Immunity From Timeout While On Vacation

Originally posted by Marinkatomb
[b]Chris, did you forget to show the current results of these votes or is this a blind vote?[/b]

My name is not Chris but once you have voted or view it via site map you should be able to see the results.

May I ask - for fairness - when the vote is due to close?

Originally posted by latex bishop
[b]Thats fine, but in tournament play you have no control over when future rounds start, and in clan play you have no control over the leader setting the time outs full stop. It is not fair to lose a tournament a year on as a 14 day vacation does not fit in with the 7 day time bank.

Andrew

What kind of clan leader do you have?
Why not join tournaments with a 14 day timebank?
I see your points though.
Yanny

Would you be happy...
😠

I think that a 28 or 30 day vacation allowance is very fair. The only problems that I can see with it is that it would slow down tournaments and could be annoying for non-subscribers who are limited to 6 games.

On the other hand, non-subscribers are just as likely as anyone else to go on holiday for a couple of weeks every year.

And tournaments take ages anyway. Also a lot of tournaments are ruined because some of the main players are timed out, often because a new round has started at an arkward time for them. Personally I would rather see a tournament won on merit, rather than through default because so many competitors are timed out.

I'm voting for the vacation immunity. We should at least try it out for a year and monitor how it affects tournaments and individuals.

For open invites and friendly games, if it was made an optional feature, everyone would be happy.

That was an easy vote. No. No rest for the wicked!

P-

Originally posted by David Tebb
And tournaments take ages anyway. Also a lot of tournaments are ruined because some of the main players are timed out, often because a new round has started at an arkward time for them. Personally I would rather see a tournament won on merit, rather than through default because so many competitors are timed out.

I just took a peek at the results of 'preferred time controls for tournaments' vote http://www.redhotpawn.com/vote/result.php?voteid=11 ,and it seems to me that the vast majority of voters prefer 7 day timebank, some 14 days, and almost nobody prefers 28. so, it looks like just a marginal group of people are worried about being timed out, or, they don't realize the consequenses of preferring short timebanks in tournaments.

it would also be nice to see statistics for the actual situation currently. how many games are going on with different timebanks, in tournaments and other games separately. maybe even stats for subs vs non-subs, as there probably are differences because non-subs get those 6 game slots filled easily.

the longer I've played here, the more I've been using longer time controls. but I still feel 30 days of additional time will just create more annoyances than it'll solve. and some will run out of it just like the current timebanks. if they have a habit of using TB up, they will take time from the vacation bank as they need it. and as the vacation bank is not specific to single games, it'll take just a handfull of games to use it up.

also, if someone thinks the additional time will not be used, it most likely will. there's a maxim in usability engineering stating: all available resources will be used. -it's been shown that people will use whatever additional resources they are provided. give them more memory, it'll go. give them more cpu, it'll go. give them bigger budget, more time, and it'll all go.

people procrastinate until time runs up, no matter how much time. it's the human nature.

Originally posted by wormwood
I just took a peek at the results of 'preferred time controls for tournaments' vote http://www.redhotpawn.com/vote/result.php?voteid=11 ,and it seems to me that the vast majority of voters prefer 7 day timebank, some 14 days, and almost nobody prefers 28. so, it looks like just a marginal group of people are worried about being timed out, or, they don't rea ...[text shortened]... e procrastinate until time runs up, no matter how much time. it's the human nature.

Why is it always "procrastination", or "wasting time"? I've had several business trips to the hinterlands where pc access was limited or nonexistant, and a family emergency involving travel for a week. Between these two causes it's very easy for a time bank of even 10 - 14 days to get erroded. Having a vacation flag and protection from TO would have saved me many forfeitures this last year. Yet I do see your point about those who could abuse 30 day flags. If you don't like the idea of 30 concurrent days then how about this:
There are 30 days availible in total for the year, but no more than 7 may be used in a continuous stretch. This gives someone an extra week when they really need it, but limits the ability to abuse it for those who would.
Also, I would propose that if your flag is up, you can't make a move. Or if you make a move under the flag, the clock starts ticking and your flag automatically comes down in an hour.
Tournaments would be exempt from all of this and auto TO vacation flag or not.

Sounds to me like this would only lead to further abuse of the vacation flag. I.e. people putting the flag up routinely while offline to avoid getting any timeout losses due to their own mismanagement of games. If everyone is fine with that possibility then I don't see a problem with implementing the time-out immunity.

Originally posted by darvlay
Sounds to me like this would only lead to further abuse of the vacation flag. I.e. people putting the flag up routinely while offline to avoid getting any timeout losses due to their own mismanagement of games. If everyone is fine with that possibility then I don't see a problem with implementing the time-out immunity.

The proposed vacation allowance would only be 3 or 4 weeks in a year. So if a player routinely switched on his flag like that, he would soon use it up.

There will always be some people who mismanage their time. But sensibly used, the vacation allowance would be a useful form of protection in case of emergencies, business trips, illnesses and other unexpected absences, as well as being able to take a proper holiday every year without being timed out.

Originally posted by David Tebb
The proposed vacation allowance would only be 3 or 4 weeks in a year. So if a player routinely switched on his flag like that, he would soon use it up.

There will always be some people who mismanage their time. But sensibly used, the vacation allowance would be a useful form of protection in case of emergencies, business trips, illnesses and other une ...[text shortened]... ted absences, as well as being able to take a proper holiday every year without being timed out.

Amen, brotha Tebb!

Originally posted by David Tebb
The proposed vacation allowance would only be 3 or 4 weeks in a year. So if a player routinely switched on his flag like that, he would soon use it up.

There will always be some people who mismanage their time. But sensibly used, the vacation allowance would be a useful form of protection in case of emergencies, business trips, illnesses and other une ...[text shortened]... ted absences, as well as being able to take a proper holiday every year without being timed out.

Gotcha. I guess I really don't have an issue with it then.

Originally posted by rbmorris
I just got back from an 8-day vacation and nobody timed me out. I went on an 8-day vacation last year too and nobody timed me out. As far as I'm concerned, it's a non-issue. Most people are pretty respectful of the flag.

That wasn't my experience last year, when I took two weeks of vacation, posting the date I would be back, then returned to find games (many to lower rated players!) timed out.

If this change is adopted the clock should stop for both players. Otherwise the one who is on vacation can keep moving, unfairly putting time pressure on the one who's not.

Originally posted by mathemos
That wasn't my experience last year, when I took two weeks of vacation, posting the date I would be back, then returned to find games (many to lower rated players!) timed out.

If this change is adopted the clock should stop for both players. Otherwise the one who is on vacation can keep moving, unfairly putting time pressure on the one who's not.

I was just about to say something related.

Will people still be able to make moves in games while their vacation flag is up? Or will it disable their ability to make moves?