Account Sitting

[Optimus Prime]

We've all wanted a built in account sitting feature in some form on this site for a long time. It would make life easier when we have a vacation to go on and those strange moments where life gets in the way and we have to scramble to find someone to watch our turns that are due up in a couple of hours because we aren't sure we'll be back in time.

I'm not here to discuss what should or should not be included in an account sitting feature as that has been done time and time again over in the Suggestions & Bug Reports forum. What I want to know is one thing. If we ever get a built in feature would you as a player find it inconvenient to have to "activate" a sitter in some fashion through a control panel and then "deactivate" the sitter when you return from your vacation or unexpected situation?

Feel free to discuss as you see fit, but I'm most interested in the poll I've included at the top of the thread, so please be sure to vote.

[AAFitz]

If there is still a lot of baby sitter abuse, than I suppose this is needed...but honestly... CC has done a great job of making it easy to get someone to make our moves....though personally, ive only had a few turns made for me inside of 8000 games..

but having only one sitter really may cause some problems...so if there is an activation, deactivation, maybe it could include at least three players, because I myself enjoy being able to make moves for partners in my games, when needed

[Bruceswar]

No, please do not do this.

Situation 1: I head out for the day with 12 hour left on my turn. Things get busy, I am not sure if I am gonna make my turn. Now I need sitter, but with no access to a PC, so I cannot set anybody as one. - This would fail here. As it stands now many of us have others means other than a computer to ask someone to take a turn for us in those dire times.

Situation 2: You are around your PC, with time left taking turns, some of which have a few hours left. You lose power or internet for any 1 of a million reasons it can go out. Bad weather, etc etc. In this case I would not be able to set anybody as my sitter. Thus this fails again.

Situation 3: You think you will be back in time to take some turns. You end up falling asleep on the couch. No time again to set a sitter before you miss. Obviously you are passed out. Only way someone will know to sit here is if they see you with little time left.

Situation 4: You are in a team game and happen to notice one of your partners has 10 minutes left. Lucky for you, you have his/her password for a just in case moment like this. Obviously there is no time for this person to set a sitter as you do not even know where they are. Rather than risk them missing you "bust in" and take the turn. You also cover any more turns with less than 30 minutes or an hour. This would fail here.


As you can see there are many real life situations where even if you had a sitter who was willing, they would not always be activated. The current system, works really well.

[Incandenza]

100% concur with fitz and bruce, this is one situation where the ad-hoc method works far better than anything management could come up with. Please leave it be.

[Doc_Brown]

Personally, I'd much rather have the ability to activate/deactivate a sitter. My initial thought was that those that do find it a hassle could just always leave a sitter activated. But I suppose that would depend on how this was implemented. For example, a really nice approach would be to have all active games for accounts I might be sitting show up in a 5th tab on the "My Games" page. In that case it would clutter up another person's account to leave them activated as a sitter all the time. On the other hand, if I need someone to sit my account, I'm going to have to contact them and let them know anyway, so it certainly shouldn't be too much trouble to simultaneously activate them as a sitter.

One side thought: From this question, I'm guessing that you're planning out how best to implement this. I think it would be nice to have an option to activate a sitter for only specific games. Certainly the default account sitter setting would be to give them access to all my games, but I can foresee a situation where I could be in two team games where I have opposite teammates between the two games. In that case, I'd want to give player A the ability to sit game 1 (where he was my teammate) but not game 2 where he was on the other team.

But to answer your overall question, no I don't think this is too much of a hassle by any means. If I think there is a chance that I might be called away unexpectedly, I'd probably just activate someone as a sitter for the duration and let them be on standby.

[Doc_Brown]

I can definitely see the merit in these other posts, though it seems like this would be an added feature and wouldn't prevent the current method of account sitting to remain in place. I am still free to share my password with someone else if I need it in a pinch. Plus, in a team game I would probably automatically activate my teammates to sit my account at least for that game in case something unexpected came up.

[jiminski]

100% concur with fitz and bruce, this is one situation where the ad-hoc method works far better than anything management could come up with. Please leave it be.

[Optimus Prime]

Hm... interesting responses. Not exactly what I saw coming. Please continue to contribute.

[jimboston]

I need help here... going on vacation 3/5 and not sure if I will be able to play my turns.

Is there one place I can go to here to look for the rules associated with account sitting and/or find someone willing to watch mine for me for a week?

Help appreciated.

[AAFitz]

I need help here... going on vacation 3/5 and not sure if I will be able to play my turns.

Is there one place I can go to here to look for the rules associated with account sitting and/or find someone willing to watch mine for me for a week?

