SMIRF Engine: I'd like more information about a player's rate of playing too. The number of moves per game per day would be useful. I'd even like there to be a new stats table listing people by this value. We have the most number of moves per day so why not a speed of playing table? Ideally different figures would be available for each game type, or perhaps variant, but even just the single all-encompassing figure would be most useful.

emmett: if anyone has taken my post as complaining..sorry you are mistaken.. I was supporting a feature the is important to me and why I thought it should not be changed.. .. I have seen changes happen here with the mere mention of it by one or two people.. just thought i would speak my view ... I'll be quiet now..

BIG BAD WOLF: now that I think of it BBW.. I must have had this happen to me twice in 2 days and lost like 4 days in 2... I know that when I do go away and set my vacation days I've learned to set the day before I leave as well as the day after I get back just to cover the time zone differences..

Princess Alison: You'd have to resign 5 times to get rid of the match.

emmett: resigning wouldn't even help you. the whole section has to be finished before you can join another tournament. (or you could ask Fencer very nicely, he can free you from the tournament)

I wonder if somebody can help me, i am currently in a "5 wins match" and have won the last 4 matches. My opponent seems to move once a week, which is getting on my nerves to be honest. The 5th game has started but no moves have been taken as yet, if i were to resign from the 5th game, would that mean that i lose the actually match all together???

emmett: It can't be said often enough. Knights who only play a subset of the games (eg. the gammons or in your case, chess) get a raw deal regarding touernaments. There should be a set number of tournamants, not one per game type.

SMIRF Engine: i like the idea about those stats :)

part edited as it continued a misunderstanding :)

each tournament states the time a move can take ... consider that when you join a tournament

(i wont play any tournaments with 1 day per move .. i rarely play a tournament without free days or fixed weekends only .. i sometimes play tournament with 3 days per move .. i like the longer tournaments ... although those can finish quite fast as well ... of course all this depends on the game type as well :)

emmett: I have had similar problems within a tournament. It would be helpful if the system would supply us with an average answering time for each player and game variant, and thus also would enable filtering such very slow players from tournaments.

tonyh: hmm personally i have nothing against options ... but i thought this discussion was about changing the complete system (and not keeping the old system around :))

3 weeks holiday would cost you about 10 to 15 vacation days

what would happen to someone who first choses to have the full 30 days, and then later that year (when he used about 20 vacation days) switches to a couple of days per month ?

playBunny: Many thanks, indeed!!! It is astonishing how affronted people get!
I appreciate that the programming of this alternative may be tricky - but it would be very useful. Having 3 weeks holiday on a remote camp-site in Cornwall tends to destroy vacation time!!

LOL. It's amazing how so many people seem upset by this suggestion! Tony's request has nothing to do with anybody who is happy with the way things are. He would like an *option*, an alternative - one that would suit him, and probably others, better. [shrug]

tonyh: You are absolutely right about the carry-over, sorry. Anyway, my comparison with salary was an extreme one. If you use all your money for the year, you are in real trouble. If you use all your vacation days, all you risk is losing some games.
I should quit silly comparisons and just state that IMHO the current policy is fine, maybe just a bit dangerous for those who use auto-vacation.

furbster: this year i had 2 vacations: 1 week in spring and 3 weeks in summer

in november i still had about 20 days vacation left on this site ... i saved those in case i would need them around christmas or for unforseen circumstances

i renewed in november and now have 30 days left .. which i wont use at all :)

good use of weekend days (you can change them once a week) helps a lot to preserve vacation days
have a look at your games and when they time out .. try to move in all your games just before your vacation .. if your fastest game has 3 days per move then you wont have to set vacation days for the first 2 days, you can set the weekend for the 3rd and 4th day, this will save you 4 vacation days already. be sure to have automatic vacation days if something goes weird (you might get into a next round of a tournament with 1 day per move, or someone starts a stairs game with you (although you should retire the stairs while on vacation)

also try to figure out when your opponent will move ... if (s)he will move the day after tomorrow, then you wont have to worry about your game timing out before that (plus the time you have for the move yourself)

try to finish the fast games before your vacation and only join games with longer times per move

use fixed vacation days when you will surely need them as this can preserve vacation days which would have been used for the games which would time out the day after

dont set a vacation day for the first day you will be back .. although you might not have a chance to make a move ... you might have a chance to do so .. which would have made it a waste .. let automagic vacation take care of that day if needed :)

all this helps a lot to preserve vacation days :)

have fun on your holidays!!!! :)

