Well, who woulda thunk it? I had no idea.

Something like that probably won't mean much to nonmembers until they try it. Maybe nonmembers should get one day of member privileges per month, just to try it out and see what the differences are. That might create enough incentive for more to join.

I was unaware that it was a paid member only option (but makes since - since non-paid users don't have many games and would not need something like that)

Fencer - Are there other little things that are for paid members only - if so, it might help to list them somewhere (possible on the paid membership page) - you never know which little feature a user will like which might make them pay for a membership! :-)

Piplio, you got that added when you became a member yesterday. It's not brand new. It IS a great option though! I was suprised by it when I became a member too! :-D
So, come on non-members! Buy a membership so you can have it too!
:-D

Fencer: The new pull-down box for "move and go to" options is terrific. What a great idea. I love being able to pick which game I want to view next, while still having all those other options. Thanks!

Fencer.. we have 121 people in the New Beginnings fellowship, and it's a really long scroll to get down to where our fellowship tourny's are listed, and i'm afraid some ppl are having trouble finding them. Is there some way we can either change where the members are listed (like at the bottom of the page) or that we can have more than one page of members, so that the tourny's are easier to find?

Also, is there a way that tourny winners can be notified when they've won a new tourny? I know that the creator of the tourny is notified when somebody has won the tourny which they created, but the winners don't know that they've won unless the creator announces it or they look on the "winners" page. Just an automated mssg saying that you've won would be a nice idea.

Thanks again for the great work you've put into this site!

BIG BAD WOLF: I've just wanted to write my favorite "WORKS FOR ME" but you are right, it happened to me too! :-) I have to do something with that.

I'm not sure if my problem is the same that was listed below, but I just recently used this option for the first time, and here is what happened.

Game is up - I hit "Play Later"
- Goes to next game
- Play next game and hit submit (go to next game)
- goes back to the game that I wanted to play later (this time with no option to choose "play later" again.)

... now I'm not sure if that is how it is suppose to work, but it would be nice it "play later" would move it to the bottom of my list of games. (Since I still have 100+ unplayed games)

... I hope I explained that well enough. :-)

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

indeed you are ...
- an idea would have been to ask me privately,
as that continuing nonsense does not belong here.

... my request was sent to Fencer, not to you.

but, actually now you also disqualified for attracting
my further interest in what else you might be missing ...

hope your games run well after all, have a great weekend ... ~*~

feature request: Notes not related to topic be deleted.

danoschek: None of your posts make any sense to me whatsoever. Am i missing something?

indeed this is the 3rd note from me questioning the same.
obviously always the same folks seem not comfortable with
requests to decrease the ease of life for server-parasites. ~*~

How does any of this qualify as "feature requests"?

<-
I do agree ...
but again that obsessive blurbag has no control altogether ...
- as we know, he lives for 24humbug7. oh well, at least the few
bucks he paid make a tidbit of sense here, unlike his repetitive idiocies ... ~*~
PS
particulary ludicrous his common usage of the term 'fact' which
actually equals a black hole claiming to be the big bang ... ><(((*>

For crying out loud.. this belongs in General Chat. Keep the immaturity over there please!

<*))}>/"

... e.g. blur ... ~*~
PS I suggest he finally gets a life ...

True, it was a nice break from both. As for egg having nothing to do with Dano, I dont know. I was wondering too, but after all his lashing out against people with multiple ID's then HE doing just that on IYT, well who knows.

TT, I'm neutral in all this, I like you all! LOL! BUT, I have to say that for how many weeks(?) now, Dano has not posted a thing on general chat. It has been lovely and friendly until this eggy person came on again. Luckily it seems like a minor flare-up, but it had nothing to do with Dano.

when is Battleboats comeing??

danoschek: I have just been looking at the General Chat board. I totaly agree with what you say & this is all ready being looked into.
The big problem we have is that if anyone does want to be such a pain, they can just use different P.C's ,I.P's or alter there own in built one - its easy enough to do for anyone who knows enough about computers.

MM

Aware of the new humbug on General Chat
I suggest an approbation time for new accounts
before they may post here. I told you who likely
has no life but to keep up enduring blur ...

Running pattern: Top-Players are attacked, an attempt
of sucking them in, to senseless and infertile debates.

Should be possible to verify ... ~*~

Thanks for your replies. You make good points.
I don't think I will worry about the ratings.

WOW kool! dated messaged in the message archive!! Thanks Fencer!

I will check it.