Help appreciated.

If you get really stuck...pm me, assuming we arent in any games together.

[Bruceswar]

I can definitely see the merit in these other posts, though it seems like this would be an added feature and wouldn't prevent the current method of account sitting to remain in place. I am still free to share my password with someone else if I need it in a pinch. Plus, in a team game I would probably automatically activate my teammates to sit my account at least for that game in case something unexpected came up.

Actually this would take place of the current system as I understand it. This is not what we want. Also you would not be able to leave a sitter open at all times. Once you logged back in your sitter would go away and you would be in control again. This is just something I cannot see working for CC. While it will work for other types of games, it will not work for CC.

[elfish_lad]

Also you would not be able to leave a sitter open at all times.

Ack. This would not be a good thing. There are a couple of players whose info I have in the event life goes sideways and I need to take their turns. It has come in very handy in a couple of tournaments where a player "thought" they would be back in time to take their turn for our team but weren't able to make it.

E.

[Bruceswar]

Also you would not be able to leave a sitter open at all times.

Ack. This would not be a good thing. There are a couple of players whose info I have in the event life goes sideways and I need to take their turns. It has come in very handy in a couple of tournaments where a player "thought" they would be back in time to take their turn for our team but weren't able to make it.

E.

At least that is how I see it. Personally the current system works great if you ask me.

[mrdexter]

How bad would it be to activate the sitting option just after you took your turn or before you went out for the day? You could pre arrange with your sitter at what point they should accept it and take your turn if you hadn't done so by then.

And on the other hand how bad would it be if the actions of an account sitter got your account banned as there was no way to prove it was them logged in and not you?

[AAFitz]

Also you would not be able to leave a sitter open at all times.

Ack. This would not be a good thing. There are a couple of players whose info I have in the event life goes sideways and I need to take their turns. It has come in very handy in a couple of tournaments where a player "thought" they would be back in time to take their turn for our team but weren't able to make it.

E.

At least that is how I see it. Personally the current system works great if you ask me.

Its really just fine in my opinion too... it on the casual side, so there is the potential for some abuse, but I think that the benefits of people not missing turns, greatly outweighs that. I think before implementing a really stringent babysitting policy, a delay of game would first have to be possible. Lots of people take off, and Id just hate to see lots of games won and lost because of it.

Though I really am taking for granted that there isnt much abuse, and that any abuse, is really abuse of convenience, and not really for gain.

[Bruceswar]

How bad would it be to activate the sitting option just after you took your turn or before you went out for the day? You could pre arrange with your sitter at what point they should accept it and take your turn if you hadn't done so by then.

And on the other hand how bad would it be if the actions of an account sitter got your account banned as there was no way to prove it was them logged in and not you?

IP checks can be run on when these actions took place. (This has never happened to my knowledge, where someone gets someone else banned.) In every case that has ever come up, it was determined that the original account holder was at fault. As far as setting a sitter when you walk out the door. - 1: this person you want may not be around to accept 2: This opens up strategic account sitting (Especially in freestyle casual games) Also if someone has 50 or 60 games running, 1 person generally cannot cover them all. There are times where we must leave out of town unexpected, and end up with 60 games running sometimes. For me personally I break it up into as many people as I can so they can take my turns with ease. Usually a team of 5 people for me.

The current system is not broken, please do not try to fix it.

[Bruceswar]

Also you would not be able to leave a sitter open at all times.

Ack. This would not be a good thing. There are a couple of players whose info I have in the event life goes sideways and I need to take their turns. It has come in very handy in a couple of tournaments where a player "thought" they would be back in time to take their turn for our team but weren't able to make it.

E.

At least that is how I see it. Personally the current system works great if you ask me.

Its really just fine in my opinion too... it on the casual side, so there is the potential for some abuse, but I think that the benefits of people not missing turns, greatly outweighs that. I think before implementing a really stringent babysitting policy, a delay of game would first have to be possible. Lots of people take off, and Id just hate to see lots of games won and lost because of it.

Though I really am taking for granted that there isnt much abuse, and that any abuse, is really abuse of convenience, and not really for gain.

I do not see how there could be abuse really. The worst case could be in Casual Freestyle, which I play a good bit of. In my time, I have grown to know my opponents. I know when they play, etc. So with that said I know what to expect. Now I am not the normal, but generally you do not see abuse of this kind. I have not seen it at least in all my time.I have seen people cover for others so they do not miss.

[Bruceswar]

I guess I should add the only 2 times I can remember account sitting abuse cases being of merit are the SkyT case and Maxatstuy cases. Max would later get banned, and SkyT has retired.. Very low numbers in the grand scheme of things.