I agree that 30 days is enough! Some people abuse that, so heaven forbid giving us more to use!

great, thank you:)

ellieoop: yep, to all of that!

i renewed early and have 30 days left, i need to take off about 10 days now, are you saying that i will start at 30 again on jan. 1st?

i also assume that i can play when i have vacation days clicked, getting company and might be able to get some games in. am i right in assuming that?

the system as it is right now doesnt take away all your remaining vacation days at the end of the year ... it fills them back up to 30 day on the first day of the next year.
plus, as bbw said, you can renew early. my membership runs out at november (i think), when i renewed i was back at 30 days again, and i will be back at 30 days again in january (minus the 5 which i will spend on the very first 5 days :))

just use the vacation days when you need them .. try to be clever with your weekend days, and use automatic vacation days for unknow situations :)

the 'days per month' solution is pretty bad when you first start, as you will start with only a few days. this will even out when a couple of months have passed and you saved up enough. if you are above 30 days it should not add more (otherwise someone could hoard 100s of vacation days and abuse those ;)) .. which would make no difference with the end of the year as it is right now

for me the system as it is right now is the most flexible system there is .. as long as you keep yourself in hand just a little tiny bit and save some for later :)

automatic vacation: its like BBW said, i know from experience.
when a game times out and you ahave automagic vacation days set, then 1 day will take from your total vacation days and the game wont time out. that day is now counted as a vacation day for any games which would time out on that same day
(it doesnt add 24 hours to all of your games though)

the fact that it doesnt add 24 hours to all your games make the difference between fixed vacation days and automagic ones ... when you are sure you will need a certain day as vacation day .. set it as a fixed day! .. that way all your games will profit from it by having 24 hours added to them

Marfitalu: I don't know but I can do it if you want me to? ;-))

BIG BAD WOLF: I could be wrong but I thought I lost 3 days in one...it used up all the time i had left.. doesn't matter now.. I just have to wait out the last couple of weeks then get more in Jan.. I'll be visiting the kids last week of the year and first week of next.. so if i time out .. I apologize way ahead of time..

lovelysharon: As soon as an auto-vacation day is taken, it applys to the rest of the day. (Server/Fencer time)

So if one game uses the auto-vacation, it does not automaticly add 24 hours to all other games, but if they time out on the same day, it uses the same auto-vacation day.

Here in the USA, 5pm Central Time is midnight for BrainKing. So if I have one game auto-vacation at 4:50 my time, and another at 5:05 - then it will use 2 auto-vacation days since they are on different days according to the server.

alanback: if you read the FAQ http://brainking.com/en/FAQ?ht=20 it states that it uses the day to prevent the game from timing out.. it does not state that it adds another 24 hrs to all your games

alanback: I can't be positive.. maybe Fencer can clarify.. but that is what I thought happened to me.. as you know I am online at least twice a day and playing all my games thru at both sites.. I eased up a little when I was having that trouble with myy hands and poof my vacation time disappeared

lovelysharon: Are you sure of that? I've been watching the way auto vacation works with other players, and it seems to me that once they add (or subtract, depending on how you look at it) a vacation day, they don't add any more for 24 hours.

the problem I found with auto vacation is one game may time out .. ok the system takes a vacation day to cover it.. a few hours later another game times out.. the system takes another vacation day to cover that... another few hours game times out another auto vacation day.. so I've used up 3 days to cover one.. I think if you use a lot of vacation time like I do.. it's best not to set auto vacation..

playBunny: I have no problems with 30 days at the start of the year. Just plan ahead as best as possible. And with auto-vacation option, you really do not need to plan. Just make sure that is set and if you leave town and can't play - those will kick in.

If for some reason you are short come the end of the year, renew your membership early and it will be reset at that time also. (even though I would hope not too many people would need more then 30 days a year....)

