Here's the pitch!

And all this time I had thought the earth was an oblate spheriod.

There's a flag on this sentence. The referees are confering. They've decided. Here's the ruling:
That does not constitute a saving throw. Walter is sucked into the Vortex and out of the game.

Oh well, I tried. At least I have a head start to the pub while you guys duke it out. :) Fun game. How'd you think it up so fast?

Pythagoras: This variant seems as good as Gothic Chess if not better, and it is nice and quiet in the flame department.

plaintiger: It's too bad I'm not moderator of this board, because I won't delete your pithy and paranoid comments as I'm willing to bet the second listed is going to do.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. Calling others names might make you feel good and even get the audience to laugh a little, but it reveals plenty about your character. If you notice, I removed the nuts parts of my post a full twelve minutes before your long and well thought out reply. Thanks for the kisses by the way, big boy. I think your fears and use of the cloak are nuts and I didn't mean to post in such a way as to attack you personally. So I reconsidered what I had written and edited it myself. As you've adamantly stated, it is your opinion of the cloak that matters, not mine or anyone elses. You obviously care about this issue and yet you say you don't. Your actions prove that you do care about it. Why, I don't know. I have feelings about it too, but as I posted, the cloak as it is now and in conjunction with the other features of this site doesn't do anything. If you want to live in a fantasy land, then by all means do so.

plaintiger: You have not considerd it thoroughly. Who am I, if you're so omnipotent in the ways of the internet? Is that really a picture of yourself in your icon? Now that borders on the extreme risky from my point of view and yet you brazenly display it and not care who sees it and knows what you look like and yet can talk about this cloak feature as being something that protects you? The best cloak is keeping your mouth shut and not giving away details about yourself if you're that paranoid. In fact, I would recommend against using this site or any other. You might as well be as cautious and safe as possible, right? Any user of this site can be completely anonymous. I still don't see a need for the cloak feature since my identity from the start is indeed cloaked. You don't know who I am nor I you, so what are you cloaking yourself from and advocating this for?

Of all the arguments that I've heard for the need and use of the cloak feature, the one argument about someone being harrassed by another member made some sense to me at first. Then I got to thinking about it. Being cloaked doesn't do squat for stopping it. Blocking the problem member does and that feature works quite well. I don't care what page my opponents or fellow members are on or what discussion board they're posting to. If I did, it still doesn't amount to anything. What's the information worth and what can I do with it? I either send them a message or I don't. Cloaked or not, it don't matter.

plaintiger: And I thought I was paranoid. :)
Andersp : Ain't that the truth? :)

BIG BAD WOLF: Er, ah, doesn't that mean what Fencer said? "Don't be cloaked?" Though I'm not quite sure that I see what it is here. I remember when the cloak was first started and the cloaked person could see where you were. This wasn't too popular and then Fencer made it as it is now. This is better than is was for most people, though the ones that view being cloaked at all as silly still wonder what the deal is.

It wold seem that a person can always tell if their opponent is online at their main page or an actual game page whether or not that person is cloaked or not. So I suppose Fencer might be wrong is saying don't be cloaked, but it would seem that he is right because it is plaintiger that doesn't realize that he can indeed tell if his opponent is online and he believes that he can't tell this because he is cloaked. Er, ah, oh, nevermind. :)

mctrivia: It most certainly is a request board. There comes a time when the place is built and standing nice. Then we start redecorating. We have plenty of features now that should keep one from timing out. I don't need a rainbow of colors to see that a game is down to one hour left, 23 hours left, or 2 days 13 hours left. You guys need color coded lists, fine, request them. My list is fine just the way it is and I don't want a bunch of extraneous clutter and bells and whistles. I fail to see why some dilligence on your part can't keep the games from timing out. Plus there's vacation time that us paying members are given a generous amount of.

I hate to time out my games. A game of Dark Chess is ruined if it times out. There's no way to undo it once the position is shown. A bad game is not too bad of a thing to time out win or lose, but a good game is. Now my job takes me away from playing here and my vacations days have dwindled. As far I know I have yet to lose a game on time out except for one that didn't allow vacations. As long as I have this job I won't join games or tournaments that work that way. Some people can be bad sports when losing, but even if I'm losing a game I don't want my opponent cheated out of a well deserved victory. I time out and if the game was close, my opponent wins, but the win is kind of hallow compared to him making a good move or me falling for a trap that he has set up.

