Letting time run out instead of resigning will result in a temporary ban.

#10, Maybe just resign before engaging in a chat with the opponent (which you would probably do in an OTB game as well), and ignoring the warning message in cases where you spent a lot of time trying to save a lost position (understanding that nothing will happen to you unless you do this very often) would be a reasonable and pragmatic approach for you. The way I see it, players letting time run out consistently e.g. in obvious mate in one situations is a real problem on this and other online chess sites, and with the warning/banning policy lichess implements a pragmatic approach to handle this problem. A perfect approach can never be found and given that this is an open source and non-profit project, improving the current implementation would probably not be worth the effort, I think we should just accept it the way it is implemented. Also, while I do not know, but I think other online chess sites probably have a similar approach.

I understand that playing various time controls can help see where some of our weaknesses may be, and perhaps improve on them that way. Unfortunately my experience is limited outside of correspondence.

I was only referring to threads on the opposite side of yours where people had been complaining about the behavior that seem to trigger warning of the sort you mention. I was not saying that you were behaving as feared or complained about in those theads. I think the word is "trolling in a lost position" but I am not sure.

The fact that such a warning exists tells me that there is cause for concern where-ever lichess has concluded that there was. I have no idea about the triggers and whether the system errs on the side of too many false positives. On the other hand it is only a warning. So perhaps, the false positive possibility is mitigated by that. Again, I am guessing and can't help.

I am sorry to have mentioned anything here, while you were only seeking help in your particular case. I wish you luck in getting some attention. Did you have a look at the FAQ (I know lazy redirection, but my ignorance is to blame).?

i read again your post. and while I can't talk for lichess, the automatic system watching for the warning concern, has no way to know that by chatting, you were admitting defeat. If no mate was made, your intention of resigning need to be signaled using the button for that. The chat would have persisted, I believe, after, for you to keep conversing and congratulating your opponent.

This may just be that while you chatted, you appeared to behave like someone refusing to resign in light of losing position.
So it looks like a one time mishap due to the interface being new to you. This is still a short time control, and better not take any chances, and clearly signal the computer that you resign before chatting, then I think the warning will only have been that. is that helpful?

@dboing

There is very simple solution for all upper - additional "Arbiter" button.

When one player click it, then set of algorithms may be turned on to analize position.

Similar as here: play.chessbase.com/en/

I certainly do not appreciate these who plays 10+0 and wait on the second move in opening for whole 9 minutes, but some reasonable fast playing is quite honest.

I suspect the problem is words like "reasonable" which are poorly defined - ie most players don't get banned for playing chess so you could argue any change only helps unreasonable people! If you can't define it you can't code for it. Maybe you can define it but it would be prohibitively expensive to implement in terms of resources (cpu/database). And there'd of course still be.... those people. You know the type... "ok, if you're not happy so you press the arbiter button and that doesn't satisfy you suppose you then click the appeal button" and so on and so on and so on. People who are unhappy with the rules here can stop playing I guess which is very sad obviously, but this site is literally being brought down by the number of players (which is why I donate) so that's not something they need to worry about.

One of the problems is that if you are playing an OTB game and your opponent has 15 minutes say on the clock and sits there over the board ponding his move for 8 minutes in a lost position trying to find a way to trick you, at least you can see what he is doing.

Whereas if he leaves the table and walks out of the building you also know he has done that.

Behind a computer you cannot tell what your opponent has done and the latter is often assumed.

One reason why I advocte a short time + a longish increment and possibly even delays as you can then play longer time controls without the same issues of quitters.

One thing that has happened to me more than once - latest just now which annoyed me enough to find this thread. I play 5+3. I'm winning a game, lots of time, basically waiting for my opponent to resign, and Lichess loses the connection. Only Lichess, other sites at the same time come up fine. Then the connection comes back and I find that I have lost say 70 seconds. Even worse, I have lost the game despite still having more than 2 minutes on my clock. And I receive the warning. Maybe the Lichess servers are being overwhelmed? With lockdowns everywhere, I appreciate that more people are playing online. But I'm getting punished for it. It's becoming very irritating.

@perseust

We had 30 min. power lost today, very often happens since local transformer seem to be malfunction. Hopefully didn't played at all. Some 15 times or so and I would be banned because plain power lost? That would be simply insane!

Lately, due large ammount of players, internet connection is unstable and often disconnect/reconnect. How to play rated blitz games in such conditions? But regularly you will get such thread messages and probably banned automatically.

All this is simply pointless! CEOs here starts from assumptions that anyone is potential cheater! But this world is far from perfect and any cause is possible... Someone have no electricity at all, have no even food and starving ...

What to say more, comparing to all that, I simply have impression that all this is made primarily to iritate users making very hostile and frustrating envronment! Are you (LiChess CEOs) certain that you have make a bullet proof detection algorithms? As from a professional senior programmer point of view, I do not think so...

All in all, this site is designed nice, but such things make me to consider twice what I'm doing here and spending time to complaint and make a suggestion for some elementary things....

There are too many childish and rude people who simply stop playing with 2-3 minutes on their clock (in 5 min game). It is annoying when that happens 3-5 times in 10 games. If you do it, once, fine a warning; do it twice and you are banned for good.

@fastlearner50, the way you write about the lichess organization (“lichess CEOs”) indicates that you might have a wrong picture about it. Maybe you could read lichess.org/about if you find the time. Lichess is a non-profit, donation only chess server that relies on volunteers who do not receive a pay. Lichess publishes the breakdown how they spend their donations.

You bring up more and more reasons why people could let their time run out or leave games without being it their fault, but I think that all the situations you bring up are either not problematic or would justify a temporary ban:
- if the lichess servers go down, disconnecting will not result in a ban, because it does not happen often enough (or if it does, I am sure lichess will consider this, e.g. by resetting the relevant statistics).
- if you have an unstable setup (power losses, internet loss at your side), and this happens so often that you get banned, you should really fix your setup first before playing chess online. Please remember that this would affect your opponents, too. I know that it is easier said than done to fix an unstable internet. But again, as this affects your opponents as well, I think it is reasonable to require a stable setup. And as well, if problems occur from time to time, this will not be problematic. If they happen consistently, in a frequency that you are banned, it would be justified to ask for a fix on your side before continuing to use the side.

And as I have posted earlier: I am pretty sure that such a policy is not unique to lichess, but that the other online chess servers (and in general online game servers) will have the same requirements for their users, being it commercial or non-profit sites.

@M0r1 #19

I have bring several real situations affected and still afecting me personally, nothing more. As a professional senior "old fassion" programmer (today that is calling "Computer scientist, software designer, developer,..." - all in one, name it ) I'm simply more than able to vague with valid arguments qute well all decisions here, not spending time to look into the source at all.

Due such "professional deformation" I may sound a bit harsh, but that is what it is. I have made in my carrier many projects (from minor utilities, libraries, etc to complex projects for government and industry), as well as open source public projects and I always gave the best from me (even more these I published), attentiont to be "perfectly coded" and reasonable optimized - all based on real needs project require, not some imaginary fear of any kind of imaginary abuse.

I can think there is plenty of infant kids (even grown persons) here have no restrain and play some childish games, but I do not consider that require such harsh measures at all affecting whole community here. There is many compains here (at least recently) I have noted about "injustice", including banning and closing account threat because some algorithm is decided...

That obviously require a bit of "detection mechanism" redesign. Again, even official FIDE rules are not that restrictive!