playBunny: I have no problems with 30 days at the start of the year. Just plan ahead as best as possible. And with auto-vacation option, you really do not need to plan. Just make sure that is set and if you leave town and can't play - those will kick in.

If for some reason you are short come the end of the year, renew your membership early and it will be reset at that time also. (even though I would hope not too many people would need more then 30 days a year....)

Fencer: (unless you renew your membership 1/2 way through the year.... then you can get up to 60 days a year!)

hotmommy22: Interviews to learn more about different users.

Past interviews: http://brainking.com/en/Interviews

Pedro Martínez: wow, I guess they are. How dare Fencer do something and not let us know! :-)

Antje: Not available yet - but I believe Fencer said it was planned.

Hrqls: Yea! Notes above the board. Now I can actually make myself notes in a game without forgetting to scroll down and find them. Thanks Fencer! Just for that, I think I will renew my membership!

Fencer: I would say as long as it is WAY over the limit. I would hate to see a normal pawn go to a next round of a tournament, and be a few games over their limit and then see a message about possible losing some of their games - since we do not want to "punish" those pawn who go over their limit.

Maybe anything over 50 or 100 for pawns should be reduced to below that level. (And also add to the message that users get when their membership expire that they need to get their games down to "whatever" level or risk losing some games at random - or of course renew their membership)

LuckyCat9: Actually after a quick search, I was wrong. He said he was taking out all holidays - but would probable leave Christmas & new years - which looks like what he did.

LuckyCat9: Thanksgiving is only a US holiday - this is a "world" site, so many members do not celebrate Thanksgiving. (And if US gets their own holidays, then other countries would want their own holidays, etc.....)

So it looks like Fencer only has Christmas & New Years as holidays.

ScarletRose: Yup, I just looked also. Looks like the days around Christmas & New Years Eve are holidays. I could have sworn Fencer said last year he was going to take those out.

LuckyCat9: I do not think there are site holidays anymore, are there?

Since everyone has the option of vacation days, and everyone in different places have different holidays - I was thinking Fencer got rid of them all.

How about (cz)BrainKing.com, (es)BrainKing.com, etc...

Please take all the chat to either PM or General Chat so true questions and BK concerns do not get buried like they almost have.


Malcolm: You can go into Settings, Calendar (or click here) and set your vacation days. It will show on your profile that you are taking vacations.

Rose: I would agree that it would be nice to some-how purge really old accounts, but I would rather Fencer spend time on new games then figure out a good system to purge names (while keeping stats and such.)

As a side note, I would almost bet if someone *REALLY* wanted a user name that had been used in the past (but not accessed in the past 1+ year), I'm almost certain Fencer could work something out for you personally to be able to change into that ID. Again, not sure - but if someone was in that situation, a quick message to Fencer would not hurt.

volant: http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/very-favorite/partyguy%5B1%5D.gif
http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/very-favorite/birthday2.gif
http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/music-party-food/cake.gif

Princess Alison: Well if someone finds ones and suggests it to Fencer, he will be more likely to add it then if he has to go search for one himself.

There is already this Christmas icon:

Of course if Fencer wants to add more, there is:

http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/holiday-char-anim/snowfight1.gif
http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/holiday-char-anim/snowball.gif
http://coan.net/bk-smile/2/holiday-char-anim/smiley4.gif

BerniceC: As far as I know, when I got the images there were in the public domain free to use. So as long as money was not made from them, they should be OK to use - again, as far as I know.

alanback: Yes, for the small picture - you can e-mail it to fencer at fencer@brainking.com - make sure you include your user name (and user # is also helpful if you know it.)

40x50 pixel picture - jpg format.

If anyone does not know how to do that and would like to use one that I set up - I'm pretty sure if you send Fencer a PM and let him know the page I listed below, and let him know which icon you would like to use, Fencer can pull it from there himself.

