Repeated request for draw when losing!

[SleeperService]

I just played a game of Hive with a beginner (*). I was well in the lead with only one move to win. The opponent asked for a draw which I rejected. He kept repeatedly doing so such that I couldn't make the final move. We went through a few dozen cycles of this but my clock was slowly ticking down to the point where I had to accept the draw. He concluded the Chat with "Hahahahah".

Because he was a "beginner" I can't red thumb him for other than "my personal opinion". There appears to be no direct way to report this although I did leave a "report" in the bug section.

This sure seems like something to be addressed even though it may never have been done before. My suggestion would be a lock on offering a draw until after the next turn at least.


*moderator edit: please do not use the Forums to call out players by name, this is a place for general discussions.

[RobertBr]

You shouldn't call out particular games. There was a player doing this a few years ago. I think at the time a couple of people suggested that offering draws should be more limited. Probably more usefully raised on the Hive forum.

[SleeperService]

Not sure why this would be more useful on the Hive forum, it seems a potential problem endemic to two player games in general. I'm suspecting this is not useful on this forum either but there appears to be no other recourse on this site.

[euklid314]

I think you can report the player even if he is a beginner. Not by giving a public red thumb but by going to their profile and choosing "Report this player".

Perhaps his behavior is best described by "Using a known bug" - which is not reportable, though.
But since he ridiculed you in chat his behavior might well be "Offending/insulting a player" - which is reportable (hopefully also if a beginner is involved). Offering 80+ draws in a row and then mocking a player in chat might well lead to a karma penalty.

[Meeplelowda]

I just played a game of Hive with a beginner (*). I was well in the lead with only one move to win. The opponent asked for a draw which I rejected. He kept repeatedly doing so such that I couldn't make the final move. We went through a few dozen cycles of this but my clock was slowly ticking down to the point where I had to accept the draw. He concluded the Chat with "Hahahahah".

Because he was a "beginner" I can't red thumb him for other than "my personal opinion". There appears to be no direct way to report this although I did leave a "report" in the bug section.

This sure seems like something to be addressed even though it may never have been done before. My suggestion would be a lock on offering a draw until after the next turn at least.


*moderator edit: please do not use the Forums to call out players by name, this is a place for general discussions.

Thanks for the heads up. Based on the timestamp, game, and history of that person, it was easy to figure out who it is even though the name has been edited out by the mod. Now I personally will never encounter them (except possibly in a tournament). I'm sorry you had the misfortune of running into this person first.

I definitely agree with reporting this under "exploiting a known bug" because the taunt at the end indicates they clearly knew what effect repeated draw offers was having. The taunt by itself may not get acted on, but if the draw offers appear in the game replay log so mods can see them, then maybe that combination of events will lead to something being done.

[ufm]

This is definitely an exploitation of a known bug. The draw offer should be limited at most once per turn.

[euklid314]

I definitely agree with reporting this under "exploiting a known bug" because the taunt at the end indicates they clearly knew what effect repeated draw offers was having. The taunt by itself may not get acted on, but if the draw offers appear in the game replay log so mods can see them, then maybe that combination of events will lead to something being done.

If one chooses "Exploiting a known bug" one is told that one should report the bug but not the player - which is understandable from BGA's perspective, generally. It is therefore not possible to report a player who exploites a known bug - since it is not the player's fault that the bug exists.

It is the taunting and the mocking in chat that is reportable and punishable.

[Meeplelowda]

I definitely agree with reporting this under "exploiting a known bug" because the taunt at the end indicates they clearly knew what effect repeated draw offers was having. The taunt by itself may not get acted on, but if the draw offers appear in the game replay log so mods can see them, then maybe that combination of events will lead to something being done.

It is the taunting and the mocking in chat that is reportable and punishable.

The problem is the taunt by itself out of context may not be enough. It's not like they said "haha, I exploited that bug sucker." But if exploiting the bug by itself isn't enough because they won't let you report just for that, then there are ways to report miscellaneous activities that don't fall under the default choices, and exploiting a bug then taunting about the successful exploit seems like a reasonable use case.

[euklid314]

If you try to report "miscellaneous activities" - there is even a separate choice for that and it comes at the very bottom of the list - you are told that if it is "none of the above" it is probably not reportable and you shall give a red thumb.

As I said, it is possible and here probably adequate to report abusive chat behavior. If you give the game number you see the chat of this game and you are asked to choose which lines of the chat were abusive. One can then explain why the chat was abusive so one can explain the context.

In my opinion this would be the only possible way to ask for moderation - other than choosing to give a red thumb and forgetting the incident.

[SleeperService]

Thanks all for the replies and suggestions. I'm not interested in taking the time to pursue any more arcane paths to penalizing this player, I'd rather be playing myself. But it does seem in the interest of BGA to address this loophole as unused as it may be. Even though I understand the desire for limiting user input with thousands of users, it's sad that it's nigh impossible to effectively communicate this issue. The "bug reporting" paradigm appears to be one of garnering "votes" when dozens of "issues" seem to swamp the list each day. So I guess it's just caveat emptor.