I am taking the liberty to start another topic on that. The Kaya/Nova thread is not the right place.



I thought this was a good solution (and said so in the Kaya/Nova thread), but upon further consideration, I can see the flaws. Here they are:

Flaw #1.
What if you disconnect, and return before 5 min passed just to find your opponent already playing another game. Is this automatic loss? Automatic adjourn? Automatic nullification? Or what? Or should the opponent be forced to sit there waiting for you for this time - or the game is void? This has to be decided first!

Flaw #2.
The system is prone to abuse - imagine you keep 'disconnecting' during intense fighting to have more time to analyse position. Each such 'disconnect' can give you additional 5 min on the clock, basically. Such abuse would also have to be handled somehow. I would assume that *this* behavior would be more annoying that any escaper can ever be.

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So, let me propose another solution - a very simple one: When you disconnect, your timer simply keeps running. That's it.

If you do not come back until your time runs out, you lose on time. Simple, elegant, and everybody can adjust their own timing accordingly. For example - if you know you have a bad connection, you don't play fast games. If you know you detest escapers, you set reasonable time to what you personally consider good grace period. You can also only agree to game which suit your personal preference.

This is how it is handled in real life. You leave the table on your move, nobody is stopping the clock. You don't come back before time expires - you lose. End of story, and I never heard anybody saying that was unfair.

Some servers have an 'add time' feature - it would be a great compliment to what I propose above - so the waiting person can always add extra time if they decide it is worth to wait longer.

You might combine the two - especially good for longer games - and a grace period of somewhat longer time can be established after which the person left at the table can simply claim the win. But this is not necessary.

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There is no perfect solution, and whatever you do there is a potential for somebody to get awarded an undeserved win or loss. Or people can behave in ways that annoy you - for example, in both proposals escapers can escape and make you sit there and wait for the time or grace period to run out, just to get back at you for winning the game.

But I honestly think that what I propose above is as good as can be. If you have other ideas, please share.

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- Bantari
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Actually, in real life, there isn't a clock. The vast majority of games are played without a clock, with the understanding that players will try to behave.

What that means for timing systems...I don't know.

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Occupy Babel!

Bantari, I think your solution works as well. But:

Thing is, that when you are on a wireless connection, there can be dropouts which require you to reset your wireless receiver. It can take you 30 s until you are back in the game. If you are already in byo-yomi, this can cause you to lose the game. No big deal, I agree, but I just wanted to point out there is also a drawback with your proposed solution.

When I play on Tygem, I see that their method is working fine, with very little abuse. Adjournment will only improve it, especially for slow and serious games.

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

Unrated club games, you might be correct.
The vast majority of 'rated' games I ever played were with a clock. This includes tournaments and other rated games.

I assumed we were talking about officially rated games. In unrated games, the problem of escapers is much less painful. But maybe I am wrong. Lets hear from the anti-escapers - would they still be so angered by escapers if they only escaped in unrated games?

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- Bantari
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Right, but then you only set up games with longer byo-yomi... you can always manage your time so that you never have less then, say, 3 min on the clock - just for this purpose.

I think this is one of the reasons my solution is good - everybody can play games with time that makes sense for them and their current circumstance and/or preference. Most problems that can arise, the player can pretty much solve him/herself by using appropriate time setting and timing style.

But of course - there will always be 'incidents'. I don't think you can arrange a system without a single flaw - not when so many people with so many contradicting ideas are involved. What I propose does not only minimize the 'incidents', but also gives individual players much more control over what they personally prefere to solve their personal problem(s).

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- Bantari
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Could someone explain why they hate the KGS escaper policy so much, because I genuinely don't understand why it attracts so much hate. If your opponent is a serial escaper you get the win, so are people just not willing to give the benifit of the doubt to those who only leave the occasional game?

Heh...
Good luck getting an answer.
The best response I could ever get was that 'omg, its the rating system that suffers' and when this was refuted it was 'lack of respect and breach of contract.'

Personally, I think people dislike the system because it allows limited escaping and is not very strict on them. The reason for this is, afaik, the integrity of rating system - erring on the side of caution. The reason some people dislike it so, again in my personal view, is that they are getting all bent out of shape when they see themselves being robbed of the few rating points they were hoping to get for a game. At least - this is my suspicion. This is why you always see people saying things like: as long as I get a win, there is no escaper problem.

But that's just my suspicions. I don't really understand such attitudes very well. Especially in on-line play, which is often riddled with all kinds of external factors and distractions anyhow.

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- Bantari
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I've always been very confused by this as well. To me, escaping is a non-issue.

Let me put it this way: if I ran an actual physical go club (and had any control over the matter), anyone who stood up in the middle of a game with anyone else, said nothing, walked away, and sat down to play someone else would be immediately banned (at least until they learnt to be polite). Of course, such people more or less don't exist in real life - nobody would dare to act quite so shamefully, and such people probably quite like go and don't want to be banned. I don't have a problem with the KGS policy so much as I have a problem with any policy that allows people to ruin other people's afternoons essentially with impunity. (That's not to say that there's an obvious solution, though, which is why I usually don't get involved in discussions about escapers. Though I think making it culturally unacceptable to be an escaper, just like it's culturally unacceptable on KGS to play very few weaker players, could perhaps go a long way.)

