We've opened a poll on the site (click here) to ask whether we should turn off timeouts for the holidays this year.
We've always done this in the past, but we've always been uncomfortable about the arbitrary nature of it -- we didn't turn off timeouts over Diwali/Deepavali, for instance, and Pocket-Monkey is meant to be a global, inclusive site. The flip side of that is that while it's true Pocket-Monkey is global, the vast majority of our players are from the U.S., UK, and Europe where most people observe Christmas or Hanukkah (which is December 15th to 23rd this year).
I'm disappointed, because I'd hoped to avoid this this year by having a vacations feature, which would make it unnecessary for us to turn off timeouts for individual holidays because people could set vacation schedules to suit their lives and the holidays they observe. But we don't have one yet. We will have one in the coming year.
So: Should we turn off timeouts, including tournament timeouts? You decide! Get your votes in before the deadline! :-) -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
If you would turn off time-outs for all holidays all over the world, we wouldn't have any fast tournaments anymore. On the other side, if people have vacation and stay at home (most do), they even have more time to do their moves.
So, I'd say, work on the vacation feature, implement it soon so people have 21 days or so off a year but don't turn it of for such a long time PLEASE.
Yes, I agree that the vacation feature is the way to go -- but there's no chance I'll have the time to put it in place before this holiday season. :-( So I suspect we'll end up having to turn off the timeouts for this one last holiday season (depending on the votes!), but hopefully not after that.
Naturally, if people are around, it'd be great if they kept playing their games even if the timeouts are turned off!! I find it makes for a nice break from the rigors of holiday stuff. :-)
Hello I guess if we are time off for vacations, why not for this holidays.. in fact i asked that one month ago .. and i lost all my tourneys by time off..... so, i guess we have to be fair whit all people from different part of the world, where have not holidays like you in USA .. SanLorenzo
Yeah, that's it exactly -- that's why I don't want to be doing this next year. I want to replace it with a vacations feature so it's fair -- everyone gets the same number of days and uses them when/how they want. If we'd had a vacation feature, I wouldn't have timed out of my ultrafast tourneys, either. :-)
I don't have time today to go through all of the features we have planned for the vacations feature, but here are some highlights:
A certain number of days you can "take off" from time limits
Taking a vacation doesn't prevent your making the occasional move in a game if you happen to pass an internet cafe as you stroll down the Champs Elysées. ;-)
An optional "automatic" vacation that kicks in if you're about to time out (if you haven't already used up your vacation days)
Some tourneys will not allow vacations, others will
Things like that. Coming to a game site near you in 2007. :-) -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Re: Turn off timeouts for the holidays?
Message #4348 Replies: 1
posted by pint of beer (john shields) on 12/10 at 12:18
Hi i have voted for this one off holiday time out. although i am from the UK i am not a religious person as this is the first year or tournies let it be a timeout over the days you suggest, next year when you have got over all the festive period rhe vacation feature would help most tournie games from timing out. regular games already have the change the time period on so i would leave that as it is. my suggetion for vactions is 10 days every 6 months with a maximum off 25 days allowed to be kept at any one time and a maximum 14 days being used at any one time.
☼ An optional "automatic" vacation that kicks in if you're about to time out (if you haven't already used up your vacation days)
I am not in favor of that one.
And 14 days vacation is way too few for most ppl for most go on vacation for 3 weeks. I play on jijbent.nl where we have 30 days a year, not to be taken to next year. It's about the same number of days off you get from work a year so that suits well.
Since there is no vacations right now, some extra days off for Christmas & New Years is a good idea - nothing worse then sitting with family and says "Oh, I've got to go play on my PC for a little bit, I'll be back" - much nicer if you know your games are covered.
And if vacation days are put into place, then I would say removed all site holidays and let people choose to use their vacation days for holidays if they are not going to be around.
In lieu of the pending vacation feature (which I like tremendously), I think you should turn off timeouts (I voted Yes). I don't know what you would do in terms of amount of time taken at once, etc since that varies depending on where you are. In the states, one to two weeks vacation at once is about the norm. I know some Europeans take longer holidays. To be fair, I would think you would almost have to give a certain number of days annually and it's up to the individual how they use them.
Re: Turn off timeouts for the holidays?
Message #4356 Replies: 0
posted by RedBaron (Will C. Crowder) on 12/10 at 17:28
Given that this particular holiday is celebrated in one form or another by the vast majority of folks here, and given that management recognizes that the practice of turning off timeouts for certain holidays and not others is problematic and is working on a better solution (vacations), I'm going to vote "yes" for this one last holiday season.
if you sign on for a T, then you well know if you're gonna be available. some of us are still waiting for the june T to continue. sorry, you snooze, you lose
AMEN CATHM, Play your turn or DON'T SIGN UP!!!!!!!!!
Re: Turn off timeouts for the holidays?
Message #4369 Replies: 2
posted by RedBaron (Will C. Crowder) on 12/11 at 02:53
I agree about tournaments, especially since moot game situations are so common. It is really frustrating to have a section being held up by a slow mover who has no chance (mathematically) of winning.
I think this is probably the wrong thread to discuss aspects of the vacation feature itself, though. But I would support any "auto vacation" not applying to tournament games, as well as "no vacation" tournaments.
i find it TOTALLY frustrating to wait on ppl in a T, let alone a timeout for the holidays. as someone else said, do we now have to 'honor' holidays from other countrys???
