Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[Archisian]

I’ll preface this with a caveat that I will be making subjective statements.

A good way to analyze behavioral expectations and intent is to examine what is typically done, what is typically expected, what the perceptions and effects of these actions are, and the reasons given for such actions.

Chess:

It is well-understood and agreed upon and accepted that conceding in the face of imminent checkmate (or perhaps insurmountable material disadvantage) is:
1) Polite and gracious
2) An acknowledgement of a game well played by the opponent
3) Commonplace in most or nearly all situations in which a concession is applicable.

There is no significant loss of information when a concession is made. Someone mentioned that BGA does keep stats for chess, but the stats mentioned are not any I have ever seen or heard referenced in many years of playing and studying chess. There is no loss of end-game scoring information, because chess does not have point-scoring from a variety of sources. There are no cards. There is no scenario in which someone would be wondering whether a specific play or sequence of plays generated the expected number of points.

That being said, if a player conceded, and the winning player doesn’t see the imminent checkmate, would it be unreasonable to ask, “can we play this out? I don’t see what you’re seeing, and I would appreciate the practice finishing a mate sequence”. Or, “I realize I am way ahead in material, but I struggle at end-game sometimes by creating a stalemate situation. Can we play on so I can gain additional experience and practice?”

Obviously, the opponent could refuse and just say, “No. I cannot win, and I have no desire to waste any more time.” I can’t foresee that happening in a “real-life” setting, and if it did, those two players might not be playing any more games together in the future.



Other games, especially thematic strategy games involving cards and multiple scoring categories:

Simply based on how often one decision occurs versus the other, it seems by convention and societal agreement (not universal agreement, but a significant majority) that conceding right at the end is not appropriate, and is not perceived as gracious and congratulatory the way it is in chess. The very fact that few people do this, combined with the high number of people expressing legitimate reasons for wishing the end-game position and scoring and statistics to be shown, indicates that such a behavior is, at minimum, questionable, and can easily be perceived as lacking in sportsmanship or consideration for others.

It is not unreasonable for someone who has spent significant time and energy playing a game to wish to see the final situation, score, and statistics when the game is just about over anyway. Lengthy explanations have been given for the various valuable information that is lost when the game is conceded right at the end rather than finished naturally.

In a “real-life” game, refusing to finish a game at the end-stage would not be well-received, and would undoubtedly come across as poor sportsmanship. Doing this online negates some of the great benefits of a site like BGA that automates the scoring, offers statistics, and displays the end-game state in a manner that allows any players (including those not in the game but viewing the replay) to gain useful information.

BGA in general seems to encourage playing games to completion, and sems to encourage study and review of games (hence the open profiles and open access to the played games of any player). BGA is unique among any gaming sites I have utilized in this regard. The options to review and study and learn, and view valuable statistics, is not a combination I have encountered elsewhere.

If everyone conceded at the end, all this valuable information would be lost, and for what?

The two most common reasons given have been:
1) “One minute of my time is more important than [any number of perceived benefits to finishing the game].”
2) “I don’t want to see how badly I got beaten by, and I think it is ego-stroking by my opponent to wish to see that same information.”

Except: It is not ego-stroking. The reasons for wishing to see this information are numerous and have been stated numerous times. And, the losing player can still complete the game and “not see how badly I lost by” by simply closing the screen once it starts to roll the end-game credits, so to speak.

The time argument in number 1 is questionable. Are people really truly in a situation in which they desperately need those one or two minutes for something else? And conveniently enough, it only happens when they are about to lose a game, and not when they are about to win a game? And, they needed exactly that one or two minutes – not 5 or 10 minutes, in which case they could have conceded earlier and saved everyone more time if the end result was going to be a conceded game anyway with no end-game position or stats or soring? That’s really straining credibility.

And what sort of society would we have if everyone adopted the approach of “One minute of my time is more important than [anything or anyone else]”? We don’t need to wonder, because we have all seen it. This attitude and behavior leads to arguments, fights, ill-feelings, and a general dysfunction of society.

I disagree that there is no significant loss of information, as you stated by the other player not seeing the imminent checkmate or other moves to achieve checkmate quicker. That could only be done by playing the whole game out. You could have missed an entire strategy to get you to win, or for the loser to draw. Based on your previous statements, not playing the whole game out in chess is leading the players to miss out on better strategies for either the winner or loser.