In olden times, professionals would escape games. They would leave at the end of the evening or afternoon's play, then not show up in the morning.

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North Lecale

This seems very harsh for a personal disagreement? If the club members don't like this behaviour, they don't have to play the person when he sits down at the new game either, but banning them from the club?



No one can dictate how you choose to respond to their actions. It's your choice whether you say 'well, that was rude' and move on to the next game, or get angry enough to ruin your afternoon because of something you can't control.

Rather than cast stones towards KGS , let's get the camel out of our own eye. How are we going to punish escapers in L19 Malkovich games?

Playing a slower byo-yomi because of the chance a dropout may occur? You are not serious, are you?

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

It's easy.
Servers should allow only 3 escaped games to exist in limbo of unfinished games. If you escape from the 4th game, your 1st escaped game is automatically your loss.

Three ways to move unfinished game from limbo:

1. Finish it
2. Escape 4th and lose 1st
3. Your opponent click a button "not escaper" in 24 hours from the moment game stopped (should be implemented on servers). Of course, this to happen, you should persuade your opponent that you can't continue the game because of objective reasons and not because you're escaper.

No complicated calculations, no ratios, no inventing of hot water. If you get disconnected and can't go back, you just have to write an e-mail or message to your opponent in 24 hours and explain to him why you just dissapeared.

IMO this would solve escapers problem for good.

I don't really agree that it is a personal disagreement. In a small enough club, I can't imagine that anyone would want to play that person again anyway; in a bigger club, there's a little more anonymity. I don't want them banned, I just want them to know that openly disrespectful behaviour isn't acceptable. But this is the point: in real life, everyone does know this. KGS-style policies that say "10 strikes and maybe we'll start lowering your rating slightly!" are bizarrely lenient.


When I go to a go club, I spend money on public transport and then pay a board fee in order to spend a few hours of my precious little free time on a couple of games. Even when playing online, it's very difficult to find an hour and a half of free time to play a proper, full-length game. Of course I'm angry when someone disrespectfully decides it's fine to waste my free time. Aren't you?

Sure I am serious.
If you know you have bad connection, you don't play fast games. Nothing simpler than this. Your connection is your responsibility, nobody else's, and its up to you to carry that burden. Just like you don't start long games when you know you have limited time.

If, on the other hand, you mean that *you* should play slower game because *he* might drop connection - well, you don't have to. Just play somebody else. The player base is wide enough that you never really have to play a particular person if you don't want to. *He* will just have to find somebody who is agreeable to slower game.

Or were you sarcastic?

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- Bantari
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Actually, I'm not so sure. Both clubs I played at had a sort of rating system with relatively low precision. They didn't have a ladder or a mathematical system, but you might have a running handicap with a player, that you adjust up or down whenever someone gets three wins in a row. Or you'd ask "how many stones do you take from bob? he's just as strong as me".

One club was lackadaisical about correct handicaps, and some people always played even. At the other club, I recall that handicaps were very consistently used.

I think KGS ratings are at least as much like a club as like the AGA or EGF ratings. They're more mathematical than club ratings, but the quality of the data is not as good as tournament games.

Anti-escapers often say they're not obsessed with rank, and I somewhat believe them. An unfinished game is like a sour taste in your mouth.

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Occupy Babel!

Unfortunately, Japanese and Canadian byo-yomi make it very hard to avoid the risk of timing out during a disconnect without playing incredibly long games.

Another argument for Fischer, I suppose.

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Occupy Babel!

Well, there's a big difference in my mind between paying money and traveling to get a game vs. connecting online when I have some free time. That aside, I don't get terribly angry about it online. I played my game for as long as we could. If they're clearly in a losing position, I chalk it up as a win in my mind and let it go. If it's interesting, I often hope they come back to finish it. I've also had people escape from games during the marking of stones, when it was clear they had won. That I just found baffling (the game was unrated). But in all of those, I see it as an opportunity to get on to my next game sooner.

I've never had this exactly happen that I can think of in person. I imagine I'd ask if they were still playing and then if they didn't come back or ignored me, find another game again. I may not want to play them again after, but I still have half a game to think about, or however much. Even if they were behind, I can think about whether it was possible to come back, and how to do it.

True... but this sour taste cannot be helped no matter what rules you enforce. There are servers with a very strict escaper policy (even one exactly like the initial proposal - short grace time and escaper loses - like PlayOk.com) - and people still escape. So we are not talking about that here, only about what is actually doable at the server-level.

There is only one way to prevent the 'sour taste' - and its what I have been advocated for years as 'the ultimate escaper solution' - find it in yourself not to let it bother you.

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- Bantari
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