tazman7474: But another times, there was a time for playing, without time out, and for playing the games and don't lose.
I thought that this time was the same, so I played some games, no a lot, only a few.

Fencer: what i'd refer to on the job as a minor inconvenience! lol who broke that water-line anyways?!!

tazman7474: It's far from a real disaster. I would call it "a slightly unexpected situation".

Fencer: did you manage to get things sorted out, so that you can take a 30 second break before the next disaster? lol i wouln't want your job for anything!

My games are fine Fencer... I am downsizing for the summer months... will be at alot of camps this summer...

(Anyway, as tazman7474 says, when I see a game with a negative time left, I should play it and not to rely on a suspended time. Perhaps I should write another FAQ entry covering this issue.)

Who thinks that his games should not have timeouted, can send me their IDs.

Jofaserimon: i'm thinking that you probably should've played anything that looked like it was short on time, just to be safe!

I lost 30 games, because I didn't know when the time was good :-(

Summertop: i had 6 new messages :) lol .. poor people though ...i know one of them is busy in real life and timed out because of that .. the others i dont know about .. several others lost a vaction day i guess as i had a lot of negative times on my opponents list even after the bugged ones were gone :)

Game Time is restored

I just had an opponent time out...He should have moved 4 days ago.

pauloaguia: Ah, my misunderstanding then. I hadn't realized that Pawns couldn't join the fellowships. Please ignore my previous posts and I apologize for the trouble and inconvience they may have caused.

This certainly helps me understand the structure of this site a bit more. What I proposed could be done for the paying members. I think that would work well.

Luke Skywalker: At least that's the real reason for me not wanting to join a fellowship right now - I would't have the time for all the extra games (and boards too)

pauloaguia: But the real reason for joining a fellowship is to be able to play in the team, not for discussion. This is a game playing site after all

pauloaguia: Thank you! that was my point!

Walter Montego: No, pawns cannot join fellowships. It's a paying members perk.
Your suggestion would remove some of the incentive for pawns to become paying members, since many of them do that preciselly to be able to join fellowships.

tazman7474: What? You're missing my point. Besides, to be a Big Boss, you must be a paying member, right? So what are talking about? I would have it in the Big Bosses control. Non-paying members would be subject to how things are for them now, but the Big Boss would be able to have a wider forum for his fellowship if he thought he could serve a wider audience. If he opened it to just having non-members of his fellowship to read the posts, but not write, I don't see how this would cheapen your membership in any way. If he allowed non-members of his fellowship to write posts also, it would create a type of public discussion board that would force him and his manages to monitor it in a way similar to how the moderators of the discussions board do now. I'm sure no Big Boss would put up with too much carrying on or he'd change the setting back or ban the individuals responsible.

As this site is currently set up, aren't non-paying (Pawn) members already allowed to join fellowships and post to them?
A Pawn member isn't allowed to create a fellowship though, is he? That would still be a perk of joining the site. Pawns can only play 20 games at a time and cannot play Ponds. Being able to read a fellowship's discussion board with the Big Boss's approval doesn't seem like something that'd cheapen your membership in any way. Allowing the Big Boss to allow non-paying and non-fellowship members to read or write posts doesn't seem to have anything to do with your enjoyment of the site. You still get unlimited games and fellowship creation. My proposal doesn't change any of that, but would help add to discussion of narrow ranged subjects that are no longer or never have been served by the discussion boards.

Luke Skywalker: After an hour or two.

No Walter, non paying members cannot read or write to a fellowship, no matter what the Big Boss would prefer. See you at feature requests

Are the server problems solved? I haven't seen any game with -12920 days now. When will the game time be resumed?

Walter Montego: i think that if anyone seriously want to read the fellowship boards, they should put up the measely $37 a year like everyone else who is on them did! i think you'd call it a membership perk! Sorry, but i work for a living and get annoyed when other people get to enjoy things for free that i have to pay for!

bumble tazman: You miss the point of my question, whether or not it seems like a secret society has nothing to do with it. As you well know, a lot of fellowships have been formed just so people can have a forum to talk about things that aren't covered in the regular public discussion boards. I am wondering if there are fellowships that non-members could read the posts. I had in mind the Big Boss having the abilty to allow non-members to read the posts, but not let them post to the fellowship's discussion board. Also, allow the Big Boss to allow non-members to post to the fellowship too. It'd be the Big Boss's choice when forming the fellowship.
It'd make a semi-private type of group. You could have it in various degrees too. The most restrictive would be Big Boss only, followed by managers, then members of the fellowship, selected members of BrainKing, all paying members of BrainKing, and the most open,
all members of BrainKing. I would have it so the Big Boss could allow each type of BrainKing Member to read the posts or not and to be able to write a post or not. The least restrictive of these fellowships would be almost identical to these public discussion boards.

