happyjuggler0: I wholeheartedly agree. I looked for it in the help and the FAQ before I posted here, but there's nothing. the help entry for "Friends" is completely blank!

Roberto Silva: that did the trick. thank you, Roberto!

Vikings: no, i'm asking how to make a friend a PUBLIC friend. it's a different operation.

...but there are some unintuitive features of Brainking that aren't addressed in the Help nor the FAQ and that i use infrequently enough that by the time i'm ready to use them again, i've forgotten how i did it last time.

this time, it's adding someone to my public friends. how is that done?

i hope the fabled (and by now, presumed to be entirely imaginary) BrainKing 2.0 will make this intuitive; all i can remember about it now is that it isn't.

donkeyshine...

Roberto Silva: thank you, Roberto. no wonder i couldn't find it...seems to me a weird place for it. but yes, it would be nice to get Ludo on that list.

it seems to me there was an "auto-pass" feature on the site a while back; i never knew what it was for, but i think i've figured it out: i'm playing a game of Ludo; would auto-pass prevent me from being notified that it's my turn when i can't make a move, and just pass the turn for me? and if so, where is the auto-pass setting? i want to turn it on!

thanks.

okay, i see this question's been asked on here but i don't see that it's been answered, so i'll ask it too: what does the "score of finished games" mean? i'm in a five-wins match; each of us has won two games so far, and the "score of finished games" says it's 1:4 (=0). i'm guessing the '4' is the number of games played so far...but what is the '1', and what does "(=0)" mean?

thanks...

Kili: Thank you. While I don't understand your explanation of auto-pass, I think I've figured out what it is (and if I'm right about what it is, shouldn't it be available in Ludo too?). My next question: where do I go to enable auto-pass? I can't find it in my Settings, which seems to me would be where it belongs...

Thanks...

* * * Never mind - I found it. The problem was that it's on the Game Filters page, which - if auto-pass is what I think it is - doesn't make any sense. But I found it. * * *

Two questions:

1. what is auto-pass, and

2. why are some games italicized in the waiting games list?

These things really should be explained where they appear rather than just letting the user wonder...

Thanks...

Where do I find an explanation of what Auto-pass is? I see the option to enable auto-pass on the gammon games in my Settings, but while it seems to me the phrase "auto-pass" on that page should be a link which would take me to an explanation of what it is, it isn't. And it isn't explained in the rules for Backgammon either, so I gave up and came here.

Do we have a glossary of site features somewhere or something, so that everybody who wonders about this kind of thing doesn't have to bug people on the discussion boards about it?

Many thanks...

tiger

Oooh, I just discovered a very cool feature in the Safari 3.0 public beta (also available for Windows, in case anyone didn't know) that isn't in Firefox: these text fields we type our messages into on brainking? They can be resized - along both the X and Y axes - by dragging the little zoom lines in the lower right corner of the field, just like a window. Very cool indeed.

Okay, I'm done.

Fencer: Czuch is right - the black rook option does say "forever". and that word has only one meaning...

if i don't want it anymore, why can't i simply give my black rook membership to one of my friends i know would appreciate it? if it doesn't bring about a change in the number of black rooks on the site, what difference does it make whether it's me or someone else behind the black rook icon? hell, i'd think you'd be *relieved* to have it be someone else.

can anyone tell me the facts - no guesses nor opinions, please; those are of no interest nor use to me - but rather the facts - about whether a black rook membership may be transferred - whether given or sold or whatever - to a person other than the original owner?

thank you...

Fencer: well "monothematic" is a great word either way!  :)  if not thinking about it is what it takes to use that kind of word correctly i've got to do more writing without thinking about it myself!

"monothematic" - great word, Fencer! :)

WatfordFC: lol...that's too funny! the player name is inaccurate though - it says "any player," which would mean that anyone could move for black - but it wouldn't let me move, so it can't really be "any player." :) but it gave me an idea for an incredible new game format - to be able to start a game against any player - so that one person plays one side and any player - anyone at all - can step up and play the other side at any given turn. so you never know against whom you're playing and it could be a different person on every single turn. would that be amazing or what? :D

and there could be no rating change at the end of the game for any of the random players, but the system could average the ratings of the people played against to find the rating change for the fixed player...wow. =)

you rock, Fencer. thank you so much for making the press monitoring thing optional, and for making switching between the inbox and outbox a one-click proposition. i liked my idea of selecting from the popup menu being all you had to do, but i have to admit that straight hyperlinks are even better. they don't look quite as elegant as a popup menu, but they respond to a single click and that is ideal.

nightmagic: lol!

nightmagic: yeah, i'm not into news either...i got all excited when i saw the link, thinking it was going to be something fun to do while waiting for something fun to do, but was disappointed when i discovered it was just news. news isn't fun!

Summertop: my pleasure. :)

playBunny: i suggested a similar thing long, long ago - that he lose the button and make simply choosing "inbox" or "outbox" from the menu take the user to their intended destination. it's not like accidentally choosing the wrong item from that menu will have any adverse effect...indeed, it won't have any effect at all.

Summertop: you can get rid of the "Your settings do not allow you to receive action points" link by unchecking "Use action points" on your General settings page.

and i agree about the press monitoring link - it needs to be turn-offable.

thank You, thank You...

volant: yep - it's his natural omnipoFence.

sorry. had to.

Vikings: lol...i'm not sure my browser has an auto-refresh option, but i'll look into it.

lol!