It seems to me that you do accept conceding in some games but not in others. Would you be fine with specific games being allowed a concede button and not others? If so, where is the line that makes conceding acceptable or not acceptable? I think that would take a lot of time for BGA to look through every specific game and determine whether it is worthy of the concede button or not. If that's a worthy effort, I'm all for it. But if not and people just want a universal rule, I'm still not convinced.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask someone in chess to keep playing the game. But forcing someone to keep playing just because you want to, I think is unjustified. It's an ask, not a coercion.

In "real life" games, the most we can do is find a person who doesn't finish a game to be uncouth and that's it. You just don't play with that person anymore. We don't tell people, "You decided to play the game. Now, you're gonna sit here and play until it's totally over, whether you barely win or lose big, no matter how long it takes." I could be in the minority though and people do that primarily.

To your last points, while I agree those two reasons aren't good, I do have a couple of issues:

1. How don't you know it isn't ego-stroking? If one can extrapolate ill intent from someone conceding on the last turn, how can't do we do that when someone wants the game to go to it's natural end to see the final stat sheet?

2. Those people could be in a situation where they needed to leave the game quickly to do something else. I've had games where the person winning a game against me just conceded and gave no reason. I don't know why they did. But I'm not going to scrutinize it and conclude that they were intending to harm or spite me.

[BarnardsStar]

Would you be fine with specific games being allowed a concede button and not others? If so, where is the line that makes conceding acceptable or not acceptable? I think that would take a lot of time for BGA to look through every specific game and determine whether it is worthy of the concede button or not. If that's a worthy effort, I'm all for it. But if not and people just want a universal rule, I'm still not convinced.

I have been on the verge now, several times, of posting that this whole argument has me gradually convinced that they concede feature should just be removed entirely. If saving a minute or two is that important to you, pay the price and use the “leave“ feature.

However, this seems to me like an entirely reasonable compromise. Except, of course, it would not be BGA staff combing through all 1100+ games to decide which one should have concede and which one shouldn’t. Each game, after all, has its own “owners“ (developers, etc.), who could easily make this decision for their game. In real life gaming, conceding does not seem to be a widespread incurrence. Certain games are notable exceptions (such as chess, and backgammon, if you use the doubling cube), but in general, I almost never see conceding in actual real life gaming. So I would be inclined to say conceding should be disabled, unless the developers specifically enable it.

Or maybe it could be one of the controls you select when creating a table… Like the table speed, the reputation of other players you want to play with, the level of other players you want to play with, whether or not you want to play with players who concede. Let the table creators decide. (And I say this knowing full well I am far from the first person to suggest this sort of thing. I’m sure there are suggestions over in the “bugs“ section of the site, and I know I’ve seen that suggestion posted here in the forms before. And I’m sure it will never happen.)

[FrankJones]

Getting rid of the "concede" option sounds good to me.

Someone wants to leave the game early? Cannot be bothered to finish? Then take the penalty. If that minute or two is so crucial, then a small penalty won't matter. What we would likely discover is that somewhere between 0% and 1% of these situations are actual emergencies that preclude the player from finishing the game.

Let's compare two scenarios:

1) A player has an internet failure, and is not able to return in time. (It takes 3 minutes for my internet device to cycle. I have my phone ready as backup, but some people only have one device and no backup device and occasionally connectivity fails.) That player, despite having full intention of completing the game, gets a Karma penalty AND an additional Elo penalty besides the standard Elo loss.

2) In a different game, a player who has no internet issue, simply decides "I don't feel like playing this game anymore, and clocks "concede". The result is exactly the same: The game is neutralized with a 1-0 result, no statistics, no scoring shown. And yet this player, who did this intentionally, is not penalized at all.

How does that make any sense?

[FrankJones]

And that's fine. If you find the stats useful, there's no problem with that. But if someone else doesn't value the stats as you do, then why must they be forced to continue the game for the sake the of the one that does value it? What good reason does the one who doesn't value the stats have in this situation, outside of it being considered good manners?

They should be "forced" to continue because that's the agreement at the start of the game. To play the game to completion.
And, you just answered the "why" with your final sentence. Because it's good manners and good sportsmanship.

