KGS escaper policy - explicit enough?

[Kirby]

Hello,

- You're the landlord. Tenant comes by and lets you know that the cellar lock has been broken and some items have gone missing. You reminiscence the time month ago when another tenant came by and told you the same thing. Being a landlord is quite lonely occupation sometimes, so you are happy that at least some people care to drop by and have conversation with you. You don't mind the tone. It's just characteristic of tenants to be always complaining about everything. Besides being so attached to material possessions is a sign of developing secularity. [-]

You share a big house with 100 people. It's free, there is always food in the refrigerator and there's usually a party in the big room. However, you're unhappy because the walls are light blue instead of light yellow. Unfortunately, many of the people living there have different opinions of the best possible colour.

The owner of the house understands that living with lots of people requires a bit of give and take. When you knock on his door to complain about the wall colour for the 20th time, he patiently listens to your description of the absolutely perfect wall colour. After you've explained yet again why your colour choice is better than all the others and rejoin the party, he resumes repairing the cable connection.

It's a good analogy, I think. I wonder if, if everybody kept asking for the same shade of green walls, it'd be a more effective approach.

[Toge]

You share a big house with 100 people. It's free, there is always food in the refrigerator and there's usually a party in the big room. However, you're unhappy because the walls are light blue instead of light yellow. Unfortunately, many of the people living there have different opinions of the best possible colour.

- It's not so much apples and oranges question. Surely there's no one who opposes working escaper policy? Surely no one opposes that adjourned games and escaped games are differentiated? How do you know that something is a problem? Well, because numerous people complain about it.

Or should we all just start escaping? Escape nine times, then abandon and recreate account. You can play twenty games. All within rules. Overranked account is just gravy. We'd have mods on our side to kick the man when he's down and a policy of "sit down & shut up". Boy, would that be a riot? I'd hate to be such a jackass against my opponents just to prove a point. Would there be 100 people in the house if this caught on?

[Suji]

Personally, I feel that the KGS escaper policy is fine. Though I do have to suggest one tiny, tiny improvement. On the chess server, FICS, everyone has the option of setting an option called SetNoEscape. What this option does is when two players start a game and they BOTH have SetNoEscape on, the player who disconnects during the game (if at all) will lose.

I personally believe this would solve most of the issues that most people have about the escaper policy. The people who don't have the option set, the server would take care of them, and the people who have the SetNoEscape option set win the game when the opponent disconnects.

[blue]

Or should we all just start escaping? Escape nine times, then abandon and recreate account. You can play twenty games. All within rules. Overranked account is just gravy. We'd have mods on our side to kick the man when he's down and a policy of "sit down & shut up". Boy, would that be a riot? I'd hate to be such a jackass against my opponents just to prove a point. Would there be 100 people in the house if this caught on?

these guys already have serious problems. just leave them be.
Not be able to accept a loss is much more punishment than the KGS policy will ever be able to give them.
I also doubt such people will get strong. How, if they can't lose?

The one who is angry when they escape is the escaper himself.
Who bother and get angry yourself too? One is enough...

ps: don't care that much about rankings. Just get stronger, your rank will rise up automatically over time ..

[Kirby]

Escapers are not a huge issue for me, so the argument is mostly philisophical to me, but I can sympathize with Toge's viewpoint. He sees the escaping policy as a problem that should be fixed.

BigDoug also brings up the good point that it is hard to please everyone.

I think that if the escaping system really is seen as a problem, then there needs to be a widely preferred, single alternative. Otherwise, it's unlikely that any complaints will be heard.

The question is, "is KGS's currently implemented system the closest to ideal to the most people". Maybe it is or is not - I'm just one person.

But even with agreement, it's not a democracy. BigDoug is right - it's a free service after all.

But I guess the forum is a means of free speech, too...

[Suji]

Escapers are not a huge issue for me.

Could I inquire why? I'm curious.

I'm personally very, very competitive and ATM very, very weak at Go. I like beating opponents when I have the chance. You're stronger so you don't have to deal with escapers much.

It's annoying to be winning a game and your opponent doesn't want to lose so he escapes.

Maybe HKA and Andrea said it best:

First off, let me say it is not that he did not acknowledge he lost. In fact, I often laugh to myself on that issue, because he SOOOOO acknowledged that he lost.

I follow the maxim: "You can't control others, you can control yourself". I won't pretend I never feel irritation at other people's behaviour, but that's my problem, and I'm working on it. It's a work in progress...

I like these quotes because they show what * I * should feel after I've been escaped on. Instead, though, I'm angry at the person.

Also, I personally feel that I can't improve if I don't complete games. I know that this is not technically true, but it's how I feel.

