Fencer: I type to slow... :P

alanback: alanback: Actually, VAT must be taxed for any UE resident, not just Czech Republic. As to residents from other countries, the supplied services takes place where the customer is established. Therefore I think it should be safe to assume that Fencer could charge no VAT for residents outside the UE.

At least I think that's what the European Directives about VAT state (I'm no expert in the area). But then again, Czech Republic may have gone beyond the directives and added some other rules on their own.

The main problem here, I think, is how to prove without a doubt if someone is a UE resident or not? You're just buying an account, there's not even a mailing address envolved. Getting this information from IP address could be a possibility, I think, but it's a rather obscure system (and not even bullet proof, IP addresses can be spoofed)
That's why most (smaller) businesses decide to charge VAT no matter what. They prefer the simplicity of order processing as opposed to any competitive advantage that lower prices could give them. Usually only larger companies, with clients spread out worldwide and a large volume of business go through the trouble of implementing measures to treat their clients according to their geographic residence.

But then again, like I mentioned, I'm no expert on the matter...

Hrqls: I just read that blog entry. Onesimple way to know your UserAgent is simply going to this address: http://whatsmyuseragent.com/
Some people may be infected and not even now about it so, if one of the symptoms for that particular adware is the UserAgent string, that could be a quick way to diagnose it...

Hrqls: adware could explain slow connections, yes. But in that case the symptoms should be widespread, not related to a particular site. You should start having problems connecting to most other sites, not just this one, like it seems to be happening to most people.

TarantinoFan: As far as discussion boards go you can adjust the number of messages per page - if you use 5, it should get about the same size as the main page...

As for the speed issues, this issue has arisen in the portuguese board recently as well... just like here, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable pattern for who gets to suffer it and who doesn't. For instance, my brother and I live a mile away from each other, have the same ISP and connection speed. We log in to the site severall times through the day and he's complained of problems every now and then. I've never noticed any particularly slow time... go figure

Fencer: Actually, I never said I'd be able to check it in an hour... seems to be fixed now, anyway :)

Fencer: That's what I thought, but I did see a red 9 for my waiting ponds on my main page... I should have another pond waiting in the next hour, I'll check it again by then.

When in the MainPage I could see the red numbers for my ponds but not for my games (something changed since yesterday when I could see neither).
Yet, when on the pond page, I could see none.

Is this supposed to be like that? It doesn't look very consistent to me...

crosseyed: timeout doesn't necessarily mean slow. it can mean the site was unavailable at the time. I noticed that sometimes BrainKing goes offline for about a minute (most people have come to associate that with upgrades to the site or posts on BrainKing.info, though Fencer never admited any of that afaik).
If you're using IE7 you will most likelly notice a difference between IE and Firefox (in FF's favor), so you should definitelly repeat the test at another time...

Mousetrap: I clicked it and it still directs me to this site... And I've just checked the IP and that's correct.

Fencer: I understand what you were trying to say now... I can fill in the techincal details by myself, no need to clutter this board with what would look like geeberish for most people
I'll wait for the details then

Fencer: I've reread that statement a dozen times now and still couldn't figure out... the number of online users has very low impact on the speed, yet the server still needs an expansion?

Jim Dandy: It wasn't meant that way... I'll shut up and stop trying to teach people...
For all it takes, I haven't had any speed issues with this site, but I can see that it's a problem for an increasingly number of people and, like many others, I do feel it should be debated and exposed, if only for Fencer to feel some pressure to try and do a little more towards it (that minimalist version seems like a good idea, like I've stated in the past).

Like I said, I'll shut up for now, expecially considering it's bed time around here . Cheers and best of luck to all slow movers out there...

Jim Dandy: It would only have an impact on the main page... people are complaining about the site in general...
But it would get rid of a side effect that keeps ticking me off - the ghost scroll bar that comes up all of a sudden (and I don't even use the Castle theme)

Ewe: On your message box: http://brainking.com/pt/MessageBox

clueless36: lots of suggestions have been made in the past... here's an example: BrainKing.com (coan.net, 2008-01-07 15:33:52)

It may help, but it won't do miracles if the problem lies in the connection, though...

MadMonkey: I'd even prefer any tem member to be able to see those waiting matches. A Team captain may not always be alert or insterested... but if some of the team members point out that a new match is open that they would like to take part in, the captain may accept the challenge after all...

MadMonkey: Stupidly enough I didn't even consider the possibility that you weren't on the same country
Yes, it would probably be just as expensive to send the money to Fencer in that situation then... or maybe you know some other member in the states that could help them out too (and is trustworthy of course)

MadMonkey: (Just commenting on the Customer Service bit)
Just because Customer Service isn't around any more, doesn't mean people can't send you money for you to pay for their BK accounts using your PayPal account. All it takes is for them to trust you enough to send you the money.
There are people who I used to pay accounts for until they finally got old enough to have a credit card and a PayPal account. And I only became a Customer Service Representative after that... but the principle still holds - everytime someone contacts me on how to purchase a membership I explain how to use PayPal and in the end, offer my services as a last resort...

on this Board alone. And most of them bickering and repeat complaints that should be known by now that take nowhere but to situations like this...