Again, it seems to be a difference of values, which there is nothing wrong with that.

Consideration, respect, sportsmanship, and manners re good values. Society itself is a collection of individuals that function best when people generally adhere to social contracts of respectful and considerate behavior rather than applying a worldview of "What do I care about anyone else if it costs me one minute of my time?"

The issue is that some people want to disable the concede button entirely, forcing people to keep playing a game they don't want to continue playing. I don't see how this difference of values is a good reason to make such a drastic action.

It's not drastic, and no one would be "forced" to complete the game. Quitting is always an option. But the "concede" button allows people to quit without penalty, whereas someone who has an actual emergency and has to immediately leave the computer to deal with it, incurs two separate penalties.

If finishing a game is so burdensome, any player can simply quit and incur the penalty. (In multiplayer games, this is the only way to leave a game, as there is no "concede" in multiplayer games).

I don't know about FrankJones' particular game, but if the player actually said that to them, then I won't dispute it because there isn't a chat log for me to check. But, correct me if I'm wrong, just leaving the game does have a karma penalty, right? Like -10 or -20 karma? That could have a potential impact on that player joining in future games.

If a player has literally zero moves left to make, that person can just "leave" the physical vicinity of the computer, grab a beverage, use the restroom, etc, and there will be no penalty, because no further action is required by that player. (I've stated this multiple times.)

That's a different topic, but that's one mechanism for deterring people from just leaving games. There is also the red thumb system. I'm sure Mr. Jones red thumbed this individual, impacting their karma and flagging their account.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information here, but none of that is true. Red Thumbs have no effect on Karma. I'm not sure what you mean by "flagging their account".

Regardless, even if it was in total spite to Mr. Jones, I still don't believe that's a good reason to make a universal rule that applies to everyone.

There are dozens of rules on this site that apply to everyone. I'm not sure why this would be an issue.

Unless the player states that it was their intent or other evidence, nobody actually knows what the intent was. Intent isn't proved by what someone thinks it might have been. You need actual evidence to demonstrate that person's intent. Saying "I can't see how..." isn't a valid argument to make. It's an argument from incredulity.

People in this thread (and various other similar threads) have literally said, "If I'm losing, why should I waste one minute of my life just because the opponent thinks it's good manners or good sportsmanship or wants to see the statistics?" I am not assuming anything, I am responding to people's literal explanations for justifying conceding right at the end of the game.

Similarly, in your other post in which you asked "how do you know it's not ego-stroking?" :
By reading exactly what people are writing. I, nik592, and various others, have explained in lengthy and arduous detail the various reasons we prefer the game to be completed. If we were concerned about "ego-stroking", don't you think we would be conceding our own games when losing, to spare ourselves the ego hurt of seeing the losing situation and stats and game state displayed? But, we don't do that, because this debate is not about ego-stroking.

Again - and I feel as though I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'll do it because I keep getting asked the same repeat questions:
If someone says, as several in this thread and other similar threads have said, "I don't feel like spending one minute to see what I already know, which is that I lost" - that's pretty much the definition of spite and poor sportsmanship. Essentially it amounts to, "I lost, I'm annoyed about it, so I'm going to mess up the end-game state and score and statistics, regardless of any reasons the opponent might have for wishing to see them, and regardless of what is considered polite and customary action."

It's the "real life" equivalent of shoving all the game components into a messy pile, grabbing the scorepad and crumpling it up and throwing it in the garbage, and announcing, "I lost, so I'm going to prevent anyone from seeing this game to its natural conclusion. And, oh yeah, I want to start a new game immediately; I cannot be bothered to wait another few minutes for the end-game tasks to be done for this game."

Anyone can justify rude, inconsiderate, or poor-mannered behavior by saying, "I'm in a rush", "I'm in hurry", "my time is precious to me," "I'm late", etc.

I see it on a daily basis, and it's selfish, and it does not lead to a well-functioning society.

[Archisian]

Would you be fine with specific games being allowed a concede button and not others? If so, where is the line that makes conceding acceptable or not acceptable? I think that would take a lot of time for BGA to look through every specific game and determine whether it is worthy of the concede button or not. If that's a worthy effort, I'm all for it. But if not and people just want a universal rule, I'm still not convinced.

