alanback: As I understand it one of the problems with Auto-SHHHH!! is that the dice aren't generated until the player goes to the page - ie it's manually triggered. For automatic rolling that procedure would have to be repositioned so that it rolls at the first possible opportunity rather than at the last moment, and that's presumably pretty tricky.

Geo: Have you clicked on one of the language flags by some chance? If so, click on the British flag to revert to English.

naughtypawn: What's a conditional move?

How would the analysis board work?

Thad: Yep, the ratings are fried alright!

WhiteTower: Indeed, although it's not enough. The longer the match the more it favours the stronger player so the proportions of the points awarded should change as well.

I know! Why not use the well established ELO Backgammon formula?! Doh! I don't know why no-one's thought of that.

1) True. The right formula allows anyone to play anyone else equitably.

2) Too black and white. It means that the game (chase the ratings) is flawed, not that it's invalid.

3) I disagree. If some match results are fair and others are not then accuracy is compromised.

I'm not saying that Stairs matches shouldn't count towards ratings. I'm glad that they do, in fact. But I will stay away from the single-match Stairs (and also tournaments) until the day we get a proper Backgammon formula. And I'll keep pushing for that periodically despite everyone getting tired of it, me included.

Dryznik: This is actually the wrong board to be making such a request, as it's not about additions or changes to how the site works - the main topic of this board. However it's strangely appropriate because of the timing and the current topic, lol.

I'd recommend that you join all the Halma Stairs. That way you get to choose matches with the highest player available and they can't refuse. Stairs are a great way for a strong new player to get a high rating!

Welcome to BrainKing, Dryznik. I think you'll find that it's an experience way beyond what you're used to at the other sites.

grenv: LOL.

Tired, sure, but I imagine you understand the point of view, even if it's not one that's matters to you.

For me the ratings are important because they are another game, and one that I can be keenly competitive about. Stairs is a new competition, also great fun. In these "meta-games" the actual matches are simply moves in the outer competition. This tiring discussion is about whether the resulting moves are appropriate. Naturally it's of no importance to those who don't care about the game and don't play it. ;-)

grenv: Wow, grenv, you sound so angry! Lighten up dude.

grenv: I've got a worse idea! Let's use a Chess rating formula for Backgammon and other games with luck in them. That way the ratings can be unfair and wrong at the same time!

Fencer: Nice to see those *s. :-D

Dice can also not be deduced when you can only move one number because you are blocked on the other, and on bearing off when you don't use the ecact roll. The latter one is only strictly necessary if doing analysis on the dice rolls themselves - an unlikely need with games played here, lol.

There are two reasons why I'd like to see the dice rolls. One is that when I go through a game I want to look at the dice and then see what I would do with the roll before I see the move itself. Having to work out the dice from the move (which is not an at-a-glance operation anyway) makes this impossible. The second reason is that I have a program to download the moves list into a file for analysis but without the dice values it's unreadable by the analyser. I've made it so that the download program reads every game page for the missing (non deducable) dice rolls, which makes it a pretty bandwidth intensive operation.

TJuTZu: Yep. The standard notation is an asterisk. 12/11*

grenv, Vikings: funny you should say that. I'd actually edited my post to say that "He surely couldn't mean mine, not even the naked full-sized picture of me with a suggestive carrot", but BrainKing went dead for a while and the edit didn't go through.

grenv: I think Bosko means people's piccies. I'm curious which ones he finds disgusting...

kleineme: I've noticed this too. Matches that strangely weren't in my Last 10 list. Before I found them buried in the longer history I was ready to report it as a missing-matches bug, lol.

Fencer: Thanks :-)

Walter: Good question. I meant the Date and time: on every page in the (for me) right hand column under all the flags.

If there was a new date format "dD Mmm YYYY hH:MMam" for that column, one without the seconds, I'd still want the discussion boards timestamps to show the seconds as they have relevance.

Could there be a short format with a 3-letter abbreviation for the month and the time without leading zeros for the hour, 12-hour clock with am/pm indicator (in lowercase) and no seconds?

Example:
3 Nov 2005, 1:06pm

This will fit the column much better than the long named-month format so it won't take two lines.

Bry: Delete the Union Jack? No way. I've selected it because I've never identified myself as English. Born in London, maybe, but I'm a Celt. Unless there's a flag for London Irish, lol.

