What do you mean by a vested interest, ChessCarpenter?

Long live Gothic Chess.

Of course.

Walter, this is the way that I thought would be best to present this question to the people that play Gothic. I'm only interested in "YES" votes because anyone else would be a "NO". Am I preaching to the choir...YES!!!! Who should I be preaching to. I have a vested interest in this game and it's very important to me. Anyone on this site can who knows me can say that I never post negatively about anything!! I'm here to play Gothic!!

"Isn't it up to Fencer if the game stays or not?" The answer to this is yes and no! Obviously, if Filip does not care to renew the license then there will be no Gothic Chess on this site, but he has to be offered it first!

Also, if I keep getting messages sent to me that are NEGATIVE...to put it nicely...I will post them on this board for everyone to see and then maybe everyone can comment on them. I don't post alot because of the negativity on this DB, thats why in the Gothic Fellowship's DB's I post there!

Just for the record I vote "YES" to keep Gothic Chess on this Site!!

of course we should keep Goth on the site, the more games the merrier. However, if you are suggesting that sites become involved in a bidding war for Gothic Chess, I suggest to Fencer NOT to get involved. CM1000 is right about chess suffering from its own popularity, and that we haven't scratched the surface of Gothic Chess ( i know bc I can still beat the computer!), but to provide it exclusively on one site is a horrible idea for those wishing to popularize it. I can't even count the number of sites that offer chess on the net. Perhaps that's why it's so popular. The brains behind Gothic should be trying to SIMULTANEOUSLY offer Goth on as many sites as possible.

Yes Fencer (and Ed) should keep it here!

My humble opinion is that Gothic Chess is the best Chess variant i have seen until now. It may be even better** from Chess due to the unexplored territories* and to the 4 major pieces that create attacking nightmares to everyone, as brilliant sacrifices are a common theme at Gothic Chess.

--------------------------------------------------
** We should define of course the "better".

* This unfortunatelly means that if we explore(meaning to analyse and play) Gothic Chess, then it would lose something from it's today's magic, but this is a common thing. It happened to Chess. More than 60% of the Chess games today (between GM's) are draws. Chess OF COURSE is not reaching it's end, but because the openings that the GM's are prefering have been analysed with the help of computers so extensively and also the fear of GM's to take a risk of a "dangerous"*** opening has lead to this situation.

***"Dangerous" = A little risky and unbalanced.

I'm confused about this vote. Isn't it up to Fencer if the game stays or not? People play it, that attracts people to the site. 19th place. That's not bad for a Chess variant. Just Chess and Atomic Chess have more in the Chess category on this site. The more games offered, the more choices for someone to think about joining the site and playing. Has any game ever been taken off this site? Seems like more are added as time goes on. I do remember Pente and Keryo Pente being deleted at the behest of some, but they were brought back and renamed when others clammored for the old versions to be an option. Now there's six versions of Pente games.
Does Ed Trice know that you used the word "our" when talking about his game? He'll be mighty upset.
What media are you talking about? I read the paper a few times a week, did miss an article? Will the Computer Championships be on television, or's that internet news coverage?

Though I vote to keep the game, I don't understand why you wouldn't want to hear from people that will vote no. Not that you'll find too many in the Gothic Chess discussion board. Kind of preaching to the choir here, aren't you Robert? Perhaps you should pose the question in a different place and see what kind of response you'll get. I would expect over 90% of the people here to vote yes even if they were offered the no vote as an option.

It's a great game!

by all means

Yes.. I vote to keep it!

I am still trying to figure it out.. hehe

Dear BrainKing enthusiasts,

As media coverage of Gothic Chess in the United States has increased, some interesting offers have come our way. Deals are being made with companies like Hasbro and the House of Staunton to produce attractive wooden and plastic sets. There are now 8 different programs that have paid for Gothic Chess licenses, and more are on the way.

Live news crews will be covering the Computer Championship event this coming November. We are still looking for an online host to provide web coverage so that you can observe the games live with your browser as they occur.

Some offers have come in regarding online playing sites, which I am a little reluctant to discuss right now.

But I would like to "get a sense" of how everyone on here feels about playing Gothic Chess on BrainKing.

Do you enjoy it? Would you mind if it was no longer offered?

As I look at the rating lists, I see Gothic Chess is only the 19th in terms of the player id count. Having only 300+ players, some of these even duplicates, is not really where I thought Gothic Chess would be after nearly 2 years on this site.

Instead of spawning a debate, I would like to propose a vote.

Simply answer "Keep Gothic Chess on BrainKing" if you want it on hear.

No need to vote if you are disinterested.

I will only tally votes that read "Keep Gothic Chess on BrainKing".

Thanks for your time.

