When I look at my unfinished game list I see 6 of them. And some of them might even have been left by me due to wlan failure.
Afaik the list lasts 6 Months(~600 games for me), which means that in about 1% of my games the opponent escaped and did not get a forfeit yet.
So I don't think there is an escaper problem on kgs.

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Sanity is for the weak.

I like how wms liked the above post

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I fully agree. For me, this is purely an emotional issue. When I play Go, emotions are involved. When I win the game the game, this feels really good. If I loose the game, it hurts. (Some Go player had a T-shirt with 'If you can't stand the pain, don't play the game.' on it - have to get one for me )

And, guess what, if somebody escapes on me, I get angry. If he stays on the server and happily starts a new game while I wait for him to return, this makes me even more angry. He leaves the game to avoid the loss and the system allows him to do that. If the system wouldn't, him leaving the game would be essentially the same as a resignation.

There is a reason that the KGS system is so 'unique'.

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

the admins have actually told me that they think the player has the right to leave the game if they dont want to finish it. so theyre telling me i have the right to escape if i want to.

its part of the reason why i wont ever support KGS until something is done about the system. yes i have KGS+ but its only a consequence of being in the insei league. i think KGS is a good server but the admins do need to wake up and listen (no matter what they tell you, they dont)

They listen. They just don't agree with you.

if by listen, you mean make condescending comments and pretending they care about your opinion, then sure.

Sounds to me more like they don't care about your opinion at all, xDragon. What makes you think they're pretending to?

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one would assume that if they act like they care about the opinion about those who play on their server, then they should.

To be clear, I don't consider the escapers to be a major problem ... just a minor annoyance.

My issue was with the previous comment that a player would refuse a challenge if the opponent had x number of italic games in his game list. I have been frustrated by this in the past, where I have been escaped on several games in a row (it happens, and is annoying, but I can deal), then my challenges start to get refused because I have a set of italic games in my list.

Makes it hard to get a game ... so I've started using Automatch. Good enough for me. I have a workaround ... I just want those who say "too bad" to be aware that those of us who do try to finish every game and still meet with what could be considered an unlucky streak of escapers challenging do exist, and probably in more numbers than you'd believe.

I don't have a solution. In fact, I think the KGS setup is quite nice, allowing for minimal annoyance to cloud some nice, casual games. Nothing to get worked up at.

Also, I'm posting long responses because I'm waiting for my Malkovich Games to continue.

personally i think they should make a way so the window cannot be closed without the game ending in some way (the game actually being done, or one party resigning)

would this solve the escaping problem? the only way to escape i can think of would be to disconnect from ones internet to exit the game....which many people would find to be too big of a hassle

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It doesn't help much. You can still use the task manager to simply terminate the kgs client. Which is indistinguishable from a client crash(Crashes are not uncommon for me). I've used this trick on single player games with a Save-On-Exit system, and I doubt an evil escaper would not use this.

Personally I'd prefer a system where the escapee has a few minutes to come back. Once that time has passed without him trying to resume the game, the opponent can demand a win(pressing some button).

But IMO there are a lot of things on KGS which are far more annoying than escapers. A better handling of packet loss(faster resend) and faster detection of disconnects are pretty high on my list. This might even reduce the number of involuntary escapes/losses on time.

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Sanity is for the weak.

It's equally interesting that right before I clicked "submit" on my post, I guessed it would garner a one-line response to a one-line quote snipped from it (=

As I said, I'm just kidding with you. I'm also curious if there exists any admin on KGS that dislikes the KGS escaping system... But I don't want to get into some heated argument about this.

As I've already stated, the escaping system on KGS is not a big deal to me, and I don't think that it's worth arguing about. As you've already stated, sometimes people just have to agree to disagree, and that differences in opinion are inevitable. I was just pointing out that, to me, it's kind of obvious what a KGS admin's opinion about the system is, so I'm not as convinced of a particular argument when it comes from somebody from within the system.

I guess I could come up with analogy. I might be interested in buying a TV. A Sony TV salesman might have a bunch of points that all indicate the reasons that I should by a Sony TV, and not an Acer TV. Of course he points out all of the good aspects of the Sony brand because he works for Sony. It would be much more convincing to me if his same points were brought up by a third party that didn't work for the TV store, because I wouldn't think that they were trying to sell me something, leaving out the negative aspects of Sony TVs...