Pioneer54: I made up some extra awhile back (already correctly sized) and open to anyone to use:

http://coan.net/2/

I actually have about 10 more that I made that I have not added to the page yet. When I change mine, I normally make a few to see which one I like best sized that small.

Again, the ones in the link are open for anyone to use if they want.

Dryznik: Do not forget we have a Discussion board to talk about stairs.

Anyway, the computer program does not pick who you can play - you can choose anyone on the same (or below) level as you to play.

Walter Montego: no, you can not decline a challenge.

Do not forget, we have a public discussion board dedicated just to talking about stairs here:

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=108

I like the idea of "compressing" the stairs every once and awhile - a lot of people like to play, and if they end up getting so far ahead where they can no longer be challenged, or are playing the same 1 or 2 people over and over again, that gets boring fast. I have seen on some other sites on ladders where the top player will quit & start over at the bottom just so they can play games (point of a game site) - so hopefully the compression of steps will keep players active.

Pioneer54: ... but at the same time, it might entice some rooks to become knights (read: less euros in BK coffers!!)

Eriisa: I'm talking about someone who leaves the site and no longer plays on BrainKing - if they are in a stair, then everyone would just challenge them and get a "free" time-out win against them.

Oh - just found the stairs discussion board - http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=108

playBunny: That is a good idea - I was going to say "random", but keeping the "highest" would probable be best. Then again, if the person does not like it, they can always switch it around.

Another thing that needs to be thought of are inactive players. It would be unfair to keep an inactive player in a stair - since everyone would just challenge them to get an easy time-out win.

Maybe some sort of process that runs monthly to remove (retire) players who have been gone for more then a month - or something similar.

Fencer: Maybe it would be best to "force" the player into "retirement" for all but one of the stairs - that way they can complete their games, but not start anything new. (And if they are just a couple of weeks behind in getting a new membership, they will not lose a lot.)

alanback: Well you should win 3 points for each time out - so for a 21 point game, you will only have to wait for them to time out 7 times!

Marfitalu:

Well just taking the % won is not a very good indication in itself since someone might be very good at a few games winning 600+, but only losing 20 or so - giving them a very good win percentage.

Finished games is not really a good indication since that just means the person has more time to play games.

Tournament wins can be a little tricky because it is hard to compare my "5 player" tournaments with tournaments which have 20+ players in them. (meaning it is easier to get more tournament wins playing tournaments with less players)

The extablished BKR is all games and the to 50 average for at least 11 different types of games can also not really show the whole story. Tak me for example, i was in the top 50 for average BKR's for awhile, but decided to go after the goal of having an established rating in all the game types - which brought my average WAY down since I'm not very good at Chess & Checkers, but did bring up my total in the top 50 "sum" of all established ratings.

For me, I guess I would take players who BOTH are on the Top 50 established with 11 games+ and on the Win Rate Page to come up with some top players overall - which CaoZ seems to be on top.... but then again, most of his games came from "line" games - no chess, checkers, etc....

plaintiger: Just tested, and nope - when you reject, nothing gets sent to the other person - even if you write something in the box. Not sure if this is a bug or is suppose to do this.

playBunny: I think it has been there for a long time. Some people like to read messages starting from the top and reading down, which is good for board which have... 10-15 posts total, but when boards have many pages of posts, I find that option pointless and never use it.

Hey cool - Now when you resign a game, you have the option to go to the next game instead of back to the main page. Great!

TwoThouSevHun: Also, do not foget EVERYONE, not just you had the ratings calculations done, and most everyone else had very similar drops in the ratings, and I would guess that your position/ranking compared to everyone else is basicly the same.

As an example of myself, before the switch, I had a 2768 ratings in run around the pond and was ranked about 2nd/3rd overall.

After the ratings correction, I had a 2425 ratings in run around the pond, over 300 drop - but I was still 2nd/3rd overall.

The ratings were corrected, and they were corrected for everyone.

plaintiger: That is strange. The feature of adding notes to your friends list is there, but not on the blocked users list.

