Why so quiet

[Onno Garms]

Hello,

I feel that the traffic in this forum has decreased dramatically over the last one or two months. What are the reasons?

Sure, there a two new forums that were part of this forum before they were founded, but they have hardly any traffic.

Nobody interested in chess programming anymore?

Onno

[H.G.Muller]

I noticed this too. Perhaps everyone is too busy studying the Strelka code to have any time to discuss original ideas...

I have not really been working on imroving my engines the past few months. I spent most of my time working on WinBoard_F, converting Joker to 10x8 Chess (which was just a technical matter) and retro-computing (to get my 1980s Chess program Usurpator II for running with the aid of a 6502 emulator).

I have ideas for a very efficient SMP implementation, but I currently lack the hardware to meaningfully work on SMP. (I only have a dual core, and on just two cores about anything works...)

[Daniel Mehrmann]

Well, one reason may be people are so busy cloning/semi-cloning engines that there're no new stuff being discovered.

It is, of course, just my opinion. :P

Or they are busy with other projects (from work and no time for chess) full of original ideas and millions of code lines

Moderation: Please keep size of photos in reasonable size: visible without horizontal scrolling on average displays.

[Volker Pittlik]

Hello,

I feel that the traffic in this forum has decreased dramatically over the last one or two months. What are the reasons?
...

Preliminary remark: As some might have noticed I have split the topic because some people want to discuss something different. Please do so in a different thread.

I noticed the decrease of messages too and I'm severely considering to close the forum. There are several reasons.

The decrease did not appear in the last two month but in the last _years_. Compare the number of posts and active posters in the first months of the existence of this forum with the last time. I _guess_ there isn't much left to discuss. The programs are so strong meanwhile they can beat almost every human. It seems questionable if games by stronger programs are still understandable.

Also many people have left. Tord, Leo, Dieter B., Peter B. to name some. Others are registered here, read regularly but post there replies elsewhere. Its frustrating from my point of view.

Personally I lost a bit interest in chess. As some already know I prefer to play poker meanwhile. Its almost sure I'll never get a single cent for my chess "masterpieces". In poker that is different. BTW: poker is a complex game and to think about software playing in on a serious level ist interesting too.

When I started this forum almost 10 years ago I had the idea to support some kind of discussion style. Reading other (chess) forums it seems to be obvious most people prefer a style and level of discussion I don't like very much.

There are a lot of additions and alternatives to this forum. Some offered cooperation, some tried to ruin this forum. No cooperation has ever been established, OTOH all "wars", legal threads against this forum or me in person were not successful.

What really killed my fun in chess and my interest to get new or more active members here was what happened in CCC last year (the "moderator affair"). Especially how that issue has been discussed and the accusations against me(!) by people who have been moderators and even owners of _this_ forum was really disgusting. Would I like all these people to come over here and "discuss" programming issues or anything else? I doubt that.

The great interest and big test effort for an obviously cloned program (yes Strelka is meant) shows me that most people have simply different interests in computer chess than I have. Why should I waste money for them?

The bill for the forum is payed up to July. I don't know yet how long I keep the forum open. If a long term active member of this forum is willing to host it please contact me by PM or email.


Volker

[Tord Romstad]

I feel that the traffic in this forum has decreased dramatically over the last one or two months. What are the reasons?

I can only answer for myself, but in my case, the main reasons are:

• I can't tell the difference between a 2500 rated program and a 3000 rated program: I would lose 0-100 against both of them. This makes chess programming for modern desktop computers feel quite pointless to me.
• I feel that the computer chess is distinctly more unfriendly and unpleasant today than a couple of years ago, and I no longer feel at home the way I used to. The Winboard Forum is still a very friendly place, but as you point out, it seems to be dying.
• A variety of personal and professional reasons which would be off-topic to discuss on this board.

There might still be new and improved versions of my program in the future, but this will be mostly as a side-effect of working on computer shogi, or from writing chess or shogi programs for handheld devices (a much more interesting platform for chess programming, because you can't solve all problems by throwing gigabytes of memory and millions of nodes per second at them).

Tord

[Tord Romstad]

The programs are so strong meanwhile they can beat almost every human. It seems questionable if games by stronger programs are still understandable.

I agree. When it is no longer possible to say whether program A is stronger than program B except by playing hundreds of test games, there isn't much fun left.

Also many people have left. Tord, Leo, Dieter B., Peter B. to name some.

I haven't quite yet left yet, as you may have noticed.

I hope the Winboard forum stays alive. If it disappears, it will be one more nail in the coffin of my interest in computer chess. Nevertheless, I understand your frustration, and share most of the opinions you express.

Tord

[Pedro Castro]

A curious thing is that the largest number of users online is in June 2007 and talkchess in July 2007, that is half years ago, I do not know if there was something in those days that connect more people. Since then the number of users seems to have fallen dramatically in both forums.

Perhaps one reason is that there are at least 2 new forums of comercial programs.

[Volker Pittlik]

Please take also a look on these replies:

http://wbforum.vpittlik.org/viewtopic.p ... 596&t=7111
http://wbforum.vpittlik.org/viewtopic.p ... 597&t=7111
http://wbforum.vpittlik.org/viewtopic.p ... 598&t=7111
http://wbforum.vpittlik.org/viewtopic.p ... 600&t=7111

I didn't split the thread correc tly.

