Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
Fergus, Hierarchical Games in the context of the index heading are games like Stratego or The Jungle Game where there is a capturing heirarchy (A can capture all pieces, B can capture all pieces but A, C can capture all pieces but A or B, etc.). There aren't a lot of these games in the system, but we do at least a couple.
They need not be team games. The command/control structure may be used to determine movement of non-command units/pieces. Have a look at Joe Joyce's Chieftain Chess for an example of an hierarchical game. Whether or not the term "wargame" is sufficient by itself is debatable. In the context of CVs it probably is.
Are these team games? In a two-player game, the idea of different control levels doesn't make sense, because each player has complete control over his pieces. In the menu, I have "Wargames" instead of "Wargames and Hierarchical Games." Is anything lost by just saying "Wargames"?
In game theory Hierarchical Games model conflict systems with a structure of control levels ranked in a certain order. Thus in a wargame there might be an overall commander, several sub-commanders, and many unit commanders, per side. Troop movements and performance would depend upon the placement and movement of these commanders.
The Wargames category is "Wargames and Hierarchical Games." What are hierarchical games?
That one was easier to fix, since I already knew where to go. I fixed it by changing the relative link to an absolute link. But I'm surprised by the behavior of the program, because the page the link was on was in the www.chessvariants.org domain.
Unfortunately, the fix is not yet complete; here is the Link to Archabbot Chess from the Alphabetical Index section "Ar": /play/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MParchabbottches and it now returns a 404 (instead of the home page of the pbm system). After some hacking, I found the true link which works: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MParchabbottches -- replacing "play" with "www" fixes the link.
Okay, I have fixed the missing links problem. It came down to finding the function that creates the link url and changing an if to an elseif.
Joe and David, I have found a solution to the missing links problem, but it might not solve everything long term. As a test, I deleted the URL from one page whose link was not showing up, and after I did that, its link showed up in the index. So, if I deleted the URLs from items whose URL fields don't point to the actual URL of the page, that should put the links back on the index pages. But before I do this, I wonder if putting fake URLs in the URL field is serving any purpose and if there is code somewhere that will continue to put fake URLs in the URL field.
Testing if I can post HTML
Editing file to test new code in usereditcomment.php
Joe, David has reported that all the affected pages are member-submitted pages, and for these, the URL field isn't necessary. And I have confirmed this by looking at the database. So the problem is with the PHP code, not with the database.
Yes, I've answered a question about that too. The problem is that URLs in the database have been changed. I forwarded my answer to David Howe in the hopes that he has a backup of the database that could be used to restore the values, but he hasn't responded. I am waiting to find out if David can do something about it before I try a more iffy solution, which would involve comparing database entries to filenames and seeing what the best fit is.
I've added the ability to display comments posted with an OpenID, but I haven't yet added the ability to post with an OpenID. The ability to display them had to be done first. Otherwise, it would be hard to test when I added the ability to post them.
I have now forged this message to appear as though it is coming from one of my OpenIDs. I'm using a generic OpenID icon right now, but I may include site-specific icons for OpenIDs from the major providers listed on the Login page.
I just uploaded the updated userid.php for Game Courier, and it is working well. I made moves in my games with this account, which uses the new password format, and I made a move in a game against myself with a userid using the old format.
Things are mainly working now. There is one mystery bug I haven't figured out. At the end of the OpenID registration process, I provide a signin form. No matter whether the action is specified as cvplogin.php or with a full URL, clicking the submit button goes to signup.php, the page the form was on.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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!
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?
- MS3fewchess
- MSkirbyschess
- MSkirbysshogi
- The fourth one already got fixed somehow.
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)
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
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?
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.)
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.
Chesmayne Chess Dictionary - LINK. http://homepage.eircom.net/~reidr1/index.html
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.
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? ;-)
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.'
if you like please add http://www.madeinfirenze.it/chess_sets_e.htm to your links page thanks luca
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
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
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I have a suggestion: To add a regular expression search of link description to the "mainquery.php", possibly called "regexplinkdesc". I would find this useful; others who use the advanced search (Tony Quintanilla, perhaps?) might also find it useful. (I already find "regexplinktext" useful, but this would be useful too.)
Also, there is no icon for the "Shop" type (which claims to be an unknown type, although queries for such type work OK); this should be looked at too.
O, one more thing: Link descriptions should be allow to changed in member submission edit index information form.