Mirjam: I do an occasional tutorial or commented game and that would be most useful.

Andersp: You might be saying that as a joke but it's a good idea. Charge a cent per month for all the little bells and whistles. Allow people to choose which they want ... it'll soon add up.

ColonelCrockett: To get to the game's rules it's necessary to 1) Scroll the Ratings page down so that the Games Rules link is visible, 2) Move the mouse there and click, 3) Wait for the games list to appear, 4) Hunt for the game in question (in a most disordered list), 5) Click the link.

Compare that to having a direct link right there in the Ratings page's header ...

I'm a one-click kinda guy. ;-)

How about a link to the Rules page on a game's Ratings page?

With a graph showing the last two weeks, for example, the line starts at the origin and goes to the BKR of the first game after the start date of the period being looked at. It would be nice if the line came from the position of the BKR point of the last game prior to the period.

It would be nice to have a dropdown list of shortcuts for the last week, two weeks, month, 3 months, 6 months and year, or some such selection.

Let's say the date is set to 31st 10 2005 and I want it to go back a month. I change the month to 9 and hit [Submit]. Instead of giving me the previous month, it discovers that the 9th doesn't have 31 days and sets the range to the player's entire span. This loses any other date parts that I've set. It would be nice if it could be forgiving and just set the days to the last day of the specified month.

Bry: Lol. You've got to follow the conversations more closely. WhiteTower has no problem!

plaintiger: I can see the use of it, but I think it'd be a shame if a lot of people used a "whitelist" facility. It prevents good natured messages that come out of the blue. A "good post" message or "I saw your profile that it says..", etc, even "Interesting. A statement like that raises.." I do quite a lot of that sort of messaging; it can makefriends out of strangers.

I don't know about the automatic bit. I've got "enemies" on my "Friends" list I think of it more as a Watch List

Bry: "Perhaps if we leave Fencer to get on with his improvements, we may see some to the BG games in time quicker."

Depends on which improvements. It may be a more effective option to give Fencer a brief spell of grief, no matter how uncomfortable it is for him and those who think "BrainKing is #1" and all is rosy in the garden. I think continuing the passive waiting game which has been the mode, to remain silent, is to be dumb in both senses of the word. How often do you persuade someone to change their mind by saying nothing?

I actually think BrainKing is #2. It comes second to the BrainKing which doesn't treat Backgammon like a toy game.

Yet another occurence of the backgammon bug.

It happens A LOT

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1084775&i=21

tinksbell: It's a good idea and there's willingness (people have offered coding assistance from time to time), but I don't think Fencer's keen on the idea. He can only do so much at one time but he wants it all to be his doing.
(Must admit, I'd be the same.)

"fencer is responsive to questions asap"

That's the exoperience of the ones who get their questions answered. The ones who don't, or who get silence, or a "No" or even a verbose "No, No, No" don't quite share your enthusiasm.

I've got a stack of ideas building up but I've stopped posting any here because I've only seen one taken up. Even the simplest and easiest of ideas get ignored.

I reckon if a question or feature request is responded to then it's just coincidence of timing. I guess I've become cynical. [shrug]

The chess one seems to works well enough for chess and the backgammon one works well enough for backgammon. ;-)

nobleheart: But definitive of what? What would a 60% win percentage actually mean? If two players have 60% wins which is the better player? It'll be the one who's got 60% against the strongest set of opponents, of course, but how can you tell which of them it is? That's what ratings help determine.

Given that the BKR spread is now only 200 points from average to top in some games, could the BKR filter on the New Games page be calibrated in 25s and 50s in the upper middle range (perhaps 1900 to 2300), please. The ends of the existing list could be chopped - for example below 1200 and above 2400.

ScarletRose: As hard as it would be to get realtime game playing. Both of these need client software downloaded and installed on your own machine. That's a contradiction of the web-page method currently used. Possible but very radical.

It'll probably be done before anything to do with Backgammon, though!

rod03801: "red dot game" is simple and unmistakable. "Urgent" or "critical" are possibilities, though they'd hardly apply to a 30-days-no-hols game, lol.

WhiteTower: That's a good idea and one possible implementation doesn't even require Fencer to do anything.

