Limit slow players?

There are just a few slow players that slow all tournaments down by moving very rarely.

I think players should be excluded from joining more tournaments if they have more than some number of games (3? 5?) where it's their turn and they haven't moved for a day or so.

Some players sign up for lots of games but don't really participate and often just times out. Frustrating: quite a few such players have >100 games in progress.

Thoughts?

Allan

I know it is frustrating, but they are not actually doing anything illegal. A solution could be to introduce separate "blitz tournaments" with shorter time limits. Also (as others probably have said before), new rounds of monthly cups could start as soon as the winner of each group is determined, and (as others definitely have said before), there could be auto-pass in Reversi and Dvonn.

I think players timing out is usually not the problem. Most tournaments last longer than it takes for a person to tame out, anyway.

The problem is those who use an average of 36 hours or so for every move. But I do not think that anything should be done to stop this. I really like the rules as they are today. Sometimes you just need a lot of time in a game, perhaps because it is very difficult, and you need time to sit down and analyse it, and you don't have that kind of time every day.

What COULD be done, ofcourse, is to start the next round of a tournament (specifically the 3rd and 4th rounds of the monthly cup) as soon as the winner of the previous round is determined beyond doubt. The only ones who will get a disadvantage from this are the slow players themselves, as they will have to play even more games simultanously. I think this solution has been discussed before, and someone had a good reason why it should not be done, but I can't remember who or why at the moment...

Marius

Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that anything is changed from the way it works today - except to limit players with a large number of games where it has been THEIR turn for a while from entering more tournaments.

In my view, if a player has 50 games where it's his turn, and he hasn't moved in those games for more than a day, then he doesn't need to delay even more tournaments.

To qualify for participation in more tournaments, all he's got to do is move in the ones where he is already partaking. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, that IS too much to ask. Let's say I'm on vacation, or on a business trip, when a championship starts. Then, most likely, it will be my turn in most of my games. Does that mean I should not be allowed to participate in the championship?

You could ofcourse make an exception for the championship, and for 2nd and subsequent rounds of monthly cups. Then it might not be too much to ask, I guess, although I'm still not sure it's a good idea.

Marius

I have no objection to way things are at present even though it is sometimes frustrating waiting for someone to move. What may be a good idea is for new faster tournaments with shorter times allowed for play.

Example - Streetsoccer where moves must be played within 24 hours (or 48 hours or whatever) or you lose? That way if you are busy or going on holiday you just do not enter those particular tournaments.

Interesting topic. :)

Another possible solution (really not a solution, just a way to help the situation slightly, and will not worsen it anyway, nor will it cause any side effects, or more programming work for Richard) is to post "Ethics for LG Players" or "Etiquette for LG Players" in the main menu.

I will be very happy to write up the first draft if some of you and Richard think that it is a good idea. These will not be rules, but just suggestions that awaken players' thoughtfulness for others. :) Good day or good night.

Hi all,

Tim Shih offered several times in the forum to write a beta-version of an etiquette. Sometimes this could be useful. That's why I support this with this reply in the general forum.

Your opinions?

Though I agree with the existence of an etiquette in lg, I strongly disagree with setting limits to players. When we joined this site the rules said (and they still say): 36 hours per move. Which means that one should deserve 36 hours to think after every move one makes. It nowhere says that there is a limit to the games one should register. Of course if I register to 200 games, after a while, I may be not able to play in all of them, so I lose first my vacation days, and then some of the actual games. What is wrong with that? In fact, I had last year - as an experiment - reached about 230 games. Yes, one day (or night) I lost about 30 games in a row. I learned my lesson. This year (all the period from January to July) I have been playing about 120-180 games simultaneously (and not losing one from time). Sometimes this may delay some games (or championships). But if we set a limit to games, what should it be? Some people have time for 150 games and some cannot manage more than 10. Every limit we choose, will cause problems.

I agree with starting the next rounds of monthly cups as soon the winners are clear and the next championships as soon as who stays, who promotes and who goes down is clear, too. This has happened in the Word game championsip. It could be set as a rule.

Thanks, Jupp and yper.

Quite possibly, some players simply are not aware of any inappropriateness of their behaviors. They do not do it intentionally.

I still remember that, at age of 21, I still chewed mouthful of food with my mouth open. Nobody ever told me that that behavior was inappropriate, and I myself was too slow to notice that others chewed their food with their mouths closed.

I was in the military service in Taiwan. 8 or 9 of us surrounded a ping pong table to have our dinners. As usual, I ate and talked with my mouth open. A colonel finally could not stand it any more. He asked me to step outside, and there he pointed out my indecent behavior for me privately. :) So, he did me a big favor.

What is considered inappropriate may vary from person to person. So I agree with Ypercube - let's stick to the rules. 36 hours pr move is fine. Sure, this will mean that some people are delaying championships. However, they should have the right to do so. Some people might find that inappropriate, some might not. In my opinion, what matters is that it is within the rules.

