This site tends to go for a very laid back view on this sort of thing. As with forum etiquette it is down to individual players to decide how they do things.
Personally I think that a 'pause' is something outside a game, and so should be treated in the same polite, helpful and respectful way you would expect to be treated with in real life.

The pause vote system needs an overhaul -- maybe require a majority of surviving players voting "pause" to pause the game?

I am in favour of pausing on an 'all-but-one' basis, or perhaps when controllers of a certain number of SCs have agreed (27 perhaps)

IRL, a pause would happen if all but one of the remaining players wanted to pause unless it was down to 2 players, in which case the one not wanting the pause would be the defacto winner.

i agree i think the pauses system needs changing. i also miss the days when you voted /pause. it just made me ticked that i could of won the game but had to go away for the holidays (i'm 16 and needed to see grandma =)

Surely you have a smartphone with web capabilities at 16... YEs, it was a dickish thing he or she did.

I agree with the all but one system.
Some people here have no manners at all.
Lodevicus, Thandy, do you hear morons?
:P

no i do not. still have an old flip phone with a non internet plan.

I was joking DJEcc. Some 16 year olds don't even have phones, much less smart phones with internet plans. As I said, it was a very dickish move on your opponent's part.

This site tends to go for a very laid back view on this sort of thing. As with forum etiquette it is down to individual players to decide how they do things.
Personally I think that a 'pause' is something outside a game, and so should be treated in the same polite, helpful and respectful way you would expect to be treated with in real life.

No, the immature players would abuse this. If you've ever played a live game then you'll know what I mean. Some will do anything to get a draw or cancel. Some try very hard and succeed at convincing themselves that their opponents cheated by multi-accounting, meta-gaming, or breaking a draw agreement. The immature players will pause when they can't create a stalemate and then unpause when the suspected multi is not there too teach him a lesson. Not so swell of an idea, ay?

Pardon me-I copy and pasted the wrong message. I meant to copy and paste this one:

The pause vote system needs an overhaul -- maybe require a majority of surviving players voting "pause" to pause the game?

"All but one" pause would be good, but still require unanimous unpause so someone doesn't get screwed when the game unpauses before he returns.

It would also help to have a pause for a specified amount of time. Some people don't pause because once paused some other people refuse to unpause. An "all but one" require for a pause with a definite end seems reasonable to me.

DJEcc24, think of it like this. You played a great game and should be proud of it. Your stats and points may not reflect it, but you know it. And that asshole(s) is a big loser and you know it.

I would be for a majority vote of the SC's.
Perhaps the first to vote pause could have some such settings, to say how many needed to vote (at least more than 50% of the players) to adjust?

yeah i suppose thats right Alderian. and as austria too so i guess i have somethin i am proud of

Yeh, tough luck, although in fairness its going to happen again and again, so I guess that's life.

le_roi: If you did that the first player voting could put on unreasonable terms, so more likely would be to set it at game setup

You can always get an account sitter. I can remember a game against Chrispminis where he got MarekP to sit his account, when Marek was right at the top of his game. It was kinda infuriating, because I reckon I could've beaten Chris, but Marek was just too hard.

There was another game with Chrispminis where I accidentally asked him to sit my account, not realising he was in the game. I thereby revealed that I planned to stab him next turn... resulting in an hour long discussion, an alliance forming between us, and then I stabbed him next turn :).

And you just told me off for reminiscing :P

Yeh, getting a sitter is always a good idea if you can't get a pause, and indeed if you know someone is likely to be able to help you then you don't necessarily need to get the pause even, which lets your game continue.

That wasn't for just reminiscing, its for being the person I've spoken to most on MSN and over half of that being reminiscing... :)

i also dislike the fact that a pause is never-ending. It would be much better if you could specify how long your pause was going to be (perhaps in units of the phase) so it would be possible to guarentee that a paused game would continue (and knowing when)

A system where the pause was simply the lowest agreed time for a pause would be fairly easy to implement. (it means that the default vote is pause 0 phases; and once all players agree to a longer pause the game will actually stop, but only for a the lowest agreed time) This is, i think, a smaller change to the current system, and would be annoying to code, but not too hard.