I'd just like to make a suggestion: rather than loosing your temper every time you finally decide to reply to this issue, why not take the opportunity (since you're writing that article anyway) and post a proper FAQ entry on this subject. I mean, this has come up so many times I think it really earned the status of one of the most frequently asked questions in this site. Placing it on the FAQ would also make it translatable (since BrainKing.info and BrinRook currently aren't). You can even take the opportunity to collect some of the comments that have been posted are all these times and add some troubleshooting like using pings and tracerts to learn a little bit more about one's own network. It's a FAQ entry, you can make it as technical as you like... and update it easilly with suggestions from others too...

Next time someone starts the issue again simply anybody could simply post a link to the FAQ entry instead of what may look like a rude comment...
Yes, I know it won't stop people from asking and complaining, but having a place to reference them to may prevent so many of these kind of arguments...

MadMonkey: I've already suggested it to Fencer, along with some other improvements. If you have any suggestions for the interviews system, please post them at the new Interviews board (since this subject has just become off-topic here, now that the other board exists) and I'll forward them to Fencer.

I just found out about a new board that was created for discussing interviews. People that like to follow up on this subject can now visit the new Interviews board.

MadMonkey: No. The author can edit the question but that's all (at least for now).

MadMonkey: Well, that just goes to show how well you know yourself

MadMonkey:

Christmas is coming and so is MadMonkey's interview.
If you're going on vacations or you'll be busy buying last minute Christmas presents, don't forget to send your questions for the interview as soon as possible.

On a related note, as an official BK translator I've noticed some interview related messages being added to the site, so I'm guessing the whole process will become simpler and faster soon...

In the meantime, don't forget MadMonkey's Christmas present and send me all the questions you want to ask him on his interview

Kunoichi: It's been asked many times that paying members could set a limit for their number of games... Fencer has shown interest in the idea but hasn't implemented it yet (I'm sure it's on his TODO list somewhere)

alanback: I aggree with you there
But it would still be nice to be able to check what the malfunction was

How can I see on the invitations I created (normal games) if they were set for members of a particular fellowship or for everyone in general? Or even for some BKR range, for that matter...
One of my invitations was accepted by a pawn (that is not a member of a fellowship, I checked) and I was almost certain I had created that particular game for members of a fellowship. Thing is I don't know how to check the settings I had made (I still have another invitation pending that was made at the same time but can't see anything in there). This way I can't be sure if it's a bug or not.

Does anybody know how to check the parameters of an invitation we created?

puupia: if you set vacation days, when your opponents play the game will immediatelly assume those days and include them in the time left (assuming it's not a Fischer clock game or without vacations).
Also your opponents will be able to see on your profile that you're on vacations and for how long instead of expecting you to move every day.
On certain occasions you can even "waste" less vacation days if you set them than if you let autovacations kick in (not that it matters much - we're at the end of the year and you still have 35 days!)

danheg: there is no check in atomic chess, therefore that restriction doesn't apply.

MadMonkey: You can already create RandomStairs. Just go to your random Team and click the Create new Stairs link.

Fencer: I was wondering - on already existing Stairs I can add games that aren't in those Stairs yet. I can't, however, add a RandomGame to an existing Stairs. Is this intentional or you just forgot?

Fencer: Does that include currently incorrect implementations of games?

Dolittle: because the current interviewee chooses the next one from the list of most voted ones.
Someone suggested that current interviewees select the next one and I went along for a while. But then I started thinking that I could risk making interviews for the same group a friends for a very long time... and it's easier to collect questions for people that others are curious about than it is for people who could be known by only a few.
This way the community decides who they want to see interviewed and the current interviewee still has a word to say. And, if for nothing else, it helps to have a list of people to choose from in case the current interviewee can't make a choice for him/herself.

Sorry if this looks like it's being made up as I go long but I haven't been in the job for that long... and so I'm really making some things up as I go along

rabbitoid: BrainKing.com (pauloaguia, 2007-10-25 09:43:34)
I don't know what's keeping Fencer from puting it online, you'll have to ask him. But knowing how little he likes to work on side subjects, I'm sure he'll come up with something soon to get rid of that last step in the interviews process. Either that or he's waiting to have a ton of interviews to be published all at once

MadMonkey: maybe because it already has enough players to enter? I think (but not sure) that it only shows teams that don't have enough players yet

I'll be sending Pbarb her interview later today. So you can stop sending questions for her now.
A big "Thank you" to all who sent their questions so far, it turned up to be quite a lot bigger than it was just last week. I'm sure PBarb will appreciate all the questions, I know I like how it turned out.


And now it's time to announce the next nominee.


The guy you should be very courious to know even more about.

Someone well known to these boards and to the site.

