4 minute timeout

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artsfols

I'm sure it's been observed that this is too long, but here are a couple of things to consider.

I believe an opponent disconnect or pauses to end a game roughly 1 in 10 times.
Long disconnects invariably only occur when a player is in a losing position, thus my feeling is that they're not involuntary.
On rare occasion I have disconnected by accident.  It does not take 4 minutes to get back in the saddle.

2 minutes is still a very long time.  Also, why not post a warning message to a player at 90 seconds, if not disconnected, then a forced resignation at 2 minutes.
I could easily live with those conditions myself, and I'll bet 99% of players would say that they could also.
How about a poll?

dane

I've seen disconnects where it has taken my opponent a long time to reconnect, though as I wasn't timing them, I've no idea if they exceeded 2 minutes or not.  I've also had one instance when I've needed more than two minutes (I must have come very close to exceeding the four minutes) to reconnect after my PC crashed.  It's 13 years old, so takes an age to reboot.

I've only very occasionally encountered instances of players appearing to disconnect because they are losing, while on one occasion a player disconnected and never returned despite being in a very strong position (so strong that when offered the option of forcing them to resign, I resigned), so some disconnects are definitely innocent.

I have the impression that playing etiquette is rather better at the rankings I now meet than those I used to meet early on when playing here, so it's possible that newcomers in particular might be more exposed to bad behaviour.  If an opponent appears to have disconnected because they are losing, blacklist them.  If they make a habit of it, they'll get blacklisted by multiple players and come to the attention of the site moderators.


jeebus

I thught the 4 minute timeout was because sometimes the turn is so complicated that you need that time to figure out what to do. (And you can't always play a Copper to reset the timer.)