Please help me tagging this questions appropriately
Most of the time if I have to cancel a tournament which is a home game (me, friends, and many unknown people who agreed with the mechanics we use), due to an external reason that prevents us to continue the tournament somehow (say: its too late, the police is coming [unlikely, but say], someone got deadly sick, an earthquake [not unlikely considering I live in Quito, Ecuador] blah blah blah imagine any reason that would make you all actually cancel a tournament)...
We agree a certain mechanic, depending on the stage of the tournament and the mood of the people. Say: refunding the whole tournament entries, or killing-and-ranking players based on their current chips stacks.
Despite how good or bad ideas are these, since we agree them among all the people, we apply them with no problem. BUT THIS IS IN HOME GAMES.
My question goes to the point when I'd like to organise an ONLINE game (say, programming a server). I don't know the users there, and not necessarily I'd expect to know me and EXPECT what I'd do if, for some administrative reason, I have to cancel a tournament (I don't know why would I want that, but let's imagine something occurs which forces me to - perhaps a bug or an unrecoverable server condition (or management, somehow) could force a tournament close!!).
So my question goes in two parts:
Is there any reason you could consider to actually ABORT / CLOSE / Definitely INTERRUPT a tournament without it reaching its natural end?
What is a good (I mean: EXPECTED) practice to do when you close a tournament? I know I can define my own ruling when I have to close a tournament, but I'd like to know whether is there a well-known practice ONLINE players expect when that phenomenon occurs when they are playing such tournament.