I have been on the verge now, several times, of posting that this whole argument has me gradually convinced that they concede feature should just be removed entirely. If saving a minute or two is that important to you, pay the price and use the “leave“ feature.

However, this seems to me like an entirely reasonable compromise. Except, of course, it would not be BGA staff combing through all 1100+ games to decide which one should have concede and which one shouldn’t. Each game, after all, has its own “owners“ (developers, etc.), who could easily make this decision for their game. In real life gaming, conceding does not seem to be a widespread incurrence. Certain games are notable exceptions (such as chess, and backgammon, if you use the doubling cube), but in general, I almost never see conceding in actual real life gaming. So I would be inclined to say conceding should be disabled, unless the developers specifically enable it.

Or maybe it could be one of the controls you select when creating a table… Like the table speed, the reputation of other players you want to play with, the level of other players you want to play with, whether or not you want to play with players who concede. Let the table creators decide. (And I say this knowing full well I am far from the first person to suggest this sort of thing. I’m sure there are suggestions over in the “bugs“ section of the site, and I know I’ve seen that suggestion posted here in the forms before. And I’m sure it will never happen.)

As long as there isn't a site-wide implementation, I can be accepting of that. If the game turns out to be too much of a burden to me due to their disabling of the concession feature, I just simply won't play the game. However, I think the decision for those games should come from feedback and discussion amongst those who play that game, not just by decree.

[Archisian]

They should be "forced" to continue because that's the agreement at the start of the game. To play the game to completion.
And, you just answered the "why" with your final sentence. Because it's good manners and good sportsmanship.

When you started your game, was there an explicit agreement to play until it's natural end? Because playing the game "to completion" is a broad term. Conceding is a completion of a game, though I'm sure you meant the game's natural end.

Consideration, respect, sportsmanship, and manners re good values. Society itself is a collection of individuals that function best when people generally adhere to social contracts of respectful and considerate behavior rather than applying a worldview of "What do I care about anyone else if it costs me one minute of my time?"

All of these values aren't universal. Definitions of what those terms mean vary among communities, societies, cultures, etc. Why are your definitions of these terms the best ones as compared to others and why should we accept them?

It's not drastic, and no one would be "forced" to complete the game. Quitting is always an option. But the "concede" button allows people to quit without penalty, whereas someone who has an actual emergency and has to immediately leave the computer to deal with it, incurs two separate penalties.

If finishing a game is so burdensome, any player can simply quit and incur the penalty. (In multiplayer games, this is the only way to leave a game, as there is no "concede" in multiplayer games).

If one has a certain amount of what is considered "low karma", does this site not restrict certain things that they can do?

If a player has literally zero moves left to make, that person can just "leave" the physical vicinity of the computer, grab a beverage, use the restroom, etc, and there will be no penalty, because no further action is required by that player. (I've stated this multiple times.)

I apologize, I'm just confused on what exactly happened in this situation. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly. Was this the last turn for both players (you and your opponent), your opponent had no legal moves to make, and all they need to do was click the end turn button and then they leave? Because I'm not sure what you mean by them physically leaving and there was no penalty (i.e. kicked for going over time).

I'm not sure where you're getting your information here, but none of that is true. Red Thumbs have no effect on Karma. I'm not sure what you mean by "flagging their account".

Really? I had read somewhere that red thumbs had some effect on karma and that they show to other people who view your profile that they should avoid you. I, again, might have misunderstood what the person meant or maybe the site has a system like that before and they changed.

There are dozens of rules on this site that apply to everyone. I'm not sure why this would be an issue.

Because I find this rule to be coercive. Play all the way through or be penalized. These penalties can have effect on your ability to do certain things on this site. Only in something like tournaments do I see that being required since there are some stakes involved. But on just some random online casual match with no stakes at play, I find it to be an unjustified coercion.

People in this thread (and various other similar threads) have literally said, "If I'm losing, why should I waste one minute of my life just because the opponent thinks it's good manners or good sportsmanship or wants to see the statistics?" I am not assuming anything, I am responding to people's literal explanations for justifying conceding right at the end of the game.

Then in those situations, they stated their intention. You would be right to condemn them.