I understand not wanting to time out, but I look at it as something that is my responsibility. If I have a problem with the time limit of a game, I don't join the game. Since it is my life that changed in the middle of a running game, that's the breaks. I hate losing for any reason, but it's my fault for timing out.

If you can get your color coded list happening, what will you say when you time out the next time? Things happen, right? In itself it's not an unreasonable request and I'm willing to bet it'd be fairly easy to make happen. Especially seeing how it's already in place to warn you that you have just an hour left by changing to red. If Fencer makes the change, I'll have to think about what time I'd make the warning change color. I could just shut it off, but color difference does draw attention to something. Do you think 24 hours is a good cut off?

Thad: You have a mere fourteen games! I'm puzzled you'd have a problem making a move. Perhaps you should do what I've been forced to do since getting this new job. I hate having to have done it, but it has curtailed my problems with having to worry about time outs.

Play longer time limit games.

Simple solution. I don't like it, but I have understanding opponents and I do make my moves when I'm able to. I have around 30 games going. Down from 60 of a few weeks back. Since you don't have 900 games going and those people seem able to avoid time outs, I'm kind of wondering what happened. What was the time limit for the game you timed out in? Why should it matter what color it is for telling you about how much time it is? It's the amount of time left, not the color that is important. I hope you have your games listed by the amount of time left. That's how I have mine listed. That way the game with the least time left is listed first. If I know I have time to play every game when I log on, it doesn't matter which one I play first. If I only have time for a few moves I can look at the top of the list and move in the games that will time out in before the next time that I think I'll log on.

mctrivia: All these cheating theories and other conspiracys. You guys are so cloak and dagger. I'll grant you that such things might just happen or be a person's reason for having an extra account or two, but the most likely reason is they're cheap and want to save money. I can have five Pawn accounts. All free, or I can one Rook account around $36 US. If I only play eighty games at a time, which is the better deal? Yeah right, five accounts, five different ratings. But there's plenty of people that don't give a hoot about no stinking ratings and just want to play games.

mctrivia: I consider 10% too much! Who'd play when the operator gets half? And what's wrong with playing games on this site you're proposing that aren't pure skill, such as Dark Chess or Backgammon?

BIG BAD WOLF: An interesting idea! A trading system of sorts would need to be set up. Also, when one pays for his membership you could be given some Brains. Offering them as a tournament prize would be something you could do with them. Fencer could still give them out for referals.

Brain's value would depend on how many Brains it would take to turn them in to get a year's membership and how hard they are to acquire. I suppose the outright buying of Brains could be figure into it too. That'd certainly help orginize tournaments for when the prize is a membership. It'd really make it easy for the tournament creator to have different prize levels during one tournament too.

How much do you want to bet that they don't enforce that?

I said this to a friend mine in a bar who was standing under a sign printed with that on it. California has strange gambling laws. It was once OK to play Draw Poker and illegal to play Stud Poker in card casinos. Legal by the way since the 1930's. The legal gambling age is 18 or 21 depending on the game one is betting on! As far as I know it is illegal in every state of the United States to play Poker at your house for money! Including Nevada. Can't say that I've ever heard of a successful prosecution of breaking this law though. I consider Pool a game of skill and yet it is illegal to bet on it in California is you are playing in a place that serves alcohol. When I was a kid winning a free game on a pinball machine was illegal in Anaheim (Where Disneyland is) but legal in Santa Ana and Tustin (Neighboring cities). Someone actually took a pinball to court and got the laws overturned. The original pinball machines had no flippers and were gambling machines. That's why Anaheim had them against the law.

As for a contest where the contestants pay an entry fee and all money collected is paid out to the contestants, this is normally not considered gambling as compared to where the organizor takes a cut of the money collected, but here again the game in question has to be taken into account in California! Also, you can have sponsored contests where the money given out in prizes is more than the money collected from the participants. Such as some of the tournaments on this site, or any PGA golf tournament. I'm not sure about NASCAR races, but I think the money awards in it are more than the entry fees paid by the race teams.

