'stall to make opponents wait unnecessarily'

Hi - trying to understand what constitutes 'aborting'. I just won a 45/45 game through my opponent aborting and the notification message mentioned this could have been triggered through disconnecting or, I think it said, through not moving quickly enough. Looking at the fair play policy I see abandonment can mean, 'stalling to make opponents wait unnecessarily'. This seems strange, isn't it down to the individual to use their time how they see fit?

Aborting only happens on the first move. It can happen when someone hits the abort button or waits more than 15 seconds to play.  People used to abort games to avoid playing black (or white) or for various other reasons. Sometimes you had to wait thru multiple aborts to get a game. Now aborts are limited. Too many aborts can get a delay imposed and assignment to a special pool of players.

After that, assuming the game proceeds, it's not simply down to the individual. Many people are bad sports and just stop playing rather than resigning. When this happens in an obvious manner, the system recognizes it and a fair play report is generated. Get enough of those reports and you are put into a special pool with others who act the same. 

Thank you very much for your reply. I can't understand though how any system could tell the difference between someone stopping playing and just thinking. They'd not moved for maybe five minutes, maybe a bit more. In a 45 minute time control this seems reasonable. In fact their increment had accumulated so they had more than 50 minutes to play with. I'm concerned because I don't want to fall foul of the system when I'm just considering my position.

You are right its tough to distinguish between thinking and stalling. 

But there are some pretty clear cases, for example, someone "thinks" for 30 minutes when they only have a legal move which also happens to allow mate. 

People come here to play chess; not to watch their opponent stall so we are taking it pretty seriously at attempting to figure out the difference between thinking and stalling and prevent stalling. 

As well you should, though this case has left me apprehensive thinking I could fall foul. It was less than ten minutes without a move - I could see myself taking that at a critical juncture but now I'll find it hard to concentrate for fear of being cautioned. Could this case be looked into? It doesn't sound right.

You are being ridiculous. There are some situations where the side about to lose has no resources available to stop imminent mate. 

Think lone king on h1 against two queens on b2 and a3.

There is nothing to think about.

You want to defend the right of the lone king to let the last 20 minutes run out in a 30 minute game?

No, that would be a good example of how a computer could pick up a stall, thank you. In the game in question though my opponent had the upper hand and we were still in middle game.

I wouldn't worry about it in a complicated middlegame. If you use all your time and flag, no one can legitimately complain. I think it's pretty easy for a human to distinguish those situations from others where people are one move from being mated with no possible escape.

It would be an interesting programming challenge.

Normally it is easy to pick up or see a stall. When your opponent loses a piece or may be 2 (minor or major) or gets to a bad position and refuses to move for 10 minutes in a 30 minute game  it is a stall.

What official rules are you talking about? Chess.com is a business , just like FIDE, and Chess.com can make its own rules and run its business pretty much any way it wants to please itself or to please the greatest number of customers.  For example, you must abide by the restriction on free speech here.

If you insist on trying to win via annoying and abusing your opponents, you will be shut down. 

It should be correctly distinguished, I'm planning to join the slow chess league and  well I think for 1 whole hour and now I'm afraid I'll be reported for stalling.

You have taken more than an hour on one move in an over the board game? 

In an OTB tournament game, I had an opponent think for an hour and twelve minutes and then resign.

If he had done half as much thinking a few moves earlier, he might not have needed to resign.