Similarly, in your other post in which you asked "how do you know it's not ego-stroking?" :
By reading exactly what people are writing. I, nik592, and various others, have explained in lengthy and arduous detail the various reasons we prefer the game to be completed. If we were concerned about "ego-stroking", don't you think we would be conceding our own games when losing, to spare ourselves the ego hurt of seeing the losing situation and stats and game state displayed? But, we don't do that, because this debate is not about ego-stroking.

I trust you when you say that you wouldn't do that. But that doesn't go for everyone. I'm not a mind-reader so I don't know what others are actually thinking or intending.

Again - and I feel as though I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'll do it because I keep getting asked the same repeat questions:
If someone says, as several in this thread and other similar threads have said, "I don't feel like spending one minute to see what I already know, which is that I lost" - that's pretty much the definition of spite and poor sportsmanship. Essentially it amounts to, "I lost, I'm annoyed about it, so I'm going to mess up the end-game state and score and statistics, regardless of any reasons the opponent might have for wishing to see them, and regardless of what is considered polite and customary action."

I don't see the jump where you assume the player was annoyed that they lost because they don't want to see what they already know. If I tell you a piece of information that you already know more than once and you tell me "I already know. You don't need to tell me anymore.", can I assume you are annoyed with me? Without any other context (your voice, facial expression, etc.), I can't know that.

It's the "real life" equivalent of shoving all the game components into a messy pile, grabbing the scorepad and crumpling it up and throwing it in the garbage, and announcing, "I lost, so I'm going to prevent anyone from seeing this game to its natural conclusion. And, oh yeah, I want to start a new game immediately; I cannot be bothered to wait another few minutes for the end-game tasks to be done for this game."

Am I wrong or a fool if I don't view it that way? Meaning if I was in a game where my opponent conceded on the last turn and my response was "Okay, cool.", am I doing something or viewing the situation wrong? Should I view the other player as spiting me?

[nik592]

If one has a certain amount of what is considered "low karma", does this site not restrict certain things that they can do?

Yes, though you have to get to at least lower than 85% and that only restricts you from tables where a creator explicitly asks for that level of karma. Which is a minimum of two penalties. Additionally, worse penalties - actually being able to start a certain number of games, etc. don't come into play until significantly lower - I can't tell you, because I've never found my karma there. Finally, karma is earned back by finishing games. So if you're only quitting "occasionally", it should not be an issue - it certainly never has been in my experience. I've had the odd kick due to an internet problem or being distracted by kids, and I've never been restricted in what I want to do on here.

If a player has literally zero moves left to make, that person can just "leave" the physical vicinity of the computer, grab a beverage, use the restroom, etc, and there will be no penalty, because no further action is required by that player. (I've stated this multiple times.)

I apologize, I'm just confused on what exactly happened in this situation. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly. Was this the last turn for both players (you and your opponent), your opponent had no legal moves to make, and all they need to do was click the end turn button and then they leave? Because I'm not sure what you mean by them physically leaving and there was no penalty (i.e. kicked for going over time).

You can concede even when it is not your turn. They had played their turn, ended their turn, it was on FrankJones's turn that they conceded (is my reading of the situation, and happy to be corrected). As FrankJones says - they could have walked away, closed the browser, whatever, and it would have had no impact on their karma or the state of the game. They were done with that game.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information here, but none of that is true. Red Thumbs have no effect on Karma. I'm not sure what you mean by "flagging their account".

Really? I had read somewhere that red thumbs had some effect on karma and that they show to other people who view your profile that they should avoid you. I, again, might have misunderstood what the person meant or maybe the site has a system like that before and they changed.

It has been changed for quite some time at this point (at least a year, maybe more). Red thumbs no longer effect karma.

However, this seems to me like an entirely reasonable compromise. Except, of course, it would not be BGA staff combing through all 1100+ games to decide which one should have concede and which one shouldn’t. Each game, after all, has its own “owners“ (developers, etc.), who could easily make this decision for their game. In real life gaming, conceding does not seem to be a widespread incurrence. Certain games are notable exceptions (such as chess, and backgammon, if you use the doubling cube), but in general, I almost never see conceding in actual real life gaming. So I would be inclined to say conceding should be disabled, unless the developers specifically enable it.

