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Index page of The Chess Variant Pages. Our main index page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jun 9, 2002 03:52 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
A link to the Graphics directory http://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/index.html would be helpful. It's hard to find it, otherwise. Thanks.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Sep 7, 2002 05:10 AM UTC:
Could I suggest a link to past, present, (and future) tournaments either on the index page or the side bar? Thanks.

Derek Nalls wrote on Thu, Sep 19, 2002 05:31 PM UTC:Poor ★
I wanted to deep-link to the Zillions index of the CV Pages from my own
chess variant web site but the complete web address, intentionally
spelled-out for the benefit of interested parties, would have been
preposterously long- covering 2 lines!  A general link to your main web
site is all I can give until someone devises a more practical, concise
and
logical, system of classification.  The system you previously had was
just
fine in this regard.

For your amusement ...

http://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?
type=Zillions&orderby=LinkText&displayauthor=1&displayinventor=1&usethisheading=Zillions

David Howe wrote on Thu, Sep 19, 2002 05:39 PM UTC:
Thanks Derek, it's nice to know my work is appreciated.

Ben Good wrote on Thu, Sep 19, 2002 08:12 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
it's a mystery to me why you can't link to a page just because its url is
long.

Derek Nalls wrote on Sat, Sep 21, 2002 12:36 AM UTC:
'Too long to remember and/or transcribe without a likelihood of error' was my point which is corollary to Tony Quintanilla's point about certain topics being hard to find. Please don't be discouraged by the remarks of one fastidious individual (i.e., myself). The described, minor problems can surely be overcome. The CV Pages have been markedly improved thru the new indexing system you adopted and much hard work on your part (and others). Thank you!

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Feb 24, 2003 03:28 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Providing Google searches within the CVP should be very useful. I did a quick search for 'chess' in the CVP and got a very interesting list. I am not sure if it was reflective of the number of links to those pages, but it turned up a number of interesting variants, particularly among the first 20 or so.

Raymond Reid [Chesma wrote on Tue, Dec 30, 2003 12:16 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Hello,
      The 'Chesmayne Chess Dictionary' will be back on-line in 2004. 
It
is presently being re-edited.  

Yours sincerely,

Raymond Reid [Chesmayne].

Barboss wrote on Fri, Mar 19, 2004 09:03 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Fine Site.

------------
Barboss.

matthew c wrote on Sat, Mar 20, 2004 10:24 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
visit www.freechess.org to play free bughouse chess and other chess
variants,
and as barboss said this is a fine site.

quantumplation wrote on Tue, May 4, 2004 06:55 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Just a suggestion. Could you add a 'Regional Variants' category to your
sortings? This would include Chess variants that originated in specific
regions of the world. Xiang Qi, Shatar, Shogi, Etc, would be in this
section. 

Things like mexican chess wouldn't count, which are named as though they
are a regional variant, but are infact not related to the region much at
all.

Anyway, just an idea =)
keep up the good work, everyone!

Alexander E. Stevens wrote on Tue, May 11, 2004 01:14 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Oh wait, I suppose that's pretty much covered by historic variants. Just
wasn't the first place i thought of looking for specifically
international variants.

sorry =)

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, May 11, 2004 03:50 PM UTC:
Historical Variants covers regional variants only partially. Oriental Variants should cover the rest.

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Jun 14, 2004 08:33 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I've been visiting this site for quite a while and I find the random page feature particularly nice. However, would it be possible to add a feature where can call up say, 10 random pages? It's just that this would be quicker if the random page is something I've already seen, at the moment I have to cycle between 'What's New' and 'What's New (All Languages).

kenneth wrote on Wed, Jul 21, 2004 02:30 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Great site. Almost everything that I need to know.

Thanks

ken

Travis Compton wrote on Sun, Oct 31, 2004 02:37 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
<P align=center><IMG height=288 src='http://groups.msn.com/isapi/fetch.dll?action=MyPhotos_GetPubPhoto&PhotoID=nHAAAAJ4HO08FooKEpcgDdWMW76*gcgUTT3I8nb9xf5*lncq!em!AiADM8QhsSOwy' width=182 align=left></P> <DIV align=center><FONT face='Garamond, Times, Serif' color=#000099></FONT> </DIV> <DIV align=center><FONT face='Garamond, Times, Serif' color=#000099 size=4>'Hello Everyone, just wanted to let all creators and editors of The Chess Variant site know you're doing a fantastic job! I admin the Chess Variant Club at <A href='http://groups.msn.com/chessvariantclub'>http://groups.msn.com/chessvariantclub</A> and we are currently organizing an international campaign to help people start variant club chapters in their own area. So if you're interested in getting one started, we will help you promote it and give you some tips on what you'll need. The growing interest of chess variants will influence people to want to meet and play in person more often and we're focusing on helping them do it. And thank you chessvariants.org for carrying the banner! If you would like to contact me, my email is [email protected]. Happy gaming!'</FONT></DIV>

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 03:15 PM UTC:
David Howe, our chief editor who manages the overall workings of this site, has added a nice new feature. This is a link to all the Game Courier logs for a particular game on its game page. This link (if any logs exist) can be found at the bottom of each game's description page. Take a look! Thanks, David!

Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 04:10 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Yes!  This feature is very nice!  

Is there any maximum age of those which will saved, or will you keep them
so long as disk space permits?

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 04:47 PM UTC:
Actually, this was the joint work of David Howe and Fergus Duniho. I wrote most of the code and gave David some blanks to fill in. It is a link to the Logs page for showing every publicly viewable log that has been played for a specific game. As you can tell by looking at the Age field when you go to the logs page, there is no age limit on the logs shown.

Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 10:19 PM UTC:
<p>Fergus Duniho says: <blockquote>As you can tell by looking at the Age field when you go to the logs page, there is no age limit on the logs shown. </blockquote></p> <p>Just because the age field has an option labled 'anytime' doesn't mean that you intend to save them forever. It was a perfectly reasonable question.</p>

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 12:31 AM UTC:
I misunderstood your question. I don't know about forever, but I may save them until the end of the world, which some say is about eight years. I don't delete logs on the basis of age, but I do leave the option for the players of a game to delete its log, and I also retain the ability to delete any log, though I avoid making much use of it. Generally, my intention is to keep the logs for the sake of building up a huge library of games people have played of different Chess variants. I don't think the logs will make much of a dent in our diskspace, and by the time they do grow very large, webspace will probably be sold in the terabytes.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 05:05 AM UTC:
I inadvertently left out Fergus' Game Courier programming in my original comment about the new game logs feature. Thanks, Fergus.

James Spratt wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 06:26 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Being able to view logs of all past and ongoing matches of particular games via the new links is a nice touch. Good going, David and Fergus, it's a very desirable feature.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 05:00 PM UTC:
This new feature did not involve any programming of Game Courier. I added a new feature to the logs page, and I wrote some PHP code that David translated into Perl. I have since used the PHP code to add the same feature to preset pages.

Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 06:06 PM UTC:
Sweet! Thanks again; this is very useful for when I add new games to ChessV to be able to see logs of actual games for purposes of testing and creating opening books. Hopefully as the popularity of chess variants, this site, and the Game Courier grows, the number of game logs for the popular games will grow into the hundreds!

George Duke wrote on Tue, Jan 11, 2005 02:54 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Congratulations to CVP upon completing ten yrs. Carrying on Sam Trenholme's tradition, CVP's first post was Jetan probably 15.1.95, this week. CVP's first 5 yrs. tilted towards serious alterations of standard western Chess: Fischer Random, review of ancestral mainstays Chaturanga and Shatranj etc. However, countervailing trend, oblivious to the idea of perfectibility, was already apparent. For close-to-FIDE forms, 8x10 became the favourite board size. Piece mixes were often unchanged from 400-yr-old Carrera's, yet never was there discussion of Marshall's(Chancellor's) being inherently flawed piece, detracting from both R&N. Another missed opportunity was when Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997, but to this day orthodox world is also house divided about implications of computer dominance. The second 5 yrs. saw Ralph Betza defying the usual bell-shaped design trajectory in vanishing right upon completion of his 2-3 most prolific yrs. Since 2000 CVP games more often add bizarre rules hardly intended to be played, and blend Shogi-derived and Xiangqi-based pieces with western types, and thankfully(!?) no end in sight. So far nothing by Sam Loyd and very little T.R.Dawson or Martin Gardner, probably because David Pritchard in ECV overlooks them too. Almost all CVP-recognized games predate 1995, as do thousands of other curiosities not within its scope. Excluding those, the best form devised within CVP's domain during the ten yrs. 1995-2004? I vote Switching Chess and Rococo, appropriately one from each of the two schools, standard heterodox and free-form.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Jan 31, 2005 01:22 AM UTC:
For those of you that look at 'What's New' in English you may have
missed that Antoine Fourrière has been creating very nice pages in French.
If you would like to see 'What's New' in all languages, look at this
URL:

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/whatsnewalllang.php

Derek Nalls wrote on Sun, Feb 27, 2005 09:58 PM UTC:
A newcomer would know nothing about the existence of Game Courier and find no listing at all on this main index page. So, shouldn't it be updated to include it?

