chessmec: I think that the holidays are set according to the czech calendar... so it probably has nothing to do with USA's independence day.
But I'm only guessing, as I don't know why it would be an holiday in czech republic either...

pauloaguia: Of course it is possible that Fencer wants to rest and therefore ... maybe. But as I know (please correct me, if I am wrong) there is no holiday in Czech Republic or Slowakia.
It would be better if publich holidays will be set with reasons.

chessmec: The reason Fencer has set holidays now is probably because that the majority of members of BK are from the USA.

red dragon: Only 25,28 % of BK population are americans. Far from majority...

do we really need public holidays when we have 30 vacation days per year already ?

Hrqls: that is another very strong question. but i am more interested in that WHY are NOW public holidays.

chessmec: I forgot to remove it.

Andre Faria: New picture?

With at least 15 different countrys represented on this site, having over 25% of users from just one country is a huge majority. What country has the second highest percentage of users?

Check out the Player List. I believe the drop down menu there shows you how many from each country.

Edit: yes, that is where the information is. According to that, Czech Republic is 2nd..

rod03801: Thanks, thats a cool one I hadnt seen yet. I guess my estimate of 15 countrys was safe all right.... I reiterate that that having twice as many users as the second highest country does constitute a majority, and I dont see why our independence day shouldnt be counted as a holiday on this site.

Czuch Chuckers: Yep, in one of those difficult nights, when it´s sooooooooo difficult to keep your eyes open... LOL

I just noticed... looks like ladders on this site has been put on hold?

Czuch Chuckers: Because it is not a holiday of this site. This is the last year when it's counted.

Aww ladders would be cool!

Czuch Chuckers: With at least 15 different countrys represented on this site, having over 25% of users from just one country is a huge majority.

What kind of definition of "majority" is that? Care to quote a definition? In my book, being outnumbered 3 to 1 doesn't account for "majority".

AbigailII: Excuse me? 3 to 1 by who???? If you add up all the other countrys represented on this site together maybe... but thats not what we are counting. We are counting the percentage of each individual country, and we outnumber the second highest country by a 2 to 1 margin, thjat is a majority in any book!

<Majority is > than 50%. USA have only 25% of the population of the site, so there is no majority here...

Actually, Czuch is correct. That number IS the majority. Go to Google and check out the difference between Majority and Simple Majority. A SIMPLE majority is the the term for having more than half.

Andre Faria: Majority is whomever has the most....

Top ten countrys represented on this site by percentage of total users:

US 25.26%
Czech 12.8%
K 3.53%
Canada 1.89%
England 1.74%
Slovakia 1.2%
Germany 1.01%
Autralia .87%
Turkey .86%
Portugal .72%

LOL we need a mathematics discussion board! :oD

It's a Plurality.

Right. USA absolutely has the majority of players.. (For now! lol) ... But no one has the simple majority.

rod03801: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority: A majority is a subset of a group that is more than half of the entire group. This should not be confused with a plurality, which is a subset having the largest number of parts. A plurality is not necessarily a majority, as the largest subset may be less than half of the entire group.

25% is not a majority.

AbigailII: Please pay attention..... we are not comparing the US to all other countrys combined. We are comparing the US to other individual countrys! Plus we (the US) has more people on this site than any other country.... The majority of users on this site are from the US. That is a correct and true statement. Get over it already.

Actually i would more correctly say, that players declaring USA as their country are the plurality here.......
Perhaps they live in France and declare USA.....

And we should not forget that USA = 278E6 while Czech is about 10.2E6
But that is more or less meaningless anyway.......

Czuch Chuckers: As a non-native English-USA speaker i didn't know the majority/plurality definitions. Now that i've learn them i see that you are just wrong...........Just read AbigaiIII's link........

Chessmaster1000:I may not be the most well spoken person, but English is my native language, and I can tell you with certainty that the sentence: The majority of users on Brainking are from the US. Is a true and accuarate statement.

Czuch Chuckers: Actually Chuck it's not a true statement. A majority is a greater number of two parts. 25% of BK (part 1) are from the US. 75% (part II) are non-US. The majority of BK players are non-US.

I've looked at a half-dozen sites and a majority is over half of the total. I think that the problem is the misuse of the word majority in our culture. But your point is still not missed. The US may represent the highest persentage of players from a single country, but not a majority of players on the entire site. :)

Actually, I had it backwards anyways. What Czuch describes is the Simple Majority.. not the majority..

But anyhow, lets work this back to whatever the feature request was...

What was it?? I forget now.. lol

No, it's a logical for you statement that you have grown hearing that and with that logic, but mathematicians have another opinion. They defined majority and plurality different.
Here is how:

We have a large group of N different teams/smaller groups.
Ans we know that
team-1 counts X1 members in the group,
team-2 counts X2 members in the group,
.....................
..................
...
team-N counts XN members in the group.