[palapiku]

Hello,

- You're the landlord. Tenant comes by and lets you know that the cellar lock has been broken and some items have gone missing. You reminiscence the time month ago when another tenant came by and told you the same thing. Being a landlord is quite lonely occupation sometimes, so you are happy that at least some people care to drop by and have conversation with you. You don't mind the tone. It's just characteristic of tenants to be always complaining about everything. Besides being so attached to material possessions is a sign of developing secularity. [-]

You share a big house with 100 people. It's free, there is always food in the refrigerator and there's usually a party in the big room. However, you're unhappy because the walls are light blue instead of light yellow. Unfortunately, many of the people living there have different opinions of the best possible colour.

The owner of the house understands that living with lots of people requires a bit of give and take. When you knock on his door to complain about the wall colour for the 20th time, he patiently listens to your description of the absolutely perfect wall colour. After you've explained yet again why your colour choice is better than all the others and rejoin the party, he resumes repairing the cable connection.

Escapers and the KGS escaper policy are obviously a huge issue. This is not my opinion, this is a perfectly objective statement as evidenced by the amount of constant discussion here and in the English Game Room. Wall color is a bad analogy because people simply don't get so worked up over wall color. Do you think people get worked up over escapers just because they're naturally belligerent trolls? Then why is the issue (almost) always escapers, and not something else?

To imply that the issue is unimportant, like you do here, is simply factually untrue. This is not wall color.

[oren]

Escapers and the KGS escaper policy are obviously a huge issue.

I disagree with this. It seems like an exceptionally low percentage of games have escapers.

You see a lot of people talk about it in EGR. Often I will glance at someone's record who is complaining and they have nearly no escapers against them and soon get the forfeit for someone who has left.

I think the handling of escapers is fine.

[ketchup]

Escapers and the KGS escaper policy are obviously a huge issue. This is not my opinion, this is a perfectly objective statement as evidenced by the amount of constant discussion here and in the English Game Room. Wall color is a bad analogy because people simply don't get so worked up over wall color. Do you think people get worked up over escapers just because they're naturally belligerent trolls? Then why is the issue (almost) always escapers, and not something else?

To imply that the issue is unimportant, like you do here, is simply factually untrue. This is not wall color.

I believe you misunderstand here. The discussion currently seems to be about ways to deal with escapers, rather than how harmful or not an escaper is to someone. Even then though, most people disagree about this too.

[palapiku]

Escapers and the KGS escaper policy are obviously a huge issue.

I disagree with this. It seems like an exceptionally low percentage of games have escapers.

You see a lot of people talk about it in EGR. Often I will glance at someone's record who is complaining and they have nearly no escapers against them and soon get the forfeit for someone who has left.

I think the handling of escapers is fine.

Did you actually read my post?

[oren]

Did you actually read my post?

Yes, I did.

[ross]

Did you actually read my post?

Yes, I did.

Still, it seems like you were talking past each other. If I could summarize how it looked from a third party's perspective:

palapiku: The escaper policy is a huge issue. This is evidenced by how often people talk about it, both here and on KGS.
oren: The escaper policy is not a huge issue, because percentage-wise it affects very few games.

You kind of completely ignore palapiku's point, while bringing up a seemingly irrelevant statistic. It's not surprising that he feels you didn't bother to read what he posted.

[karaklis]

Escapers and the KGS escaper policy are obviously a huge issue. This is not my opinion, this is a perfectly objective statement as evidenced by the amount of constant discussion here and in the English Game Room.

Yes, and when I look into people's profile (usually the opponents of my friends on KGS, i.e. mostly between 3k and 9k) about one of three has a list of escapers in it. That's how these people deal with escapers, but of course exposing escapers does not help with anything. But it shows for how many people the escaper policy seems to be a serious problem.

[BigDoug]

Hello,

See my point 2 above. Even if you only get robbed once it can be a traumatizing experience.

I've had friends die, lost jobs, had my house robbed, had money issues at earlier points of my life, etc. I don't think that being escaped on is a traumatising experience. When someone escapes one of my games, I'm not that fussed. If he or she is so scared of losing, I don't treat it as my problem.

Further, I see the admins as something more than landlords, they are host and hostesses. It's part of their assignment to create a friendly atmosphere where in which people feel welcome and happy.

When I invite people over for dinner, I get to choose who's going to visit our house. I'll invite friends or work colleagues, but I won't invite any random person on the street to join us. In contrast, anyone is welcome to log into KGS as a guest or registered user.

Personally, I view the admins as traffic officers at a busy intersection. We try to keep the traffic moving as best we can and stop the cars when needed to ensure that families can cross the street safely. We'll also stop people from running red lights. However, we don't hand out cold drinks or confirm that every driver is having a happy day.

(Remarkably e.g. Javaness seems to manage this rather well, whereas BD seems somewhat more challenged.)

No doubt Javaness will be pleased that he's your favourite.

[Li Kao]

Escapers on kgs are a problem if you let it bother you. Objectively not many games are influenced by escapers but it's a psychological problem.
It's one of the few problems which actually go away if you ignore it