Starting monthly cups as soon as the previous ones have ended is a good idea, but I fear it will not be as easy with the championship, as almost every game have an influence on either who promotes or demotes from a certain league.

Having said all this: It wouldn't hurt if you speeded up your soccer championship games a little, Ypercube ;-)

Marius

Soccer and every other game here. :p

Yes, acknowledgment of inappropriateness varies from person to person.

This fact is compounded by another fact that others will not bother to call for our attention when we behave inappropriately. When we are still kids, adults may chide and correct us if we behave inappropriately. But when we are grown-ups, others will hesitate to do so, for the fear of offending us.

The more we get offended when others kindly (taking the risk of offending us) point out our inappropriateness, the more hesitant others will become. The final loss ends up being our own.

Cases, which follow (or do not break) rules/laws, yet are inappropriate, abound. For example, a group of friends are having dinner at a host's house. Everybody has finished his meal, and has laid down his knife and fork. The host is waiting for the right time to serve desserts.

Well, what do you know, Tim Shih sees no sign posting on the wall the duration of eating a typical meal. So he continues indignantly to take his dear time to eat. Hey, let others wait for me. I am not breaking any rules.

I personally heard of complaints from a group of bridge players. All the players at 10 tables had finished a game, waiting to circulate the cards around, except at one table the game was still ongoing, and was delayed by one particular slow player. Every player was inconvenienced, but the biggest loss belonged to that particular player. He was disliked.

In our LG community here, the case may appear worse to me. We actually have two choices: (a) playing 10 games and hence spending more time in each game (b) playing 100 games and hence spending less time in each game.

If choice (a) and choice (b) make NO difference to others in terms of inconvenience, then, surely, it is none of others' business to expect us to pick either one. But the fact is that such choices do make difference.

True freedom of ours is to always keep others' freedom in mind. :)

I totally agree with Tim on everything. One thing he forgot to mention is that there is a sign posting at the lg wall.

hi, yper, there are two adjectives:

One is "lawful", and the other is "ethical". I am not debating about the first adjective, which is clear to most of the players at LG. :) The topics that are unclear, thus interesting, to me are:

\* Do we not care to be ethical persons, as long as we are lawful ones?

\* If we do not, then let us debate about "individualism" vs. "group compliance".

\* If we do, then let us debate if

"delaying others' tournaments simply because we are slow, and we are slow simply because we choose to play too many games concurrently"

is an ethical behavior. :)

well , what about being very active : reply to forums almost daily , organize tournaments ... but ... don't play your games !?! is it an ethical atitude ?

Hi, Sebastian, :) if you are highly ethical/helpful in certain activites, but not so much so in others, then probably only your own conscience can assess the situation.

In my opinion, ideally, a truly harmonious society should uphold as few laws/rules as possible. Laws can only make the society seemingly orderly, but deeply within, members' hearts are not really harmonious.

If members must rely on laws/rules to behave, then this society is just one step ahead of a savage society, but remains at least one step behind a harmonious one. It is disappointing, if not sad, that we LG members must rely on rules to behave.

In the case of guests having dinners at the dinner table, actually there may be a "verbal" rule posting on the host's mouth in the beginning of the meal,

"Ladies and gentlemen, there is plenty of food. Take your time to eat. Enjoy the food, please."

This is THE official rule of the host's house. It is just not posted visibly on the wall of the dining room. So, to follow the host's rule, Tim Shih can take 3.5 hours to finish his meal. :)

Hi all who want to read it!

An associative way of thinking about this discussion. Do You know Nazzreddin?

One day he was asked: What was the most important change in Your life?

He answered: When I was young around 20, i wanted to change this cruel world. when I was 40, I wanted to change my family. And now, I'm 60. And I found the hardest task on earth: To change myself.

:) Tim, Yper, Sebastian, and all discussing in the forum. I really like Your attidute to give something to the comunity here. And Richard made this possible. Isn't he a great person?

I think I can speak frankly because I am not one of the slow players, but what about the annoyance we are causing to them?? What is wrong with a little bit of PATIENCE? If you want quick games, go to Brettspielwelt or whatever site has your game. All we do is nag, nag, nag about the slow players. Okay, they're slow, they're holding up things, SO WHAT? Sign up for another tournament or two yourself, and you will always have plenty of games to play. The next round of the tournament will start when it starts. You're not planning to stop playing here in two months or so anyway, so what do you care that you have to wait another month before the second round starts?

Ronald

PS One thing I just thought of: it regularly happens someone comes to this site, signs up for a bunch of tournaments, plays 1 or 2 moves and never comes back again. What about this: you get 1 vacation day for every game you finish (with the maximum being the normal number we have). So new players have no vacation days until they finish a number of games. That way they will lose their games a lot sooner (as soon as they time out) and we get rid of them quicker.

Or players could just be required to sign up for vacations themselves. People who one day just decide to quit don't get any vacation days no matter how many games they have played.

