Swiss tournaments and disruptive behaviour

When people enter a swiss tournament and leave prematurely, it's very disruptive for the tournament. Both for the standings, but most specifically for people who are paired against an offline player.

This is especially annoying in classical, where you are literally waiting an hour for someone who isn't even online.

So here is what I suggest: award 'dispruptive points' for players who leave prematurely without actually quiting the tournament. When a player crosses some threshold number of disruptive points, he will no longer be able to sign up for a swiss tournament. Players gradually lose their disruptive points over time.

Please take this into consideration, because waiting for offline players is just TOO common at the moment.

PS: the system I suggest is very similar to the way ICC used to do this. (And still does.) It works like a charm.

PS 2: this would basically also negate the need for doing this on a team basis. (Which is supposed to prevent these problems, but it actually doesn't.)

I'm not doing swiss for a multitude of reasons, especially what's written here

Is there a page on how ICC's thing work? Or can you elaborate on it?

@Molurus said in #1:

> So here is what I suggest: award 'dispruptive points' for players who leave prematurely without actually quiting the tournament.

Nice double speak. "award" means "punishment".

@Firegoat7 said in #4:
> Nice double speak. "award" means "punishment".

I wanted to keep it nice, but yeah.. that's what it amounts to indeed.

@TBest said in #3:
> Is there a page on how ICC's thing work? Or can you elaborate on it?

Certainly. This is what the tomato (the tournament bot on ICC) help file says about the matter:

Tomato Help on dr-pts:
>
>***** DISRUPTIVE POINTS *****
>
>Note: On Monday, Dec. 8, 2003 we changed to a new disruptive point and ban
>system as described below. At that time the dr-pts of all players that
>were not banned were reduced by 50 points.
>
>The objective here is to discourage delaying or irritating tourney
>behaviors. Those registered players who violate the rules will receive
>disruptive points.
>
>To see how many dr-pts you have type: tell tomato finger
>If you get more than 50 disruptive points, you will be banned from Tomato
>tourneys for one week. If you get banned again, then it's two weeks, then 3
>weeks, etc.
>After the ban, the dr-pts go back to 0.
>
>The amount of times you have are already been banned is also in your Tomato
>finger, where it's called 'Bannings'.
>
>Your dr-pts total increases in these cases:
>- When you don't show up for a game and the game is set by the
>manager: Issues 3 points.
>- Leaving a tourney when you have still game(s) to play.
>In styles TEAM, RR, or Manual: Issues 15 points.
>Swiss, Luton, Elim: Issues 10 points.
>- Forfeit by manager due to disconnecting (intentionally or not) and
>gone for several minutes (depending on time control and manager
>decision).
>In styles TEAM, RR or Manual: Issues 15 points.
>Swiss, Luton, Elim: Issues 10 points.
>- Not accepting the games can lead to a setgame and after that also
>to a forfeit when the player is not responding and/or idling.
>- You can also be assessed dr-pts or banned for other unsportsmanlike
>actions or repeated behavior problems.
>(Example: Resigning a game on move 1 to avoid a player or to avoid
>dr-pts in last round when you should have forfeited.)
>
>Your will not get dr-pts in these cases:
>- The manager removes them during the tourney.
>Example: For special tournaments with no dr-pts or if the manager
>decides they should be removed.
>- If you latejoin, and then leave the tournament, without having been
>paired into the next round.
>- If you are removed from the tournament by the manager based on high
>lag. The manager will then remove them.
>
>Your dr-pts total decreases in these cases:
>- You finish the tourney without receiving any new dr-pts then:
>5 dr-points per finished tournament when you played from the start.
>3 dr-points per finished tournament when you latejoined.
>(done at end of tournament)
>- You appeal your dr-pts, in a message to TomatoComplaint or a Senior
>Manager or higher.
>Type 'tell tomato managers -a' for a list of managers.
>
>You may be wondering why you have gotten disruptive points. Even though it
>wasn't your fault that you were away for more than 5 minutes (for example,
>because your server or ISP crashed).
>
>Well, the idea with Tomato tourneys is that you and the other players should
>have fun when you PLAY. Nobody wishes to join, just to have to wait for
>several minutes on the disconnected opponent, and then win by forfeit.
>That's why we forfeit people with bad (slow) connections.
>
>People who are lagging are also slowing down the tourney. That's why people
>with high ping times actually can be forfeited, even though they try to play
>all the time, with no pauses between the games.

In my perception, the system applied by ICC is well thought out and mostly automated. And most importantly: it actually works. It effectively discourages / prevents disruptive behaviour.

Interesting. Would probably be a requirement to make it fully automated if Lichess where to use something like this. Does remind (and have some overlap) with how ragesit and aborts are already handled on this site. Some things are a bit weird to me (like the ping stuff. And lichess swiss just prevents you from joining after half-way in swiss, so late-join are sort of not a thing?)

If players have not yet been paired, I think it's (relatively) harmless to leave (or pause) the swiss. I would say the focus should only be on "non-movers" as I named it in my head.

@TBest said in #8:
> Interesting. Would probably be a requirement to make it fully automated if Lichess where to use something like this. Does remind (and have some overlap) with how ragesit and aborts are already handled on this site. Some things are a bit weird to me (like the ping stuff. And lichess swiss just prevents you from joining after half-way in swiss, so late-join are sort of not a thing?)
>
> If players have not yet been paired, I think it's (relatively) harmless to leave (or pause) the swiss. I would say the focus should only be on "non-movers" as I named it in my head.

It would be only logical if the rules for assigning dr points would be slightly different. Misconduct in chat, for instance, is a manual thing on ICC. We really wouldn't need that at Lichess. If we decide that leaving early is OK (swiss) that's fine I suppose, as long as you actually leave the tournament. Etc.

I can also imagine that the introduction of dr points would make it easier to introduce new tournament types, like fully automated elimination tournaments. (Sounds like fun to me.)

And I can't stress this enough: any operational dr points system would be an improvement over the status quo. At this moment, there is simply no drawback to disconnecting from lichess and having your opponent wait for an hour. None.

What should lead to dr points (and how many) and what not are useful details to discuss once the decision has been made.

Maybe keep it simple:
The first move must be made before 10% of the total time has elapsed. There is a warning and an automatic game termination and victory by abort for the other player.