Volker

[Onno Garms]

Hi Volker,

it would really be a pitty if you closed the forum. I also read other forms, but this is my main place to post.

May I ask how much you have to pay for it?

If you close the forum, will it remain accessable read only? If not, is it possible for you to sell the forum database on a CD after taking the forum offline? (Note that you would have to strip private messages.)

Onno

[Volker Pittlik]

Hi Volker,

it would really be a pitty if you closed the forum. I also read other forms, but this is my main place to post.

May I ask how much you have to pay for it?

If you close the forum, will it remain accessable read only? If not, is it possible for you to sell the forum database on a CD after taking the forum offline? (Note that you would have to strip private messages.)

Onno

I've moved this thread because I think it may be of general interest.

The cost of the forum are not so important. It is a little more than 10 Swiss Francs (~€7.50) per month. There is no absolute need to hurry yet because the final decision has to be made until April or May.

I'm afraid to sell anything is almost impossible. Maybe I could sell 3 CDs for €2,50 and then find a copy at eMule. Not really worth the effort. Of course I see that much people made also great efforts to write their postings, but now after all the years my interest in decreasing since some time. At the moment I see only archive.org as the place where the messages can be found in the future. I can export the whole forum as database dump and someone else can it set up again.

It is not to complicated. Much to complicated for someone afraid to edit the winboard.ini, but not impossible to for for everyone with a little advanced technical skills. Ideally that one could speak German because some descriptions of modifications of this forum are in German only. Of course I would help him to set it up.

I don't think there will be big modifications of the forum software in the future because phpBB developed to the next version of it which seems to be main target of the crackers now.

To integrate the old forum might be possible too, but to do that the one must be able (besides the technical things) to read and understand German written by someone possibly from Mars (I tried hard several times but I failed. Of course I'm not very motivated).

The spammers cause trouble from time to time by setting up new bots for ever and ever. Meanwhile I get most of them but ithey are a continuous source for trouble.

When I think about it: aren't you interested to run the forum? ...


Regards

Volker

[Onno Garms]

Hi Volker,

I'm not interested in running the forum, sorry. It would mean too much work for me and not removing illegal posts in time may get to the court. Maybe Switzerland is more relaxed then Germany.

Sure selling a CD is not really profitable. It would be more a matter of not voiding your work of the past years then setting up a business. If you sold database dumps, I would be willing to pay more than 2,50 Euro for a legal copy of it. But I would set it up only on my private computer as my personal source of information, sorry.

Onno

[Edsel Apostol]

I've been browsing this forum for about three years now 5 times a week. It would be a sad thing if this is closed.

The solution might be to relax a bit the requirements to be a member so that there would be a lot of members to browse and post in here.

Edsel Apostol (Twisted Logic)

[Volker Pittlik]

...
The solution might be to relax a bit the requirements to be a member so that there would be a lot of members to browse and post in here...

Done.

Please check the memberlist now and in in one week again.

Volker

[Graham Banks]

Volker - this post in the CCRL public forum might be worth looking at if it helps keep the Winboard forum alive:

As a big fan of chess and administrator of 2 professional hosting companies i have donated free hosting plans to those who need it included with cgi,php,ssi,ssl,cpanel, anon-ftp & full FTP access. If you need more bandwith or disk space allocated to your account providing it is chess related just contact me through support, I hope this will help some the chess community.
the urls are http://razhosting.com & http://razserver.com.

[Jaco van Niekerk]

Hi, here's my 2 cents on this topic. So Edmund Hillary once climbed a tall mountain. Does this mean that mountain climbing is now obsolete?

Just because computer chess seems to have exhausted all avenues it does not mean the field is dead. My chess engine, Vicki, plays at around 1800 in strength and every victory that the engine has against another engine is thrilling and wonderful! The joy I get from chess engine programming is exhilarating! The frustration is soon forgotten after every victory. So what if I re-invent an idea that someone else thought of? My implementation in Vicki is my own. Vicki already beats me 4/5 times and I hope to make it 0/100 soon!

I have learned that only 10% of people are worth your time and effort. The other 90% are cheating, unethical, immoral beings that will backstab you at every turn. The best strategy (from my experience) is to assume that someone is a “worth-your-while” person and to simply smile when you learn (s)he is not and leave them be. Thos forum has been a great inspiration and it will be very unfortunate if it has to close down. Those that oppose Volker are in my view, simply not “worth-your-while” people.

For what it is worth, Volker, thank you very much.

[Volker Pittlik]

...much...

Thanks Jaco and I have to admit I tend to agree. However, since this thread started my interest in computer chess returned partly.

I'll concentrate on linux and java programs. I'm going to prefer open source programs especially if they are strong. In this time of all the programska it should be obvious why.

Meanwhile I can say I win enough at poker to pay this forum (In the grand total my hobbies are profitable ). So the only additional effort for me are the updates from time to time and to delete some spammers who pass the entrance control somehow.

From my side everything is said to this topic (until I'm frustrated next time. I hope that will not happen to soon.).

Volker