Vacations To Avoid Losing On Time Is Cheating!

But that doesn't mean that they can go on a rant and rampage against all paying members, even though the majority use vacation time fairly. I wonder if gbidari has even messaged erik? Wouldn't that be a sensible thing to do? Then start a nice debate? This forum started nicely, but even within the first five or six posts, it turned nasty. No offense, to anyone, but the nastiness was mainly by people that were against the vacation abuse. There was one or two rude comments by the other party, but it was quickly escalated by the original posters.

This brings me to another point and request. Chess.com could use forum moderators. Almost all other sites I've ever been to that have some sort of forum/chat have moderators. I guess the majority of forums and posts here are nice and pleasant enough. But just look at what the live chess chat used to be. But there, posts and forums could not be locked or deleted, so moderators had little power. On normal forums, moderators would have more power. They could even have elections, like under the trophies section.  

P.S. Sorry if I'm a little long-winded. I haven't been doing much on the forums lately so I just had a need to talk. I'm a very talkative person. 

Obviously it's not a big deal, but if it can be prevented, why not prevent it?

If my house burns down losing my stamp collection would be low on my list of things to worry about - but I still keep them in a fireproof safe.

for those of you who hate vacation and vacation users, in about 5 days you will have the option of creating and joining NON-vacation tournaments. happy? :)

as for me, i like vacation time, and i like the protection of not feeling like i am going to lose my games if i forget to login. auto-vacation has kicked in for me maybe 3-4 times in the last 2 years, and i'm obviously on the site a LOT. then i log back in and make my moves when i can. sure there are people who use vacation to drag out games in tournaments. but if those are lost games, we will adjudicate them - just report it to staff.

it's a tough line. give people freedom and they use it to hurt others. take freedoms away and you're a tyrant. :D

i know the system doesn't please everyone, but hopefully the new non-tournament option will go a long way to do so.

thanks for the debate!

That will solve everything! Since there is no limit to regular games, people won't care if people spend months on vacation. And for tournaments, which are limited, they can just play ones that don't have vacation. And anyone can create one, even if it is small. Thank you Erik and Chess.com staff!

are there rules in the country where you live that don't tickle your fancy? maybe you could find a better country.  i know the analogy is not exactly the same but suggesting that people should not use chess.com because they don't thin it is perfect is asinine.  there are many many things about chess.com that i really enjoy.  the auto-vacation option is not one of them.  my guess is erik and the rest of the staff would prefer i stay and not like the rule than leave.

____________________________________

erik, good to hear the option will be available.  thanks for the good work--all around.

nuh-uh

Great news....you guys will now have no-vacation tournaments!

Soon you can complain about people taking their full time to move and then later on the difficulties in getting people to continue to play in these tournaments.

blah blah blah.

it's so interesting that so many of you think there's something wrong with disagreeing with "the rules."  and i'm certainly not asking you to agree with me/us.  haha  you guys are funny.

mommy mommy the big mean man doesn't think the rules are good.

Thanks a lot, Erik!
As usual, you put a lot into the site, and into pleasing as many people as possible!

Any chance you'll be looking at implementing TheGrobe's suggestion?

mommy mommy....please make people play like I want them to......how I want them to....when I want them to.

Erik, this is great to hear.  As usual, you guys are tuned in to your users.  To mhtraylor, who asked why so much ado about the topic, this is the type of responsiveness I was referring to as a result of the healthy debate that takes place in the forums.

One question I do have for you though, Erik, is whether it will only be an option for zero or unlimited vacation days, or if the tournament directors will be able to limit it to a pre-determined number of days?  (Zero days would obviously be a subset of this functionality).

