Proposed solution to the escapers problem...

[Dusk Eagle]

...most ISPs do a regular 12h- or 24h-disconnect

What? That would infuriate me if I got disconnected in the middle of a game (of Go or otherwise) due to my ISP being unable or unwilling to provide 24/7 service. I'd even have to plan my games around when I knew that disconnect was coming.

I think I just gained a bit of appreciation for Canadian telecoms, which is something I haven't had gained in a long time.

[Li Kao]

...most ISPs do a regular 12h- or 24h-disconnect

What? That would infuriate me if I got disconnected in the middle of a game (of Go or otherwise) due to my ISP being unable or unwilling to provide 24/7 service. I'd even have to plan my games around when I knew that disconnect was coming.

I think I just gained a bit of appreciation for Canadian telecoms, which is something I haven't had gained in a long time.

It's not as bad as it sounds. This only happens if you try keep a continuous internet connection for over 24h. So if you shut down your computer at night it won't happen. And many routers have a feature that tells them to disconnect once a day at a fixed time(say 4AM) which avoids the disconnect for the rest of the day. I don't think I have ever hit the 24h disconnect.
It's intention is to prevent you from hosting a full server at home because by giving you a new IP address every 24h.

WLAN is a *much* bigger problem in practice. Especially since KGS doesn't deal gracefully with packetloss.

[karaklis]

A slight improvement suggestion for the "non-escapers" option: The one who has either escaped or disconnected is granted a grace period of five minutes to get connected again and resume the match. With the "resume" button that KGS has (in contrast to IGS) this should be an easy task.

As for the automatch, this should always be in the "non-escapers" mode just as it is now, or better: with the five-minutes-return grace period.

[danielm]

KGS has solved the escaper problem:

• If someone regularly escapes, he loses all games he disconnected from.
• If someone disconnects once, he can still reconnect and expect the game to continue.

The real escaper problem is the hysteria about every disconnect.

It's not solved, because:

• Somebody can intentionally escape every 1 in X lost games if they understand the system, either to artificially inflate their rank a little bit, or simply to annoy their opponents.

Whether that is a smart thing to do is another matter, but this is still "officially sanctioned abuse", and thus this can't be classified as a complete solution.

I have never seen a complete solution to this problem that doesn't involve some degree of manual administration, and the KGS system isn't it either. Whether its drawbacks are preferable to other systems is mainly a matter of preference.

For the record, I do prefer the current system to the "noescape" flag system on FICS, which is either ineffective or going to split up the already not-that-huge pool of players. Even if it works due to sufficient players on both sides of the flag, you still have to choose between a rock (dealing with escapers) and a hard place (having games decided by unintentional disconnect of either player every once in a while).

FICS' best feature regarding this issue IMO is not the flag, but the adjournment system with the option of manual adjudication (which also helps to weed out regular abusers).

[lovely]

I don't really understand the general uproar over escapers. If someone escapes from a game I'm playing I get satisfaction in knowing that I smashed him so hard that he couldn't stand playing longer.

I disconnect every once in a while because I'm using a neighbor's Wi-Fi; when their system goes down, I go down. That's why I put a note in my profile: "Note: sometimes I disconnect because I'm using a neighbor's Wi-Fi. If I do, please wait a few minutes until I return. Usually I return within seconds."

I have no control over when/if it disconnects.

I really like Tygem's system in the five minutes to reconnect policy. It works well and I've been able to continue playing games a few seconds after I disconnected without any problems.

[Bantari]

Proposed & working solution.

I challenge anyone to come up with argument how this is unfair to anybody.

Fair or not is not the issue here.
I bet you that any chronic escaper will NEVER set it!

And since I think we are arguing here about such people who escape often and see it as a way of life, not about those disconnecting occasionally for external reasons - such solution as proposed here is absolutely useless. Sure, it can be implemented - but it will not change anything in most of the cases.

The point is - whatever solution you pick, it will ALWAYS be unfair to somebody... or, at least, this is how somebody will always feel - for a different somebody depending on solution. You satisfy groups A and B, you piss off group C... you make C and B happy, A will be angry... and so on. This is why I, ultimately, think that the only meaningful solution is the one which comes from within... and it has the one advantage over any server policy - IT IS CUSTOM-TAILORED TO YOU PERSONALLY! Always! And this is why I, personally, think that a moderately lenient solution is the best one. Unless the server and the rating suffers - escapers is a personal problem. YOU get angry - so YOU deal with that!

I feel the world moves in the more and more lack-of-responsibility areas. Like:
I suffer, so YOU have to do something about it.

On a larger scale - I see it with smoking, drinking, education, etc... at last in the US - and I think Europe moves the same way as it is.
Some solutions you can impose from above, but most are really personal. So - DEAL WITH IT!
Ok, I am good now...

