rod03801: There's a link on the Stairs page that displays only the Stairs you're in. If you can make a challenge in any one of them, that Stair is displayed differently...
Or are you talking about fellowships? I wouldn't know how those are displayed, then... :/

Vikings: Or that new people starting on a stair have no option other to battle those that are already inactive (waiting sometimes almost a month before climbing up and maybe playing a game for real).

Also, with all the inactive players pilling up in the first level, the staircase may grow articially longer than it should be...

Vikings: hence the alternative I proposed...

MadMonkey: Probably easier to implement:
If you timeout all your games in a match you get automatically thrown out, with a message telling you why.

Only exception - you have already retired from the stairs (to prevent the case that you legitimatelly retired for going on holiday or something but had already a game running that you timed out). In that case you get to stay in the Stairs.

Come to think about it, not instead of... add it as another alternative, since if a player proved a worthy opponent, it's perfectly legit to want to challenge him/her again for another standard game...

When a match is finished, a message is sent to both players stating the outcome of the match. An option is also available to send another game invitation to that player, optionally deleting the message.
In Stairs games, instead of "another game with the same player" could there be an option "challange another player in this Stair" or something similar? Maintaining the option to automatically delete the message, of course ;)