Also, as I've stated in other threads, I'm in agreement with you in that I too probably wouldn't enter a tournament with this type of restriction -- that is unless the duration of each round of the tournament could be assured before-hand.  I've suggested an additional time control that could be added as an optional means of providing the ability to provide this certainty here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/vacation-abuse2?page=2

and again here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/ethics-in-correspondence-chess?page=1

I won't rehash the description, or the pros and cons of the handful of approaches that were discussed, but I'd be interested to know if this type of enhancement at all something that you guys are considering, or would consider?

dude.  awesome comeback.

i'm calling it a comeback but that might not be what you were intending.

haha  foolish boy.

ilikeflags,

I knew someone would trot out the "But isn't that like saying 'love it or leave it' about your country?" analogy. A more apt analogy is an extremely vocal minority wants to overthrow the government and completely change the rules to suit them, disregarding the majority. If a system is working fine, why should it be changed for a vocal group who doesn't like it? There is a free market in governments, and a free market in chess websites; those who do not like the way it is set up at chess.com are free to put their money where their mouth is and show us why their version of online correspondence chess is better.

There are a few loud and obnoxious posts nearly every single day from a few members (out of the thousands of members) complaining about vacation time and tournament length. When they signed up to play, they made an implicit contract that basically stated, "I agree with these rules" -  otherwise, why sign up?

I, too, sometimes wish my tournaments went a bit faster. But when I signed up, I understood that this was correspondence chess and that games and tournaments may take a certain length of time. If I wasn't comfortable with that, I wouldn't have signed up; I would have went somewhere else. I have absolutely no problem with players petitioning the staff to change the rules to make tournaments faster, or to reform vacation time. It is the manner they have been going about it that irks me, like calling all members who have automatic vacation time cheaters (if it is part of the rules of the site, how can it be cheating?).

hardfighter, I don't recall being "nasty". What was said by me that was
"nasty"?

i never said anything about over-throwing.  i simply am calling something lame that i think is lame.  i know that everyone can't be happy all the time.  i've said as much several times.  i welcome the vacation option as a great change to the site.  i understand that we all don't see eye to (i)eye, but that does not change the fact that i think auto vacations are whack--stupid--annoying--stupid--janky--buggin'g--whack.

to each her own, even if it's stupid

By the way, those incredulous ones that keep claiming, "how can it be cheating if it's part of this site's rules?" Simple. Just because something unethical is promoted and permitted doesn't mean it's not unethical. And just because cheating by an organization is allowed doesn't mean it's still not cheating. It's in the rules so there can be no wrong eh? You guys worry me.

I must admit, it is annoying. Also, a vacation is something you take a few times a year NOT a few times a day! It appears to be more like a timeout like in basketball. Must be an American idea.

hehe

Nobody's saying you can't criticize aspects of the site you don't like & nobody's saying you can't prefer one type of player over another.  Personally, I've never protracted a lost game in hopes that my opponent would die of old age before the game ended; I don't see value in having my personal games DB polluted with empty wins where my opponent actually played better moves.  By the same token, I'm not the sort to glare at my opponents over the board, either.  But some respected GMs are legendary for that.

Another example:  I personally think that the fact you can set your Analysis Board to "enforce legal moves" is total BS.  It protects players from themselves by creating not simply a visualization aid similar to a real chessboard (as is the case at every other chess site in the universe), but rather an intelligent planning device that can show you where your plan fails because of a piece that's actually pinned to the King, keeps you from accidentally moving the white pieces twice in a row, etc., etc.  Does this constitute help from an outside source?  Yeah, pretty much.  Is it "cheating"?  Well, apparently not here at chess.com, it isn't.  That's just something I've had to accept.

Speaking up for changes to the system is a constructive activity.  Using the existing features to their fullest extent to find like-minded opponents is beneficial also.  Using "cheating" to describe legal behaviours you simply don't like is not - and likewise bringing 'ethics' into the discussion seems a total waste of energy.

richie and oprah,

That's a good point. By using that analysis crutch you think you're winning the battle but you're really losing the war. I know that Bruce Pandolfini forbids his students from moving the pieces to analyze.

Similarly, the auto-vacation requires no discipline and robs the user of the important lesson of time management. It spoils you and makes you weak in the discipline department. You might like having your responsibilities lightened, but it's not good for you. Laziness is not a virtue.