Hi Lichess developers and players.
People not showing up for their games is a huge problem in the daily classical swiss tournament. Making people autoplay the next round unless they press "pause" makes sense for the shorter time controls, not the classical swiss. A screen reading "Will you play the next round? Yes/No" could solve this. It could show up at different times: after the game, after all the games are finished or whenever the player returns to the main tournament page. Having a "confirm playing next round" in the five minutes between rounds in order to get paired could be an an alternative, or additional, feature - it has the advantage of removing those leaving before playing any games as well.
These changes would make a big difference for those playing the classical swiss! Thank you in advance.
(I originally posted about this in the swiss team forum, but i guess this is the right place.)
I think the issue with this is that people that DO want to play the next round but forget or are AFK, may forget or are unable to play in the next round. That being said, your arguments are still very valid and there are issues with people forgetting to show up. At the very least you win the game when playing against an absent player.
Thanks for responding!
The point you bring up is a good one: removing people from the tourney because they aren't present in the five minutes before a round starts is problematic. Especially in a swiss classical where one part showing up even 20 minutes late could still make a good game. Such drastic measures would, to even be considered, have to be accompanied by very clear messages that one has to be present at a given time.
But something like players actively confirming them attending the next round after their game ends wouldn't impact those eventually forgetting, being afk, etc. Forcing players to make the choice could make them remember better, and even evoke some sense of honor in doing what you said you would. In addition it would remove the number of people who actually don't want to play anymore, but would forget to press "pause".
It becomes a matter of finding where the means are justified by the ends, i guess. The inconvenience of confirming that you are playing the next round could well be justified when the time control is this long. Having to be present some time before the round starts, or similarly harsh measures, would be more effective - but requires some good judgement to figure out if it's worth it.
As I see it the main problem is that the loss of a game due to timeout on the first move does not affect the rating. At least in Swiss tournaments this seems to be the case. There should be consequences for not showing up to a game in a tournament that you have joined and is active in.
Maybe a player who does not show up for a game could be removed from the tournament (with rejoin option) and receive a warning. If the player repeats this behavior a lot the player could get a temporary ban from tournaments.
That the games are unrated if a person doesn't show up, unlike in the arena tourneys, is definitely part of the problem. Getting some rating would sweeten the deal for those who do show up as well. I also agree that temporary bans preceded by warnings is a valid option. Being removed from the tournament after you don't show up for a game is already implemented.
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What here,
I guess that it also has to do with the "type" of people participating. Some are very conscientious about their commitments to a tournament, while others are less conscientious (for instance, people who sign up to a tournament without a real or firm intention to participate, people who will forget easily or be too busy with other things in order to really be able to participate, people who drop out once they realize they won't have a chance to win, etc.).
To me, this suggests a complementary way the system might be able to support more consistent participation in tournaments):
1. For each user, the system could track his/her "degree of participation" (DoP) in tournaments to which he/she has signed up. Basically, the percentage of tournament games that they really participate in - that is, overall, in all tournaments. This would in effect a measure of how much that person follows up on his commitments to tournaments. The exact way this measure is defined and the exact term used by which it is called can of course be discussed.
2. When people set up tournaments, they should then be able to select the minimum DoP that users must have in order to be able to participate in the tournament. So, for instance, when setting up a tournament, I could set that users must have a minimum DoP of 90% in order to be able to participate, or some other value.