WatfordFC: i thought of that too!

WellyWales: lol - right! "clicking" is more like it!

Czuch Czuckers: lol...is there a way to do that besides keeping your browser on the discussion board list 24/7?

Czuch Czuckers: oh! you're right. you don't. but thanks for asking! gave me new messages to read!

woohoo! yay for the points system! and the points this post is getting me!

KotDB: well, that's backwards according to every other instance in which i've seen an arrow used to indicate the order of a list in a computer UI, and it's also counterintuitive. an arrow indicates that whatever it refers to goes in the direction in which the arrow points; where this is not the case, the arrow is meaningless. an upward-pointing arrow indicates that a thing - in this case, the list - begins at the bottom and progresses upward. if the arrow goes up while the list goes down, one of the two is backwards.

an alternative is to do what Apple does in iTunes and Mail and other apps that let you order lists by column: use a triangle. the point of the triangle, being narrowest, indicates the smallest value in the list and the base, being widest, the largest. so a right-side-up triangle indicates a list ordered from A to Z or from lowest value to highest, and an upside-down one indicates the reverse. thus if you interpreted the triangle as the head of an arrow it would be consistent with your ascending/descending theory - but it's not an arrow head: it's a triangle, whose gradual change in width represents relative values in a continuum.

so if Fencer just hacked the stems off the arrows and left the triangular heads, the problem would be solved. :)

hey Fencer - i just noticed that the little green arrows that indicate the order of lists are backwards...or at least one of them is. i saw your post in the black rooks fellowship about the counter and link for paid memberships, so i went and had a look at the list of black rooks, then i ordered the list by "first login" to see where i fell in the whole thing...and noticed that the green arrow was pointing upwards even though the list showed the oldest first login at the top and the most recent first login at the bottom. when that's the case the arrow should be pointing downward, and vice-versa. thanks... :)

ellieoop: i hate all PC-first browsers. they work like PC software - unnecessarily complicated and unintuitive - and you can be running the Mac version on a Mac and when you invoke the help system, you're taken to help for the PC versions which are different from the Mac versions (so the help is of no help) and indeed there *is* no help for the Mac versions...and i take that as a personal affront. i won't use software written by people who make it clear that because i use a Mac, they have no interest in acknowledging my existence, let alone helping me.

don't *You* find that insulting? do *You* want to support software authors who make it clear that the difficulties You, as a Mac user, have with their software are of no interest to them? do You want to encourage that? don't You think encouraging that attitude would in time make the world a worse place for all Mac users? it's only because PC users tolerate crappy software that PC software sucks so bad. if it's allowed to, complacency will do that to the Mac as well.

BIG BAD WOLF: the only thing i had disabled in JavaScript was "show context menus" and i've enabled that just in case and it's made no difference.

but this is not the first time i've run into a JavaScript thingy that doesn't work right in Safari. i've had all Safari's JavaScript options turned on for years and sometimes a page will still throw up an error saying i need to turn on JavaScript in my browser to see the content. i don't know what Apple's doing wrong there, but it seems to be something...

i figured that's what i should see. that's what i expect to see in a rich text editor (i'm very computer-savvy). but i don't see it.

BIG BAD WOLF: i'm running the latest version of Safari, and it's on that list.

Dolittle: i see nothing but a bigger text field and the link change to read "Switch to plain text editor".

i'm using a Mac though, and nobody thinks about us Mac users.

harley: i have clicked it. i see nothing but a bigger text field and the link change to read "Switch to plain text editor".

what does the rich text editor do? i know what rich text is, but i don't see any more way to enter it in the rich text editor than i do in the plain text editor.

is it just for pasting in rich text from another application or something?

panda:

Fencer: yay, me! thanks, Filip! :)

i will say that now that i understand the new prize with an entry fee tournament model, i discover i would have liked winning those 200 brains as well! that kind of tournament sounds like fun! :)

very cool improvements about the place, sir. and thanks again for the bonus! :)

Tuesday: right - that's what i mean about being idle.

Fencer: cool. i like that. you really think of a lot of great little touches. :)

i notice the order in which people appear in my "friends online" list changes from one page refresh to the next. this correlates with their activity, huh? people are moved to the top of the list every time they perform an action on the site?

it seems that way because people always seem to move to the bottom of the list just before they disappear, which i figure is the five minutes between the time they perform their last action and the time they show having logged off or gone idle.

ScarletRose: heh...yes, Lady. :)

ScarletRose: ahhhh, i see, Lady. :) i wondered how You distinguished between the purposes of Your various Brains.

ScarletRose: okay, i'm confused. oh! do You mean You've bought three memberships this month?

ScarletRose: lol...to do what with??

Fencer: February special! that works!

the news has for some time said: Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of January 2006, will automatically receive 200 free Brains to be used in the new tournament system, which is planned to be released in February. All details will be posted on the Brains page in advance.

it occurs to me that if we had some hint about the nature of this new tournament system, and what part Brains will play in it, the offer of 200 Brains for extending membership might be a bit more enticing. until we know what this new tournament system is, and what Brains are going to have to do with it, we don't know what value to place on that offer. am i going to have any interest in participating in the new tournament system? what does 200 Brains get me under this system? i don't know. therefore i don't know if the offer of 200 free Brains means a lot to me, or nothing.

LuckyCat9: heehee...i *did* look at "his" profile too - i just didn't notice the sex.