Correspondence games are a spectacular feature on ICC. A major problem with it, however, is that it is very (and unnecessarily) difficult to start a game. When you use the “start a game with a random player” feature, you almost always end up being paired with a player who is inactive. That player never makes a move; after ten days, the game gets aborted. To get a single correspondence game going, one literally has to start a dozen (or dozens!) of games. With time, this problem only seems to be getting worse. The reason is that a lot of players who have the “accept random challenges” feature turned on are not actually active.
There is a solution, and it is very simple. Any player who fails to make a move and consequently has a correspondence game aborted should automatically have the “accept random challenges” feature turned off. If that player ever decides to rejoin the world of correspondence, he/she can simply turn that option back on.
This will revitalize ICC’s correspondence chess feature and actually save it from dying a slow death…