Mélusine: Did you borrow my magic wand ?

I did - but I didn't use it to give myself a Rook!

crosseyed: How lovely for you. I think you have a secret admirer? Hugs know what I mean?

Lol. Yes, the door is open to that theory, among others.

heavenrose: who got you membership?

Good question! It came out of the blue, a complete surprise.

heavenrose: i am earn them

I was wondering how...

heavenrose: Someone more deserving than me, perhaps. :-)

Are you buying brains or earning them?

Carnie: I joined fellowships as a bishop. :)

Ah, That's interesting. So it's the fellowship info that needs to corrected. :-)

Doris, heavenrose, Carnie: Thanks for the kind thoughts but it's okay. :-) I only mentioned winning the Rook as an ironic joke. I'm in one of those decades-long tourneys but BrainKing goes on "suicide watch" starting next year. It's amusing in a way (yet sad as well) that some of these ancient tourneys might outlast the site itself.

(Just as an aside, I'm not sure that Bishops are eligible for Fellowships. The Paid Membership information suggests that they are but inside a Fellowship it says "You cannot join the fellowship because this feature is available for Brain Knight or higher membership level")

Doris: Thank you. It's nice to be missed, although it makes me feel a bit guilty, too. ;o) Big hug, ((((((Doris))))))

I might start being more active here when I win a membership. I'm in a prize tournament that's just started a new round so, with luck, I'll be a Rook within three to five years. ;O)

speachless: "did you find such a filter that you use for daily gammon also for brainking? i'm interested in it"

I do have tweaks that I've written for BrainKing (and also Pocket-Monkey). One works on the Waiting Games page and calculates my BKR changes for wining and losing so that I know whether it's worth playing. Another was an auto-pass for Ludo ... because "someone" didn't give it to us! ;o) Another that I enjoyed when I had a membership was tweaks to the rating graph page that made it easier to change the date range.

I haven't done any tweaks for the BrainKing forums. It would be fairly easy to add the poster-blocking but I'm the kind to argue rather than hide someone. More likely people would be hiding me (except that I write helpful and humorous posts as well as flaming ones, so people would be in a quandary as to whether to hide me or suffer the arguing, lol).

It all became moot when I moved my "internet home" to DailyGammon as I stopped being active on the boards here.

crosseyed: "That was very clever of you to create that system for your own use."

Thank you. I've long been tweaking sites to make them easier. My best project along those lines was putting a graphical interface of a text-based vampire game. That might have become something that people would pay for but I lost it when my computer died and I didn't have the heart to rewrite it. Since then there are loads of programmers who can do what I do, as you can see by all the apps on your phone.

"You could sell that to people who seriuosly want to block people."

There's a handful of people who would have been interested and maybe a couple of them would have bought me a drink but it would be no money-spinner.

crosseyed: "That is interesting that you can use that system in DailyGammon."

It's wasn't part of DailyGammon itself. I added it myself as a browser extension.

"To be honest if I block someone who I really dislike I would not unblock them just to be curious."

Yes, I agree. a really dislike would a really hidden, goodbye and good riddance. But the content-only hiding allows you to take a break from people who are generally boring or annoying but might not be worth the full abracadabra.

crosseyed: "Besides I am sure they would be tempted to take the person they have on block, off block to read the post that may or not be about them. "

Mélusine: "Ah yes it's true. It's twisted but possible !"

It is indeed a possible temptation, and true.

I used a forum-hiding facility at DailyGammon. It had two levels. With the high setting, you can't see the person's posts and you don't know that they've posted. With the low setting, you see their name but not what they've posted. You then have the option to click each message individually to uncover the text so that you see what rubbish they're spouting that day.

In use I found that those posters who are on the high setting stayed hidden because it's too much hassle to unblock them, check the forum and then block them again. On the low level it's more about how curious or bored you are. If you click on a covered post and it's the usual rubbish then you don't need to bother with the rest.

Spherons and Torussians: You've all got it wrong. The four edges of the board actually meet at a singularity. The shape of the playing surface is akin to a tear drop or a high altitude weather balloon when it's at low altitude, but Fencer, through some clever maths, has a projection that makes the board look square on the page.

Sphere Battleboats, please

Eriisa: . That could be a new variant, Froglet Patience.

ColonelCrockett: Having just gone through the motions, yes, you can do N-wins matches and N-points matches for the single-elimination tourneys.

alanback: Aye, I'm all in favour of systems remembering and making use of the context.

alanback: There are two options for having that now. One is to use the browser's Browse Back which will return you to the search results. The other is to go forward using Open In New Window (or Tab if using something like FireFox). Just close it when you're done and the tourneys' page will be waiting for you.

alanback:

I hope we're not talking about a delicacy to be served at the table!

Walter: http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=3&bscx=474871 :=D

TC: By which I take it you mean pieces that have been hit and sent back.

I second this request, it is useful to know which are the pieces still to be entered into the game and which are to be re-entered.

Fencer: It's a mini-cloak. (All the cloaked folk say "Yeah!")

It's also the action of an unfinished program that reads the games list for me...

FriendJosh: You don't need a second account to view games and other pages, you can simply login as a guest. I sometimes do that to check my games list without fully logging in.