I think these would be a good thing to have. With the merging of some of the boards that happened a few weeks ago, some members feel that the remaining discussion boards are to general for their particular game and their posts get lost or pushed aside too easily. Since an open fellowship would be just that, open to all, it could serve as another type of public discussion board. It wouldn't be advertised on the big list of public discussion boards, so a person interesting in finding a fellowship with his interest would have to search the fellowship list or hear it by word of mouth. In the list or when you visit a fellowship's home page, the type of fellowship posting and reading allowed would be stated. A completely open fellowship would allow an interested person to read the posts and see if they wanted to join the fellowship without having to ask first. If the Big Boss allowed non-members to post also, then it wouldn't matter if they joined the fellowship and the fellowship's discussion board would serve as a type of public discussion board. Though it might be wise to have it set up so that if non-members may post to one's fellowship, they would only be allowed to do so while the Big Boss was online. Or you might return to find your fellowship a mishmash of posts from outsiders. Do the managers in a fellowship have editing abilites? If so, then this wouldn't need to be a worry.

I have the feeling that the answer is no fron your replies. I'll wait for a day or so, just
in the case that the answer is yes, that the Big Boss can allow non-members to view or write posts. If it is no, I will visit the Feature Request board with a proposal.

bumble: I agree! the whole point of a fellowship is the privacy!

Walter Montego: Surely with that scenario a fellowship ceases to be a fellowship and becomes a public board.

I am wondering if there is an option for the Fellowship creator (Big Boss) to have their fellowship enabled so that non-member may read the posts, or if the posts can always only be read by members of the fellowship no matter how the Big Boss sets up his fellowship?

I'm looking at my Opponent's turn list, and I see 6 games with the -12920. Odd they all are "Hyper Backgammon - IT IS A NEW DAY -- $50 USD Each 1st place winner!" except one!

Rose: I agree I hope the time resumes soon, people seem to quit playing when time is suspended, the problem with the big negatives seems to be gone, so hopefully time resumes soon

Hrqls, That would be fun, indeed.

it would be fun if fencer resumes game time at once

Summertop: Another player mentioned that today to me in a game as well. With time suspended, play slows to a crawl.

Anyone else notice that when the game time is suspended, some opponents feel that game "play" is suspended. I almost never have an opponent time out on me. As soon as time is suspended, I usually get several that go into the negative (risking a timeout). I just find it curious.

Luke Skywalker: Probably a hidden bug in a virtual machine. It's been replaced by the newest one.

Fencer, for all us curious programmers out there, could you please enlighten us to what is/was causing the -12920 days time left

"BUT" if I ever catch him goofing off, I will be on him like stink.

EdTrice: Let me apologize for jesting about Filip, especially for all the hard work he does and for even implying that he was doing it on purpose. I know myself how frustrating it can be when your doing all that you can do and someone starts picking on you. It's tough, even if it's done in jest. Thanks for correcting me..

I have always supported fencer and the tremendous job he does and will continue to do so. I will from now on, not jest as to his intentions under and during difficult times.

The message will be improved.

It seems that newly created ponds are running normally but existing ones have effectively been stalled. When I saw the message 'Game time is suspended' I assumed I was safe but in fact I have messed up once or twice. I think that message is a bit confusing.

Summertop: 15373 users, 746 of them are one-eyed, that makes exactly 30000 eyes...

EdTrice, ah...Only 15373 registered players. But still, that's a lot of eyes.

Filip is busy enough as it is, I am sure (Clay!) he does not do this to make himself feel appreciated. As a programmer, I can say with certainty that there are times when a seemingly insignificant change in one area has very unanticipated results in another area. About 80% of the time, the programmer "is certain" that what is being demonstrated "is impossible" based on the small coding change.

It takes patience and a great deal of detective work to uncover such bugs. In most cases, the actually item "being whacked" is just something that had an overlooked dependency.

As code, structure, and releationships get more complex, being able to handle every possible permutation that comes up becomes an impossible task.

I think we should spare the jest at Filip's expense and just let him resolve the issues at hand. It is hard enough to fix stuff like this without feeling 30,000 eyes are upon you.

rabbitoid: I'm down to one game with the negative 12920 days on it. I had gotten up to about ten games that were doing it.
I too can speculate about its cause. Perhaps the Cloak Mode implementation had something to do with it?
Are we lining up side bets on this?

ok thanks ;)

Jason: i think the ponds are back on already .. but each pond had some extra days added for this round to make sure it wouldnt time out last week .. i guess once those days are over the ponds will be working normal again

the ponds which started today and yesterday were working for me (at the first round)

mine still has nearly 4 days left , all are on one day limits

Jason: mine were back on yesterday

when will ponds be back on ?

Hrqls:You ever wonder if Fencer does that on purpose sometimes just to make us appreciate him?

pauloaguia: mine seem to be fixed as well ..

(but it was funny to see that when i had 2 games with one opponent one of the games always ended up ok .. while the other ended up with a negative time ;))