Games abandoned right after the start or before it ends

[Jellby]

It's bad, but it's a deserved punishment. There's no guilt in delivering a deserved punishment, and sparing a deserve punishment is an act of benevolence (or stupidity, depending on the case).

[tbhp]

A punishment that enacts exactly the thing that it is trying to avoid is a weird idea of a punishment.

If people actually cared about how people who are going out of time are causing issues, they wouldn't be kicking out. It's contradictory.

A consistent handling of the issue would be encouraging out of time players to keep playing. Give them tips on how to avoid being out of time.

The real reason people kick out is because they want to grab a win, or at best they just get bored. It's not because they care about games integrity.

[Jellby]

A punishment that enacts exactly the thing that it is trying to avoid is a weird idea of a punishment.

The thing it's trying to avoid it's not "the game not finishing", it's "the player taking more time than allowed".

The real reason people kick out is because they want to grab a win, or at best they just get bored. It's not because they care about games integrity.

Whatever reason. The only reason people do a checkmate is because they want to grab a win, not because they care about the game integrity. The only reason people run faster than their opponents is because they want to grab a win, not because the care about the aesthetics of the photo finish.

[tbhp]

The thing it's trying to avoid it's not "the game not finishing", it's "the player taking more time than allowed".

You seem to have a very literal understanding of rules. The meaning of a rule is not always that the thing that is forbidden is bad in of itself. Often times, it is that forbidding that thing is the most effective way we have to prevent a certain bad thing from happening.

In this case, we don't want games to be left unfinished, and the clock system is the way we've found to ensure that most games finish at some point in the foreseeable future.

Yes, there is also some part of "we don't want people to take too long", but the main reason is to create incentive for people to finish the games they start. The FAQ literally explains that.

Now, when a person "punishes" a player by kicking out, they are becoming guilty of all that themselves, because they are deliberately ending the game (a deliberate action is harder to defend than a harm caused by carelessness) and they are retroactively wasting the time of every player on the table, since the game they invested their time in just got ruined.

Whatever reason. The only reason people do a checkmate is because they want to grab a win, not because they care about the game integrity. The only reason people run faster than their opponents is because they want to grab a win, not because the care about the aesthetics of the photo finish.

No one is saying that wanting to get a win is bad. Winning is the goal of games. I applaud the people who want to win and will do everything in their power to achieve that. People who "grab" wins don't do that. They are using a technicality that officially says they won but as far as the game itself is concerned, they didn't actually win it. That's why I'm criticizing them, because they are not winners. They are people who don't seem to care about competition.

It's the equivalent as if you were playing Chess and, instead of checkmating your opponent (or forcing them to concede because a checkmate is inevitable), you were happy with the tournament organizer walking up to you and handing you a piece of paper that says "congratulations, you won!" Meanwhile, you got absolutely trounced by your opponent, but none of that matters to you because apparently you are happy that some paper says you won.

Yes, people want to win... at the game they are playing. When people start a game of Chess, they want to win at Chess. Not at some other game or at performing some arbitrary action that some body or organization stated is equivalent to winning. If you only care about the announcement that says you've won, why did you even enter a Chess tournament of all things? Why did you even play any game at all? If all that matters is a word, "win", then there is no actual game or actual meaning to what winning even is.

[Jellby]

In this case, we don't want games to be left unfinished, and the clock system is the way we've found to ensure that most games finish at some point in the foreseeable future.

What does "we" mean? The clock system was introduced by BGA, probably since the beginning of the site, I'm pretty sure it was already there when I joined. Are you part of the original BGA team?

Or maybe you are talking about tournament games, which have a different clock systems? I don't do tournaments, sorry.

[tbhp]

It's written in the FAQ. Search for the part where they bring up the 99% figure and pride themselves for it.

[Alain984]

So what's your solution then? Please ensure you account for when a person has a genuine problem (ie. internet/power failure, emergency, site technical issue, etc.) that means it wasn't really their fault that they left the table, as is often brought up by other forum posters arguing that the current penalties are too harsh.

What does that mean? I've never heard that a power issue could make players quit the game. It never happened to me. Never.
If I ever quitted a game, it's because I did it voluntarily (in veeeery rare occasions, after it was decided by all the remaining players.
So that sounds like nonsense to me.

Plus, I'm not talking of players going out of time, but players who quit the table IMMEDIATELY after the beginning. So not a technical issue, but just an unfair behaviour.
And yes, BGA staff HAS to find a solution for that, whatever this could be. And it's not up to me, nor you, nor any of us to find it. We are not BGA staff members/employees.
Since, an unfair behaviour which spreads through the community and goes on and on, simply ruins the ambience of this community and, in the long run, risks to make players lose interest and go elsewhere.
Clear?

[tbhp]

What does that mean? I've never heard that a power issue could make players quit the game. It never happened to me. Never.

Me neither. I've had cases where my phone ran out of power while I was looking at a game. When I started back my phone and went to the game, it was still playing. I had not quit. It would be very weird and buggy behavior if it did.

[nik592]

Plus, I'm not talking of players going out of time, but players who quit the table IMMEDIATELY after the beginning.

It wasn't clear to me that that is what you meant - ie. a person choosing to quit vs. "abandoning" the table (and later being booted by another player). Honestly, I don't think I've EVER seen that happen at my own tables in 4 years of playing (maybe once or twice that I've forgotten). That said, I play mostly turn-based, so maybe you mean this is something that impacts real-time tables for the behaviour to be happening so often?

I suspect there are still genuine emergencies on occasion where a player quits because they know they won't be able to finish the game, but yes, those should be rare.

And yes, BGA staff HAS to find a solution for that, whatever this could be. And it's not up to me, nor you, nor any of us to find it. We are not BGA staff members/employees.

My point was, if you think there is an easy solution to the problem, then why not suggest it? It sounds like you're advocating for a harsher karma/Elo penalty when the quit is self-initiated which may well be reasonable and easy enough. But saying, here's a problem, you people in charge fix it, vs. here's my suggestion of a system that would improve this problem - the latter is more likely to get implemented if it's reasonable. Bug fixes and features have to consider effort (including of designing a solution) against benefit and if you take away some of that by suggesting a solution, you may make the effort-benefit consideration easier. If there isn't an easy suggestion, then perhaps appreciate that it's not a simple problem to solve and while that doesn't mean you shouldn't suggest it, or that the responsibility doesn't lie with staff to ultimately fix, it's likely going to impact the priority of any kind of change (one hopes anyway).

However, as I said, I wasn't clear that you were specifically meaning self-initiated quits over table abandons, which generally result in being booted. This is a much more nuanced issue for which there are likely more possible reasons that aren't really the fault of the player abandoning and are regularly argued as being "too harsh" as it is. Personally, I think that penalty is reasonable enough and I don't have a better solution to suggest. But since you weren't talking about that scenario, perhaps you're fine with the penalty for that too.

[Swfcdan]

Didn't think it necessary to make a new thread. But I find extremely frustrating how people can join and then leave before the game even starts (says its abandoned). Sometimes it not only kicks everyone out including you hosting so you have to set up a new room again- especially when you've been waiting a while and finally found people.
Does this happen because people are on automatic join games and maybe have a choice of two games suddenly? Or are they literally clicking join and then dont click on start game for some reason. If there wasn't that start game option then this wouldn't happen, but I understand why its there.
It really should never cause the game room to close though, don't know why it happens but hopefully it can be looked into.