Amen, drano! Excellent post, and you nailed it on all counts. It's just plain rude and completely disrespectful of the time that players put into these games. It's bad enough when players ask for extends and pauses, but for some reason the moderator's policy on this matter seems to favor those that are looking to exploit the use of delays and pauses to kill games. Of course you know that you're just pissing in the wind here with this, right. Nothing will ever change, because the little tyrant wants it this way.

I am still new to this site and am learning some of the good and the bad that this site has. Generally the good far outweighs the bad but I have seen a few things that could be easily fixed if you allowed a "Game Master" to oversee. The problem is the games are started by people playing in those same games and they have their own agendas. (Nothing nefarious mind you, their view of things is simply "colored" by their position in that game and they may not think objectively or at the very least they could be accused of bias)

It seems this post deals with this to some degree?

I am used to human run games, each game is hosted by a GM who is not playing in that game and oversees things and takes care of the game. Yes, few people want to take on that role but they do so because they feel they want to repay the community and you might be surprised how many actually do take on that role. Wouldn't this work here? You still have things fully automated as they currently are but instead of these player controlled extends, a request is sent to the games GM and he makes the determination of what will be done. He can write all players and/or post the specifics and he controls the outcome. A games caretaker would solve so many problems!?

For example, I am running a game now. We have weekly order deadlines on Tuesdays. Well, that will see us with orders due on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve...not good! So I wrote the players a note with a few suggestions on how to proceed and we did a SLIGHT delay that will not ruin the games "mojo", a couple days here, a couple days there...no big deal. Then back to our normal schedule after the holidays.

If the players ran things by little buttons, good lord, nothing would get done! We would either run through the holidays with no delay and plenty of game killing NMR's or we would wind up with a 2 or 3 week delay that would kill all momentum again resulting in a game killer. You NEED a human GM to oversee things, no two ways around it if you ask me!

I am completely with the mods. I myself often need extends or pauses, and although i only had to rely on the mods once, I often see this exact discussion coming up when a player politely asks for a pause/extend. Refusing to give a requested pause is much more rude than mods enforcing it.
Also, CDs kill a game more than pauses IMO.

And in GBs it's nearly impossible to get a extend at all without mod help...

Gunboats can be an exception to the rule. That's quite simple.

The solution GOD, is not to penalize those of us who are respectful, but instead, to quit playing with people who are disrespectful. If we change the culture here, the problem goes away. Instead, we are catering to a culture that essentially encourages disrespect since its easier to get a pause via mod than via the pause buttons (which are there for this very reason).

Of course GOD agrees with the mod policy -- he probably asks for more extends/pauses/sitters than anyone else on the site.

Also GOD, I hate to say it, but granted pauses is not a requirement. Especially in large maps where one person can hold up a couple dozen, or multiple pause requests can delay a game for many weeks in a row.

If we're going to keep things the way they are, why not just make the pause button an instant pause? After all, if ONE person can get the mods to pause a game, why not just let them do it via a single click on the pause button? Why bother with unanimous consent? The reason then pause button needs unanimous consent is because it affects everybody. No one person should be able to delay a game indefinitely. But that's what we have here essentially. One person can, at any given time of their choosing, delay games.

extensions should not always be granted... period
It's certainly good to have and will no doubt usually be agreed to but look at the WW4 game, 30+ players will see SOMEONE that could use an extension every week, the game would DIE fast!

CD's certainly kill games but endless delays also do the same, interest is lost and that in turn result in more CD's and NMR's. If delays cause the CD's you despise, then isn't the delay just as much a problem? Maybe more-so since it does create these CD's but also drags the interest level into the muck?

I will be honest. I only request a mod forced pause in the event of serious and very real situations. I do believe that in the event of an emergency the mods should be able to force a pause with some respect to a player. For me just recently a whole slew of games needed to be paused. You see, my wife was recently hit by a semi truck on her drivers side. She was in stable condition but I had more things to worry about than backstabbing fellow players on vdip. It needed my full and undivided attention. You see gents, we are an online community. I don't feel that these games should rule our lives and demand answers when a mod force pauses. I personally feel that if a player deems it an emergency situation there should be an element of respect involved. That's just my opinion as I have used a force pause somewhat recently.

