Board Game Arena

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑11 August 2026, 21:39 And any additional powers would be abused by someone, and then BGA would have to deal with complaints about it. They aren't about creating more work for themselves.

I personally would like to be able to exclude people who have caused problems in the past even if their current karma qualifies them, but my option to do that is to run a private tournament. Open means open, not open except for the whims of the organizer.

It's not really abusable. The first part is pretty much how any tournament in the world works, ie. they are free to block entry of anyone they don't wish to play. You couldn't really abuse the feature, in the sense that if you block too many people from playing your tournaments aren't going to be very popular.

And the second part if you limit it to people who are out of time, you aren't giving the creator any power that doesn't already exist to the players at the table. The players out of time have broken the rules of the tournament to some extent, so again, it's not particularly abusable.

tbhp wrote: ↑11 August 2026, 21:54 Under which circumstances though? It doesn't make sense to block players from entering, since if they enter that means they are active right now. And it wouldn't be right to remove players who entered just because they haven't been active since the subscription date. They didn't do anything wrong.

Regarding removing players once the tournament has started, their opponent is already able to kick them out, we don't need to make things even worse by making the organizer a potential threat too. I'm not sure what issues you think it would solve if organizers could just remove players on a whim. The worst thing that can happen to a tournament is that a game doesn't get finished normally. But that's exactly what your suggestion does.

On a more general note, the way a tournament works can only be determined before a tournament starts. We can't give organizers the power to decide things during the competition based on personal opinion. This is subjective and it also opens the door to corruption. That's not how any competition works in the real world. Everything that happens once a competition has started follows pre-established rules.

Under the circumstance I don't want obvious troublemakers in my tournaments. It's easy for a handful of bad eggs to ruin tournaments, and it's very easy to work out the vast majority of troublemakers before a tournament even begins. Mostly from being either a past offender or a repeat offender. Currently, the only way you can stop such players is making your tournament private, but it's a truck load of work to run a private tournament at scale.

Their opponent can only boot them from the game in question, in Swiss this is particularly annoying, as the player just gets seated again next round. "The worst thing that can happen to a tournament is that a game doesn't get finished normally" isn't true if they fix other issues. Eg. It isn't true at all for my Heat tournaments, you're far better off timing someone out who simply isn't playing, than letting the game go to time. If other games fixed this issue, the same would apply to them.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I would argue my tournaments would run even smoother if I had the ability to control player entry, and I had the ability to time players out, and that's with me running tournaments which literally say don't time players out, and being pretty lenient towards slow play, as I will only step in if I believe the current pace of play will stop the game completing before the round clock runs out. In many ways allowing the buck to fall on the tournament organiser is better, because it takes away the feel bad from players from not wanting to be the one to time players out, it makes it clear the decision come from the organiser, which tbh is how any real life tournament works.

Yes, and if a player is out of time, they aren't abiding by the tournament rules laid out before the tournament starts. Like I say if you could time out/remove players from the tournament who are out of time this point doesn't apply.

RazorOz wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 00:14

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑11 August 2026, 21:39 And any additional powers would be abused by someone, and then BGA would have to deal with complaints about it. They aren't about creating more work for themselves.

I personally would like to be able to exclude people who have caused problems in the past even if their current karma qualifies them, but my option to do that is to run a private tournament. Open means open, not open except for the whims of the organizer.

It's not really abusable. The first part is pretty much how any tournament in the world works, ie. they are free to block entry of anyone they don't wish to play.

I was referring to open tournaments. Obviously you can exclude anyone you want from a private tournament. In an open tournament a single instance of excluding someone for no legitimate reason would be abusing the power.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 02:07 I was referring to open tournaments. Obviously you can exclude anyone you want from a private tournament. In an open tournament a single instance of excluding someone for no legitimate reason would be abusing the power.

Would it though? At the end of the day it's the creator's rules. Game stores in real life are free to exclude whoever they don't want from gaming tournaments for whatever reason (eg. not abiding by store rules). What's the abusable factor here? If I block too many people my tournament is going to be worse for it, blocking people for being too good etc. already effectively exists with ELO filters, so I don't see how it's getting abused. It should be free to the tournament organiser to create the best tournament they possibly can, currently if someone joins my open tournament who has been timed out/quit the last 3 tournaments they've played there's nothing I can do about it, yet the tournament would almost certainly be better off if they could be excluded.

