Somewhat worried about Chaster's settings

Well pointed out!

 

freezing the lock was probably developed as a punishment option, however i do agree there should be a way to contact admin if it ends up going haywire. something where an admin would contact the keyholder and make sure everythings fine, or unfreeze if there was no response would be my idea.

 

To me, it’s part of the fun. You MUST evaluate a lock’s configuration before joining it.

 

Even if the countdown is frozen, it will unlock when the max time is reached.
There are three durations in the specification of a lock. Two define the range of start times and the third defines the maximum time. A lock may have, for example, a minimum start of 1 day, maximum start of 3 days, and an overall maximum of 7 days. When you start the lock it could give you anywhere between 1 and 3 days, and you could earn more time through votes and penalties. But it will release you after at most 7 days.
When you set up Chaster, it suggests you connect to to the Chaster server on Discord. There is a thriving (if somewhat cliquey) community of users, including some very nice admins. If your keyholder abandons you, contact an admin and they'll let you unlock.
You don't have to have a keyholder with Chaster.

 

This is great advice for folks.

 

I won't join a lock with no max unless I have played with the keyholder before and trust them. Always read all the way to the bottom of the description to see if there is a max. Be very careful when playing solo, it is possible to create a lock that might be inescapable if you did not set a max. If you are experimenting, I suggest that you use the "test" lock setting and leave yourself a hygiene setting so you can abort if necessary. The test setting does not show as an abort in your overall stats. I currently have a test lock that I am going to have to abort. I made the lock a little too hard. One thing to watch out for is task settings that require a wait period before doing the next one, make sure you can fit them into your schedule. For example, I set Wheel of Fortune to 5 required spins with a 1 hour wait between spins. Five hours out of 24, no problem, right? Well if I spin once before I go to work, and spin again right after I get home and hit the next 3 right on time, I can make it before bed time. It's always close. If you have any questions feel free to ask, DM, chat or in this thread. Good luck and have fun. Soon you'll be playing with no max!

 

Sissy Denise is right. You must think the parameters through. I once had a lock with a three hour spin window. Nearly impossible to get unfrozen.

Do NOT worry about your lock being top “easy”. You can always join the next one.

 

If you're just starting out, there are plenty of sane short-duration locks to choose from. Keyholder_bot and ChasterBot have series of locks that start out just a few hours long and go through a week maximum. (Click Explore and scroll down.)

A safe strategy is to get a 4-6" piece of PVC pipe. Drill a hole through two sides of it. Slide your spare key down the tube and secure it with a numbered security tag. In an emergency you can get to it. Unfortunately there's no Chaster support for registering and verifying such tag numbers along with the lock verification photos. Maybe someone clever can write an extension to Chaster that would accomplish this.

 

I had someone ghost me and leave the lock frozen once. The mods were no help.
They claimed that as she had been logging in they deemed her active. When I said she was unresponsive they tried to pass it off as keyholder mind games. No interest in consent there.

I'm very careful when I lock up on there now.

 

Am I right in thinking that, if you create a self-lock and disable the ability to "offer your lock", no one, except perhaps the mods, can let you out early?

 

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Some of the extensions can snow ball as well so it pays to keep it simple if self locking.
Alternatively you can give the option to offer and have a second account.

If share links are enabled and allow anonymous users to click on them that can be abused by changing your location with a VPN and reconnecting to the page.

 

I can quite see how a self lock could get out of control without some care.

I think you have answered my supplementary question. If you do enable the ability to offer your lock without setting a keyholder, I don't see why you cannot set up another account with a different email address and password, (maybe you also need different computer) then offer your lock to your alias account and let yourself out.

I had not thought of using a VPN to cheat. It must rather spoil the fun if you can mess with your own lock, on the other hand you don't want to be locked for ever.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure there's anything they can do about that really other than prevent the anonymous votes. It's a handy way out of a bind.

 

It’s all why I recommend the “add” is one hour. And the subtract = 1 day.

It balances out the crazies.

 

I mean this is the reason why I love it! Stuck for well over a year now and I have been frozen for most of it. I have one little sliver on my WOF that would unfreeze the lock but I rarely hit it.