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Subject: Re: Remarks and suggestions about programs and ICS

Author: Slater Wold

Date: 06:12:29 08/08/02

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On August 08, 2002 at 04:55:53, Frederic Louguet wrote:

>1) Chess.Net is apparently very reluctant to accept new computer accounts. And
>worse, they do not answer requests.

I've never played there.

>2) Registering on FICS was not very fast, but straightforward. Unfortunately
>people seem to have lost interest in it.

FICS is horrible.  It took me 6 months to get my account, and then they nuked it
when I didn't play a game in over 8 months.  HOWEVER, I had logged in several
times in those 8 months, could just never get a game!  They told me I had to
apply for another (C) account before they can give me another.

>3) ICC is, well, overcrowded ! High-rated human players seem to play only each
>other, or carefully selected computers. It is difficult to play someone, since
>as a computer I prefer not to defy humans. And very high rated computers are
>very high rated because they don't play other computers !

The GMs who try to make money on ICC (petrovich, garompon) only play high rated
comptuers because it makes their ratings bigger.  They usually play for a draw,
and almost never really try to win.  The amount of !computers there are
annoying.  My account (Project) has spent 19 hours logged on without a game
before.  It gets old pretty quick.

>4) Europe-echecs (jeu.echecs.com) server is not bad, but no more than 250
>players at one time.

Never played there.

>And of course, cheaters are everywhere. Easily detected, but very annoying
>nonetheless, and not always excluded. So I believe that a new free ICS server
>should be very useful to everyone. I suggest a few rules :

I've never really ran into a cheater.  But cheaters don't bother me much.  If
you can beat me, great.  If you can't, oh well.  Doesn't really matter much to
me.

>- Computers should always have a handle corresponding to their name. On all ICS
>servers I registered as "ChessWizard" or "ChessWizardX". No hiding !
>- Only computers operated by the author or someone explicitely approved by the
>author (mention in the finger notes) should be allowed to have an account. No
>more Tiger/Crafty clones by the dozens.

Well, from what I've seen, most programmers don't have the best equpiment.  Why
do I want to play CT 14.0 on an AMD K/6 450 when someone else has a P4 2.53Ghz?

>- Of course, the hardware used should always be specified.

I agree.  (I've been +noplay'ed because of my hardware.)

>- No computer should be allowed to play only humans. Or, three different rating
>lists should be created : general (play computers and humans, rating displayed
>by default), play only against computers, and play only against humans.

EXCEPT SCRAPPY!  I think the idea of scrappy was neat.  I just hate what it
caused.

>- Administrators should be sufficiently experienced to detect cheaters and react
>quickly. Of course exclusions should be based on e-mail adresses, and not on
>handles which can be easily modified.

If you say so.

>Please feel free to add suggestions and remarks.
>As for the name, what about FCICS (Friendly Computers Internet Chess Server !)



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