vacation flags and all that jazz

Hello again dear readers!

yes indeed im back after a bet with darvlay, but whilst i was exiled into fifteen days silence i had a thought about this and a possible solution.

i realise that this has been debated at length but would wish to make some contribution, particularly as summer (except readers in scotland of course where it rains constantly!) is on the horizon. i have always considered it unsporting to take timeout wins when someone has a vacation flag up, however a vicious circle has developed.

there appears to be three main reasons why ppl take timeouts in these circumstances;

(1) in its current form it no longer serves its purpose and has been abused by a number of ppl.

(2) Do unto others as they do unto me, i.e. when a player is on holiday they come back to see they have lost a whole number of games and they then do this to others.

(3) some players only use the vacation flag and do not indicate when they shall return.

given these reasons i suggest the following solutions;

(a) it MUST be COMPULSORY for a player to indicate when they shall return form vacation.

(b) that a time limit be introduced as to how long the vacation flag is against a players profile. this could be a period of say 2, 3 or even 4 weeks - i believe a longer period than four is unworkable.

(c) in these circumstances it could then be a site rule not to be able to take timeouts whilst the vaction flag is on. obviously if the vacation time limit expires time outs could and probaly should be taken.

these are just my thoughts and an honest attempt to solve the issue but would wlecome other suggestions , and whether other players believe this to be workable.

cheers


chris

I like your ideas except for the following point:

a) You immediatly should see in the match your playing that when a player will return. In my opinion you can only see if you click on the player and visit his or her profile.

I also want to suggest that:

When someone claims a victory a message should be shown that this person has been on holiday for a certain period during the match.
This might change the point of view from the person claiming the victory.

Regards,


Kaasbol

And the vacation setting should be IGNORED in tournament/league games, or at least minimized somewhat...

Interesting ideas Chris,

One spin on this would be to have limited holiday time per year, say 6 weeks, but personally I like having the choice (but rarely exercise the right).

I would though urge everyone to put their return date in, isn't this common courtesy? ie if a player is asking opponents not to time them out then shouldn't they give an indicator for how long?

Maybe this could be mandatory with putting the flag up?

Cheers, Dave

Might be nice to see when the vacation flag was applied too.
So that those eejits who put up messages like 'on holiday, back in 2 weeks' can be understood.

I did promise someone last year we would have an improved holiday/vacation system before this summer season (for all us north of the globe anyway). I suspect this will not happen now, but I will certainly try to make some tweaks wherever possible.

By the time I find the time though it will probably be too late for many.

-Russ

Don't worry about it Russ.
This is why we have timebanks.

I believe all tournament/clan/siege games should timeout automatically after the 2 day grace period (like in tournies at the moment).
Only friendly challenges should not auto TO and I'd like to think friends won't time each other out.

This will stop all the whining about timeouts once and for all.