joshi tm: But what to do with timeouts, resignations? Also in triple gammon tournament one might help someone to win by resigning earlier in a lost position, he doesn't lose more this way but he helps the opponent, who might be in direct competition with other player, gaining advantage this way.

Cannot the BK image caching be somehow forced by HTML code? Or it is just a problem of internet browser?
I find it annoying when those backgroud images always keep downloading and Maxthon (IE core) often crashes when user action is executed until page is fully loaded. OK, may be Firefox is better solution...

KotDB: Another place would be ideal solution, but just marking them slightly different would mean almost no change in game model but would help. Perhaps internally they are stored elsewhere even now, but board design is always the same and you have the same numbers of slots to click as in classic backgammon.

Wondering what are the most wanted requests (apart from autopass)

Some examples:
1) showing which backgammon piece on the bar is of what type (I would expect many votes for this)
2) team match - discerning (by italics for example) finished/unfinished game
3) random game color
4) possibility (button/link) to turn around game boards (especially useful for ships)
5) poll about most wanted requests :)

MadMonkey: Good idea, and the flag should be automatically reset when one does some different action than 'browse main page' to prevent misusing of it as cloak mode.

Could be some link to Fencer's TODO list, at least partial, here? I would like to remind about one useful suggestion regarding to team tournaments, which should be really easy to implement. In team vs team screen to mark unfinished games differently, f.e. in italics, so we can quickly look at unfinished games when we are interested.

KotDB: Yes, that solution works pretty well on fics. Also, important change would be, established rating is not dependent upon number of completed games, but upon RD. So one would not gain established rating after 25 games like now but after his RD drops to some number, fics used 80 if I remember correctly.

Save tournament definition for future repeatable usage.

grenv: I think autovacation is useful. For example last night we had network outage. Due to that I lost 4 or 5 games by timeout (but my fault, I play too slow and often leave my moves until last moment). But if I were paid member in that time, I would be protected and not time out. I think that benefit should remain.

Byt back to feature requests. I just out of curiosity looked at all my posts here (show this user posts). There might be some useful feature requests which remained possibly unnoticed and some new possible ones.

From old ones: colors when defining New game are white, black. what about "random"?

New ones:
The thread thingy is handy, what about "hide thread" (way of moderation) with some possibility with "show all threads" to turn it back on.

Then, what about some way to see messages on hide by board moderator let's say at own risk by pushing some "I agree" button? Because it often happens and I think not only to me that some interesting thread is hidden or removed by board moderator, despite it's interesting for some people at least in reading mode, it can be without "reply" possibility. OK, I will stop here for today.

mctrivia: They ARE renewed yearly and IN ADDITION to that they are renewed when a purchase is made.

grenv: Yes, it went down and back up after renewal and by coincidence is at 15 again. Timing out yesterday means no decrease because of weekend, in 4 hours it will be 14. Period.

BIG BAD WOLF: Well, I know who is he talking about and his counter decreases for sure, of course except weekends (set to saturday and sunday, so last 2 days there wasn't decrease of course).

BIG BAD WOLF: I think in this particular case there wasn't any bug. The thing is the opponent prolonged his membership and therefore his vacation days counter was reset to the corresponding value. While some might think it's not OK that someone gets another pack of vacation days after he uses some in previous membership cycle, I think the opposite. And it's a nice motivation for membership purchase aswell.

I think it would be nice to show win/loss/draw statistics for each player per stairs. Would reset to zero when player leaves and joins back.

Some time ago I already suggested this option, I still think it could be useful to close window/tab after making a move without additional network traffic.

reza: When in this thread, I believe to associate a note with move number would be useful also.

In case they will be implemented, then there should be an option to let the opponent see your conditional moves or not, as in some cases it might be kind of spoiler :)

naughtypawn: conditional move can be also in backgammon - "when I have no valid move, my choice is pass" (of course I don't mean a case when some dice rolls might result in valid move, only when no rolls help)

* this is not an autopass provocation :)

... it would be useful to be able to search messages not only by content but by author also.

chessmec: If it's only question of ego, then this is wrong approach. Better would be to say: auto**** and cube and dice "bug" are a challenge to excellent programmers. Let's hope Fencer is good enough and can solve it Sorry couldn't resist, but it's We want threaded DB!

May be it would be wise to sort the priority of features in progress regarding to some voting of members, I think that would make some of you happy and Fencer could prevent leaving of some people this way (f.e. orthodox backgammon lovers).

tinksbell: Solution might be in an option to "add time to opponents time". That way one could save some games from forfeiting in cases, when one feels a game is very interesting and one is not satisfied with winning such game just plainly on time.

reza: The image seems to have 60 kB with current resolution, wouldn't be much different with higher I bet. By the way, do some web browsers offer some "cache images" feature? It might be useful in certain cases. Images for brainking pieces ocassionally fail to load and this would help there too, rather that usual "Show picture" approach.

New game:
1) new option: notify me by message when challenge is accepted (useful for extremely fast games to not miss the started game)
2) new color: random

Ferjo: I thought Fencer took some ideas from my and similar suggestions while building "improved tournament system", but I am not sure. I think things like you, me and several other people suggest are really useful for finding appropriate opponents, and for tournament creators they are useful to target the group of people they wish to attract.

Ferjo: But it should be dependent upon actual game type, for example I play extremely fast backgammon variants while in other games I am almost turtle. In fact you mean something similar like I suggested for tournament definition (link few messages below), but you suggest it in player profile (may be waiting games) already.

Hehe, 3 different opinions, wondering who takes the prize for best guess

grenv: I don't think he means that, though I don't really understand what he does.
Seems like he is talking about some substitution for cloak mode, though I don't understand why it's a problem to turn the mode on.