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Thu, Jul 28, 2005 02:19 PM UTC:
you have to click on 'play' at the top of the page, but i agree, it doesn't stand out at all

Roger wrote on Sun, Oct 9, 2005 02:31 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Hi, I just want to comment on such an informative Chess site....I have already referred several club players here. Keep up the good work. Would like to see more active postings too! Roger www.secretsofchess.com

Jeremy wrote on Mon, Oct 17, 2005 01:22 PM UTC:
Bad Link: The 'Subject Index' link for 'Pieces' actually leads to the one for 'Puzzles'

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Fri, Dec 16, 2005 08:35 PM UTC:
Why is it taking so long to approve the member-submitted items?

IM Jovan Petronic wrote on Tue, Dec 27, 2005 12:31 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A very nice webpage there!

Best wishes,
International Master Jovan Petronic
FIDE Senior Trainer
Chairman, FIDE Computer & Internet Chess Committee
ASEAN Chess Academy Consultant
FIDE Trainers' Committee member
Kavala Chess Club Technical Advisor
Federal Trainer, Greece Chess Federation
 
Web: http://www.jovanpetronic.com
Chess Software Reviews: http://www.jovanpetronic.com/chessreviews.htm

luca wrote on Wed, Dec 28, 2005 01:42 AM UTC:
if you like please add   http://www.madeinfirenze.it/chess_sets_e.htm
to your links page


  thanks

luca

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jan 15, 2006 03:02 PM UTC:
Pages that link to other sites created using PHP script, such as many pages linking to the Zillions-of-Games site, are not functional at this time. We are aware of this problem. Thank you for your patience until it is resolved.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jan 15, 2006 03:58 PM UTC:
David fixed this. Thanks, David!

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2006 06:49 PM UTC:
On some pages, such as the Xorix Shogi page, there are problems with entering HTML code and getting it back wrong when trying to edit it. If I give an example here, this page will also get messed up, so I won't. You can use the htmlspecialchars PHP function anywhere where a TEXTAREA tag is returned, to make sure it doesn't replace entities incorrectly and mess up when entering a ending textarea tag.

Charles Gilman wrote on Tue, Mar 21, 2006 01:16 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
The new markers for variants based on Xiang Qi and Shogi are a great idea, they reflect a growing trend in inspiration. However, there are some notable omissions from those marked for Xiang Qi. This marker should be added to Fergus Duniho's Eurasian Chess, my own Anglis Qi (which is even in the Xiang Qi variants directory!), and my offshoots thereof, as all these have a River inspired by Xiang Qi.

David Howe wrote on Tue, Mar 21, 2006 02:20 PM UTC:
Thanks Charles, I will update those pages. I am sure there are probably more that I missed, but I think I got the majority of them.

Jeremy Good wrote on Wed, Mar 22, 2006 07:13 PM UTC:
I want to suggest that an extra rating be added. In between 'Poor' and 'Good' the rating of 'Average.' There are cases when I think a variant is 'Average' but it would be too harsh for me to say 'Poor' too caring to say 'Good.'

David Waters wrote on Wed, Mar 22, 2006 09:31 PM UTC:
Very good idea! I think a 1-10 scale would be even better.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 01:47 AM UTC:
I agree that the ratings system could use more options. In my view it should be possible to give a neutral rating, as Jeremy Good suggests, and to give a negative rating that is not the worst possible rating. I would like to see something like Awful, Bad, Neutral, Good, Excellent (with numerical values of -2, -1, 0, +1, +2) or perhaps even Awful, Bad, Poor, Neutral, Fair, Good, Excellent (-3, ..., +3).

Jeremy Good wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 12:40 PM UTC:
Thinking about this gave me the giggles: 

-6 Beneath Contempt
-5 Contemptible  
-4 Loathsome 
-3 Hideous
-2 Miserable 
-1 Awful 
0  Bad 
1 Neutral / Average
2 Fair 
3 Good 
4 Excellent 
5 Awesome 
6 Incomparably Fine

If one wanted to have additional layers, we could initiate additional
categories, such as for 'originality.' A lot of games are original but
have bad gameplay or unoriginal but with good gameplay (I am reminded of
Ben Good's essay here about Omega Chess). Still other categories for
'fun-ness,' presentation, appearance. Categories could be optionally
listed according to ratings and categories with overall negative ratings
should perhaps be shelved into different sections of chess variants after
each receives a fair number of votes from the community of users (as
opposed to just members). 

There is one thing that disturbs me most of all about how people rate
games and I fear that there is sometimes a tendency to judge games without
playing them, trying them out. Sometimes, it is not necessary to playtest a
game, but I think too often a game is judged too much by certain
superficial aspects that have little to do with worth of gameplay (as with
books by their covers.) 

If one has a separate category strictly for rating 'gameplay' (as
opposed to other aspects), it could be a category that could only be
filled out after actually playing the game. If nobody is willing to play a
game, that would usually imply something about the nature of the game. I
suggest that as long as a game maintains a positive gameplay rating, it
not be shelved to the negative ratings section. Because a game can fail
every other mechanism or gradation of analysis, but if people enjoy
playing it, that's probably a pretty good test, in my opinion. 

