*** General user warnings ***

[Frank Quisinsky]

At first:
Dann, you know that you are one of most like members for me ...
Nothing to do with it what I will write now ...

Again, forget the free-idea.
Forget "cost-nothing" strategy, collect for a new and better one.
I am sure that many people will support the idea.

We should say bye-bye to the cost-nothing strategy in computer chess.
The final result is that thinking of consumers in terms of demand is to high.
End of the day the problems are bigger and bigger.

People can not get enough, I am one of the them ... unfortunately, I don't like it but I am honest.

Go the right way and give the forum more professionality.

Best
Frank

[Ras]

The main issue isn't even financial, I think.

The real question is: who would register the domain and webspace? That person would have unlimited technical power over the whole platform. Sure, that could be solved via a foundation, but let's be real, nobody would be willing to do that much work. The upside of Quentin is that the one holding the power isn't even involved here, making him a neutral instance. The downside of course is that even direly necessary updates like https don't happen.

As for a hoster, I think we'd be pretty much down to the US because the EU has the GDPR with its hefty fines plus upload filter requirements, and Iceland and Switzerland are too expensive.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Rasmus,

at first we collect and at second we are looking what we can do with the money.

Easy ...

We should start with the basics "Money we need" and then we should discuss what we do with it.

Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 ...
Without Step 1 ... no Step 2 ... and so one.

If we like to disucss about it again and again ...

The protocol for a board-meeting, end of the day ...
The keeper of the minutes wrote ... 20 persons search a discussion without any result.
Do you know how often I have to write that in the chess-club in younger years.
And all of the older people in the chess-club don't like me if I read it end of the meeting.

So, let us collect for a better forum!
Can not be difficult!

I don't like boring endgames.
Let us play a fast game, mate in 20 moves!

Best
Frank

[mclane]

The main issue isn't even financial, I think.

The real question is: who would register the domain and webspace? That person would have unlimited technical power over the whole platform. Sure, that could be solved via a foundation, but let's be real, nobody would be willing to do that much work. The upside of Quentin is that the one holding the power isn't even involved here, making him a neutral instance. The downside of course is that even direly necessary updates like https don't happen.

As for a hoster, I think we'd be pretty much down to the US because the EU has the GDPR with its hefty fines plus upload filter requirements, and Iceland and Switzerland are too expensive.

That’s why I mentioned to bring the international computerchess forum to the AI department of an university.
IMO these institutions are the only one that are objective, neutral and interested.

I think we should try to contact the universities,
The AI departments,
Neural networks e.g. are the link between computerchess and universities today.
We should use this connection until it makes sense.

If we wait a few more years from now, the Universities might not be interested anymore in computerchess with NN.

[Dann Corbit]

Exactly. IMO the only thing that makes sense to discuss is the IP block problem.
You say it can be solved by using a vpn.
But what about those who don’t know they have to use this,
or those who don’t like to use it. Or give Sam their IP.

IMO there MUST aber a solution.

An international forum where people are blocked because they are a nationality that is blocked by a commercial company chess USA.com
is a bad idea.

We have to thank chessusa for hosting the forum over many years, but blocking ip’s of some Whole nations brings an international community ad absurdum.

I am sure it was in response to some sort of attacks (e.g. DOS attack). I do not believe it was because they look down on some region or ethnic group.
Imagine you are the one managing the servers for online sales and someone messes with your server. So you block his ip. Then it happens again, from a nearby address. And again and again and again. Sometimes people resort to blocking an entire range of ip addresses because they have a business to run and some whinging twit is costing them money.

It's not a good solution to the problem but sometimes there are no easy, good solutions.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Thorsten,

the unisversitys are really a good idea!!!
But I think its better to be independent!

IT departments in universitys ... often genial,
often a big chaos ... experience by myself and the jobs I do.
And I am very sure that younger members, students will support it what I wrote here.

Better is to have an independent and very own area!

Best
Frank

[Ras]

I'm against universities for hosting because beggars can't be choosers. Real money is real talk.

[KLc]

Hi Thorsten,

the unisversitys are really a good idea!!!
But I think its better to be independent!

If you do this in Europe, another "problem" is GDPR, especially if your university is not private. I cannot imagine anyone taking such a risk personally (and you would have to).

[mvanthoor]

The moving issue has to be investigated. What we need, what such a service would cose... I am not in principle against it. Perhaps it should be discussed in the Forum Help section.

With regard to hosting Talkchess, I'd be willing to provide some options and yearly donate some money for it.

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.

[PK]

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.