Expulsion Etiquette

[druvey]

Hello all!

I am fairly new to this site and play most of my games as turned-based. I am just now running into situations where my opponent is not making moves in a timely manner and is exceeding the move clock. How do you, as the community, typically handle this? Do you give the person however much time they need, give them only a little bit of extra time (an extra day, etc), or do you expel them immediately and effect their time rating?

Personally, they’re not harming me by not moving. I believe the system will auto expel them after a set amount of time of inactivity, however the time ratings are there for a reason and are really only effective if violations of time are accurately reported. I feel conflicted between penalizing a person for not holding up their end of the game agreement and wanting to give the benefit of the doubt that the person will be back on.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Jest Phulin]

I believe the system will auto expel them after a set amount of time of inactivity

I don't believe this is the case. I've only seen it when someone specifically expels someone.

Now, as to when the decision is made to hit the expel link....

It depends on the game, and on the speed, and on how that player has been playing. If it's a 4 player game, 1 move per day, and everybody has been making regular moves (say, 40% or more into the game), I'm willing to let it go another day to see if they had something come up where they couldn't access their games. My ISP is notorious for just dropping service on a whim, so it could easily be that.

However, if it's a 2 player game, 1 move every 2 days, and they've only taken 2 or 3 moves, I have no qualms about kicking them the second the time expires. They agreed to play a game, then wasted my time by not playing it. I don't want someone else's time being wasted the same way, so I'll have my opponent's disconnect counter increase.

I haven't played any games with the 2 moves per day speed, so I can't really make good comments on that. My schedule changes daily, and I can't be sure I'm going to be online every 12 hours. But it isn't that difficult to check what the game speed is before joining a game; people should follow through on their commitments.

Realtime is a different matter. If a player is chatting, making moves, and has a chance of winning, I'll let a timeout go by. If they suddenly say in chat that someone's at the door, and they'll be back in 5 minutes, I'll wait 5 minutes.
If they don't seem to be playing that well, and are taking till the last second to make a move (apparently hoping to have someone else get fed up and leave first), I'll hover my mouse over the expel link. [Side note: Yes, I do allow players to take their full thinking time. There's a difference between being silent and taking up to the last second and chatting when it's not one's turn, using the "I'd like to think about this move a bit" link, and running close on one's time.]


So, long story short? (Yeah, too late, I know.) If the player seems to be actively engaged in the game, give them time (up to about 2x normal). If they aren't engaged, kick immediately and move on. Losing a chance to have ELO adjusted is not as bad as wondering when the next move will take place.

[druvey]

Fantastic insight and pretty much along the lines of how I've been handling this. I live in a very rural area and also have a fair amount of connection issues, which is why I limit my gaming mostly to turn-based unless I know I'm in a situation where I will have a steady on-going connection and also won't have to leave the computer every few minutes.

Thanks for the response! I don't feel so bad now about booting folks who are about 5 days past the expiration period.

[Liallan]

I play mostly turn-based. You could in some ways say I'm following the same sort of protocol. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I don't want it getting out of hand either.

The first time someone is over their turn time, I let it go and give it at least a couple of days. You never know what has happened. And I'm not too much concerned about being over turn time by a little bit. Even with 2 turns per day, cause people can't necessarily be on within exactly 12 hours - time zones, schedules, etc. Sometimes they take one turn quickly, and the other one slowly, which is probably a mis-match of schedules, so I never worry about that.

If someone shows a pattern of always being over turn time, particularly over by a lot... like at one turn per day, if they're always over by a day or so, yup I might boot them. (Maybe not if they do show up, and it's a game I have a hard time finding partners for.)

But I never, ever boot anyone because they're over a little bit, ever. I played a Can't Stop recently, I think 1 turn a day, and someone else booted someone. I knew they'd been there the day before and taken their turn, cause we all took one, so they could not have been over by more than a few hours. I thought it was ridiculous that someone booted them for that, especially since it was a first time.

I suspect people like me who have been playing turn-based for a long time are probably more likely to be a little lenient. Honestly, it also depends on the game - if I've invested a lot of time, and that person has been there on a regular basis, I might let it go for days. If they are regularly "a little" slow, I may never boot them, but make a note about it. The people who like real time, and especially fast real time, and maybe only do turn based here and there, might be more strict about it.

You mentioned 4-5 days. Under normal circumstances, I certainly think there's no issue expelling them. If they've been on time thus far and that happens out of the middle of nowhere, something maybe happened and I'd probably try to give them more time. But really, I have never had a game yet where someone went that long on a turn who did not eventually just disappear.

(Here's the other thing... I may not have this right, but I think the little clock symbol is for running over turn time, and the "left the game" symbol may be what they get if their total time runs out, like that's considered abandoning the game. I sometimes purposely let their total time run out for that reason - if they really abandoned the game, I'd rather it be recorded as such, and not just as "over time.")

I didn't mean for this to be that long. I'm not sure I really contributed much of anything extra.