Fencer: Sorry, can't do that from here (work), the firewall won't let me through. I can use a browser, but that's it. I can't even ping a server.

rabbitoid: It might be interesting if you post a traceroute output because, of course, my own one is flawless (probably because it does not cross our country border).

I've also tried an online traceroute tool to check the route from some place in the world. Looks like there really is "something on the way":

TraceRoute to 81.91.83.6 [web.brainking.com]
Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name
1 20 8 27 72.249.128.105 -
2 16 19 23 206.123.64.22 -
3 12 18 15 216.52.189.9 border4.te4-4.colo4dallas-5.ext1.dal.pnap.net
4 44 20 16 216.52.191.34 core3.tge5-1-bbnet1.ext1.dal.pnap.net
5 14 19 20 66.79.145.97 dal005-dalext1-846-cr1.dal005.internap.net
6 38 25 36 66.79.147.186 cr2-cr1.dal005.internap.net
7 67 89 71 66.79.147.189 acs007-dal005-841-cr2.acs007.internap.net
8 38 96 52 66.79.147.1 cr1-cr2.acs007.internap.net
9 50 49 48 66.79.147.198 acs007-wdc005-844-cr2.wdc005.internap.net
10 60 65 58 66.79.146.201 cr1-cr2.wdc005.internap.net
11 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
12 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
13 88 88 79 66.79.147.10 nym009-phi004-813-cr2.nym009.internap.net
14 109 84 99 66.79.158.9 bsn006-nym009-9-cr1.bsn006.internap.net
15 102 115 Timed out 66.79.147.14 cr2-cr1.bsn006.internap.net
16 144 148 139 66.79.158.6 bsn006-lon005-6-cr2.lon005.internap.net
17 161 176 221 77.242.206.242 ams003-lon005-4-cr1.ams003.internap.net
18 200 229 236 195.69.145.206 tr3.pop1.pra.sloane.cz
19 214 207 197 62.240.161.146 v103.bb1.pop1.sve.sloane.cz
20 245 223 222 77.48.243.130 web4u2.cust.sloane.cz
21 243 201 227 81.91.80.97 nix2.web4u.cz
22 198 186 187 81.91.83.6 web.brainking.com

Trace complete

rabbitoid: If you experience speed issues, I always recommend to visit http://host-tracker.com and check BrainKing accessibility from different places around the world.

Which is what I have just done and it shows that there is no problem in about 65% of tested locations and the rest is showing a "no reply" error message. Since it is definitely a network problem somewhere, there is nothing we can do about it - BrainKing is fast and stable but some network nodes are probably malfunctioning.

Somewhat slow today
I mean really slow
way beyond turtle
snail is fast by comparison
I'd say approaching Cardinal speed

alexlee: It wouldn't, but the team-t haven't been around that long.

rabbitoid:
Would that enclude Team Tournaments too? There are some pretty old Team ones.

pedestrian: Ok, got it. I need to click running, then again show.

To answer my origninal question, the longest running seems to be this one: ► ALL Checkers for dummies (under 1500 + urated)◄ started in July 2003.

rabbitoid: That's odd. I fooled around with it a little, and if you choose a tournament type (rather than leaving it on 'all tournament types') it actually shows more running tournaments! I don't know if it shows them all, though:

one game for each two players - running (482)
two games (switched colors) for each two players - running (226)
single elimination - running (423)
triple gammon - running (4)

I was trying to find the longest running tournament on BK.

The only method I see is tournaments, select "running" and go to the last, only it doesn't seem to work. If I do that I see only 348 running tournaments and as earliest something that started late last year. That can't be right, with all the zillions created each day and the turtles happily subscribing to each and never moving. I myself have a running one that started in 2007. Anyone know how to go about it?

Asking Fencer is of course a possibility, but the info should already be there somehow.

Pedro Martínez: I've a game at home which is on a CD. I can choose the level " easy " for children or else the " hard " level for adults. At the beginning, I was asking myself what could be the difference. I've noticed that the letters which are given are different : example : in the " easy " game, you receive more vowels and letters than we can find in many words, but in the " hard " game, you more often receive difficult letters as " K ", " W ", etc...
Of course, it's always more easy for the player which knows better the language, but it's also interesting for the beginner.

Mélusine: What would distinguish the “hard level” from the “easy level”?

Roberto Silva: Yes, french and english have the same alphabet, and yes, you're right, some letters are more used in a language than the other : example with the letter " W " : in a dictionnary french/english, there's 1 page for this letter in french when there are about 15 pages in english !
In the 2 languages, the combinations of letters are also different : we have " QU " in french but " TH " is exceptional although we see it commonly in english.
I'd like to play Scrabble in english but the problem is that my vocabulary is more limited than someone who speaks english everyday in his (her) country. I think several levels (for example : one hard and one easy) would be necessary for this game.

rabbitoid: Except with the word " KIWI " !

rabbitoid: It's not that Z is overrated, just it's nice to get a really good score when you get it. Q without the U is the worst.

Mélusine: K and W are a pain, X and Y slightly less, Z is overrated since verb conjugation is permitted which makes the 'ez' suffix legal.

