| From | Message |
wulebgr
10/18/2008
17:57:10
[ report abuse ] |
 Subject: emergency postponement
Message:
I recently received a notice that my game had received an emergency postponement.
I had about four hours remaining, knew I had four hours, and planned to use two. This emergency postponement is a nice feature, but is implemented far sooner than necessary in my opinion. Alas, should I really need it, it won't be there for another year at my current membership level, and for another four months should I upgrade.
I already receive an email when I'm down to twenty-four hours, which is not a feature of other sites where I play.
It seems that this automatic emergency postponement should only kick in when a genuine emergency exists, say fifteen minutes remaining.
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heinzkat
10/18/2008
18:00:01
[ report abuse ] | Must have somehow miscalculated...
Message:
The emergency postponement is triggered only when one of your games would have otherwise timed out.
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wulebgr
10/31/2008
17:59:29
[ report abuse ] | Nope,
Message:
That's not what happened at all. The system triggered early. I know because I looked at the game two hours before the trigger, and I had six hours left.
Now, there are email problems. I'm done here. The site was never that good anyway. One game left, then ciao GK.
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muppyman
11/01/2008
00:18:14
[ report abuse ] | wulegbr
Message:
I wonder why you feel some need to make an announcement that you are leaving the site. I rather suspect that Gameknot will find some way to survive the loss. :)
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wulebgr
11/02/2008
13:33:29
[ report abuse ] | because the denial
Message:
of the sort heinzkat put forth is symptomatic of GK as a whole, which is far more resistant to constructive criticism than any other of the dozen or more turn-based/correspondence sites I've played at. And because my decision to leave is neither light, nor wholly satisfying. Chances are that I'll miss the site, despite its shortcomings.
You are correct that GK probably will not miss me.
I've been playing here off and on for four years. I suffered through a period of no account access after participating in forum discussions that were critical of certain site quirks--my access was restored when I became a paying member. The site did not offer enough for the money, in my opinion, compared to what I get at two other sites where I have maintained a paid membership for three years or longer, so I did not renew the paid membership, but stayed here for a few games, and even entered a tournament.
GameKnot is a good site, but far short of its capabilities. As near as I can tell from the research I've conducted, GK set the standard for this sort of site six or seven years ago. Its improvement, however, in the face of growing competition has been slow and inadequate.
I think the administrator of GK has worked to improve the site as he perceives the need, but that the culture here--mostly a dozen or so individuals--stifles the sort of constructive criticism that he needs to restore this site to its former status as among the best.
My one remaining game may last a while yet, so I'm not gone yet.
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heinzkat
11/02/2008
13:42:00
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
No, really, the times I have seen my opponents "trigger" the emergency postponement was when the games overstepped the very last minute - the games disappeared from the page (as happens when a game times out) and reappeared some five minutes later, with the opponent having a 5-day postponement (without having logged in in the meanwhile).
The message I wrote was an opening to a further discussion of what had happened. Instead, you return two weeks later to tell us how symptomatic my reply was :-(
:-)
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chessnovice
11/02/2008
15:46:30
[ report abuse ] | ...
Message:
I don't get the impression that heinzkat delivered any sort of stifling of constructive criticism. I'm sure that the criticism you gave was given consideration by GK, and I'm sure they double-checked the coding for whether such a thing could have occurred. What heinzkat said, though, is give an alternative possibility. It's fully appropriate to do so when the cause of an unexpected event occurs. Mistakes are not only made on one end. It's possible, for example, that you interpreted "6 hours" from "6 minutes" -- something I've done before myself.
It's not a knock against you personally. It's just an exploration into the possibilities of the incident. I would have figured that you would want people to look at your situation from every possible angle.
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wulebgr
11/03/2008
12:10:00
[ report abuse ] | Okay,
Message:
Perhaps I misread heinzkat's original reply. It sounds more welcoming of discussion as stated in the second post. The first message led off with the statement that I had somehow miscalculated. I'm certain that I did not. I checked the time when I turned on my computer, and I had six hours. Two hours later, I looked at the game again and it said four hours. When I came back thinking I was ready to move, within the half hour, the emergency postponement had been triggered.
I'm quite certain that I didn't confuse hours with minutes.
I'm willing to believe that most of the time the feature works as intended, and I have no explanation for why it might have failed in this case. I've not seen it before.
I rely on the 24-hour notification email, and that failed me last week, and was the cause of my return to this thread two weeks later. This failure was the trigger pushing my disaffection with this site far enough.
Most of the time the forums here are interesting and polite. When it became possible to insert chess diagrams, they improved dramatically. Their structure, however, is far too limiting for positive comparison to chess dot com, RHP, CW, and many other sites that are as good or better than GameKnot in most other aspects. When GK is criticized, the poster that offered the criticism is nearly always attacked in one way or the other. Beginning with the assertion that I must be wrong <b>is symptomatic</b> of this dysfunctional culture.
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wulebgr
11/03/2008
12:21:53
[ report abuse ] | Ironically,
Message:
or perhaps serendipitous is the term, the game that timed out when the email notification failed was the same game that triggered the emergency postponement. The feature would have been useful once it was actually needed.
PS. Ii is my observation that heinzkat is generally helpful on a consistent basis in the forums here. His response to me is symptomatic of what I've seen others do on a consistent basis, but NOT symptomatic of his normal response to site concerns.
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