This internet is a whole different deal. MikkyT's observation about the government not getting the cut of the action really is their prime complaint. They try to sound high moral and consumer protection advocate like, but we all know what side of the bread is getting the butter.

takodori: I fail to see what is so complicated with answering this question. There's two choices, right? The Japanese characters or the ones with the Roman letters and piece direction movement indicators on them. Why not just ask Fencer how many people have chosen which ones they want to play with? Though some people may not be aware that they now have a choice, it should at least give you figure that you can then argue about.

By the way, I prefer the one with the Roman letters and directionals on it.

grenv: Speaking of ratings, I'm back at number 1 again. You up for a couple games? :)

playBunny: Oh, that one. I rarely look at it. Perhaps it's because I don't like the 24 hour clock and ignore it. It is two lines on my page too, but aside from it not being in AM/PM format I haven't any problem with it being on two lines. It actually makes it easier to look at for me by having it on two lines. Though calling 21:49 seems silly when it'd be lots easier to see 9:49 PM.

playBunny: Are you talking about the time stamp on these discussion board posts? If so, you can change your view of it as I have done and it all fits on one line.

Near the bottom of the Settings General page is this line:

Message area size

Then there's two boxes that you can change the settings in. The width and the heighth. I have mine at 5 lines 60 characters. This puts the date in the long format on one line. Just above it is a place for changing the look of the date. Unfortunately none of them have AM/PM and none of the have month,day,year in the order that I prefer them. I personally like having the month spelled all the way out. This is how I would have the format selected if I was given the option.

4:20 PM on November 2, 2005

I'd like to know when someone has updated their profile. Maybe Fencer could add a mark or icon to someone's handle when I haven't ever read their profile or when the person has updated it. One of my long time opponents changed his profile to reflect something that happened in his life, but I had no reason to re-read his profile. If I was aware of an update, I'd be more inclined to browse someone's proflie and stay current.

nobleheart: Ah, but wins-losses-ties are kept track of on this site. It's Your Turn (IYT) does it by winning percentage only, or at least they did when I used to play on that site. In Dark Chess on IYT I am over 95% in side games and tournament games. That sure sounds great, don't it? The thing is, who are my opponents and how well have they done against others? I did well in Keryo Pente on IYT too, but when I played certain people it was obvious I was not in their league. Some of those people only played players as good as they or near so. They had a lower winning percentage than I did, but they were, with no argument from me, better players than I. This is what a rating is for. Anybody can win every game if there's no luck in the game played and they are the better player. Games like Chess, Checkers, Atomic Chess, Extinction Chess, and Keryo Pente have no luck in them. Games like Dark Chess, Crazy Screen Chess, Backgammon, Poker, Bridge, and Battleboats have varying amounts of luck in them. As good or as experienced as I might be at Dark Chess, I have had players who have just learned game defeat me. It's a game that you can outsmart yourself in or fall into traps of your own imagination, let alone what your opponent might be cooking up.

All the same, the amount of luck in Dark Chess is a lot less than the amount of luck in Backgammon. This is the whole point about the ratings. The few of us that play Dark Chess aren't complaining about the rating system used here for Dark Chess, though I think it could be better, it is those of us that play Backgammon that have a problem with how this rating system works. Going strictly by winning percentage won't really tell you too much except to tell you who wins most of their games. This is already kept track of on this site and it is a chart that I try to stay on. If I never played Backgammon, I'd be doing real well on this chart, by the way. :)

I'd like to be able to pick the exact order of the placing of individual games. Not by type, time, or anything like that, just pick certain games and be able to have them appear at the top or bottom of the listing on the main page and the drop down deal on game page. This would be very handy for playing particular games against certain opponents. It would also be very convenient to be able to put a particular short time limit game at the bottom of the list while having the rest of them stay at the top. Every once in a while an opponent of mine will have an emergency and will request me to not make a move until I absolutely have to move or time out. It would be a lot easier to oblige them if their game didn't constantly remain at the top of my list because I don't move in the game and the time ticks down for myself. It would also be handy to move longer time limit games to the top so that I could find them easier while playing with someone that happens to move regularly or is online at the same time.

As an aside to this, let us hope Hurricane Rita doesn't hit Shreela too hard on its path to Houston. I suppose I should check the news, as it might've changed paths in the last few days.