Beren the 32nd: Very good idea. And latest winner could be visible in ratings list for that particular game as well.

Addition to this suggestion :
- number of tournament wins (all/particular game for that tournament)
- number of tournaments played (all/particular game for that tournament)
Would be useful for tournaments for tournament winners.

I would welcome to still have a possibility to have the same piece with the same image and the same name/notation abbreviation in all games. May be settable through settings, some might prefer some original piece name for actual game. I think for a player who doesn't specialize in one of these games it just causes confusion, there is no reason to call the bishop&knight piece in one game cardinal, in other archbishop, in third janus, rook&bishop has for now only one name (queen), rook&knight (marshall/chancellor), rook&bishop&knight (amazon, maharajah) - though this one is slightly different, as in mahajarah chess infinite piece value because of king role changes it, but the image could stay the same.
Cardinal/Archbishop/Janus looks like schizofrenia already

grenv: Sure I mean with different random positions for both parties, because in darkness one side cannot take advantage of non-balanced starting position of the other one.

grenv: To prevent being familiar with starting position we could have dark random chess

There are more possible enhancements on espionage.
Useful would be to be able to mark opponents and own pieces:
1) mark pieces which I know opponent sees
2) mark pieces which I think opponent sees
3) mark opponents pieces with their guessed values
4) mark opponents pieces with their sure values

perhaps
5)mark with some user defined signs for some better association in notes

All marks about opponent pieces apply to hidden pieces so this could be done by changing their image.

Game: Espionage variants and some more game types
Requests/fixes needed:
1. when browsing through the game, notes are not displayed
2. when browsing through the game, even after coming to the end one cannot move without reopening the game or removing &i=move_number part from the URL
3. request to delete/modify a note, useful would be to associate it to move number

These things bother me for longer time already, finally I decided to put them here.

Thanks

BuilderQ: It was just an example, it could be less radical and I didn't define the time period, it could be in one year or so.. 1500 was example too, easier to count, so better for showing the idea.

May be full rating wipe prior to such changes like rating formula, too, but I bet many will disagree

grenv: May be inactivity should result in some proportional leveling up to starting rating point each time period.
Lets say 1500 is the middle:
Then for example
1000 -> 1050 +50
2000 -> 1950 -50
1500 -> 1500 =0
1750 -> 1725 -25
1250 -> 1275 +25 etc or some nonlinear

With addition the less player is playing the more rating could fluctuate and after more inactivity turn to provisional rating, best would be RD coefficient which is used on some online chess servers.

I see many people noticed things like that, me too in http://brainking.com/en/ReadBug?bgi=451 May be some solutions for Fencer how to solve this should be the result.

Now I remember, to be exact, my idea was not really about variable grouping in the combo box "move and..." but about variable sorting on main page, then you would use only "move and go to next game" in game page and it would be enough.

I think fencer noticed some of my ideas before and may be moved something to his TODO list, though more reactions from other people were only about my complex tournament rules generator idea or something I think.
"move and" would have more useful variations, for example move and close game window, move to next game of this type or wait here if none is available (with some "try again" button available) and similar, to prevent unnecessary loading of main page and so on.

I posted similar request about variable grouping some time ago, and I posted some good idea about tournament filters also. And I posted also a suggestion about changing to thread based discussion boards long time ago, in such case my messages I mention here wouldnt be burried below tons of others . Of course there were lots of other useful suggestions created by different people also

Walter Montego: I use of course "move and go to next game of this type" combo box setting. But imagine when you have 5 hg, 5 bg, 5 ng, 5 cg games and 500 other games. Then you need to move in 5 hg, return to main page, scroll down until you find 1st bg (not so easy between 500 other games), play all bg, then main page and so on. With a setting "move and go to the next game of this category" you would move in all those 20 games in one row, if some opponents make moves meanwhile - you get it right there, you can simply play with very good move/time ratio and no main page load is necessary.

Walter Montego: I am not sure whether you understand my question, I asked you by PM too. I don't mean one particular game type (eg Backgammon) but the whole group (eg Backgammon, Nackgammon, Hyper Backgammon etc)

I would really welcome "move and go to the next game of the same category" or something like that (same groups like in "new game", for example all gammons. Would make the moving process faster for those who play all gammon games fast and the rest slower, and similar.

Andersp: Please don't use the keyword "autopass" here, because Fencer will switch his ignore mode on and won't even read my request
And NO, it's NOT related to AUTOPASS (for Fencer to not miss this one)

Initial dice rolls in 2 games per pair gammon tournaments deciding who will move first should be disabled, I just passed in all 5 games where I was supposed to start in new tournament
Even in 1 games per pair tounraments it would be better, so I suggest generally in tournaments to switch it off.

gekrompen hoofd: Of course when a feature is useful for a minor group, the major group doesnt have to use it but thats not a reason to not have the feature. I personally have no interest in parental lock, it was just an idea.

gekrompen hoofd: OK, I understand but I was referring to people who still might use or believe in these approaches to educational process .

Can moderator hide certain posts or only certain users with all his/her posts? Because some might be ocassionally rude but ocassionally they have useful ideas too. For example danoschek, he is usually babbling or repeating the same over and over, but when he expresses certain opinions or suggestions they might be useful and acceptable, f.e. three checks chess rules - I do even agree with him, or some computer or chess related hints.

Walter Montego: What about some parental lock added, with children being unable to unhide posts hidden by moderator, for those who want to take care of education of their children. Pawns and users with parental lock activated wouldn't see those. As it's probably usually the parent who pays for the child, (s)he could decide about it when paying.

Brave? May be hungry. Nice feature request indeed.