'Confusing presentation, ugly appearance, highly unoriginal concept, but
amusing gameplay.'

Jeremy Good wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 01:18 PM UTC:
I meant members as opposed to users, but probably there shouldn't be any
restrictions on how a rating gets generated. I just meant mechanisms so
that the value of a game isn't artificially inflated or deflated...

By 'shelve' I just want to reinforce that I don't mean, be made
unavailable, but just put in a separate section, and just as an optional
way of listing according to rating.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 02:47 PM UTC:
i think the rating system in place is just fine, what is the point of
'neutral', what is that, it isn't even a rating, and isn't 'none'
pretty much the same.
i don't think it should be taken too seriously, if it is to be,
non-members shouldn't be allowed to rate, and they are, which is fine by
me too btw.
to rate a game, as suggested a couple of comments down, as '-6 Beneath
Contempt' and '-5 Contemptible' and '-4 Loathsome' and '-3 Hideous'
and 
'-2 Miserable' etc etc is really bad taste, and i hope this site does
not fall to this level.
there are competitions to judge the best games anyway, or the games people
nominate at least.

who wants to rate a game 'beneath contempt' anyway lol

Joost Brugh wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 04:45 PM UTC:
Like Christine, I think that Miserable and the stuff below is useless. What
is the difference between a 'Hideous' and 'Loathsome' item? Is the
'Hideous' one better? I think both 'Hideous' and 'Loathsome' (and
all those low rating) means that the item is has no value. If you think a
submission is 'Loathsome', you should say what the problem is and so
increase the chance that the next submission of the same inventor is not
'Loathsome'. Not add a negative atmoshpere by crying 'Loathsome!!'.

About specifications like Playability: Neutral, Graphics: Good, etc. I
think it is good enough if those specifications are said in the comment
text. At least if I can say something between 'Good' and 'Poor', it
should be fine. I think that ratings are less important than the comment
text.

Derek Nalls wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2006 01:33 AM UTC:
A link to SMIRF, developed by Reinhard Scharnagl, should be included under
'computer resources:  programs that play chess variants'.

SMIRF 
(English description)
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html

David Howe wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2006 03:22 AM UTC:
Thanks Derek, I have added it.

Reinhard Scharnagl wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2006 08:58 PM UTC:
Thank you both for mentioning SMIRF here! It has become a free donationware playing some 8x8 and 10x8 variants, being supersets to traditional chess. But SMIRF still is in development. Reports on 'bad' experiences are welcomed if sent back directly to the author.

Raymond Reid wrote on Mon, Aug 7, 2006 10:27 PM UTC:
Hello,
      Chesmayne Chess Dictionary link below...

http://homepage.eircom.net/~reidr1/index.html 


Yours sincerely,

Raymond Reid [Dublin, Ireland].

PS:  a link to the Variants web page has been included on the main index
page - enjoy!  Yours is one of the best chess sites on the web!

Andy Maxson wrote on Tue, Apr 10, 2007 04:53 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
the user submitted work thing is great but however i have an idea in which you could enter a game idea and then other users could review it and make suggestions, but not changes this would make the site quicker maybe you could have an idea where someone enters a game idea and others enter more ideas for that game so it would multiple authors and everyone who was a contributor could help with the game.

David Howe wrote on Tue, Apr 10, 2007 09:18 PM UTC:
I have created a Chess Variants Wiki, as a test to see if it would make sense to have a 'sister' site that would be more collaborative in nature. Any one interested should go to:

http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/

This will be a learning process for me, as I am not familiar with administrating or building Wikis. My impression is that the Wiki community itself does most of the work. Is that right? ;-)

Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Apr 12, 2007 11:45 PM UTC:
David, you have to authorize applicants to use your wiki. I signed up for the general site, but cannot post until you make me a site-specific member. I don't know anything about wikis, either, but played around with it a bit to get as far as I did. Interesting idea.

David Howe wrote on Fri, Apr 13, 2007 01:44 AM UTC:
Thanks Joe. I hadn't realized I had to approve new members. I've set up the site so that a password can be used so that new members can avoid waiting for me to approve them. The password is cvp2007

The proposed chessvariants wiki is at:

   http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/

It is not intended to replace chessvariants.org, nor is it intended to replace the chess variants section of the wikipedia.

3 people have joined up so far, but couldn't do anything because I hadn't approved them.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Dec 8, 2007 02:20 AM UTC:
I'm very disappointed. Kokusai Sannin Shogi is a great game. It's nice to see the ideal 3 player game. But no one is permitted to rate or comment on the game. It's a crime, I tell ya!

