Why are escapers allowed to play other games...

[Phelan]

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).

"Liked" for this.

[tundra]

A naive question: Suppose A and B are playing. Player A temporarily loses his connection, becoming an escaper. He (A) logs back on, wanting to resume the game, but B shows no inclination to do so, ignoring A instead. So A will continue to be marked as an escaper from this game, though IMO he does not deserve to be. (If anything, B deserves that label.) Other than appealing to a moderator, is there any way for A to fix this? (Or maybe I'm not understanding how this escaper policy works...)

[oren]

A naive question: Suppose A and B are playing. Player A temporarily loses his connection, becoming an escaper. He (A) logs back on, wanting to resume the game, but B shows no inclination to do so, ignoring A instead. So A will continue to be marked as an escaper from this game, though IMO he does not deserve to be. (If anything, B deserves that label.) Other than appealing to a moderator, is there any way for A to fix this? (Or maybe I'm not understanding how this escaper policy works...)

Not really. You just have to hope this doesn't happen often enough to you to start being marked as a chronic escaper. This is why there is some leeway.

[Uberdude]

A naive question: Suppose A and B are playing. Player A temporarily loses his connection, becoming an escaper. He (A) logs back on, wanting to resume the game, but B shows no inclination to do so, ignoring A instead. So A will continue to be marked as an escaper from this game, though IMO he does not deserve to be. (If anything, B deserves that label.) Other than appealing to a moderator, is there any way for A to fix this? (Or maybe I'm not understanding how this escaper policy works...)

No (and appealing to admins is pointless as they can't do anything). I used to suffer from this problem when I played on a crappy dial-up connection, such refuseniks were a sizeable minority, maybe 30% (this was when I was improving fast so had a ~85% win ratio and was thus winning most of the games I 'escaped'). To work around the chronic escaper flag I acquired uberdude2 was born (but not used because I forgot to capitalise), then Uberdude3, and Uberdude4. Apologies to mathematicians.

[Mef]

A naive question: Suppose A and B are playing. Player A temporarily loses his connection, becoming an escaper. He (A) logs back on, wanting to resume the game, but B shows no inclination to do so, ignoring A instead. So A will continue to be marked as an escaper from this game, though IMO he does not deserve to be. (If anything, B deserves that label.) Other than appealing to a moderator, is there any way for A to fix this? (Or maybe I'm not understanding how this escaper policy works...)

As others have mentioned, you will be marked as the escaper since you were the first to leave the game. However, if you resume the game and your opponent enters (that is, if both of you are in the game at the same time) the flag is reset, and now the first person to leave from that point will be flagged.

[dfunkt]

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.

That's right. KGS has adopted a policy of tacit approval of escaping.

[jts]

So you use the phrase "tacit approval" to mean "does not punish as severely as I would like"? What a strange idiom.

[dfunkt]

So you use the phrase "tacit approval" to mean "does not punish as severely as I would like"? What a strange idiom.

No. Perhaps you need to learn the definition of tacit before you put words in my mouth.

[jts]

I mean, if you want to be cute and say absurd things to let everyone know how much KGS policy wounds your very essence, whatever. We've all been there. But you can't be shocked, shocked!, that people then think you're silly. And if you don't want the words in your mouth... I don't know, learn ventriloquism?

[ProtoJazz]

I mean, if you want to be cute and say absurd things to let everyone know how much KGS policy wounds your very essence, whatever. We've all been there. But you can't be shocked, shocked!, that people then think you're silly. And if you don't want the words in your mouth... I don't know, learn ventriloquism?

yeah but with ventriloquism you dont just have words in your mouth, you have a hand in your.. yeah

[dfunkt]

I mean, if you want to be cute and say absurd things to let everyone know how much KGS policy wounds your very essence, whatever. We've all been there. But you can't be shocked, shocked!, that people then think you're silly. And if you don't want the words in your mouth... I don't know, learn ventriloquism?

I am never shocked when people try to derail the conversation with personal attacks; It's a standard technique, used to diminish those who oppose them in order to hide their own incompetence.

[Annihilist]

"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.

This is a flawed system. Escapers are a worse problem than rude people. For one, rude people can be dismissed with little effect; and the effectiveness of insults is limited. But that aside.

Escaping games because you don't want to lose disrupts the primary goal of a go server - playing games. You want to be able to play the game from start to finish, and move on to the next game. Friendly interaction with other people on the server is secondary to the "playing games" part.

Personally I don't mind if people are rude or obnoxious. As long as they finish the game. That is the priority; that is what I come to KGS for.

Also, I think getting up and walking away from a game should constitute a resignation. By leaving the game open, you are saying "I don't want to play you, but I don't want to lose the game." In which case, you should either just not play him and accept the loss, or accept that he's a rude bastard and keep playing till the end. Honestly, if you're willing to walk, you shouldn't care about winning the game - and if you care about winning the game, you should stick with it.

It's worse on KGS because the only reason you would leave without resigning is because of statistics and rank - pure egotistical stuff.

[TheBigH]

Suppose I get disconnected for some reason (poor connection, power outage, etc.) and my opponent is not online when I get back. They might be perfectly willing to resume the game the next time we are both online at the same time. But in the meantime, the "escaped" game should not prevent me from playing other people.

[Kirby]

And the debate continues!

[skydyr]

Frankly, I'm curious how frequently you run into escapers that this is seen as a big problem. I can't say I've run in to more than one, really, and maybe not even that.