Robert Colanzi
National Tournament Director
Gothic Chess Federation

Thanks luv, and lovely lass you are!

Thanks for taking the time to explain your "philosophy of moderation", Walter. I do admit to having the opinion that "3) All posts must be approved" meand "moderated" and that "1) Everyone can post" means "unmoderated". In my experience, "moderated" newsgroups do indeed have a smaller number of posts; however, the posts are all "on topic" and flame wars are (of course) nonexistent. On the other hand, you volunteered for the job of moderator and no one else has any business telling you how to do it (and I hope that my post did not sound like someone trying to tell you how to do it). Interestingly enough, I think if Ed had simply instituted "3) All posts must be approved" and not allowed any posts not directly related to Gothic Chess, he would still be moderator. Of course, that's just my opinion...

I just love that accent.. ;)

I'm up the apples from the vicar's brother at St. Mary-le-Bow. Not quite the bobby are ya now?

Ed, perhaps?
lol

LOL
I wonder who's multi nick you are Little Tom

I think this is all queered up all right. So you're sayin this bloke is such a pain in the arse he can't bloody post no more, but his old posts are so bloody top notch you can't bear to take a butchers in here and not seem them? Seems to me LJ is a right plonker!

IMO as ET has posted the posts on a public board, they are now public domain and not owned by him and therefore he doesnt have the right to demand their deletion.

BTW I thought when a user is on ban list and wishes his posts to disappear, he could be put on hide list also and his posts will not be shown.
Or did he explicitly say he wants to remove all traces from brainking databases?

Just a little notice. I think it has no sense to suggest some workarounds here. Remember Fencer doesnt need to use BrainKing interface to delete some posts. I believe they are all in database table so he can write one simple delete loop and execute it, all within one minute. Something like delete post where user_id=3629 (E.T.) and board_id=179 (this board).
In my opinion perhaps editing and deleting posts should be done in a way allowing to track the real contents (may be it is even done that way I dont see into Fencers code :P). I mean the history of changes should be stored and instead of real deletion only some flag should be set. If such text messages history would consume after some period of time more disk space than necessary, it could be deleted after doing backups and left only in those backup databases to save space. May be the history of changes could be accessible for everyone or moderators to view by clicking at some little link near to the post to prevent situations where someone writes something rude and later edits it letting the reactions look unappropriate.

Ahh yes, you are right. I forgot that this is a public board and the moderator can do that. I was thinking of fellowships, where we still can't do that anymore.

he can be put on hide....that will allow him to remove them,but wont allow him to post.

I just thought of something since now I see what happened! Maybe he wanted to make sure all of his posts remained on here so he asked for all of them to be deleted!

rod03801 - Yes, I agree - it should not be up to the Moderator to remove the post, but the user. So if the user still wants to do that, possible find a time to let the user back in and remove them themselves. I agree.

Not sure how it started but I see all the posts looks like you blokes say are missing.

BBW, so just because Ed now wants ALL his posts deleted, Walter or Fencer MUST go through every page on this discussion board and delete? Unreasonable to expect either of them to take the time to do that.
I say, unban him for 24 hours and tell him to remove them himself, with the understanding that he isn't to post anything during that period, and if he does he is immediately banned from the board again, and his old posts can just stay. Tough luck on him.

He's not still seriously claiming he was "hacked" is he? His way of deleting the sick fellowship and avoid apologising, more Bagpuss thinking.

you are forgetting one thing. Gothic Chess MIGHT NOT continue on here as long as you say. Ed does have a patent for it and Fencer must renew
it every year. I don't know when that date is, but I would like to hear from Ed if
he will allow BrainKing to renew the license or not.

1) Actually Ed has left the site at least twice before - never to come back, and has said he would leave a few other times also.

2) If Ed wants all his post deleted, then they should be deleted. They are still *his* post that he wrote, and if he would like to mess up conversations and ideas for all that reads this site - this is his choice about his own post.

3) I'm not sure what Scarlet is asking, but if the tournament game is OVER (and not current looking for the next best move), then I see no problem on posting a game number here and letting other (much better then me) players give suggestions and ideas about what could have been done better with the game.

EDIT:

Since Ed can't reply here, here is his side of my point that he had left before. (reposted from message with permission of "telling it how it is")

"The hacker RESIGNED all of my games and then posted that I would leave. I never posted that myself.

I said I was going to leave and NOT come back if Danoschek was not banned, and he was."

Anyhow, I know others would like to know his side and I'll be happy to give it.

I disagree Walter.....These are tourny games that Scarlet is on about. I dont think anybody should be allowed to ask for advice on a tourny game. Pleasure games..yes but not tourny.

What about the game of Building you referred to a post? Can you provide a link to find the rules for it?
I Googled for "Building game" but nothing.....