Garth Wallace wrote on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 08:51 PM UTC:
The links to Game Courier ('Play' and 'Play by email' are broken. They point to play.chessvariants.com (which doesn't exist), not play. chessvariants.org

Garth Wallace wrote on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 08:56 PM UTC:
Also, 'Commented items' gives the message 'Error performing query: Column 'IsDeleted' in where clause is ambiguous'

Raymond Reid wrote on Tue, Mar 16, 2010 05:53 AM UTC:
Chesmayne Chess Dictionary - LINK.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~reidr1/index.html

Anonymous wrote on Fri, Apr 9, 2010 08:11 AM UTC:
I can suggest another division:
games, wich are not 'modest', wich have absolutely new rules, but uses
normal chess equipment (possible cards and/or dice). Example of such game
is Ultima.
I don't know, maybe, it's stupid, but i like these games.

Anonymous wrote on Sun, May 9, 2010 02:53 PM UTC:
There are some modern games, based on Shnatraj, wich are in category 'historical'. They are, of course, not historical! I think, there also must be 'historical-based' category.

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sat, Jun 26, 2010 02:10 PM UTC:
An important note about the editing page (including comments editing): You need to make sure that ampersands are properly expanded into the text area, currently it doesn't work properly. You should also expand less than signs and greater than signs to their proper HTML entity codes when editing in a text area. (The client will change them back to how they are supposed to be when displaying and when sending the contents of the file.)

Daniil Frolov wrote on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 03:01 PM UTC:
A few days ago i tried to post one game. I was writting rules text, but i was desviared and did'nt complete it.
Now i tried to post it again, but when i clicked on 'step 2' i read that 'item with same name already exist'. What can i do with it?

Rick Nordal wrote on Fri, Sep 9, 2011 09:39 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Hi !

I have a Chess variant game that is listed on ' The Chess Variant '
website.
The URL has changed for it as well as the name of the game.

The new URL is: http://connectcapture.blogspot.com/  

The name of the game is now called ' Connect Shoot Kill '.

Thanks !

Rick Nordal - Inventer of Connect Shoot Kill

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 06:26 PM UTC:

I changed titles of four of my files (one of which is due to unicode problem) but they won't change on the list of games I search for my invented/authored. Can you please update it?

And you should probably fix the HTML entity codes on all editing pages (I know how to do this in PHP; there is a built-in function for this purpose)


Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Feb 11, 2012 07:11 AM UTC:
Don't hold your breath - I asked for a similar change years ago and it hasn't happened yet. Have a look here, click on Voyager, and see what happens.

David Howe wrote on Sat, Feb 11, 2012 01:03 PM UTC:
(zzo38) A. Black: Please specify which pages you want changed, and I'll see what I can do. Thanks! Charles: I've updated the link text for your page.

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sat, Feb 11, 2012 08:43 PM UTC:
Ones needed updated titles are:

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Feb 12, 2012 08:06 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is really good news. It means that my next few postings could be 'one-in-one-out' ones, replacing variants that never really worked. One question: my Modest Variants page doesn't really need a detailed description, but is it possible in general for editors to put up new descriptions, if asked?

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 06:44 AM UTC:
My next overwrite will be this page, whose original variant has long gone. The variant was dropped because I had abandoned the piece names inspiring it.

Two variants that I might have got rid of by the same means I appear to be stuck with. One, Great Herd, is a pre-PYO, and I'm having enough trouble persuading editors to post my updates to pre-PYOs where the variant itself is not changing. The other, I'm a Wazir..., of which I have reservations on account of the name's tasteless origins, has had an implementation posted so logically it should stay.

Given the illustration that the latter variant gives of how judgment varies I decided to look back on my past variants and put up some that I find, in retrospect, less inspiring for replacement. Here are the ones that I am considering, with the nature of their awkwardness, and I would welcome thoughts on which of these are least popular or any that anyone is especially fond of. Please alert me to any implementations that I may have overlooked. In some cases I compare them with better variants, for which I provide no link here to avoid confusion.