BIG BAD WOLF: LOL. Which makes a good case for either a monthly allocation or a complete vacation renewal on the membership anniversary.

Fencer: (unless you renew your membership 1/2 way through the year.... then you can get up to 60 days a year!)

tonyh: No, that still wouldn't apply in a monthly system if there is a cap of 30 days. If there is a renewal of the 30 days in January then losing any days on December 31st is moot. In the monthly system you wouldn't get your 3 days if you were already at 30 - that's losing unused days on a monthly basis instead of in December.

I think the monthly allotment is a logical request because it allows another way for a person to manage their vacation days. If it's provided as a choice then Tony, Sharon and Vikings could all be happy.

tonyh: Are you kidding? Membership on BrainKing is not like your salary. There are different rules and who doesn't like it, nobody forces him to pay for a membership. 30 days a year is enough for everyone.

thats fair enough, but I think if you pay for membership then there should be some perks, sorry

oldhamgirl: following this argument, also pawns should be allowed to carry over the vac. I don't pay for my employment.

I think if we pay for membership we should be allowed to carry our vacation days over, you can in most employment.

nabla: So there is your answer; you could save money from your 1st January salary to spill over to the following year. Here, you can't.

tonyh: Yes.

Fencer: If a member has unused vacations days at 31 December, what happens to them? Do they just disappear?

tonyh: No. The request must be logical, must have a sense. Changing the vacation policy, as you propose, seems illogical to me, that's why I won't do it.

lovelysharon: If the incremental allotment gave the same number of days and you started with a decent quotient then you would certainly be able to do your "accumulation of days between". If you couldn't then you'd have to run out of days under the current system as well, because they both provide the same amount.

tonyh: Actually the current policy is strictly more generous than the "running total" one (I mean, it just always gives you more flexibility).
Imagine that you get a job offer where you will get an annual salary at entrance, and then an annual salary each 1st of January, would you decline it because you are afraid that you could spend all your money in January ? Well, maybe your answer will be yes, but mine won't :-)

Fencer: What, pray, is a good argument to convince you?

tonyh: other sites can have really bad policies too... at iyt I timed out everytime I traveled.. that is why I am no longer a paying member there and joined here..

tonyh: "Other sites do it thia way" is a bad argument to convince me. Nothing will be changed.

Hrqls: I think we could have 30 days as a start off. Then we deduct vacation days and add on 2 or 3 days a month until we get back to 30 days maximum. That way, we could always have enough days for vacations.
Other sites do it thia way.

I currently go away to visit my kids in dec/jan... feb vacation is with a girlfrind.. back to visit the kids in april for my grandsons birthday.. I take a small vacation in the summer for myself .. now with new grandbaby there's another birthday in october for a visit then.. and back again in dec for holidays.. do you think i can accumulate enough days in between??.. last summer i had an off chance of a holiday in Hawaii with 4 days notice.. I jumped on that.. lol.. .. I say keep the allotment the way it is..

lovelysharon: Yes, I realised when Hrqls posted that you were continuing the topic.

30 days in January or 3 days per month would surely be a choice for each user to decide. But even if 3 days per month were forced upon people there shouldn't be the problem that you fear, except right at the start of membership. If you take a long holiday in February but none in September through January then you'd easily have built up enough to take 10 days off. It's only in the first year that there would be any problem. If I were implementing that system then I'd avoid even that hardship by starting people off with 10 or 15 days and then adding the 3 days per month thereafter. But giving the choice is better.

Vikings: as far as the self discipline.. I get 5 weeks vacation each year from work... I'm not sitting home all that time worrying about my backgammon games... I go when the mood strikes... lol..most time it's to my son's house where i do have access but rather spend time with my grandson..

the major reason I joined this site was the current vacation policy.. I just have to remember to keep that auto vacation turned off... lost too many days to it this year..

playBunny: there was more than one person talking on this subject and I guess I was asking the group ... hypotheically if the vacation time was alloted a few days per month one person could not take a two week vacation in early months of the year...

blah

playBunny: nah .. you understood her perfectly .. i think .. i understood her the same way :)

user options are always my favo(u)rite :)