On one of the boards that I moderate I've compiled a list of useful links - those scattered about the board itself and also from the corresponding fellowship (which Pawns can't access). The list has been inserted into very first (last?) post on the board, which I've appropriated from the original poster (fortunately it contained material which became part of the resource. I also asked permission first, though there was no answer). Then I added a note to the board's header information with a link giving direct access to that post. Rooks and Knights can join the fellowship or they, and Pawns, can use the resources message.

The same could be done for any of the game boards if the moderator wants to do it. I hadn't thought of a FAQ but that could be created in another of the early messages.

wellywales: Another way is to ask a high rated player if they'd play unrated against you and explain their moves. Not everyone is willing to be a teacher but some are. Stormerne's fellowships (Tablut and Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)) feature learning tournaments in which the players are required/encouraged to explain their reasoning as they go, so both players learn off each other.

I'd be happy to play a couple of tutorial matches in Backgammon. :-)

BIG BAD WOLF: I can find compelling reasons refuting each of those points. Good job I'm not feverish to gnaw that bone.

WhiteTower: Hey what about those poor people struggling to fill their 1600x1200 screen? Do they have to suffer these tiny images?! ;-p

Reza: What background image? I have it turned off in Settings.

BIG BAD WOLF: Another idea for your 4. is that perhaps the required slots could be reserved for the tournament (or as many as possible if insufficient), or some number that the player suggests having been given a warning that the rest must be played and freed by the time the tourney starts. This would be especially useful when booking far in advance (Lol which would be a week in my case).

One of my home page links takes me to the playBunny: Started Games page. I use it when I'm not logged in to have a quick look and see if there's a move to be made. If I then use the Login button at the top, I get the same page except that it's mostly blank, ie. just the standard Profile page chrome.

I know that I can see my list of games on the main page, but is there any reason why page 2, Started Games of my own profile must be blank once I'm logged in? It does seem to be an exception that serves no purpose.

Salkkuman: LOLOL. That's really funny. Lucky Chess!! And an excellent idea too. :-))

Lamby: You win the prize as I see it too.

LOLOL. This is a complete contrast to those who say cloak mode should be abolished because "why should people hide?". Spirou's suggesting that we all be all be hidden as a matter of course.

Spirou: "annoyed imagined opponents "

There are two possibilities here. Firstly that you imagine your opponents to be annoyed because you get annoyed. Scondly, you don't get annoyed yourself but are being considerate and wishing not to offend others who might.

My assumption is that most people don't mind and have got used to the ways in which other people go about their gaming. It's very reasonable to allow others to do as they like, whether that be reading all the boards first (which is what I am doing, for example) or writing messages, perusing the new members list, etc, or just opening the main page and let it sit there while doing something around the house.

It's true that it would be a politeness to inform your opponents that you are not moving but, because making moves is only part of enjoying this site, it's a politeness which many people would find strange - it apologises for normal behaviour.

The ones who get annoyed? Let them get annoyed and deal with it themselves. I'm one myself sometimes when a particularly slow player is holding up a tournament and I see them online. But that's my frustration to deal with and the rational viewpoint is that my opponent shouldn't have to account for their actions. The bext course for an impatient player is to request of their opponent that they give their game more attention if it's convenient and then practice more patience.

A related point: Another bevaviour which is quite normal is to be playing somebody and then they go offline all of a sudden. Sometimes they will inform their opponent why (bedtime, or work, etc) while other times - most times - they will not. Getting offended by that is as pointless as getting offended because someone's reading a discussion board rather than making amoves.

I'd like to add a vote to the previous request that the red (3) link to new messages should go to the first new message rather than the last so that a series of messages can be read in the correct order.

grenv: Actually I can't do it because I don't and won't play the game. I brought up the point in response to disappointment expressed about the utter randomness of the game, when it needn't be the case. ;-)

grenv: Surely "the point" of Random Chess depends on the person who's playing it? One person might value totally randomness; another might value variability with the option to specialise on one or more of the variations.

Fencer, would it be possible to allow a player who creates a game of Random Chess to specify the seed so that a specific setup can be used (once the seed becomes known). This will allow players to explore given start positions and gain familiarity and expertise. I guess, though, that option shouldn't be available in tournaments.

How about a Selected Opponents list which, for each of a player's opponents, would show the game types and the wins for each player? I know that played games will show this value, but it would be great to have these listed in one place so that a player can see how they are doing against their chosen rivals. Ideally the game type would be selectable as well.

I think it could be interesting to if such pages were publicly viewable from the person's Profile.