Please, ban non-fair players.

I propose a "penalty mode" with an incremental ban time.

Players can start a game with penalty mode enabled. This would mean, that leaving the game or getting disconnected from the game before the game is over would result in a temporary ban.

For the actual ban time there could be some kind of algorithm, which increases the ban time depending on how often a player leaves or gets disconnected from games which have the "penalty mode" enabled.

Therefore, players who play games with this mode enabled, would be incentivized to finish the game, make sure they have the time to finish and have a proper connection.

EDIT: Players who have this mode enabled, would naturally be matched against other players who also have this mode enabled.

What do you think about this?

All games, except direct challenges, are already played in "penalty mode". After a few infractions a player will be penalized with escalating penalties.

@lovlas oh..

Unfair defined as any one who beats the other player

"Players leave the board during "real" chess all the time - maybe to go to the toilet"

They can do that anytime in Lichess, as long as they stay online. If they go offline, it's like they said bye bye to everyone. The referee should declare a loss for them without wasting the other player's time.

@lovlas I know some sort of automated system is in place, but it doesn't seem to work very well, from all I can tell.
Maybe it would help if on the profile of a player it was displayed "Currently playbanned for X hours, total count of playbans: YY, total duration of playbans: ZZZ hours"? Then one could at least check whether something is happening (and if "something", then how much).

A week ago, I played against this dude: lichess.org/@/EdoTK/
In a lost position, he waited for over 2 minutes, then played a random move in hopes I had left the PC by then, and proceeded to lose on time after I responded lichess.org/AOtpLYPr/black
I went over his profile, and he did this in roughly every single game he was losing. He had like an 98% timeout rate. Some of those were ofc "legit" losses on time, but a significant majority of them he was dead lost, and then either did what he did against me (wait 2 minutes, then play a random move with 5s left on the clock), or let his time run out entirely.
I reported him for this (which already shouldn't be "necessary", since there is some sort of automated banning system in place).
He kept playing.

Today, I clicked into his profile again. His last two games were both losses.


In both cases, he got into a lost position, then let his time run down for 2 minutes, gave up his queen for nothing, and waited the remaining 10s to flag.
I reported him again.
This time, his account got closed (finally!)

**Now, I don't know how many playbans this guy accumulated, but however many there were, they clearly weren't enough.**

He spent the last 2-3 months (if not more; his acc was from 2017, but naturally I didnt check every single game of his) ruining people's enjoyment via ragesitting in lost positions, and his account remained untouched, until I reported him not once, but twice.
He wasn't very smart/careful about it, but every single of his losses was timeout, and most of those he was a Queen down, then let his time run out for 15s+ on either the last or the 2nd to last move. He still either wasn't caught at all - or was caught, but only punished very lightly (as he managed to keep playing).
How long would it have taken for him to get banned, if I hadn't reported him twice? I get the feeling he'd still be playing in December 2020.

**The current system is either very bad at catching these players (honestly that's not been my impression; usually when I see someone ragesit, they do get the "Warning: Don't let the time run out" message), or the current punishment is way too lax.**

Maybe this guy had gotten 20 playbans, but they were all just a few hours long. Or something. I obviously can't tell (see ^top suggestion).
But whatever the case, over the past few months he played a ton of games, ragesat in almost all of them, kept going after my report 6 days ago, and managed to get 2 more games in today, incl massive ragesit in both of them.
Why was he not forceclosed long ago (or playbanned for 6 months)?

This is just a singular guy, but the same impression carries across pretty much all of "them", and is what sparks threads such as this one. I KNOW "something" is done, but it feels like said something is grossly insufficient, and the problem of ragequitters/ragesitters just grows every day.

IMO the system needs at least some "finetuning" on the punishment (ie made way,way,way harsher), if we assume the detection works properly (as said, this seems to be the case - in fact, I have seen the "Dont let time run out" message in a few instances, where I felt it was overly sensitive).

The key is "escalating penalities". Account closure is the ultimate penalty. Gamebans like most other bans are invisible by design.

@IsaVulpes Every population contains its % of people who - in the best of cases - sublimate their issues through passive-aggressive, trollish and generally community destructive behaviour. This place is no different.

When that happens, it is incumbent upon all of us to report the behaviour to the moderators and have faith that, ultimately, the problem individual will be dealt with appropriately. This "treatment of the problem individual" is clearly a function of how engaged community members are in the business of keeping the commons (I call it the "communal waterhole") in good shape, for current and future users.

Concretely, that means if a name constantly pops up as "trollish", "insulting", etc. on moderator screens from a diverse group of people, it stands to reason that chances are much greater that he will receive priority treatment, rather than be put at the bottom of what may be a considerable pile. So, the operative question is: do people just sit idly by, as they run across this type of behaviour, or do they actually take the 15 seconds necessary to report it? If they do nothing, clearly it is because they have decided to live with the behaviour. In the end, the community auto-regulates itself, for better or for worse depending on one's point of view.

In the meantime, one can be thankful that this is only chess and one doesn't have to rub elbows with these people - who probably lead sad and desolate lives - in the real world.

As far as everyday play is concerned, I only recently returned to chess and mainly use this site for its other features than playing (studies, training, analysis, etc.) so am not familiar with "blocking" features but on the other site I use for playing, I always block anyone who displays any kind of passive-agressive behaviour. Those people eventually end up forming a subset of the larger population and end up stuck playing with themselves. (no pun intended...)

I understand it escalates, my point was more like .. 5 playbans should mean you're gone for 6 months, not for 60 minutes (or however long it is now).

Given the frequency of rulebreaking by this EdoTK guy and others, it feels like significant punishment happens after 50-100 playbans or something, as they clearly are still playing, and there are no massive gaps in their gamelog.
If it was up to me, then the single instance of the game against me (wait 2+ minutes, then play a move with 3s left on the clock, so can't even excuse it as a loss of connection or w/e) would've been a 1 week ban (escalating further on repeat offences);
but he was able to just hop into another game right away, and basically played the 6 days since then unhindered - so if he was punished at all, then for like 5 hours or something, which just isn't felt.
Naturally an automated system can't really ban people for 1 week on the back of 1 game, but it's not like the game against me was a single instance. It was pretty much every single of his losses where he had a worse position.

I would be very surprised if he didn't have several playbans to his name, except those were so short that they basically didn't stop him from ruining further games at all.

@pixelatedparcel The base idea behind the entire system is that one doesn't/shouldn't have to report people ragesitting/ragequitting, as those get dealt with automatically. That saves both mod work & user effort.
Since we see when this "Don't let time run out" message is sent, we can also recognise that the system correctly identifies people doing that - the punishment for doing so just appears to be very, very light.

@IsaVulpes I'm not that familiar with this site or the details of "play banning" but reading the FAQ on the subject clearly states that frequently aborting/leaving games will get a member temporarily banned from playing games.

I do think it would be worth considering publically indicating that status on a member's profile as well as relegating habitual bad sports to a sub-population entirely composed of like-minded people .

The FAQ also states that if the reprehensible behaviour continues, "the length of the playban increases - and prolonged behaviour of this nature may lead to account closure".

I also think the FAQ should include details about what objectively is meant by "continued" and "prolonged behaviour" as well as corresponding "banning penalties". Lichess higher-ups might also consider making a list of people who are habitual bad sports and keeping them on it until such a time as is believed to be necessary to demonstrate to the community the behaviour has changed for the better.

To be clear, I'm not saying these things should be mindlessly implemented. I am, however, suggesting they might be the subject of a fruitful and enlightening conversation between fair-minded and respectful people. ;D