"Abandonment" is broken, in both directions

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Avatar of DerpBiggly
The abandonment feature here is an over-thought mess that both deals with the issue too harshly, and fails to adequately protect against abuse. Just tonight, I lost "by abandonment" on Move 2, with the app WIDE OPEN and active, and the message showing "auto-abort in [time]." Why on earth would Chess.com display that message, and then abruptly rule the game abandoned with a ratings adjustment as if it's a legitimate game? That said, I've seen a fair number of occasions (I've been on the app less than a month) where games are abandoned in my favor VERY early. Are all of these people intending to abandon? Sometimes, I even notice the same "auto-abort" timer, but the game mysteriously gets abandoned. I'm not sure if the game is trying to detect whether someone has closed the app, minimized it to do something else, etc. I often see players have that timer pop up, but then they reappear. For what it's worth, I understand that rage-quitting wastes other players' time, and should be addressed. Half my wins seem to be by abandonment in lieu of resignation, and that's rude. But it shouldn't be baked into the adjudication itself unless it's a slam dunk that someone has quit. Abandonment penalties should be more on the user level (warnings and suspensions) than determine match outcomes. Putting up with a player wasting a little more of your time is part of the game, sadly. If we have to deal with players trying to "dirty flag" with unpredictable pre-moves and no intent to win the position, then we have to put up with a jerk wasting a few minutes. Sanction them (severely) after the fast. That's how ICC used to handle it. Heck, they would allow you to disconnect and then mark it as an adjournment! (WAY more inconvenient for the non-disconnecting party.) The sheer number of threads about this issue, with lots of players losing games they were winning (or should've just been aborted) underscores how this solution is just causing additional problems. I'm not suggesting giving disconnecting players the right to a free adjournment, but if there's time on the clock, the threshold for a player forfeiting by abandonment needs to be very high. And it NEVER should happen when the system is giving contradictory guidance (., "auto-abort in..."). Sorry for the long-winded rant.
Avatar of DerpBiggly

Unsure why this blurted out as one big paragraph (I didn't type it that way), or how it's truncated. What's with the formatting here?

Avatar of DerpBiggly

....aaaaand I just had a game where I clicked abort on Move 1, less than 5 seconds in (I had been assigned black way too often)...and it came up as a resignation? WTF, my friends. These ratings are meaningless.

Avatar of MrChatty
DerpBiggly wrote:

I just had a game where I clicked abort on Move 1, less than 5 seconds in (I had been assigned black way too often)...and it came up as a resignation?

How many games had you aborted before this one?

Avatar of DerpBiggly

I believe I aborted one -- out of hundreds I've played since joining about a month ago. Mayyyybe 2. But I believe it's 1.