And that TotX = X1 + X2 + ... + XN

Then we say that: team-G is the majority of the whole group if and only if XG > (TotX-XG)

Also we say that: team-G is the plurality of the whole group if and only if for every K from 1 to N except G, is true that XG > XK

rod03801: lol

Czuch Chuckers: Please pay attention..... we are not comparing the US to all other countrys combined.

You're not? Ok...., but you also write The majority of users on this site are from the US. So, who are the the users on the site that aren't from the US, but aren't in all the other countries combined?

You can't have it both ways. You can't compare "the people on this site from the US vs. the people on this site not from the US" and "the people on this site from the US vs. the people on this site from a single other country that isn't the US".

For every person on this site that is from the US, there are three that aren't in the US. Outnumbered three to one isn't a majority.

AbigailII Gee, didn't I say that? ;)

I still see the majority of messages since I left (24/37) wheras the plurality of
making sense remained under leading A - I suggest that all mistreated giants
go face their problems better equipped and on the proper board next time. ~*~

danoschek: you put me back on enemies?

AbigailII: OKAY..... We (the US) has more people on this site than from any other country! When you have more than someone else you have a type of majority. (not sure which type, I think a simple majority) Thats all I am saying. The percentage of players on this site from the US is higher (more) than from any other country!

The originol point was that since the US has the most players then it should not be uncommon for us to have a holiday, for example, that another country which has only one member, for example, does not have. It should be expected that the site owner would show more concern for a country with 25% of the population over a country who have only .001% of the population. IMO. But there are some who feel that it is more important to treat everyone equally no matter.

it should be no problem regarding who's inflicted - since the majority
in the great united states of america, are a strong plurality in the world
always fighting for treating everyone equally ... I wish a happy fourth ! . ~*~

Czuch Chuckers: We (the US) has more people on this site than from any other country!

True.

When you have more than someone else you have a type of majority.

True, but only in the union of those two sets. That is, if you take all the players from France and the US together, the US players have a majority.

The percentage of players on this site from the US is higher (more) than from any other country!

Also true. That still doesn't mean the US players have the majority of the players on this site.

Proof: take a list of all player names. Take two pieces of paper, one labelled "US players", the other "Non-US players". Put all players from the US on the first page, every one else on the other. Count the names. Whoever has the highest count has the majority.

More than 50 percent

OK.. Please! Back to the part of this conversation that is about requesting a feature.

rod03801: There was none... It didn't start as a feature request (I think).

To settle everyone, there is a bigger majority than the US. Pawns are the majority in this site. No matter how you define that!

rod03801: The part that was the feature request had to do with holidays on this site.

There are many people here who only play on weekdays because that is when they are at work and have access to the web. (brainking contributing to a lack of productivity in the world) Hence normal weekends are saturdays and sundays, because thats when most(many) people are not online. Holidays are another day that we are not online as well. Agreed not every country has all the same holidays (Christmas and new years are a couple I can think of that are) But when one country who makes up over 25% of the Brainking population has a national holiday and therefore 25% of the people here may not be online (in theory) then I see no reason not to use that day as a holiday. Who would argue that if you can help 25% of a population without hurting the other 75% then why wouldnt you do it? If it works in evryday real life, then why not here?

Czuch Chuckers: I am wondering since last weeks why some timeouts were not correctly handled. So I started looking exactly and although the explanation why the timeouts were not correctly handled last week did not came I believe, that the administrator had "forgotten" to remove the two "holidays".
But I know that I will not EXCATLY look at the time, vacation and so on. there are some obscurities.

that's nonsense - those not correctly handled timeouts
followed the pattern of auto-vacation as I documented.
who ever told different should look for a better excuse. ~*~

Czuch Chuckers: I didn't read all the discussion, but as a native english speaker with a relatively high level of education, it is true to say that NO country has a majority of users.

More importantly it IS true to say that the majority of users don't have a holiday on the 4th of July. This, I believe, is the point.

the point is that everyone with a minimum of education would recognize a
closed case, unless redundantly spamming. since you are not even native or,
speaking english, be happy on my hide ! *PLOP* (featured list upon request) ~*~

1. If I was hidden you wouldn't have read it or responded to it. Do you really think other people are as s****d as you?

2. You're clearly not a native English speaker.

Please stop this useless argument.
Starting next year, there will be no public holidays [maybe 2-3 days during Christmas].
End of discussion.

danoschek: No more please. Thankyou.

Hrqls: maybe one of the languages could use little gifs.
example:
italian sign language
he he he