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Wide Nightrider Chess. Chess on a 12x10 board with Nightriders, Champions and fast castling rules.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Jan 17 06:40 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Tue Jan 16 04:42 PM:

Fergus wrote:

"...The section called "Regarding Settings Files by the Author" would be more appropriate for his [Kevin Pacey's] profile page..."

I've now put the meat of the content in that section (that was edited out by me) onto my profile page (also known as Person Information page), similar to how Jose has some such content on his profile page also. In my case I hope the content I added to my profile page will be there only temporarily. At least it will draw attention to my Settings Files link, for anyone who visits my profile page. - and leave a compact record behind if events in my life get in the way of my intentions.


🔔Notification on Tue, Jan 16 08:03 PM UTC:

The author, Kevin Pacey, has updated this page.


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Jan 16 07:02 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 04:42 PM:

@ Fergus and H.G.:

I edited out the offending section from certain rules pages of mine (similar to how Jose used such sections on his pages). I meant it as a temporary measure until the day I may have had (28) presets finally published, along with rules pages (which can be favorited), which is a process currently taking ages for a lot people unfortunately. Now I'm afraid there will be not much notice/play at all of the 28 Settings Files (ready presets) of mine I was trying to advertise, even a bit, on certain rules pages of mine, to compensate for that they are 'buried' if and until any individual happens to look at my Personal Info page, and then Settings Files link, on their own initiative - a far less likely occurance than someone looking at certain rules pages of mine, I had guessed.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jan 16 05:19 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 04:42 PM:

The section called "Regarding Settings Files by the Author" would be more appropriate for his profile page, which this page already has a link to. In fact, the profile page already has a link to his Settings files, which makes this section inessential.

Indeed. And that very same section was also appended to many other articles, where it is just as non-essential. It is spamming the site.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jan 16 05:14 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 02:46 PM:

@HG, I did it first. But I think for me I explained why was that the case. Was I wrong as far as you can see? I'm wondering this as you say that if one person does it (me in this case), then it can perpetuate!

Well, I hadn't really payed attention to it, but IIRC it did draw some criticism, and you defended against that by saying it was impossible to have more than one Interactive Diagram on a page.

Now that isn't really true, and now that I look at it  I think the presentation as different articles is far from ideal. If this strategy would have been applied to Musketeer Chess, there would be hundreds of articles on it.

Variants that only differ in the pieces that start off-board can easily be combined: you could put both a Manticore and a Griffon in the table, and people can then put those they want to use on the gating rank. This is how I made a Diagram for Musketeer Chess. I your case it would have reduced the number of articles from 6 to 3. If the Waffle, Elephant and Frog had not started all in different locations, you could even have combined these, by leaving the piece out, and letting people move them from the table to the board first.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jan 16 04:42 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 11:36 AM:

What I consider undesirable is references (especially long lists of those) to CVs that are not related more to the CV of the article than hundreds of others, just because it happens to be your own invention.

I do see Wide Chess mentioned in the Introduction, and that would be the appropriate place to include a link to it. The other two are not mentioned in the Introduction, and they don't seem related to this game.

The section called "Regarding Settings Files by the Author" would be more appropriate for his profile page, which this page already has a link to. In fact, the profile page already has a link to his Settings files, which makes this section inessential.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jan 16 02:46 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 11:36 AM:

@HG, I did it first. But I think for me I explained why was that the case. Was I wrong as far as you can see? I'm wondering this as you say that if one person does it (me in this case), then it can perpetuate!


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Tue, Jan 16 01:55 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 11:36 AM:

@Aurelian and HG: OK, I see the nuance. I was not sure of that. I agree with you that providing a full list of all his inventions in every page is not useful nor suitable.

The fact is that it was not striking me when I read that Wide Nightrider Chess page. I've seen there refs to Wide Chess and to Wide SOHO Chess which are similar to what I'm doing. There is even one to Omega Chess, which is from someone else. The ref to 3D Chess War is a bit less obvious but can be understood. I was focusing on this, so I was not sure that my own way of presenting was OK or not in your eyes.

And I had paid less attention to the rest of the page which is, this is true, less linked to Wide Nightrider Chess.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jan 16 11:36 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 10:57 AM:

I see the point but honestly I don't see why it is so very undesirable.

Well, I just gave my opinion regarding this practice, to instigate a discussion amongst the editors on site policy about this.

Problem is that if one person does it, others will copy the behavior, as this case shows, and before you know it every one has its full Curruculum Vitae in every page he published here.

It is different in cases where there is a clear relation with the CV you refer to. I also refer to Makromachy from the Megalomachy article, and vice versa, because the one is basically an enlarged version of the other. You (Jean-Louis) also have a progressive series of ever larger games with very similar piece sets. Such a reference is functional and useful.

