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Terrible Auto-lose Feature

@pawnedge I appreciate that you took time to answer the question. You make some good points, even with the abundance of condescending points.
PS:
  I have to respond directly to something the OP said, which has been nagging at me ever since I read it:

  “I'm sorry but I don't see why its [sic] necessary to watch the board while my opponent is thinking lol.”
  — nooberdog

  Because you’re supposed to be thinking during that time, too. lawl.
  Chess players don’t alternately think and then do nothing, or think and then do something else. They think for the whole game, about the game, and (ideally) about nothing else. They may take turns moving, but they don’t take turns thinking; that is something both players are expected to do constantly.
  I’ll avoid riffing on your rating, since I myself am fairly new to this game. But if you seek to improve at all, at some point you will _need_ to take chess more Seriously than you currently seem to. Obviously, interrupting your focus / shutting down your thought process between moves is a sub-par strategy (to put it mildly). In fact, that’s just about the opposite of a champion’s approach. (I say “just about” because obviously, not thinking about chess at all is the opposite.) Champions also prep before the game, and analyze it afterwards. One wonders how many of your losses which didn’t result from the Claim Victory button were nevertheless due to your not being fully present during the game. I wonder this about my own games! That’s just the kind of game chess is, rather by definition; even engines benefit from thinking longer. So I can’t stress the importance of this enough.
  The idea that you will ever be a good chess player if you are thinking about the game only half the time, is laughable. If half your attention is all you are prepared to give chess even while you’re playing it, then you should probably look for a new hobby. No joke. There is precisely one problem on this website you have mentioned in this thread so far, and that is your attitude.
  Personally, I find chess a pleasant diversion from life’s troubles, which yet manages to give me something to ponder that is very deep, beautiful & satisfying. I believe chess is a mental workout, and actually makes you smarter as you play it; by comparison, most other games are just mindless, empty passtimes. But if that’s not how you feel about it, just don’t be surprised when you hear people like me advising you to straighten up and fly right, and stop complaining when we only do what we’re supposed to, while you don’t. This isn’t our problem, even a bit; it’s entirely your own fault. You are all alone in feeling wronged for being punished for switching tabs during a game. I can assure you the rest of us here have no pity. Especially not the guy who stayed behind — which is why he clicked that button after waiting God knows how long for you to even notice his move, much less reply to it. ;( I think you owe him an apology; I also doubt he will ever get one from you; ergo that victory, hollow as it was, is the least he deserves.
  This concludes my reflections on your tantrum here today. I wish you all the best in your future chessplaying, I really do. I hope you are a man of character, who will improve himself in time, not just in rating but in attitude. Such an improvement would benefit other areas of your life besides this one. It’s a wonderful thing to grow up, and sadly rare in today’s world.

Peace.
№ 11,

  Ah, you are welcome. I can assure you, no condescension was intended. To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, “I’m not bad; I just write that way.” ^_^
  If I sound short of temper (especially in my second post — written before you’d replied, heh), it’s only because complaints like yours are entirely too common on this site just now, and I may have likewise interpreted your own words as petulant. This is an unfortunate side-effect of such impersonal communications as the Internet affords. :-/
  Your reply assuages any doubts I had that you are a reasonable fellow. Your willingness to actually thank me, in spite of the tone you had perceived in my wall of text, says a lot. For my part, I wish I were more empathic, and a better communicator. My chessplaying currently leaves much to be desired; as a writer, too, I hope to improve with practice. . . .
  Emotions definitely muddy the waters. I kind of identify with Mr. Spock / Data. I am not a sociopath — I am actually _too_ sensitive — but I am definitely an introvert (in person), and I think it’s how I cope with that sensitivity. Anyway, I believe logical arguments stand on their own, irrespective of the emotions that may crowd around them; and this, to me, is part of the attraction of chess. In chess, I can make an argument using pure symbolic logic, and how anyone feels about it is kind of irrelevant. ^_^
  All of this is a long-winded way of saying sorry for being rude. I probably was, and I totally understand if that’s how I came across. I just hope the points I made can still serve their intended purpose. :)

Cheers
Ok, let me be the devil advocate here :) First of all I'm all for any solution to punish clock sitters. But.
Analogy with OTB chess is weak. You DON'T have to sit all the time wile you are playing your OTB game in any tournament! You are allowed to go to the toilet (no time limit!), you are allowed to watch other games (no time limit!).
There are some problems with current lichess solution. 1) It is not obvious for new users (meaning not faced this before) that this punishment exist at all. 2) The time you allowed to be off is not shown/known. 3) The solution differentiates users by device. I mean I can check my e-mails in a different tab on my laptop without any problem, while the op can't and punished.
http://i.imgur.com/vFXeaRV.png
<Comment deleted by user>
Just to clarify my prev post. I like this lichess feature a lot! Maybe it should be better if this hidden(!) rule would be explicitely shown at the beginning of games. Similar to "You have xx sec to make your first move" something like "Cut-off time tolerance is xx sec". Or if this is too much, at least something similar to "Lag" page explaining why and how this rule works would be nice to have.
"This is the kind of thing that might make me switch to a different chess app."
Everybody thinking like this is welcome to try chess.com: 30 secs and they are out.
Lichess is way better under any aspect, this one too. Just understand that if you start a rated game you have to play chess, not to fool around. The previous setting was wrong, you just got a bad habit.
gbtami,

  Your suggestion is quite reasonable. I like it. In fact I can think of no objection to it; so if anyone involved with site development prefers to keep that information hidden, they will need to comment as to why they have this preference. Maybe they were intending to eventually make it public, and are currently figuring out how best to do that, and/or still just fine-tuning the details of this feature through trial & error and user feedback.
  Hopefully Toadofsky is still reading this thread; I hesitate to ping him, as I know he has a lot on his plate. But I’m sure he could tell us more.

PS:
  You also make a good point about being able to take a stroll during tournament games. I guess it depends on the time control, since some of those games last for hours. I’m also sure they’re still thinking about the game, even when they’re away from the board; probably everyone in that photo is able to play blindfolded simuls. ^_^ Whereas I can’t even really imagine doing that, at this point. . . .

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