remove themselves from playing in that event.

Thats too simple. Better is if you can only view vacations of people you are not currently playing, and you only get the first and last initial. Then, immediatly after the next national or state election you can choose to delete 9 vacation days from a random player, and all his opponents will gain 1 vacation day in every month that has an "r" in it for the next 6 months. Also, free beer will be handed out to the first person who says "Giraffe".

I cannot see who would object to this.

You just want some beer. Nice try!

No, I just like yelling "Giraffe"

Giraffe!

Exactly. My way of saying "get over it, folks"

I think that the bad idea in vacation time is that when my opponent is using vacation time, it increases my vacation time percentage as well, even though I have no say in it.  I think that either you should consent on vacation time, or you should not be penalized for it.

I've always thought a key missing peice of the puzzle are more time control types that would allow the overall duration of a game (and as a result, a tournament) to be more predictable (vacation aside).

I can start a game, or enter a tournament today that could easily end up lasting more than a year (I've had tournaments run almost 3).  Trust me, I plan on taking a vacation within that period, so entering a no-vacation tournmaent (or game) is simply not a risk I'm interested in taking.

If I knew a game would take no longer than three months, I wouldn't be so hesitant.

X moves in Y days, hourglass timers etc.  There's a ton of other time control options out there that would help to alleviate this issue.

Moving off topic a bit, don't you think paul1144?  I mean, I don't accuse all International players without the sac to declare a country affiliation a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys.

Who can fault having more options? Keeps everyone happy. I think people would be even happier with an I dont care 'tude, but not everyone fits that mold.

While more options are always* better, and so I have no issue with such time controls being implemented, I do think there's one significant flaw with any of those timers that would stop them from becoming used often. Let's say we both live in EST (for the ease of explanation, though it works with any timezone) and your sleep schedule is from 12AM-8AM while mine is from 11PM-7AM. Any move you make between 11PM-12AM means it will be 7-8 hours before I even wake up and have the possibility of seeing the move; meanwhile the most you ever have to wait is an hour, from 7AM-8AM.

*The only possible downside being that less people prefer any one specific option the more options there are. This is irrelevant in this context, though, with millions of players in the pool leaving plenty who like any option.

Well, there are drawbacks to more options -- it further fractures the pool of seeks and makes finding a match for a game harder because there are more criteria you need to match on.

I like the idea someone else had of calling a tournament round when it is no longer mathematically possible for any other outcome.

Still allow the game to continue, and allow the rating adjustment that results....just prevent one person from holding up 99 others.

I understand the point being made about people being entitled to vacation time....great. Just don't allow one person to hold up an entire tournament when they have no possible way of going through or affecting the results.

Agreed Genghis and actually Kohai started the next round of a tournament in that situation when I asked her.

My big problem (only problem really) is when someone uses vacation time (presumably because they are busy or away, completely understand that) but they continue to log in and post, play live games, etc.

If you've got time to play live games, make your moves in your online games.

Maybe if they are on vacation for their online games they are blocked from playing live games?