3 to the 5, now a complicated showcase of Gnu compounds compared to the more recent (and straightforwardly 2d) Overkill Ecumenical Chess.
Anglis Qi modified to add Cannons and Arrows, which makes for quite a cramped 8x8 board.
Crooked Board Chess, covering ground dealt with by other people's older variants.
Emperor's Nobility 3d Latrunculi, a not very Chess-like 3d variant with a complex chain of promotions.
Epping Forest Chess, a one-off microregional with complex treatment of edges and corners of squares. Overwriting this variant would also allow me to save on the memory used for it, which is unusually lrge for a 2-player variant of mine.
Flight and Ferry, a one-off microregional that was fairly comprehensively slammed in its original form and has taken some fairly desperate fixes.
Gateway Chess, a one-off microregional with as rotating interpretation of 'forward'.
Half Shoxiang, a variant that was fairly comprehensively slammed in its original form and did not inspire positive comments for its fixes and second variant.
Intrusive Squares, covering ground dealt with by other people's older variants.
Kamil Crater Chess, a one-off topical-theme variant involving board topography. Overwriting this variant would also allow me to save on the memory used for it, which is unusually lrge for a 2-player variant of mine.
Maharajah's Well Chess, a one-off microregional on a very awkward-shaped 3d board.
Partnership Mitregi, an 8x8 promotion-free Shogi variant.
Pawn the Brain, a divergent variant of Take the Brain, for whose pieces I recently dropped distinctive names in favour of a common prefix to the Take the Brain pieces' names.
Sextuple Besiege Wellisch, a hex version of my Quadruple Besiege variants and hard to illustrate.
Sultan's Elephant Chess, a one-off topical-theme variant that some people mistook for a satire on gigantic variants in general. Overwriting this variant would also allow me to drop the defintion of Sultan's pieces now that I have a (3d) piece actually called the Sultan.

So let's have your feedback on this rogues' gallery. Which should be the next to go and are are any of that lot worth keeping?


Tom R. Becker wrote on Tue, Feb 14, 2012 06:55 PM UTC:
I would consider taking out the Sultan's Elephant Chess page but put it under a different name with just the rules staying the same. Basically, just change the name of the game and the big pieces (the ones that start with Sultan's.) and maybe put the new named pieces in the M&B articles if that would be okay.

Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 06:44 AM UTC:
It sounds like you're suggesting a themed variant stripped of its theme. Is it seriously a good enough game to stand without its theme? It seems a very complex game, and I don't partcularly want to create distinctive names for groups of pieces. Is it a vote to get rid of the theme, or is it a vote to get rid of the variant as a whole?

MTEkburg wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 11:56 AM UTC:
oh no no no what happened to all the comments people why why why

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 04:37 PM UTC:
The comments are all here. The database changed its name, making it inaccessible to the old code for connecting to it. The code for accessing the database has now been changed to match the new database name, and it appears that David has made other needed corrections to make the comments work again.

Anonymous wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 04:47 PM UTC:
Looks like comments with the 'using HTML tags' box checked are no longer being wrapped for some reason; I have to do a lot of horizontal scrolling to read some of them.

David Howe wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 06:03 PM UTC:
We're currently in the process of improving the CVP web site. This
includes using single sign-in sessions, ability to use OpenID to sign-in,
and an improved comment and rating system. This work takes time, so please
be patient. The indexing and current commenting/rating system will be in
various states of change over the next several weeks. We will try to keep
things usable, but just keep in mind that all this work is done in our
spare time.

The current commenting and rating system needs some attention, but for
minor problems, we will probably wait until the improvements are
implemented to fix them. If there are problems that are inhibiting their
use, we'll give them higher priority.

Thank you for your patience. I think the improvements that Fergus is making
will be well worth the wait!

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 11:11 PM UTC:

I have put buttons for the Login page in the header for play.chessvariants.org. It is functional, but it is not yet integrated into the rest of the site. This means that you can sign in and out, but signing in won't yet do anything for you. Since I can't access comments for the Login page, I'll describe it here.

You can sign in with either your CVP userid or with an OpenID. Once you sign in, details about you are stored in $_SESSION variables. $_SESSION variables are like cookies but are stored on the server. This will create one cookie that identifies your session id. You can link your CVP account with an OpenID. You do this by signing into one while still signed into the other. Then, once they are linked, you can sign into your CVP account by signing into the OpenID linked to it. This will let you access your account when you forget your password, and it can be used as an alternate way to sign in. When you sign into your CVP account, one more cookie is created. This cookie contains your userid. This cookie will not let anyone sign into your account without your password. Your login session ends when you close your browser, and you will need to sign in next time you come to the site. The userid cookie is meant to persist beyond your session in order to make it easier to sign in again. In the header code I've created, it presents you with a sign in form with your userid already filled in if the userid cookie is set. If your password manager fills in your password, then signing in again is as easy as one click. Without the userid cookie, it just gives you a button to the login page if you are not already signed in.

I expect that site membership will give you more privileges than just signing in with an OpenID. One main use of the OpenID sign in is to expedite registration. By first signing in with your OpenID, you can join the site without email authentication of your identity, and it will also fill in the registration form, as much as it can, with appropriate values, including an available userid that is based on your OpenID userid or your name.

The next step will be to integrate session sign-ins with Game Courier.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 18, 2012 11:12 PM UTC:
Even though I put HTML in my last comment, it is not wordwrapping as it should. [EDIT: That was due to the long lines in other paragraphs. I have fixed it by adding widths to my paragraphs with CSS.]