This already happens more or less. A developer has to define how "progress" happens in a game. There are complaints because some devs set progress to 50% after the first move so concessions can happen. Others I think leave progress at low numbers even late into the game. And progress is often difficult to measure for some games, especially when luck is involved. This is why a concession in a game like chess is reasonable - there is perfect information, and once pieces are in a certain configuration, checkmate will happen, short of your opponent making an error (which I would bet causes some people NOT to concede when they spy a winning path for their opponent, if you think your opponent isn't skilled enough to see their win). A game with dice or card draws? Things can change. I've seen them change in the last seconds. That's not to say there aren't situations where a player becomes completely limited and is just waiting for the other player to win, but most game designers try to design their games to avoid that. That's why games have catch-up mechanics - so everyone has a chance til the end (most of the time).

I've seen people concede mid-game, at a point where I'm really not sure who is winning. I think that's perfectly reasonable - I assume they maybe had an emergency, had to go, and took the loss rather than a karma penalty. There is a big difference between that, and conceding when the game is already done for you. I've also seen games where a player gets to a point, decides they've lost and stops "playing" - they pass every turn, or play nonsense moves. I also think that's poor behaviour (and will red thumb them). Consider professional tennis players - they often find themselves being steamrolled by a better player. Rarely do they concede, or start just hitting all their balls into the net. And I can imagine they wouldn't be popular with fans (or sponsors) if they did either. You might argue that that's different because it's a professional setting - but when I've played social games of tennis with people, there's usually an expectation that we'll finish it, even if one of us is clearly losing. We got together to play a game of tennis, not to see who would win. Sometimes you go in knowing the other person is better and will likely win. It shouldn't make the playing any less enjoyable. And I feel like an opponent would see me as a bit strange if I, in the likely last game said, "look, you're really ahead of me here and I want to go find someone else to play with, so I'm just going to leave, you win." rather than playing that game out.

[FrankJones]

They should be "forced" to continue because that's the agreement at the start of the game. To play the game to completion.
And, you just answered the "why" with your final sentence. Because it's good manners and good sportsmanship.

When you started your game, was there an explicit agreement to play until it's natural end? Because playing the game "to completion" is a broad term. Conceding is a completion of a game, though I'm sure you meant the game's natural end.

Consideration, respect, sportsmanship, and manners re good values. Society itself is a collection of individuals that function best when people generally adhere to social contracts of respectful and considerate behavior rather than applying a worldview of "What do I care about anyone else if it costs me one minute of my time?"

All of these values aren't universal. Definitions of what those terms mean vary among communities, societies, cultures, etc. Why are your definitions of these terms the best ones as compared to others and why should we accept them?

It's not drastic, and no one would be "forced" to complete the game. Quitting is always an option. But the "concede" button allows people to quit without penalty, whereas someone who has an actual emergency and has to immediately leave the computer to deal with it, incurs two separate penalties.

If finishing a game is so burdensome, any player can simply quit and incur the penalty. (In multiplayer games, this is the only way to leave a game, as there is no "concede" in multiplayer games).

If one has a certain amount of what is considered "low karma", does this site not restrict certain things that they can do?

If a player has literally zero moves left to make, that person can just "leave" the physical vicinity of the computer, grab a beverage, use the restroom, etc, and there will be no penalty, because no further action is required by that player. (I've stated this multiple times.)

I apologize, I'm just confused on what exactly happened in this situation. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly. Was this the last turn for both players (you and your opponent), your opponent had no legal moves to make, and all they need to do was click the end turn button and then they leave? Because I'm not sure what you mean by them physically leaving and there was no penalty (i.e. kicked for going over time).

I'm not sure where you're getting your information here, but none of that is true. Red Thumbs have no effect on Karma. I'm not sure what you mean by "flagging their account".

Really? I had read somewhere that red thumbs had some effect on karma and that they show to other people who view your profile that they should avoid you. I, again, might have misunderstood what the person meant or maybe the site has a system like that before and they changed.

There are dozens of rules on this site that apply to everyone. I'm not sure why this would be an issue.

Because I find this rule to be coercive. Play all the way through or be penalized. These penalties can have effect on your ability to do certain things on this site. Only in something like tournaments do I see that being required since there are some stakes involved. But on just some random online casual match with no stakes at play, I find it to be an unjustified coercion.

