Dealing with timewasters.

We've all had it - the person who is two moves away from being checkmated and suddenly stops playing, letting their clock run down.
I usually have a Youtube or Duolingo window open to make use of the waiting time and if their completion rate is much less than 100% I will block them. Of course, that doesn't mean you won't meet them again if they create multiple accounts. Unfortunately there are so many of these people that merely blocking them seems like an endless task. I hoped that if I improved my rating they would become less frequent, but it seems as common at 1700 as it does at 1500. It would be nice if somehow these annoying players could be removed entirely from my world and I wondered if anyone has any solutions.

Maybe a name-and-shame group could be formed where honourable players can collectively block them, so they only waste each others' time. Or possibly we could ask lichess to allow us to apply a filter to searches that only pairs us with players that have >80% (or whatever) completion rating. Incidentally, I notice some players profiles don't have a completion rating.

Any suggestions, or are they just an inevitable part of lichess life?

Idiots are an inevitable part of life.

This problem will never be solved, because lichess can't make this team because simply this is public shaming, and also because they are a lot of players who resign usually but sometimes they don't play and waste time so we can't really decide who should be a member in this team

Naming and shaming sounds like something that creates a more toxic environment here. I do feel that the option of claiming victory could appear sooner. I played a 10 min game today and my opponent left with over 2 min left. I immediately knew he wouldn't be coming back but the option to claim the win didn't appear. I feel a minute should be enough for this.

@Stefanxd
Yeah exactly!! Shaming won't help at all, it is only will get worse!!

There's no real fix here. I suppose lichess could warn the player who is "thinking" with a prompt to check they are still there, and shorten the window if they don't respond (if they do but still never move again, a temporary ban or warning seems reasonable). I've certainly spent 2+ minutes in a 10 minute game thinking about one move at a critical point.

At the end of the day, though, just try and shake it off. It's annoying, but yeah, it's kind of part of online life.

Although I agree this is annoying and that there are a lot of them in 1700. Like the others said there is no fix. let it go let it go.

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway

@Gyryth @Stefanxd @SomewhatUnsound Some players might have sudden internet/electricity outages. I've lost a few games this way because of shitty 3rd world internet infrastructure, I'd regain connection after 3-5 minutes only to see my opponent already claimed a win.

@ctriplea Good point.

@Gyryth It starts getting better at 1900.

The best way to counteract this kind of behaviour is to set a strong precedent towards the opposite.

The more that everyone sees everyone getting along, happy to see one another, enjoying the community and the chess, and everyone contributing positively, then they will be much less likely to act out because they don't want to be the only person in the elevator to 'cut loose'.

On the other hand, if someone walks into an elevator and it already smells like a slaughterhouse facility, and sounds like the tuba section of your local symphony, then they'll have no qualms piling on.

The best thing to do is to contribute positively and help set a precedent of good behaviour.
Making and modeling good behaviour as 'the rule', is our best bet.

Whatever we do is reflected back upon us x3.
This can be a good thing. This can be a very bad thing.

There are far more good people than bad people at Lichess.
Welcome to "The Good Side".

NONA FRY!!!!