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Who is Behind the Chess Variant Pages?. The editors, past editors, contributors, and inventors behind this site.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Ola Sassersson wrote on Tue, Apr 28, 2020 08:32 PM UTC:

I heard you are in need of more editors. I would like to join as an editor. (Posting this here because I'm not sure which email addresses get answered.)

If you want me aboard, send a message to the email address in my profile, which gets checked daily.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, May 1, 2020 07:44 PM UTC:

I have added two new editors, Zied Haddad and Ola Sassersson. I have also removed two editors, Jeremy Gabriel Good and Tony Quintanilla, because neither one has logged on in years. Despite accepting my request to be editors when I took over this site, neither one has logged on since before I took over in late 2015. So, I don't think either one is interested in continuing to be an editor. Those who are already editors should have the passwords for the database, SSH, SCP, and SFTP. The new editors have not been given these yet, because they are still new, but they have gained editor privileges while signed into the website.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Sat, May 2, 2020 06:09 PM UTC:

Welcome, Zied and Ola!


Ola Sassersson wrote on Sat, May 2, 2020 07:44 PM UTC:

Why, thank you.


David Cannon wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2020 06:35 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Welcome to our two new editors. It's great to see some new blood. 

Next step : see some new blood in terms of contributors, not just editors, too. I'll try to find time to design a new variant or two myself, if I can get some letup from my 70-hours a week job, but I'd also love to see a lot more game designers get on board.


Andrew Kuess wrote on Wed, Feb 3, 2021 10:05 PM UTC:

Hello, i tried to add my variant and it has not been approved yet. Can one of your admins check on this for me? Thank you

https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/castle-chess-by-starcaptaindread


Long Term Future wrote on Mon, Feb 22, 2021 05:08 PM UTC in reply to Andrew Kuess from Wed Feb 3 10:05 PM:

Is this website no longer being updated? I see that Andrew Kuess' variant page linked in the previous comment is still "currently hidden pending approval by the Chess Variant Pages editorial staff."

If there's still an admin actively approving new variants, let me know and I'll add the best variants I've invented to this site.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Mon, Feb 22, 2021 05:40 PM UTC in reply to Long Term Future from 05:08 PM:

Is this website no longer being updated?

Yes it is! The best places to see what's going on (IMO, and omitting Game Courier) are the What's New page and the listing of all comments

You can also see the listing of submitted-but-unpublished pages here; viewing the pages listed there requires being logged in.

I see that Andrew Kuess' variant page linked in the previous comment is still "currently hidden pending approval by the Chess Variant Pages editorial staff."

Hm, yes, we should've at least commented on that one. I saw it and passed on review at the time, and promptly forgot all about it. I'll go and make some comments now. On that note,

If there's still an admin actively approving new variants, let me know and I'll add the best variants I've invented to this site.

We have three editors currently active in approving submissions (two recent ones were brought on, see a few posts earlier in this thread, but I haven't seen much of them), but it's all volunteered time, so sometimes we get bogged down. Please do submit your game(s)! I'd suggest starting with just one, so that if we have generic feedback on it that would apply to your other submissions, you can incorporate it while writing.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Nov 19, 2022 10:26 PM UTC:

I added H. G. Muller as an editor and made a note about our inactive editors.


Gerd Degens wrote on Tue, Nov 22, 2022 04:28 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Sat Nov 19 10:26 PM:

I added H. G. Muller as an editor and made a note about our inactive editors.

Dear H.G. Muller, can you be congratulated for joining the editorial circle? You have my congratulations.

May I ask if you want to continue to be rated as 'private' in an email contact? You are the only editor who has listed his email address as 'private' ( This member's email address is private).

It is certainly important for some users to be able to contact you directly. What do you mean?


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Nov 22, 2022 05:03 PM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from 04:28 PM:

I see little reason for users to discuss privately with a specific editor. If there is an issue it would be better if all editors are aware of it, and can give their opinion. I read here just as often as I read my e-mail.


H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Nov 23, 2022 08:43 AM UTC:

Is there a place where editors report their acivities, so that the other current and future editors knows what is being done?

I have strated moving Interactive Diagrams from comments into the article's page as main diagram. The first six of the list of playable Diagrams are already done. In this process I sometimes need to upload dedicated graphics for the page (for the static image in <noscript> tags). Not all pages seem to have a directory for that, probably because some did not have any graphics at all. In this case I create a directory for those in the /membergraphics/ directory, with a name starting with MS or ML (the latter for link files), plus the name of the variant (spaces squaeezed out).

I also made a few new alfaerie SVG pieces (thief, general, airplane, quickpawn), and added those to the alfaerieSVG page. I rendered those as 50x50 and 35x35 to put them on the respective alfaeriePNG pages, where I also added knightgeneral and camelrook renderings (which already existed as SVG, but not as PNG).


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Nov 23, 2022 03:53 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:43 AM:

Is there a place where editors report their acivities, so that the other current and future editors knows what is being done?

I usually report my activities on relevant pages. There is no centralized place for this. If you want to, you could post what you're doing to your profile, since posting comments to profiles is now doable.


Rewan Demontay wrote on Sun, Mar 5, 2023 07:19 PM UTC:

How do I request/add myself information to be added to https://www.chessvariants.com/problems.dir/bosmasol.html ?

I've uploaded the relevant Probleemblad issues, of Bosma's announcement and the tourney, to Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bosma-chess

I believe it would be informational to input that link.

