wetware:

coan.net: such a "stripped down" mode could be automatically activated for everyone when one of the servers goes down for some reason and the other(s) get overloaded. That way, there'd be a lot less load for the remaining server(s) on desperate times when every single byte of bandwidth counts...

AbigailII: As for which games are or aren't suitable on a turn-based site, I would say that you hit the nail on the head. Rephrasing, I would say that the board image should include all relevant information.

This is unfortunately not the case of the current implementation of Crowded / Cloning Backgammon (checkers on the bar that are undistinguishable from checkers on the 0 point, stacks of more than 15 checkers which use a 15-checkers image).

coan.net: Neat? It would be fantastic! For those that don't want to see games with a message, have too many games, or don't want the extra milli-second it would take to load; they can simply check the box so it is off in the settings page.

Fencer: So since it will take some extra time or bandwidth for this idea it won't be implemented? If this idea slows the site speed for others, I can understand the arguement, but if it is only the individual person's load time, then it will be worth it to me and probably many others...

Fencer: But imagine the huge amount of data to transfer to the browser if someone starts 1000 games and only a half of them contains a last move message.

Really? The extra amount of traffic would be a single image (which typically will be in the browsers cache anyway), and 500 times an 'IMG' tag in the HTML code. Surely it wouldn't take more traffic than if half of the games where played against opponents that are online?

Personally, I don't care for such an image, and I would use my style sheet to filter it out, but I find the extra traffic argument baffling.

AbigailII: Actually a little bit of extra data can add a lot. 1 image at 100characters for 1000 games adds an extra 100kB of data. Some pages are already over 1MB in size on this site for some players. My Auto Player script is already having to download about 2GB of data per day off this site. However in saying that this would actually reduce the data for me since i would not have to download the game to check for a note.

mctrivia: It wouldn't be an image... it would be a * next to the game...

mctrivia: Unless Fencer makes a different image for each game, or if you have a really stupid browser, adding an image a 1000 times to a page will only count for one download of the image. Which, after the first time, will be in cache anyway.

Noone complains about the overhead of the image marking online players - yet that suffers from the same "problem". Heck, if one would use the same image as for online players, the only increase in traffic would be the extra 'IMG' tags in the HTML page.

Furthermore, a single simple image is a huge traffic problem, smilies should be abandoned. The images are much larger, and what's worse, a typical boards page has many different smilies. But no, there are no complains about traffic if someone makes a 35k smiley; instead, it is welcomed and added to the collection.

Now, as I said, I'm not interested at all in such an image (not caring about in-game chats - the medium is too awkward and slow), but I don't buy the 'traffic' argument.

AbigailII: As I stated before, the problem how I would see it is having to check the database on every game to see if there is a note on the game or not - so if you have 1000 games on your main page, that is 1000 more times the database has to be accessed to load the front page - so for that, I could see not only taking more time to load the page - but depending on the equipment - slow down the database for others who are trying to access it.

Maybe it is set up differently where it does not need to do that, but that is how I image it setup.

coan.net: I don't know how fencers database is but I know on my server I can do several thousand searches a second no problem.

AbigailII : My math was just on the HTML required to display the image

rednz23: a * would be excelent it would only add 1 byte of extra HTML output

coan.net: It already has to access the database to show the gametype, eventname, opponent, your colour, the current move number, and time left. Surely you'd think Fencer is able to change the SQL in such away that it doesn't require more accesses to the database (although he might need another join depending on how the database is set up)?

Beside, Fencer's objection was huge amount of data to transfer to the browser, not "more accesses to the database".

AbigailII: If rednaz23's idea was used there would only be an addition of 1 byte/game to send to the User. For me this would drastically cut down bandwidth usage because I do not check games that the last message had a note.

mctrivia: I just went to a profile of someone with 1700 games - the page showing his games is currently 552kb large. An image tag of <img src="/images/dot.gif"> clocks in at 27 bytes. Even if said person would have half of his games with a message left by his opponent (which seems quite unlikely, he would have to have multiple conversations going on with the same person), the pagesize would increase to 575kb. Big deal. An increase of about 23 kb, slightly more than the size of the dragon image, and significantly less than the latest smiley added.