I don't disagree that I see them a lot, but I will say, being on the receiving end of those pauses give me more faith and confidence in the respectful community we have here.

Thanks!

Sand goose, I completely agree. In emergencies, a force pause is COMPLETELY the right thing to do. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Its the non-emergencies we are discussing.

and if you agree...
then a note to any moderator is not in order, they have no idea what a games situation is. This should be done by the GAME'S GM and not a moderator who doesn't know the games specifics. Why not allow such a thing here? I would strongly suggest it NOT be a player in the game and you start to "develop" such a "GM Corps" this adds a sense of community and a feeling of belonging and it allows players to repay the community (especially if you talk about this aspect often enough)

@Sand goose, I completely agree. In emergencies, a force pause is COMPLETELY the right thing to do. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Its the non-emergencies we are discussing.

As an admin on webdip I can tell you the problem I've experienced with that. People lie, all the time. If you stop granting regular extends and only grant them in emergencies then suddenly everyone's relatives are dying on a regular basis, they are in the hospital every other week, etc. Mods have no way to prove if someone is lying about that, so you either have to grant all or no extends, emergencies cannot be a factor.

Ah, the part that had me confused is the judgment of validity. By all means we'd all like a formal set of guidelines when a forced pause is acceptable. Instead of bashing the mods current pause system. We should all agree on a strict guideline.

As everyone is stating, if you have joined a game you do have an obligation to stay for the duration of the game. Even still, the little pop up window tells you on average how log that game will take. I do agree it's a matter of respect and honor when joining a game...

Let's get to the very real issue here, the quality of games is disrupted, right alliances could be lost, so on and so on. Let's make a set guideline deemed appropriate by the community.

Emergencies happen, writing to the games GM would get fast attention and that game GM would post in the game forum and/or write PM's to all in the game about the delay specifics. Getting to someone who is a bit more intimately involved in the game is better than one who is not?

@jmo, is there a way to review each member's request bucket? Granted I understand on webdip that many people tend to not respect the system as evidenced by the forums. In my opinion webdip is a separate discussion. I honestly believe the community here is that much more honest and respectful to each other which is why I feel that system would work well here.

On a side note, it's a shame that people would go to the extend of having others worry for your family when there is no real emergency. Though I remember seeing that a lot in college, 3 grandmas in one year.... How sad.

Although the Mods will force a pause/extend at a players request, I am sure that they will make sure that this option is not abused. I have twice asked the Mods for an extend when I needed an extend of slightly more than 4 days. It stopped the games for less time than it would have taken to go through pause and unpause votes, and I informed everyone in the game of my request to the Mods.

@tom, are you suggesting that in each game one of the players be a gm or "sponsor" whatever you want to call it? I can agree, that situation in particular would work really well, but what of the anon gunboat games? We still have the issue of mods judging the validity of claims? I feel like that system would only work with games of 10 players or more. Also, if a player wishes his personal life private, why would they report to a gm who would then report it to a moderator to force pause? Shouldn't the decisions to pause ultimately be on the moderators to decide? While I think it's a great idea, in the long run out of respect to private lives of other players, I don't think it's feasible. I still go back on creating a standardized list of acceptable forced pauses.

Jmo-

While webdip and vdip are similar, we have a MUCH smaller community here. Anyone who abuses this would be found real quick. After all, if the Mods get "emergency" requests from the same player 3 times in a month or so, some things suspicious obviously. They'd be ostracized.

That said, I'd rather see none than all. We have the buttons ingame for a reason. If a person has time to email mods (even in an emergency), they have time to post a request in game instead. And if it really is an emergency, nmring once because it didn't get granted would be the last thing on their mind. I dont say this to offend people, but really, would any of us really be upset if we didn't get a pause in time when we are dealing with a real emergency? I hope not.

Now a question - what did web dip decide to do?

Bozo -

The mods have stated to me that they do NOT judge the validity of a request. It is just granted.