The numerous Bosma Problems, as well as general triple check problems, can also be found here: https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=k%3D%27bosma%27


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 5, 2023 07:39 PM UTC in reply to Rewan Demontay from 07:19 PM:

Let me pass this on to H.G., since he is from the Netherlands and knows Dutch.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 10:32 AM UTC in reply to Rewan Demontay from Sun Mar 5 07:19 PM:

Well, that helps me to understand the Dutch. But what am I supposed to do with this? Should I add it as an off-site link in a link section on the CVP page. And also a ling to Die Schwalbe? Or should the Dutch text be uploaded to the CVP site, to avoid off-site linking? Would this violate any copyrights? (I suppose not, as the text at the bottom says 'Please reprint'.)


Rewan Demontay wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 11:49 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Tue Mar 7 10:32 AM:

Linking to Die Schwalbe would help, thanks. It might be possible to copy the basic information and the problems, if neither offsite linking nor reuploading is comfortable for you.


Mushegh wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2023 10:43 AM UTC:
Please, add interactive board for Gala chess. There is not :(

H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2023 01:05 PM UTC in reply to Mushegh from 10:43 AM:
Please, add interactive board for Gala chess. There is not :(

It appears Gala Chess has too much location dependence of the piece moves to be handled by the current standard version of the Interactive Diagram. (The moves cannot be expressed in Betza notation.) It woud require a specially written move generator to handle that variant. And I have neither the time nor the inclination to program that. I could probably create some 20 Interactive Diagrams for more normal chess variants in the time required to do it, and Gala Chess doesn't seem more important to me than any of those.


Chris Urquhart wrote on Thu, Sep 28, 2023 08:27 PM UTC:

Excuse me. I'm having a problem. A variant I named but submitted no information for is claiming that the game name is submitted. This means that since I've changed my mind I cannot find how to retract and delete the submission. It doesn't stand to reason that I can't delete it because it is unnecessarily saying that the name is someone else's submission. I expected that my data was just stored in my browser so that I could just erase the form. In my mind, if I haven't published something then I haven't submitted it. The server disagrees. Is there a way to remove the game name from submission? I discovered this when I made a new account because I lost my password and user I.D. The point is that I want to submit That game name under the new account and delete this account. Any help would be appreciated.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Sep 28, 2023 09:52 PM UTC in reply to Chris Urquhart from 08:27 PM:

What's the name of the game?


Chris Urquhart wrote on Sat, Sep 30, 2023 01:11 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Thu Sep 28 09:52 PM:

I the Lord know that Fergus Duniho is preparing himself to steal variants from people. And he doesn't know that if he had not done this that Chris Urquhart would have given this variant for free to the public. If he hadn't done this, Chris Urquhart would have done wonderful things for the public. All he wanted was to sign to an anonymous account so that he couldn't receive credit. Now Fergus Duniho will realize that I the Lord am watching him.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Sep 30, 2023 01:20 AM UTC in reply to Chris Urquhart from 01:11 AM:

Not everything that goes wrong is a conspiracy against you. If you want technical support with the problem you described earlier, answer the question I asked you in my previous comment.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Sep 30, 2023 09:20 PM UTC in reply to Chris Urquhart from Thu Sep 28 08:27 PM:

A variant I named but submitted no information for is claiming that the game name is submitted.

When you named the game, you submitted its name.

It doesn't stand to reason that I can't delete it because it is unnecessarily saying that the name is someone else's submission.

When I tried to create a page for a game called Eternal Chess, I got this message:

Error: You may not edit Eternal Chess, because this is a preexisting submission that you are not the author of.

Is that the message you got?

Using a different account, I created a page for a different game, and when I went back to create the same page again, I did not get this message. Instead, I got a form for filling out information about the game. However, there was no button here for deleting the page.

I then selected the "Your Unpublished Submissions" menu item in the menu with my name, and I got a page with the link to the game.

This brought me to the page, which lacked any description of the game, because I hadn't added any. On this page was a link to Delete this submission. Also, the Edit menu had a menu item called Delete submission. These each link to the same script with the same value for itemid in the query string. Following the menu item, it gave me this information:

## Delete Submission
There was no member submission to delete.

IsDeleted :: 1 ::: 0

UPDATE `Item` SET `IsDeleted` = :isdeleted WHERE `ItemID` = :keyvalue
Array
(
    [:isdeleted] => 1
    [:keyvalue] => MSbugglechess
)
The item MSbugglechess has now been marked as deleted.

Although it had been marked as deleted, the entry in the Item table had not been deleted.

When I tried to recreate the page again, it recognized that it was still in the database and gave me the form for editing it again.

When I followed the "Your Unpublished Submissions" menu item, I did not see the game listed this time.

Using my main account, I tried to create a game under the name I had used, and it would not let me, giving me the same error message I had reported earlier.

There are a few ways to fix the problem:

  1. Delete the Item entry instead of marking it as deleted.

  2. Conditionally delete the Item entry, perhaps if the author deletes it, or there are no comments.

  3. Allow ItemIDs that are marked as deleted to be reused by new authors.

I will allow people to weigh in on this before I change the code to do one of these.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Sat, Sep 30, 2023 11:40 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 09:20 PM:

I imagine that the database and scripts using a deleted flag--rather than actually deleting the information--was a purposeful decision. I think it's a reasonably good idea to keep data around in case an author (or someone posting as the author, not that I expect us to be a large target for hackers) mistakenly or brashly deletes or vandalizes their pages. We've in the past varied on how serious we are about our rights to maintain content posted here. That probably needs agreement first.

I don't think it entirely too onerous to require asking an editor to purge the last remnants of a page, but I think we don't surface clearly enough what "delete" means here (mostly fine, except for confusion in cases like these).

I don't think GDPR applies except to the connection between author and content. But also I am not a lawyer.


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