[mrdexter]

IP checks can be run on when these actions took place. (This has never happened to my knowledge, where someone gets someone else banned.) In every case that has ever come up, it was determined that the original account holder was at fault.

IP logs are not kept for ever and they are not 100% infallible anyway.

As far as setting a sitter when you walk out the door. - 1: this person you want may not be around to accept 2: This opens up strategic account sitting (Especially in freestyle casual games) Also if someone has 50 or 60 games running, 1 person generally cannot cover them all. There are times where we must leave out of town unexpected, and end up with 60 games running sometimes. For me personally I break it up into as many people as I can so they can take my turns with ease. Usually a team of 5 people for me.

The current system is not broken, please do not try to fix it.

They do not need to be online to accept it necessarily, it can sit in their inbox until they log on.

I am not suggesting this is 100% perfect, but am trying to point out that neither is the existing system. I for one will never use an account sitter the way it is implemented at the moment.

[Bruceswar]

IP checks can be run on when these actions took place. (This has never happened to my knowledge, where someone gets someone else banned.) In every case that has ever come up, it was determined that the original account holder was at fault.

IP logs are not kept for ever and they are not 100% infallible anyway.

As far as setting a sitter when you walk out the door. - 1: this person you want may not be around to accept 2: This opens up strategic account sitting (Especially in freestyle casual games) Also if someone has 50 or 60 games running, 1 person generally cannot cover them all. There are times where we must leave out of town unexpected, and end up with 60 games running sometimes. For me personally I break it up into as many people as I can so they can take my turns with ease. Usually a team of 5 people for me.

The current system is not broken, please do not try to fix it.

They do not need to be online to accept it necessarily, it can sit in their inbox until they log on.

I am not suggesting this is 100% perfect, but am trying to point out that neither is the existing system. I for one will never use an account sitter the way it is implemented at the moment.

You must be one of those who never trust anybody. For the other 99% of us who do, this works great as it sits.

[mrdexter]

You must be one of those who never trust anybody. For the other 99% of us who do, this works great as it sits.

I do trust people, I just don't make the same mistake twice. Please keep the assumptions seperate and keep the discussion to the facts.

I guess I should add the only 2 times I can remember account sitting abuse cases being of merit are the SkyT case and Maxatstuy cases. Max would later get banned, and SkyT has retired.. Very low numbers in the grand scheme of things.

Honestly, would you feel the same way if you had been one of those two victims?

[elfish_lad]

I guess I would liken this to handing out a house key. I wouldn't hand out my key to just anybody. Those who loan me theirs? Trust me enough to walk their dog while they are away. The players I have given out my "key" to I have played games with over the six months I've been here. And those who have loaned me theirs are in the same boat. It's not an 100% guarantee but what is?

E.

[mrdexter]

I guess I would liken this to handing out a house key. I wouldn't hand out my key to just anybody. Those who loan me theirs? Trust me enough to walk their dog while they are away. The players I have given out my "key" to I have played games with over the six months I've been here. And those who have loaned me theirs are in the same boat. It's not an 100% guarantee but what is?

E.

Good analogy. But using a system where you had to give permission to a sitter and they could use your account perhaps even without your password, is as near to 100% as you're going to get, as any abuse is directly tracable to the sitter.

[Bruceswar]

You must be one of those who never trust anybody. For the other 99% of us who do, this works great as it sits.

I do trust people, I just don't make the same mistake twice. Please keep the assumptions seperate and keep the discussion to the facts.

I guess I should add the only 2 times I can remember account sitting abuse cases being of merit are the SkyT case and Maxatstuy cases. Max would later get banned, and SkyT has retired.. Very low numbers in the grand scheme of things.

Honestly, would you feel the same way if you had been one of those two victims?

These 2 were not victims... they were guilty of account sitting abuse. Neither were banned for their actions.

SkyT was playing 3 accounts in triples

Maxatstuy was sitting many accounts daily, when he felt like it. (He later got site banned for other stuff on top of this)


So these 2 do not really come into the equation as victims.

[Incandenza]

But using a system where you had to give permission to a sitter and they could use your account perhaps even without your password, is as near to 100% as you're going to get, as any abuse is directly tracable to the sitter.

Um, we already have such a system in place. It's called "giving another person your pw." Plus it's a lot more flexible. If CC is looking to adopt a babysitting system that will enhance flexibility, then that's one thing. But if it's to curb practically non-existent abuse (with the insane amount of negative outcomes that such a system would entail), then they've clearly lost their goddamn minds.