Tourney's
There is a bug with the live chess indicator.
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/reward-free-platinum-membership-and-1-year-of-chess-mentor
"Somehow people are exiting Live Chess without the system recognizing that you are gone, leaving you in a permanent state."
Whether or not this is the problem here, there are many distractions on the site. One possible solution is to play those who do not browse the forums do not train do not whatever when there are games waiting.
It is not often used but tournament directors can specify a Max Avg Time/Move to disallow those who are too distracted or who are not online very much.