People in this thread (and various other similar threads) have literally said, "If I'm losing, why should I waste one minute of my life just because the opponent thinks it's good manners or good sportsmanship or wants to see the statistics?" I am not assuming anything, I am responding to people's literal explanations for justifying conceding right at the end of the game.

Then in those situations, they stated their intention. You would be right to condemn them.

Similarly, in your other post in which you asked "how do you know it's not ego-stroking?" :
By reading exactly what people are writing. I, nik592, and various others, have explained in lengthy and arduous detail the various reasons we prefer the game to be completed. If we were concerned about "ego-stroking", don't you think we would be conceding our own games when losing, to spare ourselves the ego hurt of seeing the losing situation and stats and game state displayed? But, we don't do that, because this debate is not about ego-stroking.

I trust you when you say that you wouldn't do that. But that doesn't go for everyone. I'm not a mind-reader so I don't know what others are actually thinking or intending.

Again - and I feel as though I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'll do it because I keep getting asked the same repeat questions:
If someone says, as several in this thread and other similar threads have said, "I don't feel like spending one minute to see what I already know, which is that I lost" - that's pretty much the definition of spite and poor sportsmanship. Essentially it amounts to, "I lost, I'm annoyed about it, so I'm going to mess up the end-game state and score and statistics, regardless of any reasons the opponent might have for wishing to see them, and regardless of what is considered polite and customary action."

I don't see the jump where you assume the player was annoyed that they lost because they don't want to see what they already know. If I tell you a piece of information that you already know more than once and you tell me "I already know. You don't need to tell me anymore.", can I assume you are annoyed with me? Without any other context (your voice, facial expression, etc.), I can't know that.

It's the "real life" equivalent of shoving all the game components into a messy pile, grabbing the scorepad and crumpling it up and throwing it in the garbage, and announcing, "I lost, so I'm going to prevent anyone from seeing this game to its natural conclusion. And, oh yeah, I want to start a new game immediately; I cannot be bothered to wait another few minutes for the end-game tasks to be done for this game."

Am I wrong or a fool if I don't view it that way? Meaning if I was in a game where my opponent conceded on the last turn and my response was "Okay, cool.", am I doing something or viewing the situation wrong? Should I view the other player as spiting me?

Responding to your questions:

1) A player clicks "I agree" to a series of statements, one of which is agreeing to play the game to completion. If quitting the game before it is over does not count as doing this, why does conceding qualify as doing it? Either way, it is quitting the game.

2) Yes, we have established that values are not universal. So, the best we can do is go by what is generally considered appropriate, partly based on what typically is done or not done. Conceding near the end of the game is done rarely enough that we can infer an implicit understanding that such a behavior is not generally considered appropriate.

3) nik592 explained the Karma question; I have nothing further to add.

4) I am not comfortable with the way you use words such as "coercion" and "force". Having a set of rules on a board game site is neither coercive nor a use of force. Those are very strong words with a connotation of violence or the threat of violence, or the act of or threat of withholding crucial or vital necessities to a person.

5) Well, player profiles are open. We could check the game history of the people who are voicing objections to conceding. I doubt we would find games in which those same players conceded.

6) The "jump" you refer to is what I call "making an inference". Sometimes in life we make inferences based on what people say and do, and how they say it or go about doing it. Inferring no ill-intent or annoyance is just as much of a "jump" or inference as it is to infer such things. But one of them has little basis for which to make the inference. Usually, the most likely and obvious inference is the correct one.

7) You're not "wrong" or "a fool", but I do believe you would be ignoring the most obvious and likely explanation. In the two examples I can recall, there was obvious spite or annoyance. In one case, the player explicitly said annoyed or spiteful things and seems like a genuinely rude and unsportsmanlike person. In the other instance, the player allowed me to play out of final sequence in Terraforming Mars, as is customary, indicating that time was not a concern. And then, as I have stated many times but you don't seem to be grasping it, that player conceded literally as I was about to make my final move, which was one more click than that player would have needed to let the game end naturally, because that player had passed in a game in which after passing, there was literally no possible move or action that player could take at that point.

So, out of 1600-ish games I have played, this seemingly ill-mannered behavior has occurred twice, and both times there was obvious ill-mannered intent or stated annoyance and bad sportsmanship.

And yet you think I am making a "jump" when I state that such behavior is atypically, generally not considered appropriate, and likely ill-mannered?