Spirou: Ah, the dots would just serve as reference points on the board. I suppose that could help.

Spirou: I don't understand what it is that you're requesting. There already is a notification for a possible promotion. The piece is marked clearly right next to the board at the top where it can't be missed. I've also noticed that when this happens a sentence appears in red telling you about the possible promotion. When this sentence appears it also shifts the page slightly and this also makes it easier to notice the possible promotion.

Is what you're asking for something like coloring the actual piece on the board itself? If so, you're probably right that the purists will object. For them, they probably don't like what is done now either, but I get by just fine with how the promotions are handled as is.

Salkkuman: I completely agree with you, but didn't it count as a win when he deleted the game?

Spirou: Do you mean on this site? Everytime I get a piece to where it could be promoted, it is shown at the top of the board and I fail to see how anyone could miss it, though I've had a few opponents not promote when able and it sometimes would have been to their advantage to promote.

Thad: I hope that you are right, but I have the feeling that it is harder to add than that. I suppose it depends on how it is linked back to the previous game. Maybe you're right and it'll just take a little table look up from the old game that is linked through the names already.

When I've finished a game and my opponent and I are going to play a rematch I would like the game parameters from the just completed game to appear in the "Invite and create new game" page if I used the link from my message box with my opponent's handle for the invitation instead of having the default settings.

WhiteTower: As we look down to the valley from the hall of the mountain king and wonder how the other half lives. :)

El Cid: This sounds logical, but the converse is true too. Don't join a pond if you know your time is up and you're not going to renew your membership.

Both your idea and the way it is actually done here are fair, though one may not seem right to the person that becomes a Pawn after starting in a pond. I can't remember if it clearly states in the rules as to what happens to you if a pond continues pass the expiration date of your paid membership.

Fencer: Thank you for your reply. I wasn't too clear on how it went. Seems like once you join as a Rook these issues aren't too much of a concern. I had the feeling you had it set up this way because otherwise someone would be thrown out of the tournament in a later round and that just wouldn't be too fair for someone that had made it that far.

Pioneer54: or Fencer: If a Pawn or Knight member makes it to a second or later round in a tournament, do the slots required to continue in the tournament count against the member's total avaliable or does the fact that they already qualified keep these extra games needed to carry on in the tournament not count against their total slots?

Fencer: You're welcome. :)

I like to be able to play the matches that break a tournament's tie by having all the games start at once instead of having them as a long series of games. This would really be great for Backgammon seeing how each game only counts as one game point anyway. For games that always count as one game point, this would be how I'd choose to set up my tournaments in the case of a tie happening for a champion. That way a three wins match could just have all five game start at once. Or three games could start at once, and then add the others if needed. It'd sure speed up tied tournaments if implimented and I don't see a downside to it.

In my games of Grand Chess that I have going, I notice that the Cardinal is denoted with an "A" and the Marshall as a "C". Could the letters be changed to "C" and "M" respectively, or are "A" and "C" the standard for this game?

Pedro Martínez: I'm with you on this. Why reset them? The ratings system itself needs to be improved. The one we have now doesn't work well for games with a measure of luck in them. playBunny told me about a different way of having ratings for Backgammon, and I think it'd be a lot better for this site to us a system like the one he talked about. The rating does seem to work good for games that have no luck in them like Chess or Checkers.

Can we have different rating systems set up for each game type? Something that reflects upon the actual playing of the game and the skill level of the various players?

I remember a lot of posts having a debate about numerous ways to diminsh a non curently playing player's rating or ranking from the rankings list. Whatever became of that those ideas?

Fencer: Would the computer discussion board be a good place, or do you mean not on the site at all?

miuek: Proxomitron! Now that's amazing. I've read the help files and contents. This program had lots of uses. Just from reading it I wouldn'tve guessed you could do what you said about changing the way my board looks while using this site. How'd you make the connection to do so? Is what you say easy to do with the Proxomitron? I'd like to use a different icon for the Janus in Janus Chess than what is used on this site. Is this something I could change with the Proxomitron? How would I do it, if it is something I can change?

Fencer: Hi Fencer, a few of us are wondering if you're checking into it.

