Draws

I meant if one of the players had one pawn and gets boxed cause of it and can get checkmated by the other person with the knight

In FIDE, it's a win for the player with a knight vs pawn if the player with the pawn runs out of time. Doesn't matter which pawn, it just has to promote to rook, bishop or knight to allow a help-mate. On chess sites, where it's timeout, a knight for the player with time is only draw, since a knight or bishop alone can't force checkmate. Although a help-mate is still possible if the opponent has pieces (except if it's only queens), chess sites don't count both sides' material and therefore N vs ~ with black timeout is a draw.

Yes, white could deliberately flag here to avoid getting mated and get a draw:

......... from chess.com. Not because it's right or fair or the outcome of an intelligent evaluation - but only because the website's programmers team could not handle all such situations. However since a few years there is a pretty good computer program to determine whether a position is dead (no mate is possible not even a helpmate) or alive (mate or helpmate is possible). Once chess.com has integrated this tool in it's operation we can be assured they will change the rule in accordance with FIDE- (chess games) and WFCC (chess problems) rules.

Note that FIDE-laws already demand that chess websites do implement automatic draws for dead positions in online games (article 5.4) so a multi-million dollar fine for chess.com is to be expected

For the 4 man endgame we don't need a special software. The tablebases are more than sufficient.

Dead positions are a different issue altogether, in those the game is already over, in the FIDE flagging rule discussion positions, it isn't. Well actually my position above the game is over as white has no choice but to play a7, it would be interesting to have an option built into the site to have "trigger moves" where when you have only one legal move the site automatically plays it for you, like a pre-move.

I purposely drew three games in September . . .

There were enough other pieces but I wanted to see it I could draw on purpose . . 

Two were in a house Tournament I won my bracket a and advanced. . .

the other in club match I was down pieces . . . .

Arisktotle wrote:

”…Once chess.com has integrated this tool in it's (sic) operation we can be assured they will change the rule in accordance with FIDE- (chess games) and WFCC (chess problems) rules.

Note that FIDE-laws already demand that chess websites do implement automatic draws for dead positions in online games (article 5.4) so a multi-million dollar fine for chess.com is to be expected “

Of course you all realize that Arisktotle wrote those sentences as a joke. No “tool” will induce chessdotcom to change its governing rulebook from US Chess to FIDE; and it is even less likely that US Chess will change its definition of mating material for time-forfeit purposes in the foreseeable future. 

Nor is there any conceivable scenario in which FIDE could even try to pressure chessdotcom into changing its rules for any online games except FIDE-rated ones, which I assume are relatively rare. (Offhand I don’t know in which “dead” positions, if any, US Chess rules — which by definition are identical to chessdotcom rules — award a time-forfeit win.)

Ah, I made too big a step there. I generally do not distinguish between a dead position (both sides cannot be checkmates) and half dead position (only one side cannot be checkmated) because they are both based on the same algorithm. Even more, the term dead has been dropped from the online FIDE rules and replaced by the action definition which describes the impossibility to checkmate either side.

What is relevant for the discussion is that both evaluations are processsed at different events - the flag fall in article 4.3 and at every move of the game in article 5.4.3. The flag fall ends the game immediately, but the game also terminates immediately at any point in the game that meets the condition of two-sided impossible checkmate. What they further have in common is that all terminations are supposedly automatic and there is no room for arbiters or strange additives which violate the algorithm for these evaluation.

So the notification for the upcoming fine goes ahead!

No by dead position I meant positions where checkmate is impossible by either side, nothing else. The half-dead position would be like a bishop vs rook, a bishop could never checkmate a king in the corner as the adjacent rook could always block the check. It is one-sided insufficient mating material. In fact the double-impossibility of checkmate might as well be classified as insufficient mating material. The current material cannot checkmate or stalemate. The trigger moves suggestion is interesting when considering games like this:

White has force-checkmated himself, no other game result is possible. If black flags, he gets a draw because it's impossible for black to get checkmated, because white is the one who inevitably will be checkmated. Black can't lose because he must win. That's not the same as black can't lose because white can't win. I am undecided what should be the result here.

Why do you think I meant anything else with "dead position"? I clearly defined it. But I added that the term dead is no longer used by FIDE in the online chess rules. But of course "dead" is still a charming way to describe the situation.

"Half dead" is my personal term and I have used it for over a decade in communicating to problemists. I think it very accurately reflects the situation where the possibility "to be checkmated" refers to one side while the flag fall takes care of the other side. In that half the situation is not dead but lost by time expiration. Of course you can create your own definition but I can't see the purpose.

The reason to package "dead" and "half-dead" in one bundle is that some people have varying interpretations of the expression: ".... cannot be checkmated by any series of legal moves". Whatever anyone's interpretation is, it must clearly be the same in the "dead" and the "half dead" situations!

"Forced checkmates after flagging" were willfully dismissed by FIDE though it was discussed some 40 years ago. One example I saw featured a "forced checkmate in 7 moves". But FIDE stuck to handling the "draws" which they needed to prevent games spiralling into infinity (Gödels incompleteness). Though the "dead rule" only takes partly care of that.

By forced I mean it's a triggered mate, no other games are possible except the self-mate.

Do you think I meant anything different?

Well , I could have meant something else but I continued on your path