Fencer: Ah, so it is a joke thing. It will be interesting to see how it changes over time.

As for the news feature, it's kind of neat to be able to go to your opponent's listed country to find topics he might have an interest in while playing a game. I'm thinking I'll not often use this feature, but it doesn't hurt to have it.

KotDB: It's not meant to replace your favourite source for news. It's just an additional source of information for people who don't want to leave BrainKing to read it. I plan to make an aggregation of information from more sources in the future and integrate it to BrainKing pages.

Walter Montego: It's still in a test mode, that's why it wasn't officially announced and there is no direct link to it (except the one on the Search page. The links at the top mean the most used search keywords and it seems that someone make a joke with it and other people just click on them to see what it is about. I'll make some improvements soon.

Pedro Martínez: I did that as whopper suggested. As it turns out, the top game was one with you in Berolina Chess. It said News under the flag under your handle. I clicked it and it sent me to a page with articles about Czech Republic. I tried it with a different opponent and I was sent to a page with Guatamala news article.

I am curious about the links at the top of these news pages. The one called "Trice sucks" 601 link searches seemed like one to try, but when I went there it had just one article and it was about the Black Eyed Peas and DMX. What are those links for? Are these joke links, or have that many people been searching for information about the space in his head? Very vacuous I've heard and I thought an article about it might help explain it to me.

Walter Montego: You don't have to wait for your opponent to move. :)
Just go to any of your games and click the "News" link located below your opponent's flag.

Walter Montego: Or you could just take a look at a game even if it's not your turn. :)

Skittles: OK, I'll try that. Now if one of my honorable opponents would be so kind as to move for me to give it a try. :)

Walter Montego: When your making a move on a game, look at your opponents flag, under it is a link that says "News" that will give ya some news of that country.

Fencer: Where is this located on the page? I don't see it on my page, nor do I see a monitoring link.

Vikings:

I agree whole heartedly. A real eye opener to see how different countries handle the same events.

KotDB: actually given the state of affairs in the world right now, I think it is an excellent time for this feature, I haven't checked it out yet, but news reports from different parts of the world would be an interesting point of view

KotDB: I like to use google for my world and local news

Fencer: So BrainKing is a news site now? I have other, more useful, sources for news, and I think the flags look better without this "news" link. Can we have the option not to show it?

King Reza: Press monitoring. Try different keywords and you'll see.

Eriisa: 30 days seems like plenty of vacation time. Here it is mid July and I have 29 days left. What's the deal with people needing 60 in a year? I'm on vacation now and am still able to move.

As for getting more vacation days out of the yearly reset, why not get a six month membership if your year subscription ends in November or December? Then when May or June comes up six months later and whether you've used up all your vacation or not, you renew at a year long subscription. Now you'll get 30 more days and the following year in January you'll get 30 again and can have the 30 coming the following May or June.

ellieoop: If you renew in Dec, it will reset to 30. In Jan, it will reset again to 30. It does not accumulate. You would not have more then 30 unless you are a Black Rook.

my membership is jan. to jan., if i renew early every year in dec., will i get 30 days in dec. and 30 again after jan. 1st? i just want to be very sure.

Hey Fencer, what's this new "news" under the flags?  A search engine?

瀬人様: No problem, it will be a pleasure.

Harley left, and there's no-one to interview me!  (Would you let me be interviewed, Fencer-sama? Please please pleeeeeeeaaaaaaase?)

Skittles: I am just playing with RSS feeds.

I seen this morning that you can click under your opponents flag and read the news of that country, really cool fencer!

tonyh: The counter is always reset as of 1st January. That's how it works since the very beginning.