I haven't tried it on the board, but i think it should be a mate in 3 for white and black, by an Archbishop on h7 and h2.

ScarletRose, please feel free to pose, speculate, and ask questions. It'll make us think, plus someone out there might just have the answer that you're looking for.

In your post dated here, you ask a question about the moderator control of what can be posted. My page to this site looks different than when I wasn't the moderator. It has various options and controls on it. One of them is called "Mode". when I click it, I'm given three options:
1) Everyone can post
2) Pawns must be approved
3) All posts must be approved
I currently have it on "Everyone can post". The third option is the one that you refer to in your post. I suppose I could change the setting to it. Had that been the setting when Fencer reinstated EdTrice back to this board a few weeks back (MY how the time flies!), I doubt if any of the flaming posts would have even been sent to me for posting to the board. That would be a good thing. The bad that I see in it is the stifling of free thoughts and ideas. Humor is one of the first things to go when one selfcensors himself, let alone if I do it to someone. Unfortunately most of the humorous posts have been deleted and only the rude, derogatory, and vemonous ones remain. Though a few of them have been removed too. There's also the work involved with doing it that way. Though I imagine the actual number of posts would decrease dramatically and it wouldn't take much time and energy on my part to review and post the few that would come in. I like the setting as it is, but it has the drawback of letting people that don't have enough self control or who are immature to get out of hand and dominate the posts. As I said when I first bacame the moderator, I wanted to stay in the background and just post as others do. I believe this is part of how I chanced to be made the moderator also. EdTrice had a number of detractors during his previous regime and Fencer got tired of it. I just happened to have stumbled into this board after having learned how to play the game the week before.

That's a good question. A related one is what is the shortest game possible? In regular chess, believe it or not, Black can win in two moves! White can win in three. The one where White moves out his King's Pawn, then the Bishop and Queen, to then capture Black's King's Bishop is a four move mate.

I'll see if I can look at the Gothic Chess board and answer my own question. As for in a tournament with good players, it'd be hard to imagine a checkmate happening before the tenth move, but it might have happened. With resignations, I'm sure games have lasted just a few moves.

EdTrice said he was leaving the site soon, so I suppose it's of little consequence about reinstating him or not anyway. He is a man of his word, isn't he? Though if I recall right, he said he was going to leave the site in a few of his posts the he removed recently. And yet, he's still here. If he's finishing games and not starting new ones, then he's doing what I did last year. After I finsihed all the running games, I left this site and IYT. Nice break for seven months, but I got the game itch and here I am again. If he's starting new games since saying he was going to leave and continuing on this site, then I don't know what to make of his actions. He wants me to remove all of his posts.

Believe it or not Fencer and danoschek are the moderators for the Book discussion board. danoschek writes in a clear language in the few posts that I read on the Book board, so I can only conclude he was purposely writing here in a way to annoy the rest of us.

I want to make it clear that Fencer banned them both, not me. Since his action was taken I've received a few messages from both of them.
danoschek's messages and replies were strange and rude, and as long as I'm the moderator he won't be welcome back unless Fencer says otherwise.
QuoQuesno/EdTrice sent me a link to a site about Bird's, Capablanca's, and Gothic Chess written by him. I believe that's the same one the redsales mentions just below here. He also stated that he thought my remarks in the long post I wrote were dismissive of his efforts and didn't like the way I said it. He said this quite reasonably and without any malice that I could tell. He has since set me 8 or 9 messages telling me to delete all of his remaining posts. I sent him one message asking him why and he replied that he wanted to leave no trace of him on this board! I have not replied to this message, nor have I removed any of his remaining posts as of yet. I think the wholesale removing of one's posts is a blatant disregard of other people's rights. Sure you have a right to post, but after I invest considerable effort to form and write a reply and then you go and delete yours and make me look stupid, it doesn't seem right to me. If any of you have doubts about that, consider the posts at the end of July and the beginning of August. Since he removed about a hundred of his, there's not much sense to be made of the remaining ones. I kind of regret not saving the posts each day to my computer, but at the same time is there anything of that much importance to make the effort worth the trouble? Which also begs the question, especially in light of his stated desire to leave BrainKing, why should he care? I believe that once it's written and not changed, fixed, or deleted immediately, the post should remain.

I think this board can carry on without the both of them. It will probably lose a lot of its fire without those two trying to shout each other down, but perhaps we'll actually have most of the discussion about Gothic Chess or people looking for a game or tournament to play in. EdTrice's expertise in this game is going to be missed, but that doesn't mean that other people won't pick up the ball and run with it. If Gothic Chess catches on like Ed wants it too, they'll be plenty of people to move it forward. Those of us here that play it are doing it ourselves. Lots of uncharted territory in the game. Even regular Chess itself isn't completely known. It will be quite a few years before the book on Gothic Chess gets anywhere near the size of regular Chess's. And that's assuming people play the game, especially the experts that will write the books and popularize the game.

forum it would be okay..

