Today I was playing tirol in a 21-pt match and was leading 17-3 and was going to win a gammon with the cube on 2. (= finishing him off) Suddenly my opponent waved goodbye and dropped. Later, I consulted Tomawsky and he told me that tirol is one of the oldest members of FIBS , playing since 1999 till now and that he has been a droppers all this time. 

Now, I have 9 saved matches that just in one of them I was guilty of dropping and in the rest, my opponents dropped when I was the clear favorite to win the matches. The proof is the fact that none of fibsters has yet complained about me and I have a good reputation. It seems that since I'm a newbie in FIBS, losers may thought that I may be unaware of the Repbot and it's tasks and thus dropped.

But as I was chatting with Tomawsky, he told me that he would never play with a player that who has more than 5 saved matches?! So what about the likes of me, who are not guilty for their saved matches?! I frankly think that we must pay more attention to reputation then to the number of saved matches, as the later is not an accurate sign of droppers, cause it's the same for both the coward dropper and the innocent player who was winning the match.

Any opinion?

Later, I consulted Tomawsky and he told me that tirol is one of the oldest members of FIBS , playing since 1999 till now and that he has been a droppers all this time. 

But as I was chatting with Tomawsky, he told me that he would never play with a player that who has more than 5 saved matches?! So what about the likes of me, who are not guilty for their saved matches?!

Any opinion?

Are you kidding PersianLord ? During our chat I was thinking about such action from you and it's happening.

I do not told that tirol is one of the oldest members of Fibs. I understand that you think that during our chat and I corrected you but you don't hear me.
We are talking about my Expr and I was telling you that I was playing here since 1999. Then you changed and talking about tirol who dropped you.
I also never said that tirol has been a dropper all this time cause I do not know him but as you reported the end of your match with him It was looking as he was a dropper.

Yes I also said that generaly I would never play with a player who has more than 5 saved matches?! But I have said too that it's already happen that I refused an invitation from a players with many saved. After that the player get back to me and we chatted and finaly play a friendly match. And this kind of situation happenned to me more than once.

Don't know what are you tring to do there, but it looks like something strange... 

No pb  I prefer that way
Thanks

As I said during the chat

I just look at saved games cause I prefer consider a person on my own and not with others opinions
I use repbot only for the saved games which can be manipulated.

hi, this is my first post as i've only joined fibs 2 weeks ago. i'm having the same problem as yourself. i've never dropped a game and never intend to but i've now got 12 saved games because people have dropped on me and then just signed out. as a result many folk are refusing to play me, i want to continue all the saved games but can't remember who they're with, is there any way to find out which players i have saved games with so i can at least attempt to continue them or report them to repbot to try and help my own rep.. i'm not that bothered that people drop on me, only that it's starting to affect the amount of games against good players i can get.. any help out there? i use cocoa fibs if that affects anything?

thanks, i'll give it a go now..

Your post points to one of the biggest issues with the FIBs server.  It is completely unacceptable that the player who is playing someone who drops, gets a mark against his/her reputation along with the dropper.  Why FIBs does this can only be understood by the FIBs administrators.  IT MAKES NO SENSE!  It is arbitrary and could be easily changed.   First, only the player who drops should get a mark against them.  These games could still be saved and resumed by either player but only the dropper gets a mark against his/her reputation.   After a predetermined number of drops, when another match is dropped it should automatically be treated as a resignation with the dropper losing the number of points as determined by the status of the match.  This should deter droppers as they no longer have an incentive to drop.  Allowing some number of drops will keep legitimate players from harming their reputation as long as they clear saved games in a timely manner.

Of course another problem that affects this is the difficulty getting players to play saved games.  How can I repair my reputation when the players who I have saved matches with are rarely active when I am?    Even when they are active, the ones who were losing badly never accept an invitation to play a saved match.  This could be corrected by forcing players to play saved matches before they can play other matches when the players with saved matches are both active. Certainly there are a number of good ideas that could be discussed about how to improve dealing with saved games.   Legitimate players should not mind this as I assume they are interested in maintaining their reputation.

I have no confidence that FIBs will respond to these kinds of suggestions.  Maybe its time to make a new server.  It shouldn't be that hard to build one that will offer a much better place for people to compete.

The problem here is that you are interpreting a saved game as an automatic negative mark, when that was never meant to be the case.  A saved game is just that-- a game that has been saved for later.  It may have been saved because the parties involved agreed to resume later, because the game is currently being played, because it's an unlimited match, because the server crashed, because one player's connection crashed, or because one of the parties involved intentionally dropped the match.

Read that list carefully.  Only one of those reasons is a negative thing.  The others are just factual, and are perfectly reasonable reasons for having an unfinished match.

Note that FIBS has no concept whatsoever of a reputation.  None at all.  FIBS merely provides a factual piece of information-- how many unfinished matches are currently sitting on disk for a particular player.  How you interpret that information is up to you.  Repeat after me: the saved game count is not a dropped game count.


I am always open to well-thought-out suggestions for dealing with the problem of droppers.  I use several criteria when analyzing such things, including my ease in implementing the solution, my estimate of the effectiveness, any loopholes for abuse that I see, backward compatibility and client compatibility, and any potential side-effects.  Note that most things that are described by users as "easy to implement" are actually quite hairy and have all sorts of complex side-effects.

I would love to hear a workable solution to the problem of droppers.  Please, surprise me!

Hi rebcalale, I am sure that you are right and it is very easy to make a backgammon server that incorporates the features that you desire. When you have done so and put it online free to all, I expect that you will play there.

Me too, I will play there, let me know when it is up and running...