2 things

1. It's sad that it's just granted
2. If it's a real emergency, one quick email to the mods is much faster than requesting pauses in game. You also risk revealing your identity, in anon games, and depending on how many games you're in, a one stop to the mods is easiest. I provided explanations when asked by other players but it shouldn't be mandated.

I didn't get upset over the fact a few games didn't extend over the holiday season and I NMRd and I'm okay with that. I expressed my concern. I will say that of there's a real situation no one should be getting upset over an NMR at all. I know I wasn't. The ou tho I would get upset about is other players taking advantage o the situation without respect to the player.

I dot disagree that the system is flawed, but I do disagree that we all owe it to each-other to provide an explanation for everything.

Sorry for all the typos....smart phones and bus rides... *bumpity bump* whoops, wrong letter.

We do not have the extend option over there, so we decided to refuse pause requests. Though I will occasionally bend this rule when players have extreme emergencies that seem legitimate. If we had extend we would probably grant 1 or 2 extends per game, if a game got marred by them then we'd start asking questions. Like you said though, this site is based on mutual respect for other players. I can't think of a situation where I personally would refuse someone an extend because I don't want my games stained with NMR's.

Now the nice thing Oli made for you here is the option to block another player. We don't have that on webdip either. So if someone asks for extends for reasons you find questionable, all you have to do is block them when the game is done and you will never have to deal with it again. From the sounds of it most members do not abuse the system, so blocking the ones who do seems much easier and would have a lower chance of hurting people who truly need an extend for an emergency.

I guess my final thought would be that part of the respect that you guys have as a community here would be in trusting that the moderator team is paying appropriate attention when they receive complaints about someone abusing the system. As a guest/observer mod on their team, I can tell you first hand I have seen them address concerns around the matter before, and I am confident that if you reported an issue with a specific player abusing the system they would take appropriate action to ensure it didn't continue to ruin your game.

Anyways, that's just my 2 cents on the topic :)

I concur completely Sandgoose. Privacy should be respected. As I said, in emergencies, I'm fine with force pauses. I have enough faith in our community not to abuse it. Even without force pauses, a simple "emergency, need pause asap" would be all i need to hear. Of course, we need to define "emergency".

If a player only makes requests sparingly, I do not think there is a reason for them to try to judge the validity of a request. However, if a player is constantly making requests, I doubt the Mods will continue to grant all of his requests indefinitely without question. That is the difference between having to go through the Mods and having an automated option where a player could force a pause or extend without a vote.

@jmo, why not implement and extend/block system on webdip? The code exists so why not just copy over? Maybe allow oli to pilot the changes for a bit of time? I've found they sure help the community here.

Jmo - thanks for your thoughts. Definitely appreciated.

I Do trust the mod team to take action when people abuse things. Its when its not abuse that's the issue.

For example: say someone has a weekend trip. 3 days. They pm mods to pause. Bam, paused. But is that really necsssary? If we pause for every little thing, games will be ruined. But right now, anyone can do that. Its THOSE types of things that I am referring to.

I have no doubts that people are legitimate about real emergencies. its the non-emergencies that tick me off.

That the thing though Drano, if you have faith in te community why are you questioning it now? Like I said I don't disagree with you that I see it a lot, but you and I are in a lot of games, which may be why we see it more often? We play a few tourneys together with multiple games, I would assume that's the reason we see it so much more.

So again, as a community, agree that only emergency situations can a mod force a pause, not vacations etc, that's what extends are for

Bozo - when I say validity, I'm referring more to the seriousness of the issue. basically the mods have said they're not making distinctions between reasons pauses are needed. A 2 day trip to visit someone's gf is equivalent to Sandgoose's tragic situation. And that's just not right.

Now if a Mod wants to refute that, please do so. I would honestly love to get some feedback on what, if anything, would be denied the request.

Goose -

I have faith that people wouldn't abuse the "emergency" clause. Right now though, I can remember getting pause or extend requests for simple things like short trips even though they'd likely have possible internet access . Even on trios without internet access for example, that's what the "give away" feature is for. Find a sitter for a couple days!!!!