I'm in favour of this as I keep mentioning, but I'm not sure what Kestas' view is? Personally I can't see any reason it would be an issue, as very little of the code would need changing, yet the effect would be very noticable

@orathaic: i agree!

this is how i handle pauses:
games with press not live: i will always pause if the person who wants the pause will say why and also until when
games without press not live: i will pause depending who wants the pause and what other players do, in some situations i might not pause cause the guy has only one or two scs left and will be gone and cannot influence the game, but for non press the idea that orathaic said would be very good
since i have had bad experiences, how are you supposed to know when this person will unpause etc... you know nothing, ur just pausing
if its an anon game worse even more, if its not anon it would help if the player has played alot already, then i will pause for sure

where i will not pause: live games! (has been exception when all players agree to play next day, but has only happened once i think)
worst people are who will want to pause live games 1903 or so! just do not join if you dont have the time!
sometimes i might draw if two/three people dont have enough time and it looks like a long battle, or if even my time is running out (twice the game took way longer than normally)

anyways, all players who read this, dont join live games if you dont have the time, and i prefer you leaving than whining around that you want to draw cause u have to go somewhere...

i did tell them i was going to be gone for a set amount of days. and i totally forgot abotu the sittwer option i've never done that

Well I would always suggest having a few ideas of players who are your ability, that you get on well with, and so can sit for oneanother.
Sendler: Agree with live games, but otherwise I'd always accept a pause. whether I would choose to play with them again after is a different question.

And remember, if they choose to abuse the pause, the mods can always unpause it for you. It's a policy established after I and another player forced a three way draw by refusing to unpause. Fig delcared that the policy from that point forward is that is considered unacceptable metagaming. Not punishable necessarily, but that the mods would unpause the game in that case.

figlesquidge@ well if you play anon games you cant stop them playing with you again ;)

You can if they are passworded and you trust the person who created it to not give the other person the password.

true
but i dont really like passworded games ;)
i find them sort of elitist

Are putting locks on your door elitist? It's a sfaety measure to keep cheats from stealing your hard-earned points. Nothing elitist about it if you look at it from a certain perspective.

Or if you don't join until the end surely?
I play anon not because I don't want to know who I'm playing, but because I don't want to know who's who.

Doesn't help to join at the end in open anon because the other person may be there and you wouldn't know it.

New site feature... A black list so that if you are joined to the game and a blacklisted player joins, it automatically unjoins you before the game can start.

Ah fair enough: I didn't realise that.

That would be rather annoying but I have to admit I think it might be fair enough. An alternative that would also work with stopping games starting early (a common complaint from live-game players) would be to require all players to click 'Ready' (what was wrong with finalize!) in pregame to start the game before the time limit.

I like that. Then you could opt to leave if you saw someone (or got wind of someone in an anon) had joined up after you whom you really didn't want to play with. Of course, I'd never get in any non-anon games as no one ever wants to play with me. :-(

Draugnar, on such a black list feature, not sure I like the idea that someone you black list could stalk you to keep you from playing any games. Maybe if more than one person already in the game has a person black listed then they shouldn't be allowed in rather than kicking all of those people out.

I have this problem here!
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=17872
just because they are losing they with held a pause and then I had to get a sitter and a mod to change the phase lenth instead of a simple one hour pause!

If this was implemented I would also be in favour of showing a chat option at this point

But the blacklist wouldn't be published, so the person wouldn't know they were on your blacklist. And you could chose to remove them until the game started then put them back if you really wanted to play that specific game despite their presence. Your way could prevent someone from getting in any games because the other person (who blacklisted them and knew it) decided to join every game that person was already joined in. Make the blacklister be the one who has to opt not to play that game. Don't force the blacklisted out as it could be used as a vendetta tool that way.