Hrqls: Do you REALLY get an extra 30 days in January!!!??? Fencer, please confirm!

tonyh: make sure your membership renews each year in september .. your vacation days will be filled back up again to 30 at the start of a new year .. but also when you renew your membership .. so you can have 60 vacation days per year

make good use of your weekend days .. you can change them to other days of the week (once in a while) .. this might save you some vacation days
(e.g. i wasnt able to move in a game last thursday .. but i knew i would be able to move on saturday .. so i changed my weekend days to thursday and friday .. that way it didnt cost me a vacation day)

tonyh: Click on the combobox containing the time ranges. It's an equivalet to 10 years - 300 Euro.

Fencer: I went to 'Paid membership' to see how much a Black Rook costs - but i cannot see it; where do I look, please?

tonyh: There are two options:
1) Renew by another year - your counter will be reset to 30 days immediately.
2) Upgrade to a Black Rook - you will get 40 days a year.

Hrqls: I definitely approve of 'babysitting'; it's the only way of coping with a year's 30 day vacation time.

By the time I get to October (assuming Vacation time started in January), I have no days left - so what do I do?
I have asked fencer whether we could pay extra for more days. This could be based on whether a player is a quick player or not.

playBunny: i am not sure if i like the idea of peopole babystitting games of other players .. we have vacation days for that .. and players should plan a bit .. or take into account some timeouts .. i am for sure .. although i am glad i got rid of the red and green dot games before i go away on holiday .. i am not joining new ones .. although i know i can handle them with vacation days .. but it wouldnt be nice to my opponents i think

i will certainly time out in a couple of games on dailygammon .. even a few rated ones .. but i wont let someone babysit them .. i dont like the idea of them boosting or dropping my rating :)
(i could care less about the friendly games, although some of those are some kind of tournament as well)

all that said i can see people doing it .. and i wont act against it .. although i dont like it

i definetly dont like the idea of several people using 1 account in which each player plays only 1 type of game ... that way the overal rating (average bkr, win loss ratio, ..) would be cheated for sure

actionpoints: No problem, I took it exactly the way you meant it and Not a floosie was referring to earlier posts (since modified, lol). ;-)

While playing with fang earlier we discussed connection speed (and that's why I mentioned it in my post below). He said that both he and yourself are on 512Kb. Quite a bit of Britain is on 2Mb, including myself. That coupling with excellent playing partnerships, has allowed me to steam along like a mad clicker! ;-) There are also minor techniques - no, no, not loopholes, lol - that I'm willing to share .. after this month's competition. ;0) These techniques can shave off a second or two here and there and improve the overall move rate.
_______________

Auto?a$$ is the ability for the server to skip your turn if you can't make a move. Here at BrainKing we have the luxury of being able to tell the server (Yes, you're right, I can't make a move. Thanks for putting the game back on my game list so that I make this click and tell you that I agree). Other sites, for some reason, remove this option thereby shortening the game, and hence the fun! [Takes tongue out of cheek.]

But it's also possible for a computer programmer to implement an autopass of their own or even write a program to make every move for them. I'm capable of that and I'm tempted to do so and enter it into the competition next month, lol. (Only as a proof of concept and naturally I'd disqualify myself much as KotDB did with the DB expoit). This month, though, there's no robot and all my clicks are my own. ;-)

playBunny: In defense of MAX regarding having a friend or other player making moves while they are on holiday, I think that's a sensible solution to the problem of timeouts. I hate winning by timeouts (in stark contrast to those who positive seek to boost themselves that way, and while I won't mention a name, I must express the utmost contempt for the fellow countryman who knows who he is) and so I'd much prefer a match to comtinue with a babysitter making moves. It's standard practice at DailyGammon, where I also play, and efforts are usually made to find a babysitter with about the same rating. They would also move as infrequently as possible. And I've just finished babysitting a set of games at IYT for a friend who was away and unsure whether they'd be able to get online before timing out.