Fencer: Can the Ponds game be made so that a player may bid later rounds in advance? This could help someone with having to be away from the site and being stuck with the auto bid set up as it is now. I was thinking a week's worth of moves at most or four rounds. grenv seems to like having every round available. In either case the later round bids would be changable by the player if he wanted to change them or made it back to the site in time. A few have posted about it on the Ponds board if you'd like to see other imput on it. It certainly seems like a good idea and should be fair for all. The auto bid feature could be left in place too.

AbigailII: I sent fungame this define idea too. I think that'd work for everyone and you could group the games as you would like to or not at all. It would certainly come in handy for someone that plays lots of different games and just wants to focus on one type. I don't play too many games or different ones, so it'd not get too much use from me.

fungame: This is no such deal like that. What you can do is what I do. After you've played your last game of Backgammon with someone and the hit the "Move and go to next game of this type" button and are redircted to your main page just go to the Hyperbackgammon game that's next on your list. Let's say you have 23 games where it's your turn. Now just play them and keep hitting the button. This will play your Hyperbackgammon games off next. Eventually you'll use them up and get redirected to the main page again. Now you can move in the next type of game that you have in mind, or if someone has moved in one of your Backgammon games you can go there. All you're talking about here is one extra click at the end of a series of moves. Works fine for me. I'd think it work even better for someone that has a lot of games going since it'd take even longer to use up all of one category before getting sent to the main page. It also gives me achance to survey other categories of games in which my opponents might have moved in since I play a variety of game types.

fungame: This feature already exists. Use the top dropdown to find it and then set it as your preference. That is exactly the category that I have mine for. That way the lower drop down goes to the next game on time and the top one goes to the next game of that type on time.

playBunny: I'm thinking it's Bobby Fischer. He saw a number of problems with Chess a few years back. Some of his ideas have been used. Fischer Random Chess is one, though some call it Chess 960, and this clock thingy is probably one too.

ScarletRose: I have noticed an inverse relationship to the stridency of someone proclaiming they only play for fun and the level of their rating.

"The object of a game is to win, but the reason to play a game is to have fun."

It should go without saying that you play a game for fun. Why else?

The last thing I want to hear my opponent say is that he doesn't care who wins, and I feel sorry for someone elses game if their opponent says that to them.

This is why the people that care about their rating want the ratings to reflect some value that's easy to understand and is readily comparible to someone elses. This way when I look at your profile I can tell which games I might want to invite you to play me in. At least as a rough guide. As others have posted here if someone plays in a small pool of opponents and loses most of the games they might actually be a better player than is reflected by their rating because the people they have been losing to might be really good players. Is this the case for you?

I'm sure my Janus Chess rating is lower than people would expect from my play, but ol' Sumerian's Smirf beats me almost every game. Consequently I have a lower rating. Now that I've been playing a wider pool of players in Janus Chess, my rating has leveled to my ability. For awhile I was dragging along around 1400. I still don't have a high rating in the game, but this is probably because I'm not that strong of a player of it consistantly enough to get a higher rating. I still play the game win or lose because I find it a fun game, but I try to win every game and am disappointed when I lose. It doesn't mean that I didn't have fun playing the game, it just means I'm disappointed in losing. If my opponent makes a good move and it's something to remember, it makes the loss feel better than if I made a bad move and gave the game away, but I can still have fun even if I lose. I never play a game to lose. I find winning a game more rewarding then losing a game. This is what the rating is supposed to show, not if you are having fun playing.

Fencer: As long as my regular opponents continue you to play me, I won't have a problem with it. When the ones that want to raise their rating are no longer able to get any points playing me even if they win the game stop playing me, then I'll have a problem with it. I can just imagine what the guy that has played the best Chess player in world twenty times and lost all twenty of them would say if he was told that the next game wouldn't change his rating even if he somehow managed to win the game! He would just play the game for fun and bragging rights, right? If Bobby Fischer was dead he'd be spinning in his grave.