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Mar 19, 2012 03:57 AM UTC:
I logged in using OpenID, filling in 'zzo38computer' in the SREG nickname
field and '(zzo38) A. Black' in the SREG real name field. And then it did
not say anything about I was logged in (I did not reload the page), but I
filled in the normal form with my username 'zzo38computer' and my
password. And then it timed out, but then I reload the page and it says I
am logged in, including the OpenID.

Did I do it correctly?

In addition, when I try to view logs in the Game Courier, it always fills
in my user ID in the username field and if I change it or blank it, it
doesn't work. I want to view all logs, not only my own.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Mar 19, 2012 01:04 PM UTC:

I am unfamiliar with the OpenID provider you used. So I assume you already know what an OpenID is and entered yours in the OpenID field that appears when you click on the OpenID button. It should have reloaded the login page when you signed in. There have been some bugs that have stopped it from reloading, and I have just fixed some. So you could try it again and report back if it works. When you successfully sign in with an OpenID, it should report to you the OpenID you are signed in with. If you saw that reported back to you, then you did it successfully. But the login page should have reloaded and told you of this immediately. Also, I checked if your OpenID is now associated with your CVP UserID, and it is not. If you were logged into both at the same time, this should have happened. I may have to look into this more to make sure it is working both ways.


(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 04:03 AM UTC:

Yes, thanks, it works now, and now it says the account is linked.

(The username field in the Game Courier logs still fails to work correctly; and I know what is wrong. You use $_REQUEST to access the field and if it has the same name as a cookie, the cookie will override it. You can either change the name of the field, or change the GPC order. So far I deleted that cookie as a workaround, but you should fix it.)


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 12:34 PM UTC:

Thanks for mentioning that before I observed the problem. Yes, using $_REQUEST to get the userid will now be a problem with the userid $_COOKIE. I have replaced the use of $_REQUEST with a conditional expression that returns the value of userid from either $_GET or $_POST.


Gus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 01:31 PM UTC:

For security reasons, signing in with an OpenID will first sign you out of any accounts you are in. If the OpenID you are signing into matches one linked to an account, it will sign you into the account. If the OpenID does not match any OpenIDs linked to accounts, but its verified email address matches an email address that is used for exactly one account, it will sign you into that account, and it will link the OpenID you signed in with with that account. So if you then sign in with a different OpenID account that has the same verified email address, it will not sign you into your account, and it will not change the OpenID associated with your account.

The security risk is that if you walk away from your computer while signed on, someone else could sign in with an OpenID and gain access to your userid. By signing you out of your account first, this security risk is eliminated. If you want to change the OpenID linked to your account, you will have to do it by first signing in with an OpenID, then signing into your CVP account. As I have time, I'll also add a confirmation on that, so that you cannot change which OpenID is linked to your account by accident.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 03:36 AM UTC:

I have added a script for changing your password to the Login page. If you have lost your password, you can now set a new one. All it requires is that you have an email address or an OpenID associated with your account.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 06:02 PM UTC:

I've been modifying the pages for viewing and editing user information. Instead of displaying your email address, a reCAPTCHA Mailhide is used. This protects your address from robots and spiders while allowing humans to see it. We used to store two email address for users. One was a private email you provided when you signed up, and the other was one you could edit. If you didn't want you email address to show up on your information page, you could delete your public email address, as many people have done. I have now consolidated the two email fields into one. Where the public email field was blank, the private email field got copied to it, and a new field for keeping your address private was set. Otherwise, the public email address was presumed to be more up-to-date and kept as your address.

These changes can be seen in the editmember.php page. The email field has been moved down and disabled. You cannot use that form to change your address. Instead, there is a separate script for changing your email address that sends a confirmation email to the new address and changes it after you confirm the change. There is a new checkbox for keeping your address from appearing on your information page. Since your address always shows up on editmember.php, that page is now accessible only when you are signed in to the account it is for. So you can't peek at the editmember pages of other users. Since your address is now more secure than it used to be, you may want to uncheck the option for keeping it off your information page. As it is now, no one can see it without answering a CAPTCHA.

Additionally, the form for changing your password has been removed from editmember.php, and it has been replaced with a link to a script for changing your password. Besides letting you change your password when you are signed in, it will let you change your password when you have forgotten it.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 09:47 PM UTC:
I can't seem to get myself logged in now. Let me see if this message goes through... Yes, that worked. Hmm.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 10:19 PM UTC:
Logging in still isn't used for posting messages. That's still done by entering your userid and password.

F Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 11:06 PM UTC:
There was a problem with logging in due to a change I made to php.ini. I had removed C from variables_order, so that the userid cookie wouldn't create problems in scripts that get a userid form value. It appears that C needs to remain in the EGPCS for sessions to work. So I put it back in. I'll probably just rename the cookie.

