rod: I absolutely agree. Why not just colour the squares in red and black, and but an "x" or "+" on the square when it's a king?

unbeatableking: Try it. Steal someone's work without their permission and see if they're glad about it.

kevin: I absolutely disagree ... flattered eyes are part of the fun.
in the 80s the amiga chess v1.0 featuring only letters like N for
knight and so on, surely was fascinating regarding its relatively
high strength ... - but it was not appealing.

in japan even the sound of the go-pieces, when placed
on the boards, are reflected as essential part of the joy ...
we call that attitude 'sensitivity' ...

checkers graphics: our KM experts are called out here - but I know
there is a lot of freely usable (if credited) artswork circulating ... ~*~

We would settle for red circle and black circles with little stars for the kings. That would be an upgrade. :o)

I'd like to purchase a membership, but my only means of payment is a cheque or money order (probably US dollars). My SSL is broken (I'll get round to fixing that one of these days - 'RSN'), so I can't log onto the third-party server. Any suggestions?

I probably could squeeze it onto a credit card, but the same problem remains with the money-takers.

Check out this page: HERE!

There may be a person closer to where you live where you can send money, and they in turn PayPal it to Fencer.

Or you could send cash to Fencer - I've never had a problem sending cash in the mail as long as you hide it well. (Don't let it look like there is money in the inside of the envelope)

hope that helps - if not, I'm sure Fencer will be able to help also! :-)

<The thing is, I never, ever, EVER send cash through the mail. I'd sooner write a 25¢ cheque than do that. :> I knew that link was around here somewhere.. thanks! :>

I have emailed eriisa@myway.com for info.

Yayyy!! Back online, congrats to Fencer & Liquid! I know you worked very hard to get us back on! We can cope with losing a bit of data as long as we're back on! Well done you two!

for all your hard work fencer........

Hooray.. we're back !! Missed you !! :)))

talk about the time warp? Now.. all these messages dated on Sept?? are they really new also?? or were they just new on that day?

I think it's a case of all was lost between Sept 15th and now :(

It is, but I don't care. I'm sending some more money to Fencer to help defray costs. During this time off, I realized how much I really love and appreciate you people over here.

gOod jOb, FeNcEr.

tNp.

Thanks Fencer And Liquid, great job! :-)))

Board: Thoughts and Prayers
&
Fellowship: Customer Care Services

Could these please be restored, Fencer? Thanks a lot!! :-)))

Withdrawl was difficult! Thanks for all the hard work Fencer and Liquid!

Radiant recreate the customer service fellowship and reinvite everyone.. its the easiest way to do it

hiya, I know u r working real hard. I was just wanting to know if everything is good to go now? And if everything has been reinstarted? If so then more then like most people my stats r not right. If there is not a thing that can be done about it. I will not cry over spilled milk. And let just let it be water over the dam...
TYVM for ur time.

Thanks everyone :-)
Radiant: Since I can't remember the board description, could you please provide it once more? Thanks ;-)

Fencer.
It is nice to see everyone supporting you.
Jus goes to show how much we all appreciate the site you've created.
With all it's problems, BK is still the best.
And with sites other sites like GT losing members (tho they dont crash often) It is a testiment to how much we all love what you're doing!

tNp.

Should one of us set up a temporary fellowship for people to sign up and let Fencer know they want to donate their 3 months back? Or should it be kept private and a personal message by each individual sent to Fencer to let him know to take it back?

Sure Fencer, I'll put it in a PM :-)

And Rose, thanks for the good idea! :-)

Set up a Fellowship with your idea! Sounds great Rose! :-)))

Its weird to play games we played in september and early october and it brings back emotions as well, like having a game in my gamelist from GrannyOne, aka emattie1943.. and reading that last message from her, so wonderful and so sweet.. brings me to tears..

We support you all the way Fencer, keep up the great work :)

Aww..that's so cool Rad.
G-d Bless.

Must we replay (or try to remember) these old games? Some of mine I have written records for, and some not. However, I can recall what the results were, but..... we're kind of in a perilous situation here. With all the exuberance, no one seems to have noticed that we are going to somehow have to dispose of all these old games. It would be nice if everyone would adhere to the honor system, and admit which games they have lost, but is it reasonable to expect this, even among the friendly BK clientele? Will all of this need to be solved on an individual basis? I hope things will improve, but fear as more users return, dismay and complaints will follow. Perhaps just wiping out all the games in progress and starting over is worth considering.

I am also mystified by the fact that some time ago there was some talk about Ed Trice making a substantial investment here. What became of that? If such funds were derived, why didn't they get used to prevent this sort of disaster? Just curious.... I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers, but there is no denying that the events here have been very perplexing.

i would like all the old games to be removed from my game sheet and we just play the current ones, or start over. i don't remember which games i won or lost, i can't even remember what i ate yesterday.

