All the comments I've read make it out to not just be an issue of the player's psychology, but of etiquette or aesthetics. Why one place is polite or otherwise appropriate is a huge mystery to me.

But at least I can recognize some easy cases. If you're playing on KGS, you'll occasionally see the person who waits until dame are filled, passes are made, and the score even flashes on the screen before hitting resign.

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Occupy Babel!

This is interesting, I do the opposite, I hate not resigning.

I generally keep on going until I feel it is not realistically possible for me to win, then resign instantly. I resigned a game recently with 4 or 5 remaining non-dame moves and 4 dame moves because I was 1.5 points behind, and I realised that even with really bad yose my opponent couldn't lose. I then wondered if this was too close to the end and would be considered rude (though my opponent didn't think so fortunately), but I figure as long as I hadn't dragged it out when 40 points behind to that point, it made some sense.

I've seen professionals resign games with 20 or so moves left when the game cannot be caught be up as well (and one I think was a 0.5 point loss from the commentary given, I even think it was Lee Changho but I can't remember so clearly now), so I'm guessing it's ok... what are other people's opinions on my behaviour above?

I don't think resigning any time is rude.

On contrary, continuing to play when the only hope is a silly mistake from the opponent can be rude. What a silly mistake is, depends on the levels of players of course. If a dan player tries to live with a completely surrounded L-group (especially in his opponents byo-yomi), I would find it rude because he obviously hopes for a silly mistake from his opponent. But if a 15k does the same thing, I would perceive it as trying out some possibilities.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I don't think resigning at any time is rude, but resigning after two passes is a KGS bug.

This is the easy "rude" case. Almost anything else tends to get benefit of the doubt from me. Also if you stop paying attention to the game (because you've "already won") that gives your opponent opportunity for an upset.

I am surprised to see that many people find it rude to resign after two passes. I have never perceived it as rude and therefore I also do it occasionally.

I don't understand why it is rude. The winner is the same, he doesn't have to wait until the last byo-yomi period (this would be rude indeed), he gets the same amount of points, everything is the same. Why is it rude? It just shows that you wanted to see the accurate score before resigning.

Nevertheless, if the general opinion is that it is rude, I will not do it again and maybe enroll to a basic course about human relationships

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I'm not sure if I'd call it rude, but resigning just after seeing the score on KGS strikes me as positively weird. Surely the only reason for resigning is to save yourself time (and mental energy in playing the rest of the game out if you're so sure you're going to lose that it's not worth it) by not bothering to play the rest of the game. But if both have passed, determined and agreed on the dead stones, and the score has flashed up, then what's the point? Indeed, I'm even surprised to hear that one can resign at this point - surely as soon as both hit "OK" on the score popup then the game is counted as over anyway?

But isn't it the same result? Why does it matter if you lose by 0.5 points or 150 points or resign?
For me it is enough reason to justify that behaivour if the mouse cursor is closer to the "resign" button.
But apparently it is generally perceived as rude. Ok point taken, I won't do it again.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I find it incredibly rude to be down 40+ points and play the game out to the final 0.5 ko (at the ~1d level, obviously things are different at the DDK level). There comes a point where you no longer have a chance to come back and you're really just wasting your opponent's time. However, if the game is close enough to justify playing it out to the scoring phase, I don't find it any ruder to resign than to just score the game normally.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

I don't think resigning after two passes is a legitimate part of go. It's simply a KGS bug. In the scoring stage, the game is over - there's nothing to resign.

The winner may not have to wait for the last byo-yomi period, but he DID have to wait for the rest of the game after his victory was clear. In the case of a less than 10 point game, no big deal - you can hope for an endgame mistake or you might be in byo-yomi and not be able to estimate closely enough. But in the case of a 20+ point lead (again, this only applies to SDK or greater), the only reason to play on is to hope for a blunder (which I was always told was rude outside of blitz - your opponent is no worse than you are unless you know otherwise.) If you play in a fashion that assumes your opponent is capable of making a 40 point mistake in the endgame ALL THE WAY TO THE LAST DAME... yeah, that's rude.

The only reason to resign at that point is because you don't want other people to look at your record and see how rude you are - hitting "Done" is just as easy as hitting "Resign." It's not really the resignation that's the rude part. It's the time wasting. The resignation just shows that one is not only rude but knows it and doesn't care.

This is different if the players are too weak to properly judge the score of course. If you have no idea that you're 15 points behind, of course you shouldn't resign. But if you honestly judge that you're behind and there is literally nothing that can reasonably happen to alter the course of the game, you should resign no matter what your level is.

It depends on a type of game. A few days ago, I resigned a game where I was about 5 points behind(there was some yose to play out, but he was thick and had a lot of sente moves) and one game my opponent was losing by about 15 pots, lost by about the same amount in the end, but it was ok to play that game since there were some flaws in my position etc. I am talking aobut slow games here.

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That may be the case, but I believe the only reason to feel strongly about this bug is vanity. That is you really want to remember how badly you have beaten your opponents and even a win by resignation is not enough.

i think it is opposite - i don't want to have a "trophy" of how badly i've beaten my opponent. i would be perfectly content with resignation once the game had been decided. in my view, the final score should be more like punishment for the loser (punishment because he was waisting my time) than award for the winner (who won anyway)

yet i agree it is nothing vital, you don't meet such opponent everyday

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.