But using this analogy, I don't really care what kind of a TV I have - Sony or Acer. Both TVs work fine to me, so I'm not really trying to argue for or against Sony. I'm just saying that a Sony salesman will, of course, give me all of the reasons that I should by a Sony TV.

So in this example, I'm not upset about the KGS escaping system. I'm OK with it. I like other servers' systems, too (maybe I prefer the timeout system slightly better). They both work fine to me. Some users have a difference in opinion about the best method of dealing with escapers. I'm just pointing out that the opinion of a KGS admin is already obvious, since they are a part of the system.

Of course, you are just as free as anybody else to express your opinions and thoughts. I just think that I can guess what they are beforehand when they come to matters dealing with KGS

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I accept that the KGS system works in most cases, However, it might not be the best possible system (I'm assuming that wms wants KGS to be the best server around). I'm wondering how you feel that the policies on other servers are worse then the KGS system in respect to the criteria you mentioned.

Well, I don't have a problem with KGS' escaper policy, but I tend to agree with you, because I have never heard any complaints about IGS' or any other go server's escaper policy..

Oh I knew you meant your comment in good fun, as did I (= , my goal was to simply try and get people to discuss objective aspects of what is desirable in a system rather than simply vent because they are angry about escapers. I was actually trying to keep my personal views out of it as much as I could, instead outlining the set of principles I believed were the main focus when implementing this escaper policy. Like I said, this is an old discussion that has been happening for the better part of a decade now. I think most people forget that the current escaper system is actually already a compromise solution from what wms originally had wanted (and if I recall correctly, it was a change that was made reluctantly at that...).




I'm not totally familiar with all of the intricacies of other servers escaper systems, to try and do a brief comparison:

Tygem - It was mentioned in another thread you submit your games for adjudication. This would go against criterion 1 as there is a human element now directly involved, it would also increase the effort required by the average user in order to have a game resolved. In theory, this could have an advantage with criteria 3, because (should they be willing to put forth the effort) now all games can be evaluated on a case by case as to what the effect of the various outcomes of the game could potentially be. It's hard to compare the two systems with respect to the 2nd criterion, it would depend upon the specific person making the judgment.

IGS/Oro - As I understand it there's a time limit to log back in (5 minutes?), then you resign. This is fits nicely with 1, it's completely automatic. On the second criterion I feel this falls short however, because the server behavior seems to assume the player is guilty of escaping, and gives them 5 minutes to prove they were not. When in doubt, the server would default to the conclusion that the player is not acting in good faith. I will come back to #3 in a minute. With respect to #4 it's pretty much a wash. While technically on IGS the average player is required to either wait 5 minutes before moving on (because their opponent disconnected), or log back in within 5 minutes, requirements that don't exist on KGS, in practice on KGS they will end up doing this anyway.

It's difficult to gauge the impact with respect to #3, because it turns into something of a signal to noise issue. In general you will have two types of disconnections, someone who is willfully disconnecting due to the board position (i.e. escaping or sandbagging), or someone who gets disconnected (willfully or unwillfully) for a reason unrelated to the board position. Let's assume from a ratings perspective, the former is dominated by escapers and (if left unmitigated) would introduce a systematic bias for select people who engaged in that behavior. Let's also assume that disconnections for reasons not related to board position, the disconnected player had an equal probability of winning or losing that game. With respect to criterion #3, the goal of any automatic escaper system would be to reduce the bias introduced by intentional disconnections while limiting the random error introduced by unintentional disconnections. The IGS and KGS systems take alternative approaches to this. The IGS system's goal is to completely eliminate the systematic bias by making all escaped games resignations, while taking steps to mitigate the random error (instead of all random disconnections resulting in a loss, now only disconnections of greater than 5 minutes result in a loss). KGS on the other hand attempts to virtually eliminate any random error that may be introduced by disconnections (as it would generally take greater than 10 random disconnections in 6 months against opponents who were either unable or unwilling to resume the game), while implementing a system that would minimize the systematic bias introduced by intentionally escaped games (no more than 10 games per user per 6 months, provided you are playing a sufficient number of total games).

We could try and speculate as to the magnitude of these effects, and then decide which is more important to reduce, however I think would be more productive to instead briefly look at the nature of each server's ranking system. On IGS a player is given a rank that's a number that is slightly adjusted each time a game result is entered. On KGS all game results of the previous 6 months are used to generate a probability of each player winning vs. each other player. In short, KGS's ranking system has increased sophistication, however that added layer also means it is potentially more susceptible to bad data points (games have a 6 month memory). Another way to look at it is this - IGS's ratings are made by consistent modifcations to a static value, whereas KGS's rankings are made by repeatedly performing a dynamic measurement.

