Inactivity timeout

I've been running into a lot of players lately that might make one or two moves, then just abandon the game altogether. As someone who is tryingto boost his score on ten minute games, I feel that having to wait for half the time to elapse before it's declared abandoned is brutal. Is there some sort of method for figuring out what an ideal timeout should be or is it purely arbitrary? Because I feel like half the game's duration is too much .

Half the remaining time is a big improvement over letting the whole time run out. 

It was only put in place a few years ago after a lot of players made their views known. Some people still come on and complain that they can't get up from the board knowing they have the full time control to use as they see fit.

I just lost a game due to it being abandoned simply because I was thinking about the move for too long. Not once in that time was I AFK, but simply trying to figure out the best move with this old brain. I have never had this before and I don't see how it is fair or logical at all. If you agree to play a game for a specific amount of time, then that decision is already made and how each player decides how to use that time is up to them! Imagine an over the board tournament with people going around declaring results because people are taking too long to move!!?? It's ridiculous! I've never seen this ruling stated by chess.com anywhere and there was no warning of any kind. At least have a warning system. Like where you have a 5 second timer appear on screen and you need to click it to confirm that you are indeed at the key board thinking about the position. IF this keeps happening that'll be the end of my subscription for sure.

I don't know what kind of game you were playing, but I think if you're playing a ten minute game, then it's fair to set the timeout after just a couple of minutes because it's supposed to be fast-paced. If you need to take more time to figure out your moves, then you should pick longer games. 

I can understand the concept IF it is for when people go AFK, hence the suggestion for a pop-up timer of some kind, but to arbitrarily set unspecified additional time constraints is just bizarre! Imagine this happening in over the board play! The whole point of the time control is that it is agreed on before the game starts. No where in the agreement is it explicitly stated that the time used on any one move shall not exceed a set time. If there was, then fair enough and there could be time controls of that nature. But to include one arbitrarily and without any statement of it or any warning of any kind is just ludicrous. How can it be argued otherwise is beyond me. If there is going to be such time constraints, then it should be stated and people can choose to play that way. It would be very simple to do it. I used up 2 1/2 minutes on one move in a 5 minute+5 second per move game. This is just my play style in what I consider to be an interesting position. I am playing the game. I am not AFK and I'm not playing mind games in any way. This is just my play style. I might lose some games on time, but I'd rather lose on time than make any old move where I think there's something interesting in the position. To take that out of the game for me completely takes out the enjoyment of the game. People who want to just play any old moves and win using the flag can go ahead and play bullet and 3 minutes chess. That's fine. But we all choose to play the time control that we choose and agree to prior to the game and it's as simple as that. If people want to have a `max time on any one move' time control and then Chess.com just go ahead and put that option in!

Don't tell us. Send a complaint to [email protected].

It is unfortunate that you were caught up in this rule--   I think you have to understand it as an attempt to improve play.

I was trying to figure out how to make Nb5 work in some way. I know it is part of the theory in the Scotch, but after Nge7 I wasn't sure if there's some way to renew it as an option.

I sent a message to support.

Every game since I am thinking that I have to move because at any time, and without any warning, I might lose because of this rule! It's completely messed up my focus and actually, after reaching my highest ever blitz rating, I am now not enjoying it at all and I'm going to close chess.com for now 

People go AFK too much