What I consider undesirable is references (especially long lists of those) to CVs that are not related more to the CV of the article than hundreds of others, just because it happens to be your own invention. So a tell-tale sign is a reference to your own CV, while there are dozens of CVs that are just as similar to the CV of the article, or even more so, to which you don't refer. That a CV is also on, say, a 10x10 board, with a complete FIDE piece set plus a handful of fairies should not be considered a similarity that justifies referral, as there will be hundreds of CVs fitting that description. For that sort of vague similarities we already have the tag system.

We should ask ourselves if we think the site would be better if everyone would provide a complete list of all his inventions on every article he authors. And if that is the case, we should not rely on the authors doing it, but just let the server's article-display script automatically append it to every article. That would be quite easy to do. The script to do it exists already: you can admire its output through the personal page of the author.

The point is that the side builders have decided not to do that, even though plenty of info is automatically added to the text provided by the article author. So apparently we think it is better not to have such info on every article. And if having it on every article significantly detoriates the site, every article it is added to by the author also detoriates the site a bit. So we'd better put a stop to that as early as possible.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jan 16 11:29 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 10:57 AM:

I think HG, does not refer to games that fit a "collection" of sort, but when an author promotes most of his article that, way. For example my just published games inspired by Kevin could find a their place in such a collection and therefore link to each other. But I mention nothing about my apothecary games there. That would make no sense. This is the position I'm taking and I am against the practice mentioned by HG! And I'd really like this clarified as most of my games are coming in collections!


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Tue, Jan 16 10:57 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 06:52 AM:

I see the point but honestly I don't see why it is so very undesirable. I don't see any harm the way it is done in this page. I have myself underlined the family link that may occur between some of my CVs, for example here for Bigorra: https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/bigorra

Now, it is true that I'm not listing here ALL my CVs, only those that present some relationship. I do think that it is an information that may interest the reader, as well as when I put a link to a GC preset page.

Of course, if the policy of this website would become to forbid such practices, I will re-write all my pages to withdraw these references. But I would regret it.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jan 16 06:52 AM UTC:

I want to alert other editors to this, since I consider it a very undesirable development that authors clutter their CV rule-description articles with unrelated self-promotion. If it was up to me, it would be disallowed, and editors would actively moderate against it.

CVs do not become related merely because they have the same author, so publishing extensive lists of other CVs is unrelated info, which does not belong in the article. It is also a huge duplication of information.

It is common knowledge that authors usually invented more than one CV. If anyone is interested in other CVs by that author, he can click on the author name to get an overview of his other work. No reason to put that same information in many other places, to force it down the readers throat.

If an author has many presets that are not in the index, he can make a seperate article with an overview of that, similar to my overview of variants playable with the Interactive Diagram. But that would only be useful if the references were clickable links to those presets.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 09:34 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 09:29 PM:

Well, life is complex, and there are more unexpected obstacles to deflect the desired cause of events than one would like...


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 09:29 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 09:18 PM:

Lol, no I didn't realize all those ramifications, H.G., I just happened to know of a CV or two that I guessed may have escaped your attention, based on what you wrote in your post I replied to last - just trying to help you out. :)


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 09:18 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 08:45 PM:

I even created the Interactive Diagram that is in it! Metamachy also has such Pawns. And indeed, these are not in the table (which I suppose is why you mention them).

One doesn't encounter such Pawns very often, and with such a table one always have to strike a balance between including everything that exists under the sun (with as a result users will have great difficulty in finding what they need), and including only the most common stuff (so that people often don't find what they need directly). Because it is very easy to change the move of a piece in the table to another one (for those bothering to read those tiny 3 paragraphs that describe how to use the Applet, in particular the second), the balance often swings in the direction of not including alternative moves for an image that is already in the table. Although notation for Pawn moves is usually more complex than for other pieces, which might favor including duplicats in that case.

In this particular case I guess that the fact that Alfaerie has a special symbol for this kind of Pawn (the 'quickpawn'), but that this symbol initially was not available as PNG/SVG, swung the balance in favor of not including it. In the mean time this symbol was created, and added to the Alfaerie PNG set, though, which makes it automatically appear in the table as well. But this adds it at the end (where indeed you can find it), and the Applet cannot guess the moves of pieces it obtains that way. So it appears now without a move.

