Player times out in multiple games of Swiss-System tournament

[mrdoctor]

MrDoctor, I understand your objection to empowering the tournament creator to remove a player from the tournament. Do you have any comments on the alternative suggestion I stated above:

• alternatively, if you exceed your time limit by 50% or more in one game you are automatically removed from the tournament (e.g. allotted time is 10 days and you go 5 days over, or allotted time is 30 minutes and you go 15 minutes over), and if you exceed your time limit by any amount in two games you are automatically removed.

That example seems harsh to me, but I agree in-principle that the expectation ought to be coded-tweaks to the backend coding of the site to utilise the existing time-out and karma systems to automate removal of players from tournaments, and not expect tournament creators to manually do it in a fair way.

My suggestions (provisionally, from 30 seconds of thinking about it just now) would be something like:
* Remove the ability to 'skip' players in tournaments, so games all run to their end-limit of time.
* Time-out by more than 50% in 3 games in a tournament resulting in those games being unfinished and scored on time - removed from that tournament .
* Karma drops below 40% (or 0%) - remove from all tournaments. Amend karma system so you can only accrue 1 karma per completed game, so it's harder to build it back up with a few games of Can't Stop.

]As a tournament organiser, I don't want this power. I want the thing you describe later in your post, of BGA consistently booting players automatically when their karma falls to a low point:

There needs to be an automatic booting of people when this happens! if your karma drops below the required karma to be in a tournament, why are you left in the tournament?!? It is obvious when it happens and the system should just automatically boot them. Evidently it is too expensive for BGA to consider putting the resources into this little bit of programming.

You don't want it, so no-one should have the option to do it? You're yet to explain any logic to that whatsoever, how an option for creators that clearly would improve tournaments would be a bad thing.

It's the equivalent to saying I don't like Catan, BGA shouldn't be implementing the game, because I wouldn't play it. Creators who are interested in making their tournaments better would use it, just like players who want to play Catan will play it.

I said *I* didn't want it, and that *I* wouldn't create tournaments again if there was an expectation for me to manually check every game for time-outs, remove people in a totally fair way, and deal with all the objections via private-messsages. I didn't say not to implement it, I simply said I wouldn't create a tournament again as I don't want that additional new workload. It's a website full of coding, with existing timer and karma systems - these things can absolutely be automated.

[RazorOz]

I said *I* didn't want it, and that *I* wouldn't create tournaments again if there was an expectation for me to manually check every game for time-outs, remove people in a totally fair way, and deal with all the objections via private-messsages. I didn't say not to implement it, I simply said I wouldn't create a tournament again as I don't want that additional new workload. It's a website full of coding, with existing timer and karma systems - these things can absolutely be automated.

You said this:

Unless you're proposing a salary for the tournament-creator for the time they'll have to spend both checking which players have exceeded their time in a way that looks like it's holding up the tournament, and having to deal with the angry private-messages they'll inevitably be sent by anyone they remove from a tournament - no. Tournaments can be created by anyone with a premium-BGA account. Moderating the behaviour of users on the site is a role for the staff of BGA.

That reads like you are against such a feature being implemented full stop given you are quite clearly talking generally about tournament creators, and not just yourself.

How you run your tournaments would be up to you, no-one is saying you would have to do it, that's literally true of any optional feature, you don't have to use them, it's up to players/creators if they want to use them. We know this is a popular request for tournaments to give creators more admin powers generally, given it's one of the most thumbed up suggestions on the site, so we can be pretty certain lots of tournament creators would use such a feature, and like I say any features that can improve the quality of tournaments should be explored, as higher quality tournaments would only be good news for the site.

[mrdoctor]

I said *I* didn't want it, and that *I* wouldn't create tournaments again if there was an expectation for me to manually check every game for time-outs, remove people in a totally fair way, and deal with all the objections via private-messsages. I didn't say not to implement it, I simply said I wouldn't create a tournament again as I don't want that additional new workload. It's a website full of coding, with existing timer and karma systems - these things can absolutely be automated.

