Removing unused names upon request wouldn't reduce bandwidth at all, but would help solve the other, unrelated problem of people wanting to use names that may be already taken by inactive pawns.

I agree with what you tow have said: a little extra space on the harddrive does not hurt at all, and eliminating a little space will not help the problem. BUT since you both agreed with that, I am not sure what this would accomplish:

"Maybe unused names could be removed upon request? Deleting all names that haven't been used for a few months might be a good idea too, but it would be nice to send them a courtesy email first."

HOw would this reduce bandwith at all?

Good point. Thanks.

Maybe unused names could be removed upon request? Deleting all names that haven't been used for a few months might be a good idea too, but it would be nice to send them a courtesy email first.

pipilo: I fully understand that(though not alot of people will). I am just trying to get people away from this theory of how many users we have, when in fact we don't. Fencer likes the idea of encouraging pawns to join in various ways, BUT those of us that have joined needed no insentive apart from the fact its a great site, it is down to the individual.
We also have had the problem in the past where people have wanted to use ceratin names, like there own maybe that they use on other sites. We have found in the past the alot of these names have been taken BUT are not being used at all.
There has to be a point where deleting old users is needed, if you look at the brainking.info board you will see there is only a certain ammount of storage space & any piece we can save until the new server etc.... comes in must be of help.

I don't think deleting inactive pawn accounts would help much at all. It's bandwidth (information transfer capacity) that's the problem, not a few kilobytes of information stored on Fencer's server. If an inactive player is inactive, that's not affecting the site's daily traffic at all.

Also, if we send email reminders in an attempt to bring inactive pawns back, then we're just adding to the traffic, not alleviating it.

The solution needs to generate money for more powerful servers and more bandwidth, without deleting accounts or limiting moves. I'd rather have emails go out to the most active pawns, rather than to the least active. With appropriate incentives, they (at least some of them) might be encouraged to join the site.

Clink clink! ok here's my 2 cents into the pot.

I like Ian's idea about the email reminder. I think it would bring a repsonse of pawns returning and hopefully upgrading eventually.

I also think deleting pawn accounts after 6 months of not logging in is a good idea too. But I wonder, just how much server space would that free up?

Popping up is really interesting idea. Thanks :-)

Fencer: To follow up some of the things recently posted on the BrainKing board & chat board.

I had a quick look at most of the users here - there are about 750 pawns who have not been on here this year at all (1200 approx counting January) - thats a 5th of the people that are users.

Would it be possible to write a small piece of programming that would automatically send an e-mail to anyone who has not been here for a while (2 months for example) reminding them of username, password & link to the site. I know of at least one site that does this twice before there details are deleted, it may encourage users back or free some space at least.

Also, there seems to be a great concern over pawns and how they slow the system down, remember those of us who are members we were all pawns once & i personally don't see any problem. It is everyones own choice to join or not, i don't think they should be punished because so far they have not joined (and ourselves for not having enough games to play).
I think at the end of the day we should look into encouraging pawns to join the membership. I read a few posts on being able to afford a 6 month / year membership all at one go. Maybe Fencer could look at setting a 3 month membership as 1 month would seem alot to keep dealing with as someone asked for. I do like pipilo's idea of having Support us, Paid Membership & Send invitation links popping up in various places could help a little.

Just a few ideas Fencer :-)

MM
Ian

Fencer: Seems to work now! :-)

Please try it now.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm not crazy! LOL. and I didnt think of that, but that was when it stopped working what when I changed the default. Thanks for finding it. <grin>

Also code inspections applied before testing work well at reducing introduced bugs. ;)
Can also be time consuming though :(

Well if you ever need any help testing things, I would be happy to help - I'm good at playing around and "finding" things that are wrong. :-)

That's why automated tests should be applied after each code change. Unfortunatelly I have no time to write them.

I'm a programmer, so I understand the problems. (Actually I'm a network person now - don't do much programming now, but still understand)

Fix 1 bug, get 2 more bugs.
Fix those 2 bugs, get 4 more bugs.
... and so on... and so on... :-)

Ha! That's it! I've just tried to set "Next Game" as the default action and then the move and go to #game stopped working. Phew! That's what programmers call "regression bug" - something what stopped working as a side effect of another bugfix or feature addition.
Please give me a day or two, it will be fixed ASAP ;-)

Yeah same here, it doesn't work for me either! :o)

I believe I'm doing it correct - the box that says "Move and go to:"

I'll choose a totaly different game like Backgammon, but it will still go to a Stack4 game which was next in the list.

(It's not a big deal for me since I normally don't use this feature - just testing it since others said they had problems) :-)

Could the problem be that on the "Move" button, I have the "Set this action as default" for the "go to the next game" - and it is somehow taking over the "Move and go to:" button below it also?

I've just tried it and it really works for me. Hmmm, interesting. What about Arthur's point? [clicking on the correct button]

Mine is not working either.

It must be one of those things like the (XX new) messages next to the message board - works for some, not for others. :-)

Eriisa: I will check it.
harley: That's what I've planned some months ago to add :-) Looks like I should really do that now.

Mine seems to work fine. I know it's a silly question but are you sure you are clicking on the right button after you choose which game to go to?

Is there a way that if you have someone on your enemies list, it will also block having to read their messages on the message boards?

Sometimes there are people who post "garbage" that would be nice to be able to skip - and not have to wait for a moderator to come along and delete it.