This is again an oversight: now that the symbol exists it deserves to be in the table predefined with a move, amongst the other Pawns, and then I would give it the move you referred to. But I just created the image because I needed it for some Interactive Diagram, without giving a thought to what consequence this would have in the Applet. And you should also keep in mind that for a very long period any attempt to change anything in the Applet led to its destruction; only recently I discovered that this can be prevented by switching the article type to 'Text' (even though originally it was posted as HTML). So now I could add the Quickpawn to the list of predefined pieces, and probably will do that soon.

It would be more useful to make the generated GAME code (or actually the 'include file' that interprets this code) support fast castling; as I said, it would be very easy to give the Quickpawn that is in the table this (or any other) move, and you could copy the XBetza notation for the move from the Colossus Diagram. Almost anytone here could do that. But no one but me is likely to create support for fast castling in that include file...


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 08:45 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 04:10 PM:

@ H.G.:

Here's a CV I'm not sure if you've seen then - in it a pawn may take a single or double step at any time [edit: as is the case with Metamachy, I seem to recall]:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/colossus


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 04:18 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 04:10 PM:

Okay, I increased the number of ranks, so that the board was 8x10. Then Omega pawns were allowed to move 3 cells forward after I started the AI and played it for a move.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 04:10 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 03:22 PM:

edit3: without any pasting of the Betza code for the Omega pawn into a 'box' (which I think I'd do only if I wished to slightly change the pawn's Betza code, anyway), I dragged an Omega pawn from the table in front of each K on the 8x8 diagram for the Applet and pressed 'start', then 'play it'. For some reason the Applet assumed I was playing chess, and would only allow a one or two step advance by the White pawn as my first move once I clicked on the pawn. Maybe Omega Pawns work for the Applet only on non-8x8 boards(?)

I interpreted Omega Pawns as pawns being able to move up to half-way the board. It appears you have been trying this on 8x8, where this makes no difference with the usual Pawn. You need a board with 10 ranks or more for Omega Pawns to be better than FIDE Pawns. On 12-rank board they could even be pushed 4 steps, when starting on 2nd rank.

The difference with Wildebeest Pawns is that the latter are always allowed to be pushed up to half-way the board, not only on their initial move.

I have never seen a variant where you are allowed to push a Pawn into the opponent half, other than with a single step. So I saw no need to support that in the table.


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 03:59 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 03:53 PM:

I edited my previous post, before you posted I guess H.G.

You're right, I must not be too good at reading instructions. Unless my brain fog and/or schizophrenia are getting in the way. Which is why I asked for help earlier (I try not to overdo that though, in case people get tired of it).


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 03:53 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 03:22 PM:

On the Applet page there is still a link 'tutorial' near the bottom of the page. It actually is a link to a Wizard page of yours, in the 'Tools' menu as well (I thought it had some advice on ID generation, too, at the top of the Wizard page):

Well that is a link in the paragraph about generating GAME code. So when your only problem is how to create an Interactive Diagram, you would not even read that paragraph.

What would your advice be to someone that came to you saying "I have given up taking driving lessons, driving is way too hard for me. The math used for those orbital mechanics is way over my head, and I can never learn to recognize these hundred different sizes of bolts"? I would tell him to stop reading the "Space-Shuttle Maintenance manual for Engineers", and focus on the text "Car driving in three easy steps"...

The GAME-code tutorial explains how to program in GAME code, in an easier way than doing it from scratch. It has nothing to do with creating Interactive Diagrams; it contains zero information on how to do that.

That you cannot see the scroll bar is a serious problem; it means the page has to be formatted differently. Is there also no horizontal scroll bar on the table? I remember I once had that problem too, but it disappeared when I replaced some of the very long move strings (which could be shortened due to improvements on XBetza notation). There is something fishy here, as the table is displayed in a window that is supposed to automatically provide scroll bars when what is in it gets too large (style overflow:auto). I usually scroll the window by means of the mouse wheel, though. That works even if you cannot see the scroll bar.


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 03:22 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 03:13 PM:

Hi H.G.

On the Applet page there is still a link 'tutorial' near the bottom of the page. It actually is a link to a Wizard page of yours, in the 'Tools' menu as well (I thought it had some advice on ID generation, too, at the top of the Wizard page):

https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/game-code-generation

Regarding the piece table on the Applet page (for generating IDs), I only discovered recently that I cannot see much of it unless I use [cnrl -] to reduce my view to 90% from 100%. Then I see the sidebar, to scroll down. My fault I didn't realize the very Betza displayed (assuming I can see that at 90% level - I need to check again -edit: yes, I can see the whole Betza at 90%) goes into a box on the Applet page by cut and paste (I guess).

edit2: my brain fog issue is real enough, perhaps affecting whether I can work even part-time - see what my doctor says at the end of the month.

edit3: without any pasting of the Betza code for the Omega pawn into a 'box' (which I think I'd do only if I wished to slightly change the pawn's Betza code, anyway), I dragged an Omega pawn from the table in front of each K on the 8x8 diagram for the Applet and pressed 'start', then 'play it'. For some reason the Applet assumed I was playing chess, and would only allow a one or two step advance by the White pawn as my first move once I clicked on the pawn. Maybe Omega Pawns work for the Applet only on non-8x8 boards(?)