RazorOz wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 10:01

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 02:07 I was referring to open tournaments. Obviously you can exclude anyone you want from a private tournament. In an open tournament a single instance of excluding someone for no legitimate reason would be abusing the power.

Would it though? At the end of the day it's the creator's rules. Game stores in real life are free to exclude whoever they don't want from gaming tournaments for whatever reason (eg. not abiding by store rules). What's the abusable factor here? If I block too many people my tournament is going to be worse for it, blocking people for being too good etc. already effectively exists with ELO filters, so I don't see how it's getting abused. It should be free to the tournament organiser to create the best tournament they possibly can, currently if someone joins my open tournament who has been timed out/quit the last 3 tournaments they've played there's nothing I can do about it, yet the tournament would almost certainly be better off if they could be excluded.

Speaking of ELO filters though. It'd be great if people who register and then exceed that ELO bracket by a set number, say 50 or 75 or even 100 are automatically removed. I set a bunch of tournaments for 0-199 elo earlier this year, and now i see some will have 300+ elo players in because they have gotten much better since they registered.

RazorOz wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 10:01

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 02:07 I was referring to open tournaments. Obviously you can exclude anyone you want from a private tournament. In an open tournament a single instance of excluding someone for no legitimate reason would be abusing the power.

Would it though?

Yes. You keep repeating that excluding too many people would be bad for your tournament, but ignoring that excluding someone for an improper reason even once is abuse. Both can be true. You are basically trying to redefine "abuse" as something that has to be repeatedly done.

And obviously just because an option could be used for a good reason doesn't mean it can't be abused when used for an improper purpose.

Madbranch wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 10:08 Speaking of ELO filters though. It'd be great if people who register and then exceed that ELO bracket by a set number, say 50 or 75 or even 100 are automatically removed. I set a bunch of tournaments for 0-199 elo earlier this year, and now i see some will have 300+ elo players in because they have gotten much better since they registered.

I can see why they have it like this. The problem is it could be annoying, particularly towards the end of registration to have a bunch of players unregistered. which could cause problems if you're trying to run like a 64 player single elimination bracket.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 18:04 Yes. You keep repeating that excluding too many people would be bad for your tournament, but ignoring that excluding someone for an improper reason even once is abuse. Both can be true. You are basically trying to redefine "abuse" as something that has to be repeatedly done.

And obviously just because an option could be used for a good reason doesn't mean it can't be abused when used for an improper purpose.

It then comes down to would the feature be a net positive for running tournaments. Any tools to improve tournament quality should be appreciated.

Particularly because I just don't see what someone is going to get out of abusing this. There's lots of things being abused, we constantly hear cheating accusations, there's lots of abuse to earn things like consecutive win badges, so it's what is the net outcome. To me, I don't see what you're going to get out of abusing this/how you're going to profit from it. You can already do the whole exclude players for being too good, if someone goes about just randomly blocking players from playing their tournament, aren't they just hurting themselves? What are they going to get out of it exactly, and for the players they can just go elsewhere, it's basically a free market.

RazorOz wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 20:53 Particularly because I just don't see what someone is going to get out of abusing this. There's lots of things being abused, we constantly hear cheating accusations, there's lots of abuse to earn things like consecutive win badges, so it's what is the net outcome. To me, I don't see what you're going to get out of abusing this/how you're going to profit from it. You can already do the whole exclude players for being too good, if someone goes about just randomly blocking players from playing their tournament, aren't they just hurting themselves? What are they going to get out of it exactly, and for the players they can just go elsewhere, it's basically a free market.

Why are you assuming someone needs to get something out of it in order to behave in an antisocial manner, as if everyone is a rational actor employing a utility maximization analysis to determine if their abusive behavior is having a net negative effect on their outcome? Sometimes being antisocial is the end in itself regardless of whether it has broader negative outcomes (such as being socially ostracized, etc.). All one needs for an example of this is to look at forums for people who behave this way.

Given that private tournaments already exist where you can exclude someone to your heart's content based on any arbitrary criteria you want, what is the point of adding discretionary pre-tournament exclusion to open tournaments?