[Solomon]

I bet you that any chronic escaper will NEVER set it!

Well, you wouldn't want to play against a chronic escaper anyways...

[xed_over]

I bet you that any chronic escaper will NEVER set it!

Well, you wouldn't want to play against a chronic escaper anyways...

I don't believe chronic escapers exist

[Toge]

I don't really understand the general uproar over escapers.

1. It's always not clear when someone is escaping. It might be a connection problem or some other reason why the opponent suddenly disappears. I have to wait for him.

2. For some people, playing a serious game can be the highlight of the day. There might be issues like anxiety related to playing or the player might feel bad about losing so many games. Escaping the game is highly disrespectful as it takes away the feeling of success (see also #1).

3. Escaping messes up the ranking system, creating artificially high rank for the escaper and denying rank for the victim. Since the system of handling escapers is so overly lenient, this problem won't be automatically solved for a long time and likely needs admin time to solve the case. I can't say from admin's point of view, but I get the feeling escapers are among the most frequent complaints they receive.

4. Escaper marking is messed up. New players won't know if they are the ones being marked escaper when their opponent leaves the game. Also unfinished game in their game list can be used to discriminate against them.

I really like Tygem's system in the five minutes to reconnect policy. It works well and I've been able to continue playing games a few seconds after I disconnected without any problems.

- I think this is by far the best proposed solution.

[Kirby]

...

I really like Tygem's system in the five minutes to reconnect policy. It works well and I've been able to continue playing games a few seconds after I disconnected without any problems.

- I think this is by far the best proposed solution.

I like this system, too, but if we are proposing solutions, I'd add a "request resume" option that works like the "request undo" feature (but with resume as the request instead of undo... :-p).

That way, pretty much all of the benefits of the current system still exist (because now, if you mutually agree to postponing the game, you could both close the game and resume later).

[Solomon]

I bet you that any chronic escaper will NEVER set it!

Well, you wouldn't want to play against a chronic escaper anyways...

I don't believe chronic escapers exist

Oh, they do...I was one. I have a stable Internet connection so I never did have to worry about disconnections and spending up the 10 pending escaped games before having future losses become auto-forfeit. So I would look at these 10 chances that KGS gives you as 'freebies', or lost games I did not want to consider losses. Basically, games where I was winning by a significant margin until I make a big blunder and frustratingly lose the game that way. So I would just escape those games. And because I would play on average 5 accounts at a time, this meant I had 50 freebies that I didn't mind using at the slightest. Usually, after a few days/weeks, I'd go back and resign some of them to 'clean' up my record and increase my freebie count, but I wouldn't do that for some of the more frustrating games. As a result, I never did have to use up all my freebies and forfeit games.

Before people get out their spears and torches, I'd like to throw out there this is something I did in the past. Eventually I started caring less about my wins/losses on KGS and caring more about other, more relevant things...like school, so I stopped with this practice.

[Toge]

The point is - whatever solution you pick, it will ALWAYS be unfair to somebody...

What do you think if solution is:

FAIR to players with good intentions to finish their games.
FAIR to players who have sometimes bad connection.
UNFAIR to players who wish to maliciously escape lost games.

...Just from purely theoretical perspective?

Do you believe that there is not and can not be any such solution that satisfies all these three conditions?

[illluck]

I think the current system is good. I was browsing the Tom Weiqi forum, where recently there is an interest in KGS due to Zen, and quite a few posters liked the system and mentioned how impressed they are at the rarity of escapers and asking undo.

[oren]

The problem is that people will still escape, so you haven't stopped the practice at all.

[Bantari]

I bet you that any chronic escaper will NEVER set it!

Well, you wouldn't want to play against a chronic escaper anyways...

Well, then... what do you care how they are handled by the system? Don't play them, case closed.
Well, maybe its my fault, let me try to explain the concept differently:

To me, there are two kinds of people: the ones who think escaping is not a valid option and those who think it is. The latter category can be further divided into people who escape often, occasionally, think its ok, are proud of it, are not proud, whatever... Those who do escape by choice, regardless of reasons, frequency, and whatever - I call 'chronic escapers'. Because their mind-set allows them to escape, they do and they will. Might be a bad choice of words. Sorry.

Anyhow, in this light - what I was trying to say is that people who do escape will not close this particular door on themselves, at least i do not believe they will.

Upon further consideration, though, I think that the checkbox idea might have some merit. It will flag/identify people who are comfortable with not being able to escape.

On the other hand - there might be a group of people with crappy connections who will not check this particular checkbox and they can be incorrectly shunned as escapers.
No perfect system, I guess.