Board Game Arena

I doubt I'm the only one who occasionally finds a game that has a player who has been out of time for a week or more and no one has bothered to kick them yet because it is very easy to have a list of 10-20 active games after a month or so of play on here. I'd like to open the floor to discussion of setting some hard limits of how many days of inactivity after someone initially runs out of time. My first thought would be if the maximum time stored for a game happens into the negative side that should be the auto kick point but can also see some fraction of that time or one turns time into negatives being the limit.

Seeing the email of so and so is running out of time is great for people who are more proactive and good for most games but there are also people like me who just use the emails as a reminder to check on the website sometime that day. Or for me specifically now, check to see what it is and get rid of that stupid red dot making me check my email.

It might have been suggested before or already in the works with the site revamps that I saw about somewhen but just wanted to put this out there and collect ideas from people who know the site better.

Automatic kicking has been discussed before, and has been considered a Bad Idea (TM).

There are some games that, turn-based, take months to play. When vacation/holiday season comes up, it would be a shame if all the players decide to keep playing, but the system closes an almost complete game. Even on 1 move per day, the max thinking time is 3 days. Going negative by that amount would require less than a week of inactivity. Very bad if no explanation, but not that long if it has been discussed before the inactivity.

And, let me rewrite your reasons for you... "I'm too lazy to keep up on my own games. I get email notifications that have a link directly to the table, and when I open it there is a big button to kick the out of time player. 2 clicks is more than I can handle, so I want a change to the system so I don't have to remember to pay attention to the players on this site." Yeah, it's not the same tone that you used, but it has a similar sentiment.

Turn based games automatically close if nobody takes a turn for 40 days.
https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... cleangames

If it's a rated game, I think it counts as a win for everyone except for the player who was the most overtime.
If so, the end result is ultimately the same.

paramesis wrote: ↑19 February 2021, 02:12 Turn based games automatically close if nobody takes a turn for 40 days.
https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... cleangames

If it's a rated game, I think it counts as a win for everyone except for the player who was the most overtime.
If so, the end result is ultimately the same.

No, it doesn't count that way. Games without moves for 40 days count as abandoned. The game log even says "all players with a positive clock have decided to abandon this game". Which is a lie, of course. But yeah, that's the way those games are handled

qwertasdfg wrote: ↑20 February 2021, 17:58 No, it doesn't count that way. Games without moves for 40 days count as abandoned. The game log even says "all players with a positive clock have decided to abandon this game". Which is a lie, of course. But yeah, that's the way those games are handled

Ah, thanks for the correction. I haven't seen it happen. Do players with a negative clock lose reputation or ELO?

It should be the case for tournaments that players out of time are automatically skipped (or at least it should be an option when creating a tournament).
On this recent thread (https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =8&t=19783), a tournament organiser is quite desperate because two players facing each others are only connecting once every 10 days, and since none of them skip the other one, the whole tournament is slowed down.

I agree that would be a nice option when setting up a tournament. Tournament games have a ceiling based on how much time is allotted to each player. In the linked thread, there are 7 days allotted to each player (which is on the high end). The next round of the tournament is waiting on a game that started 10 days ago. That game will automatically end if it is not finished within 4 days, regardless of whose turn it is or which player is over time.

Hi All, if the rules are set so, it is accepted without arguing. However, I am participating a tournament which is ending with some delay, and facing the experience that in some cases players about to loose are ending the game, destroying the whole result. There came the idea to have the option asking the agreement of all players before ending a game. Thank you for considering it, at least as an option to select.

paramesis wrote: ↑20 February 2021, 18:35

qwertasdfg wrote: ↑20 February 2021, 17:58 No, it doesn't count that way. Games without moves for 40 days count as abandoned. The game log even says "all players with a positive clock have decided to abandon this game". Which is a lie, of course. But yeah, that's the way those games are handled

Ah, thanks for the correction. I haven't seen it happen. Do players with a negative clock lose reputation or ELO?

They do not. This has been exploited quite severely, with 'Expedition: Northwest Passage' being of note.