I can answer part of that, Pioneer. There has been time slips before where the site has jumped back a few hours. Fortunately only twice that I recall, and never anything on this scale! But most games were sorted by good sportsmanship. Either replayed or resigned by the original loser.
Speaking for myself, I can't remember all games I lost or won, and would ask my opponents if I lost the game and don't resign, please remind me!
Of course people will be dismayed, but it goes without saying that Liquid and Fencer did everything possible before deciding to put us back online with so much data lost. It can't be helped and so far everyone has been fantastic about it. I'm proud to be part of such a wonderful site with great people.

gutted , 17 tournament wins down .
, six weeks of hard work down the drain !!!!

its a big mess , im not even doing any moves the mood im in ......especially games that i have already won/lost six week before ....jason/gutted

Pioneer: Just an addition to harley's post. When the investment is done, I will post it immediately to the Server News. It means that nothing like that happened so far, that's why we are still running on the old hardware.

Hardware problems happen. There is not a game site on the internet that hasn't had a major crash in the last year. I for one am just glad to have some one working so hard to correct the problem and get the site back up and running. Extending the time on memberships is more than a genrous attempt to make good on a bad situation that could not be avoided.

Awww but Jason in the large scheme of things they are only games.. more tourneys to follow, more wins to gain.

(((hugs))) to Jason. And Rose is right, it is a bit gutting, but at least we're back among friends, right? The games can be replayed, tournaments won. But I'm with TexasRose, I missed everyone the last few days and am just glad to be back!

yes rose they are only games , but its still got me mad , some days ive been on here for 20 hours at a time ...just to finish games im playing .
i was under the impression that all data would be backed up on a daily basis , but i was wrong ;(((

(((hugs))) all round to everybody (even fencer & liquid) ..... now im going to lie down and cry lol

Ive spent those sort of hours on here too jason, and won tournies too. But I couldnt care less about them, I was more bothered by not getting to chat with my friends etc. I am so happy now i can again :oD Just there are some I am still to find :o(
Well done fencer and Liquid, youll be getting the extra membership back from me :o)

Awwww, never mind, Jason, it can always be worse.
Have you read the information about what happened? Theres a link on the main page. Data is normally backed up, but there were faults with that too :o(

Many have learned how important backing up is, if they did'nt already know.
bUt i, 4 oNe, aZ SiLLy aZ i Am..sTiLL sUpPoRt Fencer & hIs sITe.

jason: The data were backed up on a daily basis. As I already wrote on BrainKing.info, the backup server had crashed too. At the same day. Really bad luck, eh?

Won/Lose games: I for one could not tell you which games I won or lost. I know a few tournaments I won, but I have no idea which games inside the tournament I have won or lost, so I think it is a bad idea to "ask" someone to resign because they lost the game before. I do like the suggestion of just wiping out all current games and starting from scratch - it would solve the problem above! :-)

Money back for Membership: By giving back your free 3 months does not really put money back into Fencer's pockets - except for the fact you would later on renew your membership 3 months earlier. Another idea might be to take the money you saves (by the 3 months free), and either create a prize tournament for pawns, or do the "sponsor a pawn" thing that the KM does - since that would get more pawns as members (hopefully the new pawns then get hooked and pay for their own membership)

Question: I do have the tournament results for some all of my finished "Fast Start" tournaments (Some that I have not even created yet!) - would you (Fencer) want a list of who won those tournaments, or should I just forget about the list? (Just the tournament winner, not any info on any game within the tournament).

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

To some amazement, I pretty much agree with everything everyone has said!! But don't assume that I am perfectly content. I lost 11 titles, so I can definitely empathize with Jason's 17 lost!!? But, as stated, it is impossible to rectify at this point.

I really admire and appreciate those here who play for just the fun of playing; however, there are those among us who take a bit more strident view of the competition and all; 'serious players', if you will. It is why we become game players, because we not only want to have fun, but want to excel as well, and we want to do it against the other best players. I'm really not bitter, harley, and there are indeed much more important pursuits in life than games, although it is really not very soothing to have someone tell you 'it is only games' knowing full well that six weeks of diligence has just been flushed down the toilet!

I guess it will take some time for me to adjust my mindset to play here again. I certainly cannot do it at the present time. One thing I am wondering is, can we report results we know to Fencer and have him tally the games, or must he hear from both players for every game?

fencer has all the imformation been salvaged that can be or could there be anymore to be updated ? i just dont want to replay games if they are goung to end up vanishing in the next few days

ps i have most of my bkrs printed out but im not sure how this can be put back

I'm sorry, Pioneer, I don't mean to make light of the games lost. I fully understand that there are serious players here that work very hard on their ratings and win ratio. You put a lot of thought into those games and no they're lost.
I guess I'm just so happy to be back :o)
But I do sympathise, and if anyone wants to scream privately at me (rather than do it on a board) then feel free. I will do my best to help out, and just listen if I can't do anthing else!

Im with BBW, most (if not all) of the games I now have have already been completed before. The ones that I know I lost (know for sure) I am resigning, but if unsure then I can't be sure I would make the same moves (good or bad LOL) this time around, my memory isn't that good :o)

Wiping them out and starting a fresh sounds good to me??

It sounds good to me aswell Aragon. Who else agrees? We can start our games from scratch.

I agree. Much better to start again with new games than to play the old games again.