Has anyone noticed that while the 'move and go to main page etc' box works, the other one 'move and go to game#' does not? No matter which game I select, it goes to the 'next game'

Insult the opponent? Man you are harsh grenv. Of course I noted the sarcasm of the statement. LOL

How about a "resign and insult the opponent" button. That would save me some typing. ;-)

Fencer, when we resign a game is it possible to have a 'resign and go to next game' button? Right now we are taken to the main page and when you're in the middle of a lot of games its off-putting!

Please read the BrainKing.com board for more information.

Is there any reason I havent been able to get into the site Fencer? If not, then I think I will have to consider not playing here anymore, as I am finding it very frustrating not being able to load the site and play when I have the time

I will stop the clock soon because we will be adding a second server and making some changes.

well this is the first time today I have been able to get into this site, the site would not load at all this morning, if this keeps up I will use up all my vacation days because its the only way I can avoid timing out...other people are saying they are having problems either getting in, or the site being very slow... If this is a widespread problem shouldn't the timeout clock be stopped?

Because this way I can watch TV or read a book(!) and just glance up from time to time to see if it's my turn. I'm basically lazy. Also I can have the window open in one corner and be working somewhere else on the screen and see when it's my turn. etc etc.

grenv, why not just turn off the autofresh altogether? You can just hit F5 to refresh, or hit the refreash buttton on the toolbar.

I wonder if we could turn off the auto refresh after actually clicking on a piece, or clicking the "resign button". That way the page wouldn't refresh in the middle of writing a note to the other player. Thanks.

It is an idea, I never timed out, normally playing at least once a day, but this game was a game with a 1 day time limit. It is all my mistake, i don't blame anyone else. It is just a feature request.
Uil

If you have a message alert system on your computers and a favourites button as well, it is possible to flit from one site and the choices on each site easily. MSN do it, vodafone do not charge unless you use mobile to reply, I think this may help some of the other queries too.

I had another request by someone asking it it was possible for Big Boses to send a blanket message to all members of there fellowship, to keep them up to date & with new tournaments etc...
Would there be any way to do that or a way that what the Boses write on there news board to be sent to there members as messages.
It was also suggested that maybe there was an (XX new) number beside the Fellowship board to let people know.
I have explained the problem that a few people are having at present with new messages not being shown beside boards at the moment at all.
I think you probably have these on your list already Fencer, could you give us any news when possible.
Thanks
MM :-)

Uil, if OK by you, let's ask Fencer to re-instate the game.

Fencer, could you please resinstate game 84458, a Loop Chess game between Uil and myself whereby Uil timed out on 5th May.

Many thanks,

Blaze

It's hard to say what is to blame. I have a cable modem and I have not had any trouble making moves tonight. The dialup should be slower, but not so dramatically slower. It could be a combination of things.

I have found between about 8:30 to around midnight GMT is very slow, and sometimes won't load at all. But all other times (at least when i try to log on) it works great! :-)

I have just timed out on games because I could not get into this site, I am limited to dialup at the moment, and find my game sheet takes an inordinate time to load or just will not load at all..has this been a site wide problem or is it just happening to me? I know dial up is slower than cable, but none of the other sites seem to be affected

I don't understand all this fuss over timing out in games. I have completed close to 2000 games on IYT and this site, and I have timed out in 6 of them, all 6 were on one occasion when I was out of town for a week without computer access.

It is not difficult to avoid timing out-- choose games with at least 3 days to move, and don't let the timer get so low that tewchnical problems can result in a timeout. Also, don't start so many games that they can't all be gotten to in time because of the sheer volume.

I think Fencer had said it is on his to-do-list to order the games by time, but it takes some extra processing power, so he was either going to updated things first, or try to find out how to do it without slowing the site down anymore.

How I get around it when I have a few games that are close to timing out - is I will open each of the games I'm short on time in a new window (so I'll have 5-6 windows open - each with games that need played quickly.) Or if you don't like to do that, just always submit and go back to main page - and pick the next game according to time... (Until Fencer can get this implemented.)

Hope this helps!

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

Fencer, I was allways thinking to get the game with the shortest time limit first by clicking on the red number of games on the left site of the screen. Now I found out the hard way that this is not so. I played a move in a few games (with enough time limit) and then clicked on the next. While I was studiing the game for 2 minutes i got the message: white ran out of time!!!!
Can you fix that bug, so that the game with the shortest time limit appears first?

can we get that drop box in our profiles for the tourney ganes?..even with that default button for which setting we want it..this way if i wanna set it for toruneys i signed up for i could have that as my default..thats a neat idea the drop down box...

On the suggestion of another player, I came looking. I answered open invitations, left offers myself. Allwere deleted by players simply because I was not on-line when they were! (I asked two!) I have a paging system linking computer to mobile, so I dont keep people waiting too long, I am battling serious illnesses, and side effects to drugs involved, and so am a little slow sometimes, but the time-limit was totally ignored by players here. I was never given a chance. If this is typical I wont bother again!

or sorted by however way you have them set on your main page.. ??

Fencer ...is there anyway now.. that since we now have a Move to next game... Is there anyway to have the Move and Go to box .. sorted by time left rather than last time a player moves... ??.. would save one click and waiting for that main page to load... thanks for all you do.. :)

dizave - Oops - typo! Thanks!

When it was first talked about making the dropdown box, I did not think I would like it - but since you can make it a "default" for the option you like the best - I like it! :-)

ONE SUGGESTION: Is there a way to make the submit button that is next to the drop down box bigger? I would say at least the same size as the "Move and go to:" button.