But I wouldn't like the lone '*', as it cannot be surpressed with a style sheet. <span class = 'message-indicator'>*</span> could handle that, but then you might as well use an image.

AbigailII: i used
<img src="/images/chess/wr1.gif" title="AbigailII, Brain Rook, Female">

for my refrence to how large an images HTML would be. Of course you would have to add the class="dot" to the image tag</pre>

mctrivia: Fencer isn't using title attribute, nor grabbing an image from a subdirectory for the "opponent is online" mark; so there's no reason to assume he'll do otherwise for an "opponent left message" mark. But even if he's using 71 bytes for a mark, so what?

In an age where people download entire Dvds, and use graphics where a simple ':)' could do, who cares about 71 bytes, even if it's repeated a hundred or even a thousand times?

AbigailII: 71 bytes * 1000= 71kB * 1000 page loads = 71MB it can ballon quickly. But this one thing would not be the problem. The problem is on a slow connection the page already takes to long to load this would not add much time at all but it would be nice if there was another option say &noextra that gave us a striped down version.

mctrivia: Sure, it you present it this way, it looks like a lot. But find me a person who has 1000 games where it is both his turn, and where his opponent has left a message. Then calculate how much data is downloaded if you refresh his main page 1000 times, and compare that to the 71 Mb.

Let me say that I proposed this as something that could be turned on or off in the settings page. Having a * next to a games name on the main page would only cause extra load time when you look at the main page AND if you have it turned on in your settings page. For those that want it, great. If you are interested in discussion, and can scan through quick to find an ongoing discussion. With that, I am sure there is an inverse correlation from total games to the amount I want to converse with other members. As more games are waiting my turn, I am more likely to not care for conversing and instead want to widdle my games down. So if that is the case a member could leave this off. Anyways at that point I am going to use one of the 'go to next game' or whatever and I won't look at the main page anyways. I am not a code guy or whatever, but I simply see this as a good addition to the main page. We do it for game invites already and it is awfully nice there. Why not for ongoing games? I am still not sure about this topic though for Fencer said:

Yes, it could be done. But imagine the huge amount of data to transfer to the browser if someone starts 1000 games and only a half of them contains a last move message.

Does this mean you think it is worth it? Not worth it? Add one if function to it from the settings page and only those that want to use it can... those with 1,000 games don't need to look, nor probably care, the casual player and person a little more interested in conversation wants it... I am just one example of that group of people. ;-)

Thanks.

rednaz23: I think fencers point was not how long it would take an individual to load their pages, but how it might tax his system.

Now the discussion seems to be more about how fencer could do it without taxing his system to the point where it might cause problems, or slow things down.

Maybe Fencer misstated his objection, or maybe he doesnt understand that it could be done defferently than he thinks, as to not create any real negative effects, anyway, it is now not about a feature request so much.... maybe it should be discussed elswhere?

Fencer:I know you are very busy but could we please have a low bandwidth version. A good start would be to http://brainking.com/en/GameList have it crop out everything outside of the "your turn in" table if the get command mbw is appended. This would cut on average I figure about 200kb of data off when I look at the main page and require only two if statements to be added to the code(unless you have some crazy coding practices.)

Obviously later when you have more time that flag should be programed to presist through every link.

mctrivia: Yes, I can have a look at it. It it's really necessary.

I did mention this a while ago, but thought i would again as someone has asked me to create a Random Challenge that only includes Gammon games.

I know how to do it, but rather than having to challenge each and every Fellowship in turn until one accepts, could we have a Team Match Waiting Room for such challenges.

Then, other Captains / Bosses could go there and see what is available

MadMonkey: I second that idea - that is a very good idea. Just like adding a game to the waiting room, a fellowship captain can put up a team challenge in a team challenge "waiting room" for another captain to accept.

Fencer: How about allowing a limit on showing ponds in main page, like there is one to games (show only 5 games in main page)

El Cid: I second that request!

Is there any way the RSS feed could show the correct publication date? If it did it would allow users web sites to show how long ago a user played the last move. And more selfishly I could use it as a reference for my autoplayer to if I have checked that game already or not.