Hi, FC Schalke, yes, it takes 10 years to plant a tree; it takes 100 years to change a person. :) We are in no position trying to change others. On this forum, we only chat, keep one another company, and sometimes learn from one another, and improve some features in ourselves or in LG system.

Hi, Ronald. Thank you for your sharing. May I point out that

"Discuss" does not equate "nag". Discussions are what the forum exists for. Discussions certainly will cover mentioning of some possible shortcomings.

"Speaking up" does not equate "being impatient". Impatience is a type of feeling, and can be harbored in our hearts even if we do not speak up. On the contrary, if we speak up, discuss, agree to agree or agree to disagree. After this, we remain civil and friendly. This is a healthier procedure than not speaking up and brooding in our hearts.

The leading message given by Allan, if we read it carefully, contains a phrase " > 100 games", which is the key phrase, in my opinion.

Speaking for myself, I am really not complaining about slowness of certain players. What I have noticed and like to point out is that they choose to play so MANY games, thus slowing down others.

An analogy is that, at the dinner table, Tim Shih eats like a pig, hoarding 3 T-bone steaks, 4 pork chops, and 5 chicken legs. Consequently, guests at the table all must wait for me to finish. If Tim Shih is eating home by himself, he can hoard as much he pleases to. But when others are involved, hoarding certainly is no longer appropriate. No, you do not agree? :)

Tasmanian Devil wrote:

> there could be auto-pass in Reversi and Dvonn.

I don't play Reversi, but one day I studied its rules (to implement in a program) and as far as I remember, there is no "pass" in this game. When a player doesn't has a legal move, he skips his turn, not passes. I.e. "auto-pass" seems like a very good idea.

Tim,

of course you are right that discussing isn't the same as nagging. But to continu on your comparison: suppose you are eating slowly, everybody is waiting for you, and while they are waiting, they are discussing the fact that you are eating so slowly, loud enough for you to hear every single word. In your position, I would be annoyed, even though it's just a 'discussion', and nobody is telling you to speed up in any way...

I agree with you that slow players shouldn't play so many games. But then again, a single game being played very slow can cause a lot of irritation already. So again, I request that everyone just have a little patience.

In comparison: some years ago I organized a backgammon tournament on www.gamerz.net, a site where you can play lots of games by e-mail. It's a bit like LG, but you get the boards sent to you by e-mail when it is your turn, and you make a move sending an e-mail back to the server. You can imagine that speed isn't exactly something you can expect in such an environment. It was a knock-out tournament, and we started with 64 players (I think... it might have been 128 as well). The tournament took about 3.5 YEARS to finish! And nobody ever complained about the (lack of) speed...

Ronald

Yes, let us be patient! Let all players take their time. If you want to play faster yourself, sign up for more games. Or play live - Kurnik would be a great place for that. And this is only my opinion. As Tim says, we should all be able to speak our minds and still "be friends"! :-)

As for some of the analogies, I have a few comments:

In the Bridge analogy, I find it strange that there was no time limit to the games. Where I play bridge, there is a certain maximum allowed time per table. When that time runs out, you're allowed to finish the game you're currently playing, but not start new ones.

As for the dinner analogy: I'm not a "dessert" person myself. So when possible, I prefer another round of the main course and skip dessert. This might mean that I'm delaying desert for others, but unless someone tells me this is unpolite, I'll consider it OK to do so (I also happen to eat rather fast, so it's usually not a problem, though...). In the opposite case, If I were to hold a fancy dinner myself, I surely would speak up and let people know when it's time for the next course, if there was a reason for it (eg food getting cold, ice melting, we might miss the theater we're going to later on or something).

One final comment before I shut my big mouth for the time being: Defining what is "ethical" or "proper" is a very risky business, and I'm SURE it will vary from person to person. So, unlike Tim, I'm very fond of rules. And I like them to be precise and cover as many aspects as possible. Defining what is a breach on a rule is much easier than defining what's a breach on an "ethical code". So if something doesn't work the way it is, I say change the rules, don't try to impose an "ethical code". But again, this is simply my personal opinion, and I definitely respect anyone thinking otherwise! :-)

Marius

and whats an ethic if not a pack of rules?

my opinion is that logging the site a starting playing games we automatically agree to obey the rules and let others do so. so if one hesitate in a game too long it shouldnt be a problem for us. its not a crime or even rude behaviour. i see no reason to limit such players. remember LG is a turn-based site where's no hurry mostly:)

Sometimes I play relatively fast, sometimes I need time. Each one has his reasons to do so. Im playing here since nine months. So I do know, that there are some players answering slower than others. At the moment I'm slow at GO. (as Jupp) I don't delay games to make someone angry - there are simply other tasks in my life taking time. I don't start new tournaments, stay in the championships and hope to have more time for Go in some weeks.

Enjoyed reading the comments. will modify my dinner analogy and at the same time respond to Ronald's, Marius', and wa_spak's comments. Have a wonderful weekend. :)

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