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 03:13 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 02:16 PM:

Also, somehow in my mind I earlier conflated the instructions near the middle/bottom of the tutorial, concerning Game Code for special cases (for a given CV), with the instructions purely meant for making the ID (i.e. near the top of the tutorial). Perhaps instructions for each can be keep more separate or clearly demarcated from each other - others who are completely uninitiated (or impaired like myself, at times) may conflate the two instruction sets otherwise, at least at a glance, or if careless.

Sorry, our latest messages crossed. I still have the feeling that you are talking about an entirely different text than the Applet. The only place where GAME code is mentioned on this Applet page is in two short paragraphs, and these are at the very end, and basically only instruct you to press the button.

I think you are confusing the tutorial on how to write GAME code for cases that the Applet would not support itself. Which has nothing to do with creating Interactive Diagrams in the first place.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 15 03:04 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 01:13 PM:

Well, I had thought making the Interactive Diagram aware of the castling rules in use, alone, would require reading the tutorial, perhaps. I wasn't sure about the Omega Pawns, but maybe they can indeed go straight from the table to the 'manufacturing' diagram (for making the final ID, however steps are made to do so). Looking at the tutorial, don't you think there are a lot of special cases and Betza code knowledge expected to be known, at least for some CVs, though? At least that's the impression I got at a glance. Maybe a caveat somewhere that generating a ID is often very easy would be good to put somewhere.

I am not sure what you mean by 'tutorial'. On the Play-test Applet's page there isn't much text by my standards, and most of it would be only relevant to people that want to use the Move-Definition Aid because they know zilch about Betza notation, and have a very exotic piece in their variant that is not in the table.

Note that we were talking about your ability to create an Interactive Diagram, so the paragraphs about GAME code are not relevant either. So basically just 3 short paragraphs remain at the top of the page.

But if the attention you give to the page is at the level where you still have to ask if it supports Omega Pawns, while the part of the piece table that is visible on opening the page is:

there seems to be little hope that you would ever discover that a fast-castling King would also be in the table (if it had been there). Without even making such an attempt the speculation that it must be impossibly difficult to select it is nothing but prejudice. And it is very hard to provide documentation for people that are bent on not understanding something, and therefore categorically refuse to read anything that might elucidate them.

Even as it is, without the fast-castling King in the table, it would only have required you to ask "what is fast castling in Betza notation?", and we could have told you that you only had to replace isO4 in the King's move by ispO5.

And no, I don't think that you would need to know anything about special cases and Betza notation for the kind of variants that you usually make. Only if you want to create Diagrams for games like Ultima you would have to deal with that. For 90% of all chess variants you would just select pieces from the table, and for 99% you could get by with just the table and the move-definition aid on the Applet page.


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 02:16 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 01:13 PM:

@ H.G.:

My brain is less foggy right now. It seems the tutorial starts with a general statement to the effect that making an ID is not too complex usually (i.e. if the CV at hand is not so exotic).

Also, somehow in my mind I earlier conflated the instructions near the middle/bottom of the tutorial, concerning Game Code for special cases (for a given CV), with the instructions purely meant for making the ID (i.e. near the top of the tutorial). Perhaps instructions for each can be keep more separate or clearly demarcated from each other - others who are completely uninitiated (or impaired like myself, at times) may conflate the two instruction sets otherwise, at least at a glance, or if careless.

K


💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Jan 15 01:13 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 12:58 PM:

Hi again H.G.

Well, I had thought making the Interactive Diagram aware of the castling rules in use, alone, would require reading the tutorial, perhaps. I wasn't sure about the Omega Pawns, but maybe they can indeed go straight from the table to the 'manufacturing' diagram (for making the final ID, however steps are made to do so). Looking at the tutorial, don't you think there are a lot of special cases and Betza code knowledge expected to be known, at least for some CVs, though? At least that's the impression I got at a glance. Maybe a caveat somewhere that generating a ID is often very easy would be good to put somewhere.

Anyway, it's unfortunate fast castling is apparently not supported yet by Game Code. Any number of my latest CV ideas use fast castling, as I have been using boards for them that are often quite wide.

@ Haru:

Sorry, please ignore my request in my previous post, as fast castling for use in a rules enforcing preset is not in the cards at this time.

Regards again to you both, Kevin


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