I propose retiring accounts that have been inactive for over 3 years. All their stats would be locked in place and their page would stay the same just have (Retired) by their name. If they ever came back a message would pop up saying "Do you wish to unretire?"

In this system, a retired account would no longer have its place held in the Active Board rankings. This would make things a lot more exciting for active players trying to be the current #1 on different boards. I think this site needs something to freshen things up a bit and this could do the trick. Champions in boxing either have to stay active or give up their belt. Maybe boards could show the current #1 and also the previous retired #1 on their page.

I think this idea has some merit. 

I would definitely not be for permanent retirement, but your suggestion is maybe the a good middle ground.

This has all been discussed at some length many years ago and nothing came of it. Really, I can't think of a mod or addition to the site that Tom has effected in the last 4 or 5 years. This despite the fact that there have been hundreds of good ideas proposed.  Short of someone buying the site from Tom and investing a lot of time and energy, I don't see much of a chance that things will change.  Tom is good for keeping it up and running these days, but that's about it.

Plus one

I'd also like to see that, even if as M57 says it's unlikely to happen.

M57 wrote:

[...] Really, I can't think of a mod or addition to the site that Tom has effected in the last 4 or 5 years. [...]

I can think of two changes in half that time. ( Incidentally, both proposed by me ). Tom changed the date format in the board reviews. And he removed profile pictures from tournaments with a large number of invitees. The point here being that both were small and easy to implement changes.

If we want a change, we need to formulate it as something that is easy enough to do, and doesn't take too long for Tom. IMO, Abhishai's proposal does qualify, with a few minor modifications. The easiest change to implement this, that I can think, is to replace the unretire pop-up with an automatic method.

• We need to add a new "Active' attribute to the player database. Set to 'Y' if the player has logged in with in the last year. 'N' if not.  (Need not be visible on the profile. Just in the database).
• This attribute is automatically checked for (say) once every day. So, if a player logs in again after several year hiatus, his/her status will be set to Active automatically within the next 24 hours.
• In the rankings page, add an extra active filter (Active players only OR All players). This is the step that would require the most work, though not too much IMO. The current 1 filter (min x games played) would need to be replaced with 2 filters, ensuring that both are used. And by default this can be set to Active players only.

Even simpler would be to remove the min x games played. Then only 1 filter needs to be present, as is the case now. And change the default to min 10 games played (so that we don't have too many 100% win ratios).

This assumes that the calculation of the (DateNow - LastVisit) for 15000+ players will be slow on the fly. If Tom believes that this calculation can be done on the fly, then the change needed is much much smaller. A slight slowing down of the Ranking page would also be fine.

Pratik wrote:

M57 wrote:

[...] Really, I can't think of a mod or addition to the site that Tom has effected in the last 4 or 5 years. [...]

 

I can think of two changes in half that time. ( Incidentally, both proposed by me ). Tom changed the date format in the board reviews. And he removed profile pictures from tournaments with a large number of invitees. The point here being that both were small and easy to implement changes.

 

If we want a change, we need to formulate it as something that is easy enough to do, and doesn't take too long for Tom. IMO, Abhishai's proposal does qualify, with a few minor modifications. The easiest change to implement this, that I can think, is to replace the unretire pop-up with an automatic method.

• We need to add a new "Active' attribute to the player database. Set to 'Y' if the player has logged in with in the last year. 'N' if not.  (Need not be visible on the profile. Just in the database).
• This attribute is automatically checked for (say) once every day. So, if a player logs in again after several year hiatus, his/her status will be set to Active automatically within the next 24 hours.
• In the rankings page, add an extra active filter (Active players only OR All players). This is the step that would require the most work, though not too much IMO. The current 1 filter (min x games played) would need to be replaced with 2 filters, ensuring that both are used. And by default this can be set to Active players only.

 

Even simpler would be to remove the min x games played. Then only 1 filter needs to be present, as is the case now. And change the default to min 10 games played (so that we don't have too many 100% win ratios).

This assumes that the calculation of the (DateNow - LastVisit) for 15000+ players will be slow on the fly. If Tom believes that this calculation can be done on the fly, then the change needed is much much smaller. A slight slowing down of the Ranking page would also be fine.

Huge + 1

Sounds good!

there were conversations in the past from Tom where he mentioned the complications. If i had time and better internal WG search capabilities i'd try to dig those arguments up. alas that is not the case for me right now.

It would be nice if someone can dig that up. Then we could collectively figure out how to make the process easier. 

Glad to see others are in agreement!