Concept of "Vacation" Time Makes NO SENSE and Needs to be Addressed

I agree it is a badly implemented feature but it should be changed, not done away with altogether.

A 3-factor clock is the best solution though to most of the time issues.

I'd be very happy if my opponent in a match times out in about 8 hours, especially as that would actually be the game he is winning that he would time out. He's been deliberately stalling the one he's losing. A 3-factor clock would not allow you to deliberately stall any game.

Yesterday I joined the Rapid 30|0 for one game, then withdrew when two players were deliberately running down their clock in other games.  30|0 is of course a bad time control, put more in the increment and it won't happen, but still, yet again a 3-factor clock would be the solution.

 

He said, pointlessly.

"Rules are made to be broken" too. I think those here that care would rather someone whose opinion matters chime in. Someone like a chess.com admin for instance.

The point isn't to go back and forth, some advocating for the sacred Rules, others saying Rule X is dumb. The point is there must be some middle ground here.

For instance, when going on vacation, adding some dialog in the UI that says "Are you sure you want to use Vacation time? The tournament director will be notified. YES/NO"

There could probably be some changes made to improve it, but I wouldn't say the concept itself makes no sense.  Like a member said on page one, some people's version of a vacation is to go camping somewhere with no wifi or cell reception (for example, many American National Parks have campsites with no internet connection for miles).  Others might use vacation time if they're undergoing a medical procedure that'll hinder their ability to play well or play at all, like recovering from surgery.  Younger members might use it if they're going to be at some kind of summer camp where they're not given reliable computer access.  

 

My overarching point here is, vacation time is a little bit of a misnomer; the name may call to mind images of someone lounging on a beach with internet connection and tons of time to spare, but it's really there for a wide variety of purposes.  Ultimately, it's there as a recognition that sometimes "life happens", and when it does, it shouldn't result in someone losing all their games.  But, at the same time, it's up for debate how much time should be given to people for "life happening" and how exactly that should be implemented.  But, generally speaking, I have a lot of empathy for people who use vacation time for a variety of purposes; the concept of vacation time makes a lot of sense to me, it's the implementation that is more difficult to pin down.

Yes, yes, there's no end to the list of genuine reasons to use vacation time, and so some version of it should stay implemented, whether or not we can ever know why people use it. I agree it shouldn't be removed altogether, but everyone knows it hasn't been polished.

I mean when I go on holiday, often

- I'm busy for most of the time. Unless you like beach holidays (I don't) or resort holidays often one is doing something, e.g a city holiday
- pretty sure it also helps people on business trips.
-when I'm away often I don't want to play chess. I sometimes have a no gadget policy on myself during holidays.
-the big one-
Going to another country, or maybe to the countryside or simply doing a lot of travelling so you don't have wifi or 4g access.

As well,
-it also helps people in hospital, sports trips, etc.
-retreats to things like monasteries (not my cup of tea but for some members may be a thing) or to yoga retreats may force people to not have phones.

The only childish one here seems to be yourself, OP.

Anyway personally I see the only real change I would make would be

-limiting premium's auto-vacation so it can't be used in a ridiculously long stretch. Maybe something like 30 days.

And

-adding no-vacation single daily games, although seeing I'd imagine few people would actually use them, the pool would be pretty small and game matching would take maybe weeks and could pair up people with different ratings simply as there aren't enough people playing it.

Then people will start complaining they time out on these games when they physically can't get to a gadget to make the move.

So much hogwash.

Those on "vacation" in daily games can be seen busy playing live games.

You mean "a few of those" on daily vacation.

I mean I've played around 170 daily games and have had people use vacation about ten times, once was so they could stall. It's petty. Chess.com can't really do much about it.

And guess what? I didn't care. I won the game a month late. I'm not petty enough to let some impatient idiot annoy me.

Are you?

I guess I am "petty' enough by your criterion.

But, that said, this debate has been held a zillion times, and all sensible arguments, including noting the very vexing fact of vacationers spending weeks on live everyday will not be listened to.

One way might be to do what the abusers are doing. If enough folk did it, maybe sufficient howls from members held up for years in becalmed Tournaments might convince the management. 

In an earlier thread on this topic a tear or more ago, there were some who cynically admitted they deliberately wrought the system. 

 

The only silly thing is how much a user is allowed to accumulate.

I think max for a paying user is 90 days (WTF)

 

I understand sometimes life gets in the way, and the vacation feature is a very nice one... but unless I'm having f***ing open heart surgery in a foreign country, in the mountains, 100 miles away from the internet, I'm pretty sure I wont ever need 90 f***ing vacation days.

We don't want you to have open heart surgery in a foreign country, in the mountains, 100 miles from the internet. Those are not ideal conditions. Especially for a horse.

When that happens, chess.com is here to help with "vacation" time.

I'm a revision to one or two of my earlier comments, yeah. Vacation should mean you can not make a move or play a game during that time. At all.

The vacation option needs to be eliminated. My opponent has no move so he hits vacation yet the green light comes on that he’s there. He has no good move so that’s his move. I think if someone agrees to move in one day they need to just plan for that.

My son has an opponent in the same position, this is really annoying.

Please eliminate the vacation button!

I agree that if you are on vacation you should not be allowed to come onto the site at all.

Not to play live, watch live chess, post on boards etc. Nothing.

You use vacation when and only when you will have access to chess.com.

 

I agree that there's a high potential for abuse of the vacation feature, but I don't think it should be eliminated altogether. I've found myself on one or two occasions needing to take advantage of this feature, when financial difficulties prevented me from paying my phone bill and my service was interrupted until I was able to pay. On each occasion, I advised my opponents of the situation, apologized for the delay, and activated my vacation time just before my service was cut off. None of my opponents seemed to mind, and I returned at the earliest possible opportunity. So there are some valid reasons for using vacation time. I've also had opponents delay games unnecessarily when they were clearly lost, an obvious abuse. I don't know what could be done to improve the vacation system; I just hope it won't be eliminated completely.

It won't be eliminated completely.