The reason why I'm probably going to have my MessageBox floaded with questions in the next few weeks.

The person who will get an interview as a Christmas present (all questions to be sent until December 23rd, please)


[Oh, in the meantime don't forget you can cast a vote for the next person to be interviewed at anytime - the next person to be interviewed will be selected from the ones with more votes - all the votes cast so far are still valid and will move on to the other interviews]

[Oh, and about the questions - don't leave it to the last minute. If you want questions to have your name start sending them now. I've had to turn down quite a few questions these past few days because people kept asking the same things over and over again, so whoever comes first (or has the best version of a question) will be the one the question is authored to.]


So, back on toppic:


By popular demand (and PBarb's decision), the next person to be interviewed will be:


... brace yourselves...




MadMonkey ! !


So, start sending me messages with suggestions for other persons to be interviewed and questions for MadMonkey 's interview.
You have until December 23rd to send questions for this interview but you can start sending them now

It's still not a huge interview but I think I have enough questions for Bubbles Pbarb2 . Anybody still wanting to contribute, please send me your questions during this weekend...

I'll be announcing the next person next week.

Snoopy: they aren't trying... they're just exploring bugs... but if you want to try it to, just add the string tp=255 to the end of your fellowship page URL and you'll find a "random game" team you can join to... but that you can do nothing with :P

tonyh: for now, with a custom stylesheet where you set the visibility of "style-switcher" to none

Czuch: IE7 has a rendering mechanism that waits for the whole page to load before drawing it.
Previous IE versions and most other browsers start rendering the page as soon as it is downloaded. So, they start by rendering the left column, then make space for the central part and finally shrink the whole page to make space for the right column. This is why it seems like the page is jumping from side to side until it is completelly downloaded .
Most browsers try to display the page as soon as possible to give the impression that they load pages faster. Most of the time there is no problem with that. Except in cases like BK where the layout of the page can't be accuratly determined until close to the end of the page, because of that right column.

Opera does have a setting to only start rendering the page after a few seconds. Not sure if Firefox has anything similar. Otherwise, if it really is such a big deal, seems like IE7 might be a good bet for you.


Another option would be to convince Fencer to put the code of the right column before the central part of the page. Stylesheets should help make sure that the whole thing falls into place properly... unless, of course, someone has them disabled

rednaz23:

I was planning to arrange Bubbles Pbarb2 's interview next weekend. However I still have only a handfull of questions, mostly from the people who voted her in. I'm guessing people are leaving it to the last minute because now I've been setting a deadline to collect them, but if you have some questions for her then please send them soon, so I can decide the best line of action before the weekend.

In the meantime, I'm arranging a list of the most voted people to send to Bubbles Pbarb2 so she can pick the next interviewee. If you want to influence her decision you can still vote on the next person to be interviewed...

Thank you.

ScarletRose: The only thing in settings is to activate AutoSave, I think.
If it tells you it's being saved, it should allow you to restore it if you're gone from the page without posting...

Give it a go - start typing something, wait for the "Saved" message to appear and then go to another page without posting. Then come back to the page you typed the message in - it should display the "restore message" option...

ScarletRose: go back to the page again and, IF a post was saved, it should display a link by the text box to retrieve the post.
I think draft posts are saved every 30 or 60 seconds, so you may or may not have a saved post...

Viking's interview has just been forwarded to Fencer for him to post it on the site. So, I reccon you can all read it very soon...

Also, don't forget to send me your questions for Bubbles Pbarb2 . The clock is ticking...

and you can also suggest who should be interviewed next

I know that time is suspended and why.
But shouldn't there be a red message somewhere explaining it? It used to show up, didn't it?

Hrqls: All BK sites resolve to the same IP address, except for BrainKing.info and BrainRook.com, I believe.

Rose: Check with different browsers. For instance, nowadays IE7 only displays a page after it was completely loaded - larger pages, like Boards with 100 messages, will simply take longer to display. Check if changing browser helps at all.
Also, it it's happening to some players and not others, then it may be because of their BK's configurations. There's loads of things you can enable or disable and some of them do have an impact on performance, no matter if Fencer syas the site is working great or not. I remember coan posted something about it some time ago. For instance, I have most of the game comboboxes disabled, only display 5 messages per page on boards, have no context menu, smilies popup disabled, etc.
But if if you try and disable certain features, and reduce the load per page, and see that the site starts getting faster then post it here - it will help others know what to disable and help Fencer know he has to optimize that feature...

Fencer - anych chance we could have different configuration profiles? That way I could simply choose a profile to use at home and another to use when I'm on a wireless connection with less bandwith.
It could also help on testing different configuration profiles - I'd change all settings with one click and could immediately see if it had any impact on the site's performance at all...

tonyh: that I'm not experincing slowness and neither "Website not found" messages.
Of course, I posted my message 2 whole minutes after yours. Maybe Fencer was updating the site however. It usually gets offline for about a minute when he does that...