*** General user warnings ***

[Guenther]

...

The most important thing is the database. If you put a question into Google, one of the top hits is often Talkchess, and some of them go back for something like 15 years or more. (Sometimes you'll even land in one of the old newsgroups through Google Groups and are reading posts from the mid-to-late 90's.) It would be a shame that, if Talkchess should go down forever for whatever reason, we would lose about at least 15 years of chess programming information.

Hi Marcel, if you want to go back further for any reason, the period between rgccc and current talkchess aka CCC is completely saved
as an browsable archive by Sean Mintz (1997/09-2006/03). Have fun :)

https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php
https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?offset=67596

If you want to dig even before that, the old rgcc newsgroup (now owned by google), you menationed already is still there and now has some very nice search features added.
One can easily just check out a relevant time period by changing date parameters in the link.

While a big part from rgcc migrated to CCC, I don't want to go into details now why ;-), rgcc still lived on worthwile for checking at least until 2003 or so.
(Also not all wanted to leave rgcc, because they were used to the old newsgroup style - same as some people did not want to leave
threaded view for the new phpBB forum...)
Later it became a spammed and dubious thing (everything from porn to lunatic drivel and commercial ads), but still coexisting with chess + chess programming topics.

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.c ... 1997-09-23
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.c ... 2004-01-01

I also hope that if talkchess ever moves (IMHO it hasn't enough quirks for a sudden change - and using a pseudo vpn window in opera, which I also had to do for a while, isn't a great obstacle and as someone said it makes it even safer, as long as we have just plain http here), everything will be nicely archived as it was in the past.

Guenther

[Guenther]

I am seriously considering closing the source of Rodent and OpenTal, provided that Sungorus author and other contributors agree. I came here to learn, and when I learned a thing or two, to share ideas. Talkchess had been the main venue where I could do that. Alas, it is no more, and for several months the problem has not been solved. I might as well decide that sharing anything is such a discriminatory community makes no sense.

I am really sorry for saying this, but it seems you are too much under the influence of Whittington already, please don't mix different things.
It makes me doubt the IP ranges blocking is the main reason for your bad mood meanwhile? If it is the main reason, I apologize Pawel.

Nearly every country in Europe and other continents was already blocked in a stupid way from ChessUSA for hacking attacks from all kind of regions.
I never considered this as a personal attack against me and why should I? They are just lazy (this is no excuse though).
I think closing your open source programs and retreating everything, will not do anything, except punishing people, who love your work.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Guenther,

it need 2 seconds to changed the thread title (Polish, can be cancelt).
The thread title alone is a shame!

I await that the thread title will be changed in the next 12 hours, or bye bye from TalkChess after 20 years from my site.
Sorry, but I can't supported such things!

Pawel are right ... COMPLETLY !
It is a shame!

Best
Frank

[PK]

I am really sorry for saying this, but it seems you are too much under the influence of Whittington already

No, it has nothing with Whittington or anybody else's influence. Its about sharing. I wrote open source programs for at least 15 years. Here I shared only chess stuff, but I also have a program that modernizes spelling of Polish texts printed somwehere between 1850 and 1936. For 10 years I worked for a NGO whose main activity is publishing books that are in public domain (sadly only 1 of them is in English, but here it comes: https://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura ... cific.html). Situation when I do something for free and then need to go through jumps and hoops to even access the content I created, or when I cannot reliably share a link to such content is simply against my core values.

Not sitting behind an arbitrary, discriminatory wall created by forum host, you cannot even see the amount of damage this decision caused. Links that direct to "Forbidden" page severely limit the usefulness of Chessprogramming Wiki. They destroy the value of Google/DuckDuckGo searches related to chess programming. They even make my current job more difficult, since I have to explain stuff to my collegues instead of pointing them to more reliable sources.

The absolute minimum that should be done is creating a text-only, inactive backup of this body of knowledge that is taken away from the community. Depending on the size of such dump, I might even host it, even though fixing this problem should not be done by somebody who has been wronged.

[Guenther]

Guenther,

it need 2 seconds to changed the thread title (Polish, can be cancelt).
The thread title alone is a shame!

I await that the thread title will be changed in the next 12 hours, or bye bye from TalkChess after 20 years from my site.
Sorry, but I can't supported such things!

...

At first, sorry, I don't understand much from your postings in this thread.

Why should admins change the title of the 'blocked' thread being forced by an ultimatum by you?
The thread was created by Dann (who was no admin at the time), who wanted to help someone from Poland, who asked Dann to post about his problem and several people from Poland confirmed this blocking and also did not ask for changing the title.

Obviously Dann did not know that other countries were blocked too at that time (and further on), that was revealed later while the thread was bumped.
Do you really think Dann had something discrimating in his mind when posting his attempt to help?

Still it could be changed to 'Various countries blocked...' and it would not change the situation, but IMHO your forcing attitude is over the top.
(Why didn't you send a PM? And why your weird topic title?)

[Guenther]

I am really sorry for saying this, but it seems you are too much under the influence of Whittington already

No, it has nothing with Whittington or anybody else's influence. Its about sharing. I wrote open source programs for 15 years. Here I shared only chess stuff, but I also have a program that modernizes spelling of Polish texts printed somwehere between 1850 and 1936. For 10 years I worked for a NGO whose main activity is publishing books that are in public domain (sadly only 1 of them is in English, but here it comes: https://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura ... cific.html). Situation when I do something for free and then need to go through jumps and hoops to even access the content I created, or when I cannot reliably share a link to such content is simply against my core values.

Not sitting behind an arbitrary, discriminatory wall created by forum host, you cannot even see the amount of damage this decision caused. Links that direct to "Forbidden" page severely limit the usefulness of Chessprogramming Wiki. They destroy the value of Google/DuckDuckGo searches related to chess programming. They even make my current job more difficult, since I have to explain stuff to my collegues instead of pointing them to more reliable sources.

Thanks for answering Pawel! I can compeletely understand the reasoning about the talkchess links at the chessprogramming wiki, this is really some damage I had not thought about, also when people try to find some chess programming (or other useful) stuff directly here linked from search engines and they are blocked.

I hope it will be sorted out by the host soon! Otherwise I don't see an easy solution for this, changing the host and even keeping the domain address and getting it as an archive will not result in the same links as in the past.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Sorry Günther,

what you understand or what you not understand is absolutely not important.

I understand nothing from your posting for an example!
If you support such things it's your decission!

The situation is more as clear!

It is a shame to read day by day ...

"Polish users cut off from TalkChess"

Alone the thread-title is provocation enough and I can not support it.

If you not understand it you should learn to shut-up.
Clear enough for you, I am sure you are able to understand this!

Again, I have a reason for my thread title ...
*** General user warnings ***

Best
Frank

[Ras]

Alone the thread-title is enough

There is nothing offensive in that. Maybe you don't get the difference between "Polish users cut off from TC", which is a factual description of the status quo, and a fictitious title like "cut off Polish users from TC", which would be a request (and offensive).

[Frank Quisinsky]

Rasmus,

play on words will not help!

Best
Frank

[Ras]

play on words will not help!

Sorry Frank, if your English is insufficient for understanding the difference, please don't blame your misunderstanding on other posters.

In "Polish users cut off from TC", "cut" means "abgeschnitten". It's short for "Polish users have been cut off from TC", which is a factual statement about their unfortunate situation. It does not express intent either, that would be "Polish users banned from TC".

In "cut off Polish users from TC", "cut" would be an imperative, an urge to get Polish users removed from TC, which would of course be offensive.

That's because "to cut" is an irregular verb, and all forms are the same: "cut, cut, cut".