If you get in a "T" play it.. if your going on vacation.. DON"T sign up... how easy is that?????? Time out for holidays... again don't get in a game or request an extention...how easy can it be... snooze.. LOOSE!!!!!
When we do have a vacation feature, we'll be running tournaments that do allow vacations and ones that don't, so people can take their choice. Each type will be clearly labelled and we'll have a name to differentiate them as well.
When we start the vacation feature, there will of course be lots of tournaments already in progress (tournies can last for years, which is a point I make in the Tournament FAQ on the Help page -- there are tournies on other sites which have been running for five years). My thought about that was to have the remaining people in the tournament vote on whether it should become a "vacations allowed" tourney or a "vacations not allowed" tourney. Only the people still in the tourney would get to vote.
The really aggressive tourney players may not like that if the vote goes against them, but in the past we've always suspended timeouts over the (western) holidays and I don't think it's at all unreasonable to at least allow the active people in the tourney to vote on it. -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Moot games are a big problem in the tourneys -- as you realised and pointed out during the beta testing! Ignoring the moot games is definitely pretty high on the To Do list, so that tournies move along a bit more quickly.
(For those who haven't followed previous discussions of this, a "moot" game is a game in a section which won't change the outcome of the round in that section. For instance, say in Section 12 of a tourney we have five players -- Mark, Maria, Ragna, Giovanni, and Eric. Maria won all of her games and so she has 10 points. The only game left in progress is between Giovanni and Mark, and they each only won two of their games so they have four ponts each. It doesn't matter to the tournament whether Giovanni or Mark wins that game -- it's still Maria who will continue to the next round. For that reason, although I'm sure Giovanni and Mark will want to finish their game, there's no reason that game should hold up the next round of the tournament because it won't have any effect on the outcome of the tourney -- it's a moot game.)
I just have to find the time to do the code for that and test it. I can't imagine the code is all that much, but it'll need solid testing. -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
I think most people that signed up for a T in Jun, July, Aug,etc probably didn't expect it to still be going on six months later. My personal opinion is this season, don't penalize them for not "knowing they needed to plan to be available for the next six months". They've made it this far and have obviously played religiously not to have timed out in the T's. Give them a break and do the timeouts and let 2007 bring new and better alternatives with the vacation idea.
All play-by-mail style game sites have the same problem: If you let people take (say) three days to make a move, then tournaments can take literally years to finish. For instance, on average a straight game of Backgammon (single-game, no doubling cube) is approximately 46 moves long (23 per player). If both players use their full time, the game will take 46 X 3 days = 138 days to complete -- four and a half months! And that's just one round of the tourney. Suppose a tourney has seven rounds: The tourney will take almost 32 months to finish, which is two and two-thirds years.
Our early tournaments had 3-day limits with grace time that could mean you had up to seven days to play (but you couldn't always take seven days, just sometimes). Those are probably too long for a lot of players, so we introduced the UltraFast tourneys where you essentially must play every day, and we'll probably introduce a format somewhere between the two for quick, but not cut-throat daily, play. I suggest you stick to the new UltraFast tourneys, which should finish up rather more quickly than the early ones did. :-) And as I said above, we'll have tournaments that do allow vacations, and ones that don't, once we have vacations.
Enjoy your (tourney) games, -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Having read mst of what has been written on the subject here I think for this time to be fair by ALL timeouts should/could be turned off. Then a vacation feature could be introduced and my I think TJ should do as he sees fit as no one will ever please everyone all of the time. A vacation featue isnt a bad idea but the key will be how it will be implemented. I have been on quite a few games sites and I find that the ones that work are those that have decided on ONE policy and stuck to it through thick and thin. Those sites where the site owner has tried to reach a consensus viewpoint still struggle with people complaining.
Just like to put my 2 cents in here, I never liked vacations on a site they hold up the tournaments,. that was my thinking for years,
Will over the last 3 months I have changed my thinking about that, I now love having vacation time, I play a site that has it, and I have used up all but 12-14 day of my vacation,(but have not timed out in a game there, (I play only tournaments on most sites) and I did or would have time out on IYT and on this one.But I just gave the tournaments games to the other player, so the tournament could move on. I would have timed out on them . Some times we have to give up our playing games for our loved ones needs, and I sure had no way of knowing it was going to be at 2AM I had to Rush my husband to the ER and he would end up in ICU and I would not get Him back home here for over 6 weeks,I had no way to make moves and could care less about a game or tournament at that time, I have just 6 tournamet games here now, and have give up all reg games. I have give up IYT,and will not be playing here after this tournament round is over, (husband is doing better but he needs me 24-7 and I just dont have time for games,) Sorry this is so long but I do think vacation is a good thing, if players use it the way it should be used and not to just hold things up,
The votes are in, and the answer is: Timeouts will be turned off Dec 14th through Jan 2nd. Of the people who had a preference (e.g., voted "Yes" or "No"), nearly three times as many wanted timeouts turned off as wanted them left on (237 vs. 85; 73.6% in favor).
Again, hopefully this is the last time we'll have to do this as hopefully we'll have a vacation feature early in the new year. And again, once we have the feature, some tournaments will allow vacations and some won't.
Thank you to all who voted! -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Thanks to you TJ for once again taking the initiative to get your gamers viewpoints before making a decision and then following through by supporting the majority. I, as I'm sure the rest here, appreciate all the time and energy you put into the site to make it as wonderful as it is. I look forward to seeing all your exciting and creative ideas come to fruition in the coming years.
We've turned the timeouts off early because of network problems at our hosting company, details here. -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
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