Players out of time - code of conduct

[Cile]

Note how you had to invent an extra condition to make it sound bad. We've gone from "expelling a player is always rude" to "the game is 95% complete".

It's called an edge case. Just like you've been describing the opposite edge case.

You still don't address the central issue, which is that you are unilaterally ruining the game for other players who are NOT overtime.

Considering that if someone made the following post:
"I recently found out Alchemists was in Beta on BGA. I'm a big fan of alchemists so I joined the site in order to play. I did not find a table with the settings I would prefer so I created a new one instead of joining an existing one..."
You would find it so "egocentric" all you would hear is

I recently
I'm a
I joined
I did not
I would prefer
I created
I
I
I

then our world views (and understanding on language) are so wildly disparate that I don't think it's possible to communicate with you and a way that you would hear what I am saying. As such I'm not going to try.
(Ah shit, I just used "I" three times, guess you're not going to hear anything else in this post either...)

I'm surprised that so many people in this thread have this multiple instances of a game issue. Like I said, I basically never run into them when I check the profiles of people I encounter in my games.

I guess maybe it's less likely to encounter someone who only plays one table per game, and they may be less likely to play in tournaments.

I guess maybe you should stop assuming your preferences are the default and dismissing things as unusual until multiple people unnecessarily repeat the same point. As I said: I reasonable reason was given. There was no reason for it to have to be repeated so much for you to accept it as a reason.

To me, it seems preferable to avoid a situation that can literally destroy a person

And we've reached absurdity again. If me kicking someone from a table will literally destroy them then they need therapy, not for me to stay at a table in BGA. Once again we are asked to feel empathy for the fictional person (who agrees with your exact position) and who will be "literally destroyed" if this table doesn't finish, but not for the people you have been rude and condescending to this entire thread because "That's just how you debate."

That user is really going out of their way to feign not understanding the issue.

Hello Pot. I'm Kettle. It took half a dozen people telling you they don't like having multiple instances of the same game going before you were willing to accept it actually could be an issue. You've still made no effort to understand it.

[Cile]

For the reasonable people in this thread: I do not automatically kick players who run out of time. I am currently in a 3 move/day game of Alchemists where one player disappeared for nearly their entire timer mid-game. This surprised me as we had all been playing at a decent rate up to that point I would not have booted them had they gone red; I would have at least given it another day or 2. Had the other player booted them immediately upon them going red I would have been disappointed, but I wouldn't have blamed them for doing so. Considering the speed they had been playing at I wouldn't have blamed the player who ran out of time either and I would just hope nothing bad happened to them.

Alternatively, when I first joined BGA to play Beyond the Sun I started with 1 move / day games and often encountered players who couldn't keep up with logging in once a day to take their turn. I moved to 2 moves/day and still frequently encountered players that were clearly only checking once a day and slowly using up their time bank. The games would drag for over a week with them slowly getting lower and lower on the time bank before I could finally kick them and start a new game. In some egregious situations I have even set a timer for when they were going to run out time so I could log in and get away from the table.

The play pattern matters and will affect my decision. However, when someone is trying to invent non-existent rules that "You should never kick someone ever" then I will argue from the position that "It is always acceptable to kick someone who is out of time" and I stand by that. Even in situations where I wouldn't, if someone else does that is perfectly acceptable and allowed, and the only person I might blame is the person who ran out of time.

[tbhp]

The play pattern matters and will affect my decision. However, when someone is trying to invent non-existent rules that "You should never kick someone ever" then I will argue from the position that "It is always acceptable to kick someone who is out of time" and I stand by that. Even in situations where I wouldn't, if someone else does that is perfectly acceptable and allowed, and the only person I might blame is the person who ran out of time.

So imagine you were playing the final of a 100+ players tournament, 4 players game, it was the last turn and you were guaranteed to finish first, then someone went out of time and another player decided to kick them out, thus leading you to not win the tournament... Are you saying you would blame the player who went out of time by accident, instead of blaming the player who deliberately kicked them out in order to ruin and invalidate your victory?