But babysitting games is a very different thing to having a team of players working through one account in this competition. If Fencer said that was okay I'd go with it because it then becomes another competition resource (though not one that I have any advantage in). Without his explicit say so, though, my assumption is that it's to be only one person making all the moves.

playBunny:

If I wasn't a pawn I'd use the smileys clinking wine glasses.

yoyudax: No problem. [shakes hands]

Yes, it was King of the Dust Bunnies, who shows his sense of fair play again. I'd like to have found the trick - in the sense that I consider it clever. ;-)

playBunny:

No accusations intended. I stand corrected you were talking about a loophole in the discussion boards points. Someone said and I can't remember who it was, that they had found a loophole and were going to use it to prove their point but would not be accepting the prize if they won. My mistake I thought it was you who had said that.

playBunny: just to clear things up ... im not accusing you of anything infact im just agreeing with you on the point you made to yoyudax about connection speed ...it makes a hell of a difference. i know cause it takes me 12 hours to make the points you do in 4 ...lol

Ok everyone, let's get this board back to what it was meant for. A discussion is one thing, unfounded accusations naming a person or a group of people is quite another and don't belong on this board.

Thank you.

playBunny: well im not a computer expert so i dont know about the latest new technology /tricks.cheats etc. in any case i have high speed connection but still the max speed i can achieve is 5-7 moves per minute depending on time of day (actual connection speed) but i have noticed you being able to make upto 15 moves per minute and at first i wondered if there was some sort of cheat involved as i heard someone here on doscussion boards mentioning something called autopass which im not aware is exactly what but now i guess i can just assume that your cable in GB is 4 times better than whats average in the US of A. i guess all our technology is being wasted on fighting nonsense wars

MAX MAXIMUS: Someone else makes your moves for you?! Do you realize that this is a blatant violation of General Guideline #2? Perhaps you should examine your own behavior before you accuse others of cheating.

playBunny:  Frankly I considered that a dead issue since no one but a few of us voiced any concerns.  AFAIC, it's Fencer's business how he runs it.  

yoyudax: LOL. You should be careful with your memory, your assumptions and your accusations. You lose respect when you use those clumsily. When did I ever say I'd found a loophole? I've talked about the Discussion Board points loophole that was previously being exploited by a few players (and exposed by others, thanks go to them) and said that I didn't know how it works.

I also talked to the Party Pooper about competition resources and fairness/unfairness. Did you read that post? You ought to. Competitions are unfair by definition if there's to be any competing!

In fact I left out two resources from that list that I have a clear advantage on. I have those 18 free slots that I mentioned. Pawns with only 4 or 5 are at a disadvantage. Of course they can resign some games and free up slots if they want to increase their competitiveness. Another resource, one that I didn't think of at the time but which has proved decisive, is connection speed. Someone on dialup has absolutely no chance against broadband users and the faster the broadband the better - provided you have sufficient speed in your opponents so that you're not staring at your game sheet most of the time.

Edit:
Grouchy, the "party pooper" has removed his "I don't want to be a party pooper but, .." mouthing off post, so the first link above no longer works.

playBunny:

never said it was impossible but not an equal playing field. you said you had found a bug or a loophole so I am only assuming you are using that to stay on top of the heap

yoyudax: As the current leader and a Pawn with only 18 available slots (2 being reserved for a tourney), I can say that it's not an impossible limitation. ;-)

MAX MAXIMUS:

whst I find unfair are the pawns with 300, 400 etc games...it is very difficult for a pawn with only 20 allotted games to compete

MAX MAXIMUS: I don't see it as cheating ...I know people who have turned over their id to a freind while on vacation...and I know people who share an id ...one playes one type of game and the other another...this is just taking that concept to the extreme

MAX MAXIMUS: could be more than one person playing the games..sharing an id...that way you could easily play around the clock

MAX MAXIMUS:

playBunny: The point is, that what sense does it make to remove one global moderator, who can still moderate this board anytime they want to, and replace them with 3 globals moderators who could already moderate this board anytime they want to anyway?

playBunny: I think he is just trying to stir trouble bunny, best not to discuss anymore

Cluch Cluckers: You should read the board, Cluck. It says why.