Walter: That's a good point. I think the game state should unfold as the game unfolds (this should apply to the cube in Backgammon, too) .. but a further board revealing the final position would be a nice addition.

ps. A fine move. Congrats at getting back out of the Vortex.

Andre: It's an internationally important game and many would like to follow its progress.

In watching a "dark" game such as Small Espionage, the pieces are obviously hidden from observers while the game is in progress. But it wouldn't be giving anything away to have the two players differentiated, perhaps by colouring the question marks differently. An observer could then at least tell who has the most pieces.

Walter:

KotDB: "Why should it matter whether it's mathematical, topological, topographical, geographical, geological, biological, anthropological, etymological, or entomological?"



That's graphic in its logic even if only slightly matic.

grenv:

grenv: How do you play Torus Shmorus? It sounds like an interesting game. Do you have any more details?

As Emmett suggested, some fellowships are little more than yet another chat forum. And that's a splendid use for some of them. It would be nice if there was a Chat Only option in the Game type: dropdown list so that such fellowships could be found.

Fencer: Lol. I know it's a No. (And, even so, you do much better than other sites as regards sorting; I'm just envisioning the ideal of everything sortable/everything searchable/everything optional).

I'm still curious what you have against sorted lists, though. Is it a programming issue or a big drag on the server?

Fencer: Why? What is it that you have against lists being sorted except by that most human of values - the BrainKing database Id?

All lists everywhere should be sortable!

alanback: LOL.

alanback: "Hybridgammon" sounds too generic (and also looks like a misspelling of Hi-bridge-gammon, which is a totally different and tremendously interesting game, if only I could remember the rules). How about "Nackback" and have the gammon bit assumed?

mctrivia: Cool.

So "thirded" then.

mctrivia: "you can always type it in yourself"

That's entirely the point of the request. You can't always type it yourself. It's too easy to forget. I started doing that but making it a habit was just not working. LOL. I have trouble enough remembering to decide whether to double before I hit the Roll Dice link.

rabbitoid: That's been asked before and again I'll second it. It's surely an easy addition (eh, Fencer? ) and would be very useful.

rod03801: Thanks Rod. I'd forgotten about that as I've had it disabled for ever (I hate clutter on my main page). I switched it back on to have a look. Unfortunately TopMovers is a set of randomly ordered pages (from the point of view of finding a player) which would make it difficult to use for that purpose.

Fencer: Cool.

Fencer: Lol. I figured that one. The question was more about why that would be the case. It's not much of privilege to know my own activity (in fact I've never looked at it) but it's useful to know about others'. If you wanted to differentiate the service then perhaps you could record it for all accounts but simply not display it when a Pawn views a profile?

alanback: As a one-off it can tell me whether someone is online but not moving much. As part of a set of observations it can give indications as to their rate of play. I'd much prefer more comprehensive rate of play information but that's a different request.

How come the moves made information isn't available when I check a Pawn's account? It's just as useful to know as with the paid accounts.

Also, once past midnight the count is reset. That's necessary, of course, but it's not useful in that it's throwing away useful information. Would it be possible to show the previous value for the first few hours after midnight?

mctrivia: There is some utility in having links change colour when clicked but as they're dynamic pages they get "blued" again pretty soon. (Unless it's only my browser doing it). But if fencer were to change the link colours he could easily changed the :visited property as well so that the girls' links had the same indication, even if it weren't purple.

(This is not to say that I want the link colours changed, lol, I'd prefer an icon)

Now that you've put the fellowships list on pages, and given that they're as well sorted as they ever were , could there be a search box, please?

I'd like to look at The Cave...

plaintiger: I went to the funfair the other day. There was this guy on the Big Wheel who looked like he was having a good time. I met him later and said as much. "What, are you tracking me or something?" he asked. "Er, no, I just saw you there" I replied. "I feel like I'm on a public-access radar" he said and stormed off. Just then a guy materialised out of thin air right next to me. "He should have worn his HG Wells cloak" said the man, "I always wear mine at the fun fair - I hate anyone knowing what I'm doing." And with that he wrapped it around his shoulders and disappeared again.

Wierd funfair that.

grenv: and, by the way, when did * become the universal symbol for emphasis?

Since before <b> became available. It's also used by some wikis to denote embolding, as /foo/ is used to denote italcs and _bar_ for underscoring.

alanback: Alternatively, if I'm a devious liar then I'll probably say the same thing now that I said last time.

On the other hand, if I'm the person that I am then I'd want to continue the theme rather than repeat it - refering to old information and adding anything new.

Talking of old information, this topic's exhausted.

rod03801: Aye, that's a good idea, I have the most frequent message templated in my notepad. What prompted the request was an invitation from someone who I may have had one from before. I can't remember, nor, if so, what my reply was.

Czuch: "Not declining any invitations .."

And that would be helped by a rating formula that doesn't award me nothing for a win and a loss of -15 points against an opponent who is going to win 25-30% of our matches simply because of handy dice!

When I decline an invitation it would be handy if a copy of the message were added to my Outbox like other messages. I tend to explain why I've declined rather than just say a word or two or none. It would be nice to know what I've said to whom. Also to be able to cut and paste into the next invitation that I'm declining for a similar reason.