[SilvoSwordo]

I concede games when I think I already lost. It is an acknowledgement that my opponent has played better than me. I will also concede when I make a huge blunder or misclicked, resulting in a game that has no more meaning.

Many of you will be probably surprised to learn that I also appreciate having my opponent conceding the game to me. It is a victory, and I usually feel good knowing my opponent acknowledged I was the better player in this game. I do not gain particular pleasure in playing to the end a game that is in essence already finished, and sometimes find myself wishing the opponent would realize they are too far behind and concede (I rarely tell them though, I feel this would be rude). And until reading this topic, I interpreted conceding at the last turn or right before scoring as a good thing, like saying "it's okay, no need to count, you won, congratulations.

How wrong I was! What? What????? This gesture, that I always assumed to be one of good will, of sportsmanship, a friendly handshake after a hard fought victory, is actually a bitter act of inconsideration, a spit in the face, robbing the opponent of all credit for their victory?

...All joking aside, it actually was a huge surprise to me reading this topic and discovering this way of thinking. I was tearing my hair out (figuratively) reading all these 8 pages of arguing. I'm sorry to say that I have a really hard time to understand the anti-conceding arguments, but I will try anyway.

It seems that one of the biggest actual argument against conceding is that it removes many of the end-game statistics. Would any of you be shocked to learn that very very few people use, or even knows about statistics? Someone already mentioned that statistics is a premium privilege. I myself, a premium user, was not aware of this! I'm pretty sure that all the regular users, and many of the premium users, do not factor statistics at all when they decide to concede a game. So I think that assuming intent from conceding players to remove stats from the winner is extremely misguided.
Besides, there are a games that actually do not remove any stats after a player concedes. In Asteria for instance, when looking at a game I conceded, all the stats are filled in. So maybe that rather than being a player problem, it is an implementation problem? If you think that missing statistics in a conceded game is a problem, rather than take it out on the person that conceded well within their right, you should suggest the developers to add the missing stats even in a conceded game. I pretty sure it's feasible in most board games.

With the stats argument (mostly) out of the way, the question remains: what causes a player to concede at the last turn?
Some pro-conceding said that players don't have the same amount of time and may need to quit early. I agree with the anti-conceding that this is a very weak argument. There are people that concede for lack of time no doubt, but statistically this kind of quitting will happen more often at anytime during the whole game rather than the very short amount of time that is the last move (unless it's a very short kind of game). And I think the points made in this topic against people that concede at the last moment to get to the next game are pretty compelling.
But I am against assuming all last-turn conceders are like that. I've already spoilt it, didn't I? Because I am one of those last-turn conceders and I sincerely thought it was good sports to concede! And I litterally did concede many times right before scoring sincerely believeing it was a nice gesture! And I never ever thought about this subject until finding by accident this topic while searching for help on a server bug and being mesmerized by the length and heatedness of this discussion. I don't know how I developed this view, maybe because of chess...
When chess was brought up in this topic, anti-conceders brought up that most game are very different from chess, and therefore the conceding etiquette from chess should not apply. But bringing up chess is not an argument to justify why conceding should be considered good sportsmanship in BGA. It is an argument to explain why it is considered good sportsmanship by some BGA users. And why you should not automatically assume bad faith from people that concede at the last turn.

Now, will I keep my conceding policy, after reading this topic?
...I think I'll keep conceding when it feels right to me. But I'll send a message when it's close to the end of the game, like "gg, you played well, I'm conceding" and wait a bit to see their response before actually conceding.

[nik592]

It seems that one of the biggest actual argument against conceding is that it removes many of the end-game statistics. Would any of you be shocked to learn that very very few people use, or even knows about statistics?

Just to say, when I say I want to see the end-game results to analyse how I played, I'm not actually referring to stats most of the time. I'm referring to the final scoring sheet in most games, which gives you a reasonable breakdown of where you scored your points, and tells me, oh, I seem to have forgotten about this aspect of the game, or my opponent really went after this and got almost nothing over here and still beat me, maybe this game is more beneficial if you don't diversify your interests.

And if the game isn't completed, that info is not available and that's not an issue that's going to be able to be solved by devs. I suppose in some cases, you might be able to get that info from the stats, but why worry about stats when the info is provided in a nice score sheet (for games that have them)?