You said this:

Unless you're proposing a salary for the tournament-creator for the time they'll have to spend both checking which players have exceeded their time in a way that looks like it's holding up the tournament, and having to deal with the angry private-messages they'll inevitably be sent by anyone they remove from a tournament - no. Tournaments can be created by anyone with a premium-BGA account. Moderating the behaviour of users on the site is a role for the staff of BGA.

That reads like you are against such a feature being implemented full stop given you are quite clearly talking generally about tournament creators, and not just yourself.

Are you this picky whenever anyone expresses an opinion about anything without heavily caveating that they're expressing their own opinion? If people want the feature, as I said, go ahead. I just don't personally think it's a good or fair system - for either tournament creator or the participants - and I personally wouldn't create tournaments again if I was expected to manually check every game and fairly moderate other players. The system you want can literally be automated with code.

[RazorOz]

Are you this picky whenever anyone expresses an opinion about anything without heavily caveating that they're expressing their own opinion? If people want the feature, as I said, go ahead. I just don't personally think it's a good or fair system - for either tournament creator or the participants - and I personally wouldn't create tournaments again if I was expected to manually check every game and fairly moderate other players. The system you want can literally be automated with code.

I am simply pointing out that you were misrepresenting your original posts.

It's hard to see how it can possibly not be a good system for players and creators. One of the biggest issues tournaments face right now is maybe 5-10% of players can ruin the tournament for a huge number of players, yet many creators/communities can either know or predict who these players will be in advance, yet are powerless to do anything about it currently. It's actually a lower % of the overall player pool because many players are avoiding tournaments they would otherwise play because of issues like that.

All you keep stating is you wouldn't create tournaments again if you were expected to do this, like it's some kind of threat, but as has been stated to you several times, no-one is saying you have to do it. It's about providing more options for tournaments, so if they want to, tournament creators can create higher quality tournaments that will lead to a more thriving tournament community.

[mrdoctor]

It's hard to see how it can possibly not be a good system for players and creators. One of the biggest issues tournaments face right now is maybe 5-10% of players can ruin the tournament for a huge number of players, yet many creators/communities can either know or predict who these players will be in advance, yet are powerless to do anything about it currently. It's actually a lower % of the overall player pool because many players are avoiding tournaments they would otherwise play because of issues like that.

..... once again: the website has systems already in place to know who has timed-out in a game, and a karma-system of who has a bad reputation. Literally everything you're wishing for can be fully automated, and not require BGA members to have to manually scour each tournament every day, or have unequal powers over other members.

I'm not engaging in this thread any further.

[RazorOz]

..... once again: the website has systems already in place to know who has timed-out in a game, and a karma-system of who has a bad reputation. Literally everything you're wishing for can be fully automated, and not require BGA members to have to manually scour each tournament every day, or have unequal powers over other members.

I'm not engaging in this thread any further.

If it was as easy as karma, it would already exist, given you can already filter players out of tournaments by karma, but karma is virtually meaningless. An automated system would be a fine starting point, but ultimately at the level we're talking here would always be limited in its scope as it would have to just work off a numbers based formula of hit a certain threshold and you're out. Creators, particularly those who are in the communities for the games in question, can normally identify problem players in advance, particularly those who are actually willing to put a bit of effort into making their tournaments run smoothly.

The idea it would make some users more powerful than other is a) not even true, given anyone with a premium account can create a tournament, and b) is not even a problem in itself, given that's how pretty much any gaming tournament in the world works, you enter a tournament, you play by the host/administrator's rules.

Ultimately it comes down to more tools for creators to create better tournaments can only be a good thing. Tournaments have the potential to be great, but far too often are ruined by one flaw or another, and it's not like I'm just basing that off opinion, this forum nearly every other topic is about a flaw in the tournament infrastructure. I get contacted by DM several times a month by users who I think mostly just want to vent about a tournament going wrong, or wanting advice on whether a tournament is worth it, and these aren't even tournaments I have anything to do with. The demand for tournaments is also high, I set my tournaments to private invitation or groups, but every time I open one to registration I get flooded with DM's from players wanting to join, but currently it's hard to find the balance between meeting that demand, and having a tournament that will run smoothly, and not all end in tears.