Not a problem anyway.. I think I lost most of them.. I think only one game is left..

oh oh....which question red?
Scarlet....you can still message him ;P
Ed...cant answer you if I'm on your enemy list ;)

they are tourny games, if you get advice from anybody, that is cheating the other players

bwildman, i think Ed answers that question on his website. Scarlet, you can still msg him!

I had several Gothic Tourney games going on at the time of the ban that I would have liked to have asked Mr. Trice questions concerning the games I was trying to learn..

anyone know what the shortest checkmate in gothic chess(actual match) is?

its occured to me,I've been banned from this board twice now!!! LOL:) and now.....the invetor of the game...the one who so haphazardly banned others LMAO is banned himself!!
does this strike anyone else as being just a bit humourous?I bet the person who wrote that fine article,redsales....is dyin to comment on it :)
Fencer,how long is this ban in effect? Its no fun.....I've been there!LOL:)

OK, something on topic again about Gothic Chess:

I found a monthly column on Gothic Chess that just started up at chessville. Those interested should read it
here

simple fact is, as has been proven countless times, many many people here like to see flame wars. They find them entertaining.

hard to get a word in edgewise when in the middle of an interesting conversation,the insults re-arise,and the same ole,same ole,starts over.I believe,IMO,that Danoschek tried to maintain the topic here...but was dragged in by not one but TWO people,who of course thought it was funny.I too was asked to join in on the "lets dog Dano" agenda...but kindly declined.
this knife has 3 edges,and like juangrande pointed out...its a damn shame.

It is a shame that the Gothic Chess discussion board has been subjected to the "danoschek vs. Trice" war. Neither one of the participants seems to have the sense to realize how silly the flame war has made both of them look. In fact, too few people seem to realize that simply ignoring inflammatory posts is the best course of action: The poster will soon realize that his/her posts are having no effect and will give up. The really sad thing is that both danoschek and Trice are extremely intelligent and would have very interesting comments to make if they would only bother to leave their flame war alone. I will miss Ed's posts on Gothic Chess.

I found your comments (as well as Chessmaster1000's reply) regarding the originality of Gothic Chess (as compared to Capablanca Chess, Bird's Chess, etc.) interesting. My guess is that the patent has not actually been tested in court and that the patent holder hopes that it never is. Of course, I should add that I am not an expert on patent law and have no intention of challenging one. I am just glad that the initial piece setup that Ed discovered makes Gothic Chess a fair game and enjoy playing Gothic Chess for the fascinating game that it is.

As for actions for the moderator, I used to think that a moderated discussion board meant that prospective posts were first screened by the moderator before being posted; that is, only the moderator can actually post to a moderated discussion board. Apparently that is not the case here, but such a procedure would certainly have made it possible to avoid the silliness we've seen without having to resort to banning anyone. Is such a thing possible, or is it more work than a reasonable person is willing to take on? I appreciate the effort you've put into being moderator, Walter, and would support any of the actions you feel are appropriate (up to and including banning certain individuals).

<edited to correct silly grammatical errors>

Well balanced post, very nice.

<>It's modified Capablanca Chess and you didn't make it up except for changing the initial >positioning of the pieces.

Although the change seems rather easy to make and not something different and revolutionary, it is actually a huge change! While Capablenca Chess gives to the white side a big advantage, Gothic Chess keeps both sides equal. Just like a game must be.
So it is a big deal the modification Ed Trice did, as it transformed an unequal game to something playable and fun after all.


>I'm the best Building player in the world, but do you hear me continuously carping about it, >or putting people down that don't play as well as me?

Can you please tell me what game this is? (Building) Or provide me a link to find the rules for it.


>Help from everyone else about these three. Should I ban them all, one or two of them, or >none of them? Should I stay on as moderator?

These are not real questions since i found you a very clever person,so i trust your decisions, but here is my opinion.
I think in your post about QuoUsque you are a bit unfair about him ("Fine, you're a good player of it. Why keep pounding it into us?").
He never said that he is superior to anyone else. Well almost anyone except Danoschek. But even then he didn't say it clearly, but he started calling Danoschek a chicken. That was his only fault in my opinion.
As for Danoschek i don't really read his posts as when i'm doing it i feel a little dizzy, while trying to decode his statements and all the ~*~:)0-(.

My vote is to bring back both of them, but Danoschek has to start speaking English ((Can he?) I couldn't avoid this comment! Sorry.) while QuoUsque should avoid talking about Danoschek.
As for the third person you were talking i have no idea.