How to fix the bad "fair play" policies.

ThebeJohnston: I honestly don't see how you don't get the difference. My suggestions here were an attempt to be helpful, while my "tool" slur against you was based on your apparent desire to be hateful.

That's a significant core difference. 

You're trying to belittle me, I can comprehend what you're trying to say, the difference is I do not care.
Like the staff don't to this issue,
like most people who have commented don't
like everyone who has viewed this thread and ignored it like the other 5 made today and yesterday and day before last.
No-one cares, stop flatting yourself, it is embarrassing.
You're not helping anyone. 

If Erik can't trust people with a "report abuse" button, why would he trust them to monitor games?
They've got staff to do that, but on the most point they cant keep up with it.
And this would make it 100x harder, and they're mainly focusing on V3, face facts instead of living in your fantasy world where everything you want will get implimented, ignorance. 

ThebeJohnston: if you actually want to discuss the idea, that's fine.

However, your argument earlier was that chess.com won't do anything about it anyway, so why make the suggestion? That's obviously a red herring.

Disgruntled_Sheep wrote that chess.com doesn't appear to get involved in these threads, and I have already agreed with that. Well, honestly, with all the vitriol flying in this thread, I don't wonder why.

Now, you are arguing that the feature I'm suggesting would be abused. I'm already having that discussion here (in a much more civil manner) with wanmokewan. If you'll read it, you'll see the suggestion I made is chess.com-initiated, and thus not open to abuse in the way a "report abuse" button you are comparing it to is.

I'll respond to topical issues you raise. However, if you want to keep being hateful, go ahead, but I'm done responding to your "argument for the sake of argument" comments.

There have been occasions when I've had to abort games and I feel a little shame in having to do so.When players abort during a game I feel a little annoyed but that is all.

I play mainly 5 min games and I am not very good. I'm interested to know whether the length of game is directly proportional to the level of annoyance when someone 'disconnects' or refuses to move. I know I would be far more annoyed if I had just invested 20 minutes rather than say, 8.

I always keep a rifle by my side when playing online. From where I sit I can see some abandoned farm buildings. Regardless of the reason for a pause in play I always step onto the deck and blaze away - I find it very relaxing!

LongIslandMark: It would take some investigation, but I think there's a good probability that members would enjoy reviewing abandoned games. Usually they'd represent humorous or clever end-game positions. Plus, there's the additional pleasure many (myself included) would get from helping to clean up the abusive members.

I got lost in this thread.  >.>

Of greater annoyance to me is the lag and the way it affects the clocks - but that's for another forum and is more related to a nations infrastructure - we're just getting fibre broad-band here so hopefully that will improve things.

There is a school of thought that a site could self-police, but it never works.It always descends into an online he-said/she-said brawl.

Anyway, I've gotto go. Following this with interest, thanks guys

1. Disconnection.  I get the notice all the time that a player is in violation and may hav their account restricted.  What is the restriction?  After three I suggest a restriction of 30 minutes and then increasing time restrictions after every three violations up to 1 year.

2.  Running the clock out.  Nothing to be done about this.  Compare this to OTB tournament games.  Once a player makes the first move they have all the time within the remaining time to make a move.  If they get in their car and drive away, they may be kicked out of the tournament, but the game is not forfeit until the clock runs out.

Computer analysis in -3 won't work.  I've won and lost games with greater material differences.

Poking your opponent every minute.  That would be annoying and akin to a player in a tournament hall reminding the other player that it is their move every minute.  I would actually complain to a TD if that happened in real life.

If someone doesn't like waiting for the other player's moves play blitz or bullet.  If they are running out the clock you will get the points in the end anyway unless they are a sandbagger waiting for the last five minutes to crush you. 

Obviously no moves should be forced. (The rules of chess should be respected by chess.com)

Also game analysis is a resource expensive process. I don't think we should expect that to be integrated, even asynchroniously, any time soon. I can imagine a system where you could submit 3 games a day for such review.

