Why are escapers allowed to play other games...

[dedroid]

if the escaped game is still open? Is it possible to make it so that if the game is still up, they can't start another game? I don't see how this would interfere with people with bad connections and it would make it harder for real escapers to play games. And there are ways to deal with people who try to abuse this system, namely getting a mod involved. Is this a good idea?

[AmyTS]

Then they escape, switch accounts, and play again.

[dedroid]

Yea, but that's the point, make it more inconvenient for them.

[Dakre]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature".

The idea is that if your opponent behaves badly or insults you, you are able to leave a game without resigning or saying another word. This is comparable to just stand up and walk away when facing your oponent on a real board. That is the idea why people are allowed to start other games, although they left an open game.

[dedroid]

Ah! I didn't think about that. Then yea, from that perspective it makes sense.

[Tami]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature".

The idea is that if your opponent behaves badly or insults you, you are able to leave a game without resigning or saying another word. This is comparable to just stand up and walk away when facing your oponent on a real board. That is the idea why people are allowed to start other games, although they left an open game.

There`s a glaring drawback to this policy, though. I don`t know about other players, but in my experience objectionable loudmouths are much less common than people who just escape because they don`t want to lose. It seems to me that KGS is solving the smaller problem at the expense of encouraging the greater one.

OTOH, maybe trolls and rude players are more common at different rankings? I`d imagine both escaping and goading becomes less frequent, generally speaking, as the players become more skilful. Besides, if your opponent is saying irritating things, you can always censor them. If somebody won`t resume their losing game, though, there is currently no recourse other than hiring a ninja.

[RobertJasiek]

The real problem is that, according to a KGS admin, not all escaped games count as losses for the escaper if he does not exceed an, to me, unknown percentage of the games he escapes. This encourages escaping and punishes honest play.

[shapenaji]

OTOH, maybe trolls and rude players are more common at different rankings? I`d imagine both escaping and goading becomes less frequent, generally speaking, as the players become more skilful. Besides, if your opponent is saying irritating things, you can always censor them. If somebody won`t resume their losing game, though, there is currently no recourse other than hiring a ninja.

I have yet to reach a rank at which goading has disappeared... and the frequency doesn't seem to have changed all that much, either. I remember it happening about as frequently at 5k as it does now.

The annoying part here though is that the escape clause seems to get used by the goaders more often than by the goadee's (Who may or may not have facial hair). In my experience, one of 2 things happens:

1) You beat them despite their trash talk. They escape.
2) You lose to them, they continue to talk trash

In either case, I lose out. I guess the right move there is just to leave the game. But I would be much happier being able to pull a Hikaru No Go and use the game to take them down a peg. (Since rating points are the only thing that is apparently valuable to them, that's what I'd like to take from them)

[HermanHiddema]

The real problem is that, according to a KGS admin, not all escaped games count as losses for the escaper if he does not exceed an, to me, unknown percentage of the games he escapes. This encourages escaping and punishes honest play.

Reread Dakre's post.

[HermanHiddema]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature".

The idea is that if your opponent behaves badly or insults you, you are able to leave a game without resigning or saying another word. This is comparable to just stand up and walk away when facing your oponent on a real board. That is the idea why people are allowed to start other games, although they left an open game.

There`s a glaring drawback to this policy, though. I don`t know about other players, but in my experience objectionable loudmouths are much less common than people who just escape because they don`t want to lose. It seems to me that KGS is solving the smaller problem at the expense of encouraging the greater one.

It's hard to tell if this is true, of course. Perhaps the current policy discourages rudeness at the expense of having more escapes. Perhaps, if the policy was changed, there would be fewer escapers but more loudmouths? Certainly I can imagine that, with a policy where a disconnect is an immediate loss, some of those that now maliciously escape would instead resort to insults and goading.

[Tami]

It's hard to tell if this is true, of course. Perhaps the current policy discourages rudeness at the expense of having more escapes. Perhaps, if the policy was changed, there would be fewer escapers but more loudmouths? Certainly I can imagine that, with a policy where a disconnect is an immediate loss, some of those that now maliciously escape would instead resort to insults and goading.

That is certainly possible, but then again you can always censor a goader. If you win, you can uncensor and have a right good laugh at whatever foolish asides they wrote while you were ignoring them; or you can just leave then censored to shout at the wind!

To be honest, it`s been a long time since anybody insulted my actual play (although there`s certainly a lot to insult ). The only goading that I recall in recent times has concerned my playing slowly. My response to that is usually to remind them that they agreed on the time controls, to censor them, and then go and make a cup of tea before returning to the board.

[RobertJasiek]

Reread Dakre's post.

Reading it for a second time does not alter my opinion that escaping must always be punished.

[Mef]

Reread Dakre's post.

Reading it for a second time does not alter my opinion that escaping must always be punished.

This opinion is not shared by KGS.

[Splatted]

Speaking as someone who has an unreliable internet connection, I really like the way disconnection is handled on KGS. I know that's not the situation that the OP was complaining about, but I've found that good sportsmanship is far more common on KGS than bad sportsmanship. I've even logged back in to games I disconnected from to find that rather than just leaving, my opponents had actually resigned first.

Even for those who do have good connections, the freedom to end a game how and when you like, or pick it up again later, seems like a good thing. Is it really worth stopping this for everyone just to punish a few abusers? What happens when you end up in the dead stones marking phase with a would-be escaper? I'd rather they left and we both went played other people than risk playing the game out only to have to argue about who won.

[RobertJasiek]

Allowing resumption in case of disconnection during alternation or scoring, scoring all escaped games and treating bad language are not mutually exclusive. All can be achieved in principle.