Let's look at Dark Chess's established ratings list. There's only 9 players over 2000. That's right, this ain't Backgammon. It was only a few months ago that I was almost 200 points ahead of the second place player. I can only play 9 players so many times. Some of these 9 don't play very many games or even play on this site any more. If you change it so the games won't count after a certain number have been played between us and if I play and win just half the games against any one of them the ratings will stay the same. When I use to win almost every game, it'd make this argument even stronger. Then we'll eventually reach the point where the games will no longer count in the ratings no matter who wins each game. At that time the rating list will become frozen. Is that what you want the ratings to reflect? Dark Chess takes a few moves more to play than Backgammon and usually takes longer for each person to make his moves as there's a lot less automatic and forced moves in a game of Dark Chess. If you put this scheme into effect in Backgammon and the trend to some of the tournaments now is to have a narrow range of rating points to be able to enter the tournament, which I assume is because of how many people play Backgammon as compared to Dark Chess, all the higher rated Backgammon players will eventually have played each other enough times that their games will no longer count for rating either. That'll go over real well. I've noticed how much more dynamic the rating list is in Backgammon. Myself is a good example. I was in the top ten just a couple of weeks ago, now I'm out of the top twenty. I've been playing Backgammon enough so that I've made some freinds with a few of the players that are rated similairly to me. There's plenty of other top rated players that have played thousands of games. I bet they've played a good portion of the top rated players more than 14 times. You make that change and a lot of games will no longer count in the ratings. Then just the new players will be the only ones able to climb up and down the rating list. Not much fun it that, is there?

I and a lot of others have come up with many ideas about changing the ratings to reflect current players and playing strength. I've never heard anyone suggest not counting the games between players. What's the point of even having the ratings if the games don't count? The way it's set up now gives a lower rated player more points if they win against a higher rated player and they lose less if they lose to a higher rated player. When anyone is playing someone close in rating points the win value of rating points is equal. This seems like a fair system to me even if it has some flaws as it is done here. It could also be modified in a few ways to accomodate the nature of playing the games on a turn based site as compared to playing it live. When one plays live, he plays one game at a time. On this site, it's possible to play hundreds of game at a time. This does affect one's current rating. I have seen how people try to time their wins and losses so that they may climb up the ratings list. Eventually their games catch up with them and it evens out. My suggestion is to leave the counting of the games as it is now, and work on a better numerical value for when changes do occur. Plus all those time rating things a few people would like added.

I still fail to see how making the games not count having any effect on the cheaters. Wouldn't they just open another account and carry on as before? In the Backgammon discussion board there's been some discussion about how to catch people using multiple accounts. The concensus seems to be that it'd be a hard thing to do and some methods create as many problems as they attempt to solve. Some people legitimately share computers, others have different computers but the same network access, ISP connection, or wireless hub.

Fencer: I do not like this idea Fencer, even though I would personally benefit from it. In Dark Chess there's not a lot of long time players in it as compared to more popular games, such as Backgammon. I have long series of games with a few of my opponents here. With a few exceptions I am rated a lot more than they are. When I lose a game as I did to reza today I lose 14 or so points. Had I won that game, I would only have gain 1 rating point. We've played 12 games against each other. Yes, his first win after 11 defeats, but if you do as you've proposed I would then gain 0 points from winning the game. Not much difference, right? But look what happens to him, he gets 0 also instead of the prize of 14 for winning against the top rated player. And what about when I play grenv? It doesn't seem fair to both of us to get no rating points for winning a game that either of us should have earned, but are denied them because we've had a long series of games against each other. This is the wrong approach to solving this "problem" which is mainly created by people attribtuing some sort of value to a more or less meaningless number. Why are you guys so worked up about people cheating the system? If you catch them doing it, throw them off the site. As for what to do about their inflated rating, can't you just toggle the games to act as if they were created as unrated ones? Just how prevelant is this cheating problem? As far as I know, I've never played anyone involved with this kind of scheme. Even if I did, they have to win their games when they play me. I rarely resign a game and almost always turn down a draw offer unless a draw is what it's going to be.

If the ratings are this much trouble, I'd like to not have a rating. Could you do that? I just want to play the games. Keeping track of my wins and losses is more than enough for me. I think the ratings are near useless and are making lots more trouble than any slight benefit they might bring.

Also, just because I win every game doesn't mean I'm cheating or trying to get more ratings points. It could actually mean that I'm the better player. So I win 20 games in a row. How does that make me a cheater? I'm not following this line of reasoning at all. Am I supposed to lose on purpose so that I can keep a veneer of respectability about my record? Oh, that's right, losing on purpose is against the user agreement. What can I do?