Pedro Martínez: Oh yes, it's true, because there are very few words in french which have these letters. It's terrible for us, when we take these letters !
I remember games I finished without being able to put these letters !

Could always go the route of using 'root' languages such as Latin.

There's an easy solution to making word games balanced and fun to everyone: artificial languages!

Bring on Klingon Scrabble!

Bwild: "I imagine the alphabets are quite different also.... what would be the French equivilant of "q"?"

I'm pretty sure English and French have the same alphabet, though of course some letters are more used in one language than the other.

I know it's possible. I saw the Coneheads play it on SNL. :)

Bwild: K, W, X, Y and Z are all worth 10 points in the French version of Scrabble. And I don't think it's possible to play Scrabble in Japanese. :)

Lets face it folks,multilingual word games are non starter!

I imagine the alphabets are quite different also.... what would be the French equivilant of "q"?, or even Japanese?

coan.net: It's not only the dictionary that is different in the various languages, it's also the distribution of the letters and the value in points of each. I think the only common thing for all languages is the board layout, but I can be wrong here.

Bernice: I also would think it would be difficult because of the different languages.

But if you have free available dictionaries for different languages (like I know there is for English), I would guess the simplest solution (if they were to make a word game here.) would to be make different games for each language. (Like English Word game, Czech word game, Spanish word game, etc...) - That way if a tournament is made for "word game", you don't accidentally get an English only player (like myself) matched up with someone who can't read English.

Some-what good news for those who would like word games is that I could have sworn that A LONG TIME AGO (years), Fencer was very interested in making a type of word game for the site... and I thought was working on it at one time. Maybe he decided against it... or maybe just got sucked into other projects and the word game had been put to the side... or then again, maybe I'm just imaging it.

h657: yes and I can understand that also...I wasn't thinking of language differences..

Bernice: I would disagree due to many languages. Not worth the hassle to make on this gamesite, since alot don't speak well in English. It would cause such unfair BKR and so forth.

Babe68: I also love them.....it isnt hard....just change the name and make sure the double/trebles etc are in different places...the hardest part is the dictionary I would think. The one that GoldToken uses isnt complete so many many words aren't available...but I still love playing word games :)

How come BK doesn't have any type of word games like "scrabble"?

Is there any chance of that in the future?

Just curious :)

Fencer: Yes, thanks, I realized that after I posted.

alanback: "Started Games" section is not visible on your own Profile page because it would simply duplicate the Main Page content.

kmf: I may be mistaken about my last post. I just checked and I don't have a link for "Started Games" when I view my own profile.

Here is a link to the only game you have running -- you may need to cut and paste this into your browser

"http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=4611988"

kmf: You should see a list of your active games when you log in. If not, you may have to change some of your Settings. If you just want to see the list, click on your own name and then on "Started games"

this is kmf and i wanted to know if u could please help me on how to find my games and what do i press?thx.let me know please. kmf.

Fencer: ok, thx. fencer

ellieoop: I said that it would be done in BrainKing 3.0. When it is finished and released. The job is about 70% done and there is still much work to do.

a few weeks ago fencer said that he was going to change days off to sat. and sun. the calendar for me still has mon, and tues off. i see that my games for the weekend have extended time to make a move. i don't remember it always being like that, has that change started or has it always been like this?

AbigailII: i used paypal last month to renew my subscription .. it works fine

AbigailII:

DeaD man WalkiN: Well you can now use paypal again at brainking. Or that's how I interpreted Fencer's last message in this thread http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=1&plla=1048140

AbigailII: SORRY to see U leave. Know how U feel cause I only have a PP account and don't know what to do myself...

AbigailII: What about AlertPay?

Tomorrow, my rook status runs out. I've given up on trying to pay via either Moneybookers or Paypal. The former has happily taken my money, but since then tells me my account is locked due to lack of funds. The latter happily takes either a CC number or a bank account number, and while I've been able to pay with them for quite some time, for some unspecified reason, they now no longer the bank, nor the credit card.

So, this is the end of 5 years of BK for me. I do not wish to continue as a pawn.

pedestrian: it was introduced to stop ppl creating thousands of games just before he went to pawn
at one time there was nearly 6000 games in the waiting area

It seems you can only have a maximum of 50 games on the "waiting games" list at a time. I guess it's fine to have an upper limit, but shouldn't it be stated somewhere, for instance in the membership conditions? If it is, I can't find it.

Moreover, when I try to create waiting game no. 51, I get the usual message:

"New game has been successfully created."

even though the game wasn't created.

Thanks Fencer.....the rich text editor is working now

Pedro Martínez: Hello, Thanks for answer, I 'll ask to my opponent.

To add a third reason of my own:

3) We have PMs and discussion boards for talking to people, but when playing I don’t want to waste time thinking up a reply to the random messages my opponent is sending, especially when there are other games waiting where it’s my turn.

Pedro Martínez: Why? I can give you two reasons: 1) not having messages means people can't say something to me, and then get all worked up because I don't reply. 2) it reduces the distance between the board and the submit button, which reduces scrolling.

I'm having trouble with my "rich text editor"...it's not showing a chat area.