It would be nice if the 'Tournaments' page has selection options for time controls: a field to set the minimum time/move, a field to set the maximum time/move, and tick boxes whether or not to include tournaments that use the Fisher clock, or have restricted vacations.

That way, someone looking for a tournament with fast moves doesn't have to weed through tournaments with long time controls, and vica versa.

AbigailII: I second that request!

Could we have an option to send a message to everyone taking part in a particular Tournament please

Some Tournaments are all but over, or could go on to the next round, but are being held up for no reason apart from a game win.

Would be nice to be able to contact all involved and see if they will let it proceed

MadMonkey: I'm not sure about that.... While it might be useful to have that ability - there would be some that would send continual messages over and over - and it would end up being a bad thing. Some people play their games in a particular order for a reason, while others might not have a problem with picking up the pace on a certain game.... but giving someone the ability to mass spam members of a tourney could be abused. What about all the members whose games are already done? Could there be a setting to check to choose to not get mass messages? That might help....

redfrog: well, it could be done that you could opt out of those messages as well.....

redfrog: It wouldn't be abused as easily if only the tournament creator could do it

redfrog: As long as there is an option to turn off them message like in "all fellowship" messages, then I have no problem with it. I read tournament discussion boards & read main fellowship discussion boards - so I don't need to get the same message through private PM's

MadMonkey: what you're asking is not the right solution for the problem you placed. If a couple of members are holding back a tournament, messaging the 100 members of a tournament will bother 98 that have long finished their games. Why not simply send messages directly to the "offending" ones (tough they're not doing anything wrong since they are obbeying the time limit the creator has set for the tournament)

pauloaguia: This is true, BUT i think its sad when some people will hold a Tournament up when they have no way of going through to the next round

Which leads to another point always raised, mainly in Elimination Tournaments, why can not the next round continue when even without the previous rounds results ?????

May get more interest from Bishops & Knights (and even Pawns in certain situations) if they do not have to be help up because of a certain few

Anyway, i came second at poker tonight, so not happy

Just an idea...

If we look at a tournament with random games, we see a ugly "no rating"-phrase istead of a nice number. Also the ratings of the upcoming Team tournament is 0.

So...

How about the change that 0 or No Rating for a number that counts as the average of all the player's ratings for the game types that there are in the Random Tournament?

joshi tm:

Andersp:

Fencer: ... and a red number when a new interview is open

pauloaguia: instead of a red number (which probably doesn't make much sense), maybe some mark (like a red asterisk) when the deadline is closing down (say 1 or 2 weeks before, for instance)

Well - that brain should be a player on the site too right? How about an AI user - "Brainking" that we can challenge.... someday maybe???

redfrog: ... or a bot maybe? Something like this.

AlliumCepa: yeah, they sound great, can we buy Fencer one for xmas

hmmmm maybe a bit pricey

AlliumCepa: YEAH - a BrainBot opponent!! Always online - always making moves - guess we would have a new top player on the most move list huh?

redfrog: I started working on one for playing Ludo but other tasks got in the way and without an xml output page changes make coding dificult

redfrog: I like this word - BrainBot!

Could we please have a Preview button on messages like we have for discussion boards? I just sent a message and had to go and check on the SentMessages to see if it had been formatted properly...

pauloaguia: I have asked twice for this paulo , it woud be so handy when sending messages containing links

Fencer: Just 2 (sorry 3) things relating to Team Tournaments, in case you get bored over the festive period

Is it possible to have it so Big & Little Bosses can also sign Teams up for Tournaments, rather then just Captains

Saves having to go back to Fellowship, and change Bosses to Captains, then back again, if the original Captain does not get round to it, just to put a Team in

ALSO

We have

. you are signed up
and
. you are not a member of any team

Could we please have a colour dot visible for just Bosses to see which Team Tournaments have there Fellowship Teams been entered in

Much easier than having to open each one up and check

THIRDLY

Team Challenge Waiting Room

And on that note.

Have a great, restful Christmas Filip

Ian
MadMonkey

Andersp: There's autopass on this game site?