Preventing kicking out of players

[Great_Martini]

Hi all,

I play a fair few tournaments, but have noticed an increasing number of players taking the opportunity to kick out others who are over time. Often this seems to be done to prevent a player losing a match and it ruins the games. Tournaments have time limits that govern how long a game takes, so could we not have a tournament option to prevent ejections? If I sense support for this, I'll happily put in a request to BGA. Cheers.

[RobertBr]

Not new. Very widely discussed. Suggestions have been posted before.

There are no really good solutions to this and BGA do not appear willing to act on it.

[JoysJoy]

I am here just longer than a year and it took this long to notice there is nothing BGA does to make it better- not even have a place to report issues. I have asked in 4 clear, separate posts how to actually report problems and I am utterly ignored. They do not want to deal with problems at all. Just want to you shut up and put up or leave. Since there is little competition, we don't have much choice. Decide if you want to continue to financially support a site that COULD be wonderful and just add to joy to your life, but instead refuses to acknowledge or fix problems- and eventually pisses you off enough to leave. I have noticed many just disappear after awhile and now I know why.

[Silene]

I am here just longer than a year and it took this long to notice there is nothing BGA does to make it better- not even have a place to report issues. I have asked in 4 clear, separate posts how to actually report problems and I am utterly ignored. They do not want to deal with problems at all. Just want to you shut up and put up or leave. Since there is little competition, we don't have much choice. Decide if you want to continue to financially support a site that COULD be wonderful and just add to joy to your life, but instead refuses to acknowledge or fix problems- and eventually pisses you off enough to leave. I have noticed many just disappear after awhile and now I know why.

This post is demanding, exaggerating, unconstructive and generally negative. Other post of yours have been too. What kind of a response do you expect to this tone?

[FSKFSK]

OP is referring to the scenario where a game is 90% completed, it's obvious who's going to win, only 1-3 moves left, and someone goes to -5 hours on their clock.

Now someone who's in last place "skips" the player who was out of time, avoiding a loss, and the player who was in first feels cheated.

Sometimes, people just get timezone screwed (the player before you in turn order always plays just after you go to bed). Skips really should only be used when someone is completely gone, rather than when someone is playing and just under time.

Since BGA doesn't want to have referees adjudicating abandoned games, there's no other reason. For some bizarre reason, BGA refused to implement a "Fisher Clock" system for tournaments, which would eliminated almost all the problems. (In a FIsher Clock system, you get +n hours per move taken, with a maximum bank of a few days.)

My solution is that I only play multiplayer elimination tournaments. At least there, the slow players should get knocked out in the first round.

It also makes Swiss tournaments unplayable. If 20% of the people are slow and you have 5 player matches, you will have a LOT of skipped/unfinished games.

[JoysJoy]

I am here just longer than a year and it took this long to notice there is nothing BGA does to make it better- not even have a place to report issues. I have asked in 4 clear, separate posts how to actually report problems and I am utterly ignored. They do not want to deal with problems at all. Just want to you shut up and put up or leave. Since there is little competition, we don't have much choice. Decide if you want to continue to financially support a site that COULD be wonderful and just add to joy to your life, but instead refuses to acknowledge or fix problems- and eventually pisses you off enough to leave. I have noticed many just disappear after awhile and now I know why.

This post is demanding, exaggerating, unconstructive and generally negative. Other post of yours have been too. What kind of a response do you expect to this tone?

Silene- I started posting (and having problems absolutely ignored) months and months ago. What did I say that was an exaggeration? Unconstructive to point out my months of experience and dissatisfaction? I am pointing out that the issue raised has been raised over and over and never dealt with, so we choose to shut up an stay or leave. Your response could have been helpful, but no, you just attacked and gaslighted me. For example, instead of attacking me, please tell me where and how to ask my question to get an answer to my question: HOW DO WE ACTUALLY REPORT PROBLEMS WHEN THE REPORT LIST DOES NOT INCLUDE THEM OR ALLOW REPORTS TO BE MADE???? Why is there no answer, and how Silene, do you feel when months go by with no help no matter how often (or how) you ask? How do we get BGA to help fix problems here?

[Great_Martini]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

If I'm feeling charitable, I'd say that BGA resources seem to be prioritising (1) bringing new games along to the site, (2) fixing bugs, before they get to developing the very useful suggestions people are raising to improve the playability and fairness on the site. So it seems we have to live with this particular problem, and I will continue to red-thumb the more blatant offenders.

If you are fed up playing with people who kick players out, I can recommend a group I'm in - Ici On Vire Pas - whose members agree not to eject players. Some of the games and tournaments run in the group may take a little longer, but at least they finish with everyone still playing!

[drsteelhammer]

I am more annoyed with people who can't make their moves in time than with the people ejecting them. What I would like is for the people remaining in the game to play out the first place instead of sharing the victory.

There are several tournaments where people have a large time bank for people having trouble with timing out

[RobertBr]

If I'm feeling charitable, I'd say that BGA resources seem to be prioritising (1) bringing new games along to the site, (2) fixing bugs, before they get to developing the very useful suggestions people are raising to improve the playability and fairness on the site. So it seems we have to live with this particular problem, and I will continue to red-thumb the more blatant offenders.

BGA do not develop new games. There work seems to be tied up with a lot of maintenance (preventing and fixing general crashes). Contrary to the belief of new players like JoyJoy substantial work is done - the tournament system has had dozens of new options, including multi-player games, which have been requested by the community, since I first started playing.

But a section of the community often does not recognise the obvious difficulty or the time involved.

[Great_Martini]

I have many years' experience working in IT development environments, so I know it's not as simple as some think to develop and implement improvements.

But BGA should respond properly to the ever-growing list of suggestions. Perhaps a commitment could be made to support and implement the 20 most supported ideas, or a commitment to develop (or explain why they can't) any that receive a certain number of votes?

And I also have to say that blaming the players who run out of time is not an answer, as there are many reasons why a player can't fulfil time obligations, especially if the geographical order of players works against them. All I'm saying is that I'm seeing a lot of blatant use of ejections to kill games to protect ELO or tournament positions and I want to explore ways that can be prevented or at least reduced...