[Shivaware]

I think it would be pretty easy to make changes that would feel like an improvement to everyone. E.g. allow someone to call a vote to expell a player, rather than letting them decide that by themselves and incurring the wrath of the other players who weren't consulted.

This is what I've been advocating for a long time, to make the decision to expel a unanimous vote. This is the only way to ensure that timeouts can't be exploited to eliminate someone who didn't do anything wrong.

The site never gave any explanation as to why they can't put this in place. Someone here told me that actually, it may not be an improvement to everyone. Some people may complain about it. But something tells me the people who think it wouldn't be an improvement wouldn't like it if they were themselves in the position of being eliminated from a tournament for no reason.

If you were the unfortunate third person in a Catan game with the troll that uses two accounts to torment people, and they kept voting to keep the game going, would that feel like an improvement to you?

The timer is an actual rule that everyone who joins the game agrees to. Anyone that exceeds their time has broken that rule and they can be kicked out by any of the other players. Maybe it helps to think of it as a vote by the other players whether to expel, except it has to be unanimous not to expel.

And yet again, you bring up the case of players being expelled in tournaments. As I mentioned before, you can absolutely prevent that from happening by only joining tournaments where it is not allowed to happen.

[Suoivax]

The play pattern matters and will affect my decision. However, when someone is trying to invent non-existent rules that "You should never kick someone ever" then I will argue from the position that "It is always acceptable to kick someone who is out of time" and I stand by that. Even in situations where I wouldn't, if someone else does that is perfectly acceptable and allowed, and the only person I might blame is the person who ran out of time.

So imagine you were playing the final of a 100+ players tournament, 4 players game, it was the last turn and you were guaranteed to finish first, then someone went out of time and another player decided to kick them out, thus leading you to not win the tournament... Are you saying you would blame the player who went out of time by accident, instead of blaming the player who deliberately kicked them out in order to ruin and invalidate your victory?

I, personally, would just start looking for my next game.

[tbhp]

If you were the unfortunate third person in a Catan game with the troll that uses two accounts to torment people, and they kept voting to keep the game going, would that feel like an improvement to you?

I'm not sure what the issue is in your example. If it's a tournament game, you just wait it out. And if not, same thing, just leave the game running and pay no mind to the trolls (or report them if they are breaking some of the site's rules).

The timer is an actual rule that everyone who joins the game agrees to. Anyone that exceeds their time has broken that rule and they can be kicked out by any of the other players. Maybe it helps to think of it as a vote by the other players whether to expel, except it has to be unanimous not to expel.

I don't think anyone subscribes to a tournament specifically agreeing with "it's okay for people to be eliminated even though they were winning the game and still had a lot of time". People put up with the issue when it occurs because they have no choice. You are defending the system on the basis that people are living in it, so they must be okay with it.

Yes, you can think of it that way, except that it's clearly wrong. Several people agreeing to punish a player for no reason doesn't make that decision magically become the ethical one. The player who is winning and not breaking any rule needs a way to protect their position, and this is only achieved by making expulsion a unanimous vote.

[Cile]

The play pattern matters and will affect my decision. However, when someone is trying to invent non-existent rules that "You should never kick someone ever" then I will argue from the position that "It is always acceptable to kick someone who is out of time" and I stand by that. Even in situations where I wouldn't, if someone else does that is perfectly acceptable and allowed, and the only person I might blame is the person who ran out of time.

So imagine you were playing the final of a 100+ players tournament, 4 players game, it was the last turn and you were guaranteed to finish first, then someone went out of time and another player decided to kick them out, thus leading you to not win the tournament... Are you saying you would blame the player who went out of time by accident, instead of blaming the player who deliberately kicked them out in order to ruin and invalidate your victory?

Yes.

[tbhp]

The play pattern matters and will affect my decision. However, when someone is trying to invent non-existent rules that "You should never kick someone ever" then I will argue from the position that "It is always acceptable to kick someone who is out of time" and I stand by that. Even in situations where I wouldn't, if someone else does that is perfectly acceptable and allowed, and the only person I might blame is the person who ran out of time.