I'd just like to point out that only one person in this thread has commented that (paraphrasing) "the OP topic, abandoned games, really doesn't matter to anyone, as everyone else here has said."

However, the opposite is true. Everyone else actually said the issue is very annoying, at least. Many people have also followed that up with (summarizing) "but unfortunately chess.com probably doesn't care or won't do anything about it anyway."

Except, we already have evidence otherwise. We can see by current and previous features (e.g. "fair-play" and "report abuse") that chess.com believes this is a problem and is looking for solutions.

SixRavens: I also agree the web/mobile client response to network issues (e.g. lag) is another major annoyance in Live Chess. However, I disagree that nothing can be improved regarding this in the chess.com service/application.

While chess.com obviously can't do anything about the physical network link, there are probably improvements to the communication code that could be made to allow better network recovery. But I don't even think that's the most important piece.

I think the poor UI visibility to the status and effect of a bad connection makes network issues much more frustrating than they need to be. For example, why does the UI wait until I attempt to make a move to tell me the connection is dropped... and then cancel my move when I've resolved the network issue? Why obscure the board when this happens? Why does my opponent's clock deceptively begin counting down if the server hasn't even acknowledged receipt of my move yet - a clock should never have time *added* back to it. etc, etc

I mentioned the same in another thread yesterday: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/premium_members/live-chess-web-defectssuggestions

Just gonna add a little stone to the "Disconnections" issue.

I don't play well, and lose most of my games.

I've got a crappy connexion, and quite often I just can't get back on the server.

So it does happen that I disconnect while losing, unintentionnally. And I don't want to be penalized for it. Can"t afford better connection for now, and I claim my right to play chess just as anyone else.

When my opponent disconnects while losing, well I just wait till server says it's over. And I always find somthing to do meanwhile (it's a computer, right ? Connected to the internet. A whole virtual world at my disposal, I can't possibly get bored in a few minutes, can you).

I just don"t see why you make suche a big deal out of it. Could you explain it to me ?

Oooooh no way, International Chess Clus uses an adjudication method and it's a nightmare.

Two-thirds of the time you're winning, your opponent will disconnect and you have to wait around for days for the result of your game, by which time you have forgotten about it.  Plus adjudication is subjective.

Largely why I stopped using them.

I think the way Chess.com deals with this particular issue is the best available.  You are given a time interval to re-connect in case it is a genuine connection problem.  I would suggest that those who genuinely cannot re-connect during this time are relatively few and it would be ridiculous to impose a cumbersome, frustrating and subjective adjuducation system just because of that.  The current system does mean that you will occassionally lose unfairly and occassionally win unfairly.  C'est la vie.  Your rating will soon correct back to what it should be within 2 or 3 games.

With regard to those who deliberately leave their opponent hanging there, I would just let them.  It's no biggie to occassionally have to sit there for 5 or 10 minutes checking the board from time to time.

All your opponent is achieving in doing that is sacrificing any chance to pull the game back

Trust me, you are probably the only one.

If I see a disconnect from an opponent with a third world 'red bar' network connectivity then yeah, I'll give them the benifit of the doubt.

If the opponent is full 'green bar' from countries with reliable internet than I call BS on the dropped network.

Disconnects aren't so bad as the server forfeits the game after two minutes.  The bad ones are the opponents that during long games run the clock out for 15 minutes or more.

Although I agree a single 15 minute delay is much more frustrating than a single 2-minute delay, I usually set aside the same amount of time to play each day regardless of the game type. When 30% of my opponents of any game time decide to be petty, the overall result is similar wasted time and frustration.

Additionally, it's more annoying to try to splice-in reading the news, doing the dishes, or whatever, in 2-minute increments.

To the question of "why don't I just surf to pass the time", I play chess as a challenging activity, an exercise. Frankly, I'd rather not end up forced by someone I don't know to waste my time in an activity I wasn't seeking.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/new-ios-update-sucks

Never happened to me - first I should be able to achieve a winning position, I suppose...

Thanks for deciding that for us kaynight.