Site changes, new policies

You're a premium member -- why not just try it the next time you have a move to make in one of your games?

I don't like the idea at all and I rather stick to the rule I was taught, viz. to put yourself on vacation requires that you make your moves in ALL your games. I have no official information from the administrators that this would have changed, do you?

I'm not sure why that would be an issue -- you can turn your vacation time right back off.  I don't know whether it has or has not changed, but just because you have the option go on vacation with pending moves doesn't mean you have to -- I was only suggesting you do so to test whether it was in fact possible, not that you make a habit of it.

I wondered how it was possible for people who play hundreds of games simultaneously to ever go on vacation-- you'd think every time they finished getting through their list making moves they'd find that they'd already gotten a bunch of responses and still had a lot more moves they'd have to make . . . it could take a lot of time before you ever caught up! 

bsrasmus: I have already tried this out.  It works.  You don't have to make a move in all of your games in order to go on vacation -- if you are a paying member.

That means (to me) that there is a fundamental change in the rules, and a change that I don't think I agree with. In my view, going on vacation should imply that you must first make your move in ALL ongoing games. Could the site admins not intervene here and give some info?

My canary is RainbowRising. He lets forth intemperately now and again ("X is literally a piece of sh*t") and he remains and contributes.

I must be safe despite my "forum stylings" which are tame in comparison.

Even 'geek should be safe, despite calling someone a "dork" in the cheating group 2 months ago. Yes that's an attack and it'd been up and uncensored every day of those two months, but the site has and will survive just fine despite that.

I don't think he's all that worried about personal attacks per se or he would have banned himself or removed his "dork" comment, just very thin skinned when the words are aimed at him.

BTW, in my two years here I've been called some terrible names. I wouldn't dream of having them edited out, even if my widdle feelings were hurt. So far zero abuse reports/tickets on my part.

I'm so ashamed. What? Have I got crap for brains in that tinker toy skull of mine?

Ticket!

I actually feel that the rule requiring you to make moves in all of your games prior to going on vacation should be removed for non-premium members.  I can only imagine the frustration of a player with innumerable ongoing games with highly active opponents, some of whom may have pre-moves set up, trying fruitlessly to clear out all of their games just so that they can turn on their vacation.

In place of this, I'd support an inability to go on vacation a second time for any game in which it was your move on the previous vacation, and in which you still have not made a move, including when initiated by auto-timeout-protection.

I can not think of a single reason this should be permitted.  I think this would level the field for premium and non-premium members, and eliminate any possibility of the kind of abuse (well, vacation abuse anyway) being discussed here.

Me as well. 

I don't know anything about your brains, but isn't your post somehow ill placed? At least it does not help much to solve the question we're discussing.

It comments on other subjects in the thread, does it not? And threads wander at times. It's just the way it goes in these forums.

Yeah, that's an idea....or

• Limit the number of times (not the length) a player can take vacation during a certain period (twice a week?)
• Measure vacation only in full days, not hours, minutes, seconds. Every time vacation kicks in, one day comes off. Culprits will quickly use up their allocation.

The minds of you four-legged types never stray far from widdling . . . damn neighbor dog widdles all over my lawn . . .

I've seen a guy go on vacation 3 times in a few hours : )

These are workable, but I think that they really devalue the timeout protection afforded premium players.  Isn't the behaviour we're trying to encourage here to force players to move their games forward, not dictate how and at what rate they use their vacation?

Not allowing two consecutive vacations from a game that's in the same position as it was on the previous vacation (while it's your move) gets right to the heart of the problem.  You are not restricted from going on vacation by exceptionally active opponents, but at the same time you're forced to progress your games.

I think that may be too complicated to realize. Why not the original rule: vacation possible only after having made ALL pending moves. And, of course, independently of your paying status!

That would make life impossible for the likes of kacparov and AWARDCHESS (who often have more than a thousand games in progress). Perhaps if all members were first warned of impending changes and then given 6 months to reduce their load, then I could see this as a solution.

That's right, I forgot about those extreme cases. 

I just tried this myself -- it does indeed work. 

I can.  If you take away someone's ability to go on vacation a second time you basically put a cap on the number of games they can play at one time.  If you have several hundred ongoing games and go on vacation for a week leaving behind a bunch of games where it's your turn to move, when you get back, you're gonna have a hard time getting all those moves in while the clock is ticking down to a timeout. 

Making big changes to address a very minor problem in order to appease a vocal few is a bad idea.  I understand that there are ppl who are annoyed by vacation time.  Oh well.

It all seems to boil down to finding a rule that does not hurt those very few that run a huge number of games simultaneously. Though I am liberal, I fail to understand how the game of chess (or the player) benefits from having hundreds of ongoing games.