So imagine you were playing the final of a 100+ players tournament, 4 players game, it was the last turn and you were guaranteed to finish first, then someone went out of time and another player decided to kick them out, thus leading you to not win the tournament... Are you saying you would blame the player who went out of time by accident, instead of blaming the player who deliberately kicked them out in order to ruin and invalidate your victory?

Yes.

Then clearly I have no idea how your mind works. You are literally defending someone who chose to hurt you over someone who wished you no harm.

[BarnardsStar]

Like I said in the conceding threads before, I'm just trying to avoid the biggest harm scenario (which you may not agree is the most applicable moral framework in this context).

To me, it seems preferable to avoid a situation that can literally destroy a person, even if this is at the cost of creating a smaller inconvenience for many more people.

[…]

Other people are not listening to me when I say that the issue I want to avoid is a lot more than an inconvenience. I wouldn't waste my time writing all those posts if it wasn't.

See, here’s the thing: I no longer believe you, if I ever really did. I do not believe that early termination of a game leaves you in a state of utter devastation. I certainly don’t believe it literally destroys you.

You’ve mentioned you pretty much only play tournaments, and tournaments have an option that out of time players can never be kicked. Were these things true, I would expect you to avoid the possibility of that emotional devastation, and only choose tournaments where that option was selected.

But you don’t. A quick skim of recent tournaments you’ve participated in shows about half do not have this option enabled. You leave yourself open to being utterly devastated and literally destroyed an awful lot. Two possibilities spring to mind here. One is that you have no sense of self-preservation. The other is…

So I simply do not believe your claims.

[tbhp]

Like I said in the conceding threads before, I'm just trying to avoid the biggest harm scenario (which you may not agree is the most applicable moral framework in this context).

To me, it seems preferable to avoid a situation that can literally destroy a person, even if this is at the cost of creating a smaller inconvenience for many more people.

[…]

Other people are not listening to me when I say that the issue I want to avoid is a lot more than an inconvenience. I wouldn't waste my time writing all those posts if it wasn't.

See, here’s the thing: I no longer believe you, if I ever really did. I do not believe that early termination of a game leaves you in a state of utter devastation. I certainly don’t believe it literally destroys you.

You’ve mentioned you pretty much only play tournaments, and tournaments have an option that out of time players can never be kicked. Were these things true, I would expect you to avoid the possibility of that emotional devastation, and only choose tournaments where that option was selected.

But you don’t. A quick skim of recent tournaments you’ve participated in shows about half do not have this option enabled. You leave yourself open to being utterly devastated and literally destroyed an awful lot. Two possibilities spring to mind here. One is that you have no sense of self-preservation. The other is…

So I simply do not believe your claims.

Then you are proving my point. You aren't listening to me and are being an hypocrite by trying to reverse the roles.

I listened to other people, I acknowledged that not being able to start a new game must suck. I also explained that it is not comparable. If I were myself in the position where I have to wait before I can play another game, I would never think that this is a justification to kick out or concede on my opponent, because I realize my inconvenience is trivial compared to the possible result of those actions.

The suggestion that I should just not play tournaments is just condoning the system. If you are invested in the competitive scene of the games you play, like I am, the vast majority of the tournaments you might be interested in won't have that option selected. It's uncommon for organizers to pick that option. So there is not much of a real choice here, and I'm willing to take the risk of being devastated during a final or something like that, if that means I get to take part in the competitive scene of a game, which is what I'm here for.

Your argument is really weird because you wouldn't tell a person who faces social discrimination, for example, that they should just not go out in public where they risk facing said discrimination. You wouldn't tell them that they should just stay home so that they don't risk being devastated. By your logic people can't simultaneously live their life in society and also complain about the society they are living in, because according to you that's hypocritical.

You are trying to put the blame on the person, when it's the unfair system you should be denouncing.