I never use the blocked users list, but think a notes for those users would be a good addition also.

Lets take this conversation to either Computers or General Chat please.

Those show up fine for me!

AbigailII: Sorry to see you leave. But what you have to remember, and this applys to all discussion boards and all users - posting "off topic" and there is always a risk that messages will be removed.

In my opinion, a post about a tournament of a chess game is on topic on a chess discussion board. A post about what type of messages should be allowed in certain discussion boards is off topic on a chess board. Again, my opinion.

Anyway, this site is about the games - and it is always sad when someone lets things from message boards or private message mess up their game playing experience - which is what the whole purpose of this site is for. The discussion boards are a "bonus", and sad that some people let things that happen there get to them. I hope when you have time to "cool down" you will see this and continue to play on this site.

nobleheart: Like Vikings said, anyone can play a new game and their ratings will be visiable again in the list.

No ratings have been lost - they are just "hidden". They are hidden for any pawn who has not completed a game within (I think 1 month), and are hidden for a paid member who has not completed a game within (I think 6 months?).

And as soon as a game is completed, the ratings are unhidden & updated with the new game results.

The "Error! Check log file." sounds like a possible bug or error in the system - something I'm sure Fencer will be able to help with.

Nothingness: It is still 4 games. But remember that the 4 games have to be rated games -AND- last more then 4 moves. Otherwise unrated games & games with less then 4 moves will not count toward the ratings.

Kata Liana: Sorry - I did not mean to "lump" you into the people who have said they will not play players that are rated a lot lower then they are - I guess I mistook when you wrote "I will only play high rated opponents now."

And yes, I agree that people who get a high rating then stop playing to "protect" their rating are pretty bad also, Fencer has already taken steps to clear some of those players (some which have left the site) from the rating list.

Eriisa: It is kind of funny. They played against higher rated players to gain their high ratings, and then to see some turn and purposly not play low rated players just to "protect" their high ratings - seems kind of silly doesn't it.

arpa: Yes, many people will agree with that.

The rating system that is currently on BrainKing is a system that is used for Chess - or games that use a lot of "skill", and very little luck.

But when you get into games like Backgammon which still takes skill to play good, but luck is added into it - then the "skill" rating system does not work as well.

Then when you get into even more "luck" games like battleboats, then the "skill" rating system really does not work.

There was been talk before by other users (with more knowledge them me) of different rating systems which would work good for different games.... But I'm not sure if Fencer wants to mess with a lot of different rating systems for a lot of different games.... even though in my opinion, it would be a good thing.

Maybe we should continue this over on the Chess discussion board

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=6

MagicDragon: There is a link in the Paid Membership area to find out how much it is in your currency

Which is 18 EURO = 22.10 US$ currently

BuilderQ: Me neither. It keeps on loading and re-loading itself over and over when you try to go to http://www.brainking.com

wellywales: If a person does not actually "logout", the system has no one to really know if a person is gone or not - so if a person is not active within a certain time (possible 10 minutes), then at that time they are taken off the on-line list.

estanto: Here is a nice chart of some of the advantages that people get when they upgrade their membership:

http://brainking.com/en/PaidMembership?p=1

It is not completly up to date since it does not mention ponds and such.

Fencer: I like the "interactive" map - but maybe you could just put a "static" map there, then maybe a link to an "interactive" map.

Fellowship: You can join as many as you want. Some fellowships have tournaments for their own "members", and if you want - you can join only 1 fellowship team where you can play in site tournaments against other fellowships. (And just because you join one team does not mean you can not belong to other fellowships also.)

While I'm talking about Fellowship, feel free to join The Gammon Cube Fellowship - we have many tournaments for fellowship members, plus join all site tournaments, plus have our own private discussion areas to chat. (You can also check out the Fellowship discussion board to find out about others.

Ponds - Check out the Ponds Discussion Board - Read back and hopefully you will learn a little more about that also.