Thanks Fencer for the Play Later option. However, it seems to have a bug. If you click "play later" for two games (in my case, one immediately after another), "go to the next game" offers the later of these games even if there are some games to play that are not "play later".

Of course that's fine but even in games where an advantage can be statistically demonstrated there are still people who prefer the theoretically disadvantaged side. The easiest way for me to express it is in shogi terms where the colour terms 'sente' and 'gote' are inextricably linked with a player's style ie attacking or defending respectively. Likewise with many of these games a player's preference or talent might find it's most suitable medium in the unpopular colour, it could just be that there are less of those people, like the left handed. I like to play a balanced range of colours but I wouldn't want it to be compulsory.

I know in tournaments, some of them can be set up where you play 2 games with each person - one of each color.

Fencer said awhile back it was on his to-do list to do the same for non-tournament games. (Not sure how far up/down on the list it is)

But if that does come along, if you are worried about which color you are, you may just want to try to play the 2 games (one of each color) games.

Thanks for that long and considered reply. My view is that in a community as small as BrainKing ratings are not very important or accurately representative, just a vague guide to the strength of an opponent before deciding to play or not, then you can also look in their profile to see with which colour they won/lost. Especially with the games supported by BrainKing there is no great bias in favour of those familiar with the literature, most of the games here I've never heard of, so I dont think ratings are a very big issue. If you know which colour is more likely to win then it's up to you if you choose that colour or it's opposite, after all despite the fact that these game are played by winning or losing their main function is as a social interaction between the players, we want our opponent to enjoy it as much as we do. Sorry if this is confused, I'm very drunk.

You're right. Chess is unbalanced too since
someone moves first. However, the amount the
game is unbalanced is very slight (and while
a big factor with grandmasters, it is virtually
unnoticeable by amateurs), and I conjecture
that it is much more imbalanced in a game like
horde chess. For example, a friend of mine and
I played horde chess. I played five with White
and he played five with White. It ended
up that one particular color (not one
particular person) won all ten games.

So, I would distinguish between those unbalanced
games where the lack of balance comes from
granting someone the first move and where the
lack of balance comes from an asymmetry in the
starting position (especially huge asymmetries
like in horde chess).

On the other hand, first move alone *can* be
a big factor in some games, even to amateurs.
Go-Moku springs to mind. I haven't completed
any atomic chess games, but I suspect that first
move in that game can be a huge advantage too
(I may be biased because I am currently losing
an atomic chess game with black and it's only
the 4th move!).

In any case, getting separate color ratings for
asymmetrical starting positions at least makes
a lot of sense to me.

Just a thought. I don't feel passionately about
it or anything. I probably won't play such
games here anyway.

The same can be said of chess and probably any game other than the likes of janken.

I noticed that some of the games, like horde
chess and Maharajah chess, have asymmetrical
starting positions. While a lot of thought has
probably gone into making these games "fair,"
i.e. equal chances for both sides, it is almost
a mathematical certainty that these games aren't
exactly fair. However, they are still fun to
play. I think that having separate ratings for
Black and White would be a good idea, since,
for example, someone who plays white 75% of the
time in horde chess would not have a rating
compatible with someone who plays white 25% of the
time in horde chess.

Will be done.

I agree with you there. It seems natural that if you have already put off moving in a game and gone to a different game that the first game is no longer first.

I like to play all easy moves of my games in a row, and think the difficult ones only after that. However, the "submit the move and go to the next game" option does not support my kind of play. When there's a game with a difficult move as the first on my list, the "go to the next game" option gives it always.

There should be a "skip" option for a move in a game, such that a "skipped" game would not appear by the use of the "goto to the next game" option. Such a game could, of course, be chosen from the main page.

I just remember to change the .com to .info if for some reason .com is not working... :-)

I'd bookmarked mine from Day 1 :^)

For all who are interested here are direct links to the pages in the brainking info site.

News
Technical info
Company info
Known bugs
Support us
Customer service

Fencer, around 5 or 6 people have asked me for the link to brainking info as many people forgot to bookmark it when it was visible via the server news board.

Is there some way you can please link to brainking info pages from this site and also vice versa. The main reason being, to encourage people to bookmark the brainking info addy for future reference.

Thanks!

Blaze

Fencer does that anyway. I wanted to change to 'harley', but it was already taken by an inactive user (I think they hadn't been back for a few months and had neither finished or started a game). I asked Fencer how long it is before inactive members are wiped off and their name became available, he did it for me straight away.

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.