Ben Reiniger wrote on Fri, Mar 23, 2012 03:31 AM UTC:
Yes, the login wasn't working from the Play page; I just wondered whether something was wacky with my id/password, that's why I tested the message here. Now I can get logged in from the Play page, thanks.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Mar 23, 2012 03:59 AM UTC:
The reCAPTCHA for hiding the email is now linked to a PHP drawn image of the email address, which draws the letters in different fonts, colors, and sizes at different angles and heights. This is designed to be readable to a human but not to a bot. The code for drawing the email address gets it from the database. So it doesn't appear in the URL.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Mar 23, 2012 11:58 AM UTC:

I have replaced the reCAPTCHA mailhide code on displayperson.php with my own custom CAPTCHA code that displays the email address as a CAPTCHA along with piece images from randomly selected Chess fonts. To get an email mailto link, just solve the CAPTCHA, whose solution happens to be the email address. Click on my name to the left of this message for an example.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Mar 23, 2012 10:48 PM UTC:

The email CAPTCHA should be bot-proof now. Maybe it was already bot-proof, but the latest changes I've made should require AI on a par with human intelligence to solve, or at least something far more sophisticated than I expect to be searching our websites for email addresses. It now uses a variety of randomly generated colors within a range that is dark enough for a white background. After everything gets written, the colors get scattered, such that neighboring pixels rarely have the same color, but not so much that humans will even take much notice of the differences. Finally, it is rendered as a JPG, which is a lossy format. The bottom line is that your email addresses are now safe from bots on this site. If you still want to keep your email address private, all you will gain is privacy from other humans. Privacy from bots is taken care of.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Mar 26, 2012 04:48 PM UTC:

I am having trouble uploading files both by ftp and with the file manager. This has been going on for a few days and is rather frustrating. The result is that there are sometimes delays between spotting a bug and replacing it with working code. Although the problem seems to be on my end, I haven't isolated the cause.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 01:05 AM UTC:

I have now added code to Game Courier for recognizing players who are signed in. So far, it is available for accepting invitations and for moving. My tests so far indicate that it is working properly. I have moved in one game using the new method, and I will test it more as my turn comes around in other games I'm playing. If you're not signed in already, it will ask for your password as usual, then sign you in if it is correct. This is so it doesn't behave too differently from before.

A note to David. I rewrote the pass_okay function in play/pbm/userid.php. Before it checks whether the password is correct, it checks whether the user is already signed in. If the user is not already signed in, and the password is correct, it signs the user in.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 01:13 PM UTC:

Moving while signed in seems to be working well in Game Courier. This morning, I moved the setcookie expression from pass_okay to the header code for play.php. It checks the value of the userid in the session and sets the cvpuser cookie to it if it has a value.


Nicholas Wolff wrote on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 03:21 AM UTC:
Hey Fergus!

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I don't think so.  I am using an OpenID
using my Facebook account.  It says to link a CV account using it, I have
to then log in with my CV account after getting the OpenID up and running. 
I go that far.  The trouble is that I don't think the CV account is fully
linking up with the OpenID.  When I try to make a move, it says that I
need to be logged in.  It says my name up in the top right so I know I'm
logged in.  Can you please assist?  Thank you for your help!

Best,
Nick

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 01:12 PM UTC:

Okay, it should work now. I was using a variable without defining it first. I deleted my OpenID from the database and used the fixed code to put it back. When it works correctly, you will see this message on the Login page near your OpenID: 'This OpenID is linked to your CVP account, such that signing in with it will automatically sign you into your CVP account.' Before showing this message, it checks the database to make sure the OpenID you are signed in with is connected to your account.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 06:01 PM UTC:
I have made a few slight modifications to indexingfuncs.php and to globalindex.css that will prevent most comments from being made too wide when some other comment is too wide. I changed the SPAN that surrounds the comment to a DIV, and in the style sheet I added a max-width attribute of 800px. The reason for switching to DIV is that max-width does not work with SPAN. The main problem now is with comments that are surrounded by PRE tags and have since lost their original linefeeds. I edited one to have suitable linefeeds but decided to stop there.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 08:20 PM UTC:
To make your email address even more secure, I have added bot and browser detection to the script that draws the email CAPTCHA. If it detects a bot or doesn't recognize the browser, it will display a different message than your email address. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, and Safari should all be recognized.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 12:30 PM UTC:
We have been using case-insensitive passwords here, but the login and password changing code I recently wrote did not take this into account. Since case-sensitive passwords are more secure, and it is easy enough to change your password if you forget it, I have decided to go with case-sensitive passwords. However, the database is full of case-insensitive passwords. So, I have built in backwards compatibility for case-insensitive passwords while allowing for new passwords to be case-sensitive. I have also modified the password checking code for posting comments. This comment will be a test that it works.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 12:31 PM UTC:
Here's another test. For this test, I will enter my password differently.

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