Pedro Martínez: Would you be so kind as to elaborate as to the meaning of this section?

Section 5, Paragraph 1, Letter e and Section 5, Paragraph 4.

Does it refute what she's said or strengthen it? I've never heard of this law. Does it only apply to Czech residents?

morphy4ever: Very well. I shall wait for the master.
Have a good one.

morphy4ever: I find your writing very similiar to danoschek's! The use of "pertnent chat-inflators started clubbering the board" being one example. Another is how your sign off your post. danoschek had the ~*~ and his short nick, you are ending with a quick note or pleasantry and the name Martin. A third is your reference to the hide function when challenged. The fourth is circumstancial, but I find it rather amazing that for one who has not been around here to suddenly be so cognizant of previous issues here. The fifth is your reference to the Backgammon board. I couldn't find any posts there with your name on them. What's with you talking about it? Let alone criticizing the moderator of that board on this discussion board by calling someone a buttkisser and disparaging the webmaster?

morphy4ever monitoring mods 13. July 2005, 13:50:38

If you're not danoschek, my sincerest apologies for accusing you of it, but I'd certainly like an explanation for your recent behavior. Or do you have me on hide dano-er, ah Martin?

morphy4ever: Perhaps you could direct me to these problems you've had in your seventeen games or whatever board it is that you've had problems with, Martin? Or send me a message with the details? No sense cluttering up this board with it.

morphy4ever: I've never heard of you. You don't have any games going and you've only played 17 since joining this site in the spring of 2004? Just how many problems could you have in 17 finished games if you're not even using the site? You're not making any sense at all. Why are you here giving me a hard time and carrying on like that? Thanking me for the conversation. That's a good one. I think I'll get in the line that's forming to have you removed for being disruptive.

You say danoschek is banned? I'm not sure how you got this information, but if it's true I wholeheartily agree with the decision and the action of having him banned. In my opinion, he purposely posts to confuse or to belittle people on every board that he types on that I've read. His tactic of putting you on hide in every discussion board without so much as a reason and yet he'll still unhide you and then post in response makes little sense. He also has me on his blocked user list and yet he had continues to send me annoying messages. To do this he must unblock me, send the message, and then block me. I finally had to make him my only blocked user on this site. That Dark Chess tournament that he entered awhile back really showed his true character. A four person tournament that he joined as the fourth person just before the tournament started against two people he has on blocked user! Why would he go out of his way to play a game he'd never played before against people he doesn't like?

This is why I posted my request earlier about having a tournament accept alternates to sign up. One benefit is in the case with someone dropping out or not being elgible to play in the tournament is that another person will automatically take his place. Another is that the tournament creator can remove a disruptive player from his tournament and still have people ready to fill the space made by such a removal. I know when I check out a tournament and I see that the maximum number of people have filled the slots, I'd still like to sign up in the chance that a space might open up for me. The way it is set up now, I won't normally go back to check the tournament as I have no ready way to know a space might be available. I'd also have it so the tournament creator could change the maximum number of people allowed in the tournament. This would be helpful if a lot of people signed up as alternates and the tournament creator decided he just might want to expand the size of the tournament because of popular demand. It might already be set up this way, it's been a long time since I created my own tournament as far as being able to change the number of contestants allowed to enter. It'd certainly help the tournament creator to know if there were more people wanting to play in his tournament just by having a list of alternates handy.

morphy4ever: What is this link you put in your earlier post. It doesn't explain itself at all when I went there. Legalese of some sort. Is there a list of sites somewhere to be found there? What is the purpose of the site?

What does this mean? "That's irrelevant. We are not obligated to patch either the lacking standards here or your thoughts" Patch? Whose lacking standards? I've had my problems with this site on occasion, but I can certainly just stop using it if I thought it was a bad site. If you have a problem here, why don't you stop coming to this site? What's irrelevant about what I posted? My played games may not be important to you, but they are to me. I don't want you deleting them or causing them to be deleted. I've paid for my membership and I like to be able to review any game that is played publicly on this site. This site is set up so you can edit everything that you've written. If you're so worried about things that you've written, don't write on this site and delete things that you are worried about. Sounds simple to me, now what's your's and baudrillard's problem? Why should someone else have to clean up after you when you can take care of it yourself?