A Group Admin's Dilemma ... What's the Ethical Thing to do ???

Recently,I've been experiencing the following :

1) Many of the Team/Vote Match Open Challenges I issued keeps getting aborted/cancelled immediately after they have been accepted by some Groups.

2) During the Registration Stage ,many Team Matches get canceled if the Admins concerned r not satisfied with the uneven Ratings of Opponent Pairs .

I think both of the above is a waste of time n efforts of the Admins concerned,tho it doesn't take very long to reissue a new Challenge but it gets real annoying when one has to do it repeatedly !

Concerning No 1),I don't understand why people don't read the info abt the Open Challenges properly,before they accept .. they juz accept n then keep canceling them . Of course there r exceptions when people make genuine mistakes,etc  but not when it happens All the Time ?

As for no 2) ,I do agree(totally) that we should aim for more even rated opponent pairs so that the Matches will be fair n interesting but I think most Admins dunno whether other Admins r of the same opinion or not n hence Matches get canceled unnecessarily unless there hv been a lot of communication between them.

I guess the best way to avoid this is to issue Matches with specified,limited Rating Ranges but even then ,it's rather difficult to get the desired results ,unless the range is extremely narrow,which wd then result in very few players being able to join.

..or the other option is to even up the ratings by removing players from our Teams (both in 'Open' n 'Ratings Range-Specified' Matches but some Admins may not agree to that .( As I hv come across,earlier on ... some Admins do not entertain that at all.) .. not to mention,this is very time consuming too,especially when there r lots of registered players involved !

... so we end up with  'Open Rated Challenges' or even  some 'Ratings Range Specified ' Challenges where one side can be very much higher rated on all or some Boards which = Unfair or 'Educational' Matches as some see it  ...  or the Match concerned gets canceled by either of the Team's Admins !

( .. n in which case the Team that will probably win the Match will be the one who has more higher rated Members than the other!)

...also there's the obligation to our Groups' Members who hv registered too .. Is it right to remove them after they hv expressed the desire to play for the Team by joining the Match ?

(Btw,This whole problem is more eminent when a Super/Admin have a lot of Gps to administrate as opposed to one with only 1 or 2 Gps.)

I do cancel Matches too,but I'm not sure if it's wise to do so !

So what's the ethical thing to do ?? ... What do u do ?? .. What do u think I should do ???

Tnx so Very Much .

Is your goal to win matches or just have good competition? I would just put a lot of fishing lines out there and you will catch some fish. Don't worry about the ones that got away.  God bless you,  Jim

Yeah ,rite but we can't get many Matches started if people keep canceling them ?

There were some suggestions here (team-matches---level-playing-field-scheme, first-come-first-served-team-chess) to tackle inequality in Team Matches - though it doesn't help you much immediately.

kick the people out who keeps cancelling them

I think this requires an individual approach. When an admin cancels the match, message him. Don't be confronting or agressive, just ask what lead him to that decision. Ask what you could do to create a match that would suit him (like the rating range, see if they agree to removing players). You'll be able to agree on conditions that are OK for both of you, so there'll be no reason to cancel.

I understand cancelled matches are disappointing for the admins as well as the players. And communication could probably help.

Cancelling happens - it's just part of the process.  As long as neither side is breaking any rules, there's no reason to worry about an ethical consideration.  Just concentrate your attention on the matches that actually start, and let those cancelled matches fall by the wayside.

Tnx for the link,Artfizz !

.. tnx but I'm referring to Super/Admins of other Groups,not one's own .

... yeah ... tnx n I agree  .. I hv tried this n it works but I was wondering if we could avoid having to spend so much time doing that by having better rules that allow us to handle this issue faster n more easily .

... Yeah,tnx .. would be nice to hv a positive solution/preventative measure tho !

Not to much i think we must live with that !

.. Hopefully/Ideally not ?

Hello Kikyo_Sushi ,

I must admit that having matches cancelled must be frustrating as i have found out at the hands of some 'Big and strong' teams but i will admit that i have cancelled a fair bit myself, i will cite an example: I am Super - Admin for Team Nigeria and Admin for Nigerian chess HQ; Team Nigeria does not play against groups only against National sides,so when an admin in Team Nigeria accepts a challenge against a group i end up cancelling that match because i do not want the national team to suffer burn out from playing too many matches. So when i cancell such match i will email the person who organised the cancelled to explain my action and ask if he/she would rather challenge our sister team Nigerian chess HQ as an alternative match.

And that is how and why my cancelled matches occur and is handled!

Victor Odunaiya

Team Nigeria

Super - Admin

Tnx sparenone .

.. n Tnx victorabiodun ... It's ok if there's a valid reason for it n usually these cancellations r followed up with appropriate explanatory messages from the Admins involved n r much appreciated .. some Admins will even follow up by reissuing a Challenge for ur Team that's more suitable for them ..... 

.. In 1) , I was referring to cancellations of 'Open Team/Vote Match Challenges/Seeks' , not those  specially issued to any one Group/Team in particular.