From this perspective it makes sense that both servers take the approach they do. On IGS, a systematic measurement bias would be more likely to cause a player's rating to continue rising (you would be consistently adding more than you are subtracting), and it could potentially be more harmful to the system. A random error would just mean that the player's rating fluctuates a larger amount, but still averages out around the "correct" value. A systematic bias on KGS however would make it so that a player is consistently ranked a small amount higher than the "correct" value and would not have a cumulative effect. In that vein, for KGS it's more effective to try and limit the random error in order to improve the accuracy of rating system as a whole. Without being able to find the actual magnitude of either of these effects it's tough to say which is doing a better job, or what the best place to put the parameters at to tune each system would be (i.e. Who knows, maybe IGS would have a more accurate ranking system if they used 7.5 minutes instead of 5 and maybe KGS should use 8 games instead of 10...but at that point it's just nitpicking).

With respect to your four criteria:

1) requirement objectivity is a hard one. Objective judgement requires objective criteria, and there is no way we can get enough information to objectively judge a game's escaper with any degree of confidence. Certainly, involving people is likely to make it less objective, so at least if the rules are clear and unambiguous they can be consistent, which is more important I think. Automated I completely agree with. It's far too common an occurrence to have manual intervention each game. The workload would be completely unworkable, and would be mindless and tedious. Submission of games is definitely a poor idea IMHO.

2) I buy the argument that assuming good faith is a generally sound principle. Even excluding the minority of society who would abuse this ad infinitum simply because they can (which people do, including KGS go players), I think you are making an error of judgement if you think that terminating a game after 5 minutes involves a conclusion being made that the escaper has not acted in good faith. I don't think that judgement is being made at all, one way or the other. Simply "they left, they didn't come back, game ended".

3) Leaving games in limbo where the escaper has left a lost game (most genuine disconnection problems in my experience have been games that have eventually continued), will disrupt the rating system just as much per game as a resignation on their behalf would in the other direction. Whichever is a more common occurrence will have the biggest effect, and I would probably put a small sum of money on the escaper being on the losing side of the game being much more common than the escaper being on the winning side of the game. If true, an automated 5 minute game end would disrupt the system less than the game staying in limbo.

4) So, this refers partly back to #2. It should be automated for the user, and automated for the system.

My personal preference has always just been "leave the clock running. When it hits 0, it's a loss on time" and leave it at that. The person who didn't escape should have the power to "stop the clock" if they feel their opponent has left through disconnection, and leave it running if they want also.

This way, the system is completely automated, clear and unambiguous, assumes completely neutral faith on any part, is as fair as possible to both players, and gives players the option to "give the opponent a chance" if they think it was a valid disconnection.

The abuse is only possible in valid disconnections where the player remaining wins a lost game by letting that clock tick down. Off the top of my head, I think this form of abuse would account for about 5-10% of the current abuse with the escaper system as it stands.

It doesn't affect me either way, I rarely play rated games on the server, but I do agree that the system feels like it is more open to abuse and user discontent than it should be.

This may have been suggested already, but would it be possible to add some indicator (automated of course) of which player left an unfinished game first? The unfinished game shows up in both players' game records but an indication of who first left the game makes the situation a little less ambiguous.

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That would not be a good solution. Assume you are playing a slow game, 30 minutes or more, and your opponent makes a serious mistake and escapes when there is still lots of time left on his clock. You would be required to essentially wait until his time runs out, even not being able to start another game after some time. It would also distort the game in case of connection failures, which we all know do happen.
So I think the five minutes rule is the best compromise between giving him a fair chance to come back after a connection loss (or make it 10 minutes, then he should be able to completely reboot his computer in case of such problems) and you not having to wait too long for him to come back.

I mean I see the ideas behind the KGS system design, but together with the fact that it is so easy to create yourself a new account, it is just not working properly.

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

My only complaint about the escaper system as it stands is the length of time one has to wait before the game is forfeited. I believe that it is 6 months at the moment; I believe that 1 month would be a more reasonable time frame. That way the genuine disconnect would not be arbitrarily punished and there would be time for the players to sort out a way to finish the game.

Best wishes.

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