World events

There are going to be site members -especially in Oz and Nz who have been affected by the recent natural disasters.
For example, there is a player on my "list" who has moved regularly in the past and has now been inactive for 48 days!!
It's a bit unfair on people such as this to have their ratings blitzed and be "timed out" through "circumstances beyond their control"
I realise it is impossible for the site administrators to monitor individual players, but perhaps a general announcement asking the habitual skull takers for some leniency might be in order?

rec'd

I had just grabbed a skull before i read this. i quickly went to check the player's flag and was relieved that it was in the US.

I'd suggest suspending skulls from places affected by major disasters. it wouldn't be that hard to do, but surely making an announcement reminder is in order

coquette (a major taker of skulls)

Originally posted by venda
There are going to be site members -especially in Oz and Nz who have been affected by the recent natural disasters.
For example, there is a player on my "list" who has moved regularly in the past and has now been inactive for 48 days!!
It's a bit unfair on people such as this to have their ratings blitzed and be "timed out" through "circumstances beyond t eneral announcement asking the habitual skull takers for some leniency might be in order?

With you all the way on this Dave...likewise I've been monitoring \ messaging \ emailing a chap I know here for over a month now, I've even taken to messaging his clan and club bosses to see if they have news on his situation and \ or whereabouts. His rate has dropped from 2100++ to 1900 in the intervening time. The last time he was away from the site for any length of time was when he had a heart attack.. and that was for only two weeks and he still managed to throw his flag out after four days !! It is rather sad but I keep my fingers crossed for him...User 398703

Originally posted by venda
There are going to be site members -especially in Oz and Nz who have been affected by the recent natural disasters.
For example, there is a player on my "list" who has moved regularly in the past and has now been inactive for 48 days!!
It's a bit unfair on people such as this to have their ratings blitzed and be "timed out" through "circumstances beyond t ...[text shortened]... eneral announcement asking the habitual skull takers for some leniency might be in order?

The problem is anyone can set their Flag to Oz or Nz.

When you join the site your payment is made to a third party and as such the site owners should not be privy to your personal details so it would be impossible for them to distinguish between people from UK, USA, Oz, Antartica or Nz.

Also if I purchased a subscription for someone else, maybe a relative living abroad then the payment in my case would come from UK but I could be paying for someone living in Oz.

While it may seem unfair, I really don't believe that anyone affected by a disaster really give two hoots whether their online chess rating drops a few hundred points or not - they have more important things to worry about.

Some people take the skull when it appears, some wait a day or two, its all about personal choice.

The other way to look at it is that you may be on for a good win against someone 200 points better rated, but due to you waiting rather than skulling the opponent, others have taken the timeout wins and reduced the rating to 200 point below your current rating. You may now only get 3 or 4 rating points for what would have been a good win rather than the 18-20 that you deserved.

Then again you could be in the position of getting beaten, and due to others taking the timeout wins, your opponent is now 200 point below your current rating. You may now lose 18-20 rating points for the loss (although a better player they have a much poorer current rating) rather than the 3 or 4 you should have.

People put too much emphasis on their rating rather than the games themselves but the site is all about your rating.

"While it may seem unfair, I really don't believe that anyone affected by a disaster really give two hoots whether their online chess rating drops a few hundred points or not - they have more important things to worry about."
Spot on mate! As you say (above) ratings on a chess site don't really matter at all.We all have far more important things to worry about and personal "disasters" can strike anybody, at anytime ,anywhere in the world.