Why is aborting considered to be a bad practice

Recently, I noticed that the system gives warnings to players that abort on move 1 (either by not moving in 30 seconds or by aborting intentionally). I didn't see those messages before when the game was aborted.

My question is, why is this considered to be bad sportsmanship?

There are a number of reasons, when I think a player has a valid reason to abort:
- not wanting to play 1 0 against an opponent with very high lag
- not wanting to wait 30 seconds (or sometimes even longer) when the opponent has clearly left
- not wanting to play against someone with a provisionary rating (higher risk of cheaters)
- starting a game with the wrong variant or time control by accident
- not being able to move due to an unstable internet connection
- opponent accepted a rematch after a while, and the player has already started another game
....

Of course, if a player aborts 5 times in 5 minutes, then a warning can be given. But now the warning is given for each abort, which may be a bit too strict? (It's not that "customer friendly" as well).

The disadvantage of the current rule is that you have to wait for 30 seconds or more when the opponent does not move, otherwise you will get the warning when you abort.

I don't consider aborts to be that big of a problem. Most of the time, if I seek another game, it starts within seconds. Then I prefer that my opponent would have aborted instead of having to wait for a long time.

Yes, there are valid reasons, and therefore you only get a warning. If every abort was for invalid reasons, then an immediate punishment would be fair.

Indeed (#2)!

However, aborting a game should be a really unusual measure to take because it is bad sportspersonship (sorry, I don't know a non-sexist word for this concept), and some players may experience lots of players aborting games against them even if you don't - people from certain "unpopular" countries for example. Therefore, I think a warning every time is completely appropriate.

@sheckley666 said in #2:
> Yes, there are valid reasons, and therefore you only get a warning. If every abort was for invalid reasons, then an immediate punishment would be fair.

I would agree. There are valid reasons and there are invalid reasons to abort. However, the system cannot always tell the difference.

I think the system can only make an educated guess that someone who aborts multiple times within a short period of time, is the habitual aborter, which is the behaviour we want to avoid.

@monty82 said in #4:
> I think the system can only make an educated guess that someone who aborts multiple times within a short period of time, is the habitual aborter, which is the behaviour we want to avoid.
Exactly. The system gives warnings, so people are aware. If they collect several warnings in a short time, a punishment will be imposed.

@monty82 said in #1:
> There are a number of reasons, when I think a player has a valid reason to abort:

I think most of these are actually no valid reasons at all!

> - not wanting to play 1 0 against an opponent with very high lag

If you ask for pairing you have to play whoever shows up.

> - not wanting to wait 30 seconds (or sometimes even longer) when the opponent has clearly left

He might have left, he not have arrived, he might just reload the page.

> - not wanting to play against someone with a provisionary rating (higher risk of cheaters)

Rating deviation is taken into account when adjusting the rating, so it should be a non-issue. The higher risk of cheater I'd say is marginal.

> - starting a game with the wrong variant or time control by accident

Wrong time control or variant is valid if you misclicked. :-)

> - not being able to move due to an unstable internet connection

Pretty unlikely that this happens exactly at the moment between starting the game and the first move. And how would you notice and still be able to abort the game?

> - opponent accepted a rematch after a while, and the player has already started another game

This usually isn't possible (it might be possible in the mobile client).

But I think the current automated system takes care of the issue reasonably well. It seems impossible to get it perfectly right. And aborting games should be highly discouraged.

@nadjarostowa said in #6:
> Wrong time control or variant is valid if you misclicked. :-)
I have some weird issue that sometimes clicking on a menu item is interpreted as a click on the page below it; on the main page this is mostly one of the quick game buttons so that I ended being paired with someone for an absurd time control like 1+1 or 1+0. But fine, I got a warning and after this happened second time, I learned to work around this by switching to a "safe" page (e.g. my profile) before using the menu so no real harm done. It's a bit annoying but something I can live with.

@mkubecek said in #7:
> I have some weird issue that sometimes clicking on a menu item is interpreted as a click on the page below it; on the main page this is mostly one of the quick game buttons so that I ended being paired with someone for an absurd time control like 1+1 or 1+0.
Same here. *All* my bullet games were by this kind of accident.

I had experienced something similar a while back, and some mouseover help bubbles would should for things from windows below.

But these kind of errors should probably be attributed to the operating system, or browser. This should be impossible and looks like a security issue, and is very annoying.

My most common reason to abort: I've told someone in my household that I'll talk to them after my game is over, and then when it ends, I immediately click "new game." Actually, I don't usually abort, the cycle just begins again.