Netiquette reinforcement

  

Netiquette reinforcement


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Thibault de Vassal    (2018-09-07)
Netiquette reinforcement

Hi all,

Following a few problems of provocation and repeated draw offers, I propose to reinforce and specify the netiquette to help players finding the right things to do according to the situation...

http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#general


Particularly this paragraph:

"It is possible to leave public comments for your games and to send private messages to other members. No player may post in forums or send to another member any voluntary message that contains abusive, insulting, provocating, advertising, vulgar, foul, racist, sexist or other discriminatory or politically sensitive content. Also, no player will make draw offers repeatedly, particularly serveral times in a row. Doing so may lead to instantly lose the game, and/or being immediately and permanently banned.

If a player receives such a message, he may use the "report" link and accepts to use the "block" link that appears then (when playing a move) rather than replying to it. Responding to a provocative message is strictly forbidden and may lead to get a limited access to the server during a few weeks, at the moderator's discretion. In this case, please just warn the moderator or webmaster in private.

To maintain a friendly community, any cheating complaint should be addressed to the referee and should not be made publicly in games comments or in the forum, otherwise with the same consequences. Please note that no time will be added to any clock in any case, the game will continue in all cases, in example arguing to wait for the referee's decision will not be accepted. Finally, you agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic, comment or message at any time should they see fit.

Publication of a private message without the authors expressed permission is strictly forbidden."


A big difference (I hope) is in the small add "Doing so may lead to instantly lose the game (...)". Better or worst? Any opinions or ideas?


Rotom Monotua    (2018-09-07 20:20:02)
Netiquette reinforcement

Manners are important - therefore I would suggest "will lead to instantly lose the game" instead of may...


Thibault de Vassal    (2018-09-07 20:40:30)
Netiquette reinforcement

I agree, but it should be avoided that a few understand there that "any kind of message that seem provocative according to anyone will lead to instantly lose a game"... only a moderator/referee should decide it, probably.

Even if this remains quite fuzzy in all cases, the main idea is here: a threat is stronger than execution.

But... you may be right at the end, we'll see... I'll update it if this reveals to be not efficient enough.


Garvin Gray    (2018-09-08 02:29:41)
Netiquette reinforcement

I have a couple of revisions to the rules that I would like to see. Some of these do come from otb practices, but they also apply here.

In otb, when a player wants to make a claim to the arbiter, or wants to make a complaint to the arbiter about their opponent (for any reason), they stop the clock and call for the arbiter (or find the arbiter themselves in a large hall).

Then the arbiter will rule on the claim, make any decisions about the game, adjust the times on the clocks if necessary, and then start the clocks again.

So for FICGS, I think there should be a change here. When a player presses call referee, the clocks should be stopped/frozen. Currently, the clocks keep running.

This is wrong. The player has called for the arbiter, but the clocks keep running.

If the arbiter (Thibault in this case) rules that the player had no grounds to call the referee, then he can apply a time penalty and take time off the clocks of the person who stopped the clocks.


Garvin Gray    (2018-09-08 02:32:52)
Netiquette reinforcement

As to whether the wording should be may or will- the correct wording is MAY. The reason I say may is that by saying will lose the game is that this restricts the arbiter to only enforcing a penalty of lose of game.

Sometimes not all situations will require a loss of game penalty, and then other times, an even greater penalty than loss of game will be required.

Hence why MAY is the correct wording.


Thibault de Vassal    (2018-09-08 04:05:12)
Netiquette reinforcement

Many thanks for sharing your views Garvin.

Well, this is very relevant OTB, I agree. I'm not sure of what happens if a player abuses of complaints (e.g. to gain some time), which is probably unlikely in all cases, but anyway I imagine that a correspondence chess game could continue before to decide any problem related to provocative messages or repeated draw offers at least. And, of course, it makes it much more simple (at a first sight).

Maybe let's give it a try unless you think about clear examples where it couldn't work already, then I'll make such a change if it doesn't prove to be efficient.


Garvin Gray    (2018-09-08 04:28:48)
Netiquette reinforcement

If a player clicks on call referee to make a complaint and that stops the clock and you determine that the claim is pointless, or worse, that you believe the player has 'stopped the clocks' to try and gain an advantage, then you are free to determine what penalty is applied from the range of penalties that are available to you:

1) Warning,
2) Increasing the remaining time of the opponent,
3) Reducing the remaining time of the offending player,
4) Increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game,
5) Reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person,
6) Declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score),
7) Exclusion from one or more rounds,
8) Expulsion from the competition.


Thibault de Vassal    (2018-09-08 22:29:33)
Netiquette reinforcement

That's right. Still, it needs more actions & human decisions (that will probably be discussed). So let's try the current system before to envisage this one.

Also, I'm not sure what points 4) & 5) exactly mean in the context of a chess tournament, and if it would be fair in all cases?!


Garvin Gray    (2018-09-09 02:43:30)
Netiquette reinforcement

4, 5 and 6 need to be read together.

4 and 5 are where the arbiter declared the game lost for the player who breached the rules. The arbiter then needs to decide what score to award the opponent.

So 4 is to increase the points scored in the game to the maximum available for that game. This usually is 1 point.

5 is reducing the offenders score to zero.

What these two provisions also cover is where an offence is found out later in the tournament. So for here on ficgs, the arbiter found out that late in a tournament that one player had been abusing opponents regularly.

4 and 5 allows you to adjusts the scores of those completed games.

6 declares lost the game by the offending player. But the reason for the provision of 'deciding the opponents score' is that a position on the board might arise where the non-offender might not be able to construct a checkmate position with the material they have (lets say just a bare king). Then the score would be (0 - 0.5). The offender scores zero and the non offender, who can not win the game because they can not checkmate their opponent, receives 0.5

7 and 8 should be 'self explanatory'.