How about the ability to postpone games? This would stop situations like Skeeter/Seadevils. Skeeter obtained three wins undeserved on the board but according to the rules. This demonstrated that the rules are unfair: a game can last for a long time (and Skeeter is a slow player) and when you start a tournament you can't schedule your next year (!)
Postponements would allow you to stop the game for a certain period, but no more(so also stopping abuse of the vacation flag). You could have a number of days (30-40) that you must use wisely over a year for example? If like Purclecow(when she goes back to sea)more genuine time is needed perhaps an exception overriding the system could be used by Russ/Chris with prior arrangements made by the individuals.
🙂
I think GameKnot works like this. I just think the time bank system should work. My default is 3 day time out with a 7 day time bank and I hardly ever dip into my time bank.
I just think people shouldn't take on large amounts of games if they don't have time to make the moves. The time out / claim win is at least one way of discouraging people from doing this.
I like the idea, but I think the timebank works pretty good for this kind of situations. But what to do with the games before the timebank. I have 2 games with the much discussed skeeter, and they started the 2nd of januari, but they aren't half way yet. I guess they will end in july when I will leave for a holiday. Maybe the best way is to switch off the claim win button in the holiday season. If you do this, the "old" games can be finished normally and I think the timebank will be sufficient enough for almost everybody, so you don't need this extra feature you are suggesting
This is exactly the type of thing the timebank is for: all that is needed is a minimum timebank setting in your challenge settings. Russ has said he'll look into the challenge filters next time he's working on the RHP code, so fingers crossed...
The proposal above is basically a second tire timebank, over and above the present one. A level of complexity too far methinks. And it would not be applicable in tournaments and so on, so wouldn't help out in the recent flaming anyway.
The current thread of skeeter/seadevil is very similar to the Edmond Dantes dispute some time ago, where a player is publically alleged to play as slowly as possible with the aim of winning when their opponent finally does go on a true vacation. While such behavior would obviously be annoying if actually the case, the good use of timebank settings (i.e. always big enough for a holiday) should remove the majority of instances it could be applied.
But any system devised will be open to abuse of one sort or another: whether strategic slow play or vacation flag abuse or whatever. Keep in mind that its only a game: play it, move on. If you don't like somebody's style, don't play them again.