Incomplete game history issue

Originally posted by mrmist
If you don't have any argument to present kingdavid then it's best to just keep quiet. Responses like that just make you look stupid.

Also it hardly benefits an Announcement thread for it to be cluttered with such stuff.

For what it's worth, Nemesio is actually presenting reasonable points. The fact that you're not prepared to address them sensibly s ey difference there that you can't see. But, unfortunately, I can't help you with that.

See that's your and Nemesio problem, I'm not here to argue. I'm here to play chess, and I don't have to present crap to you or Nemesio. And you two are the one's who look stupid by trying to keep a argument going on this issue.
And respones like this make you look as stupid as Nemesio.
And just because you two numb skulls can't seem to open your little minds to see the other sides opinions on this issue, The RHP staff did see what I was talking about and awarded me my timeout wins long before the 48 hr ban was up. 🙂 So what I set out to accomplish, has been. So you see there is no point in me feeding into your and Nemesio need to try and look important anymore. Bye 🙂

Originally posted by KingDavid403
I and others were very close to claiming a timeout win on someone who has not moved for weeks on our games, and either does not seem to care about the games, or they have already lost the game but are just trying to drag it on long as possible to deny their opponent the win as long as possible...Now the site goes down..Why should we be denied a win which we rightly expect from the site?

I see where you are coming from, but you aren't applying your stance to both sides of the argument.

Firstly, there may be some players who didn't move in games for reasons other than the fact that they didn't care or happened to be in a losing position. For example, some of these games may have had very small time controls. You can't simply dismiss those games.

Secondly, you may very well have been denied a timeout victory from the site, but those same players may have been denied a chance to move by the site. It works both ways.

I'm in favor of said players who may have been denied their chance to move, because, as I said, some may have had genuine reasons for not moving. I hope you see what I'm trying to point out.

Know that I'm willing to disagree agreeably, but I wanted to make my point.

Edit - For the record, I just now saw that you addressed the problem for games with short time controls.

Originally posted by wittywonka
I see where you are coming from, but you aren't applying your stance to both sides of the argument.

Firstly, there may be some players who didn't move in games for reasons other than the fact that they didn't care or happened to be in a losing position. For example, some of these games may have had very small time controls. You can't simply dismiss t point out.

Know that I'm willing to disagree agreeably, but I wanted to make my point.

for example, some of these games may have had very small time controls. You can't simply dismiss those games.
I did respond in my past posts on this issue, and I agreed that is these cases it would not be fair if they were timed out. If you go back and read you can read what I said on this issue.

.Secondly, you may very well have been denied a timeout victory from the site, but those same players may have been denied a chance to move by the site. It works both ways. I agree. But in cases were the opponents have had plenty of time to move previously, and have moved on their other games, and in cases were opponents are just dragging out the game as long as possible, It is not fair to the ones who were ready to claim the timeouts.
I agreed with someone else that the time clocks should have been stopped instead of a 48 hr timeout ban.
Then someone pointed out about very short time controls in certain games. And again I agreed that it would not be fair in these cases if they were timed out. If you go back and read all the posts from the beginning on this issue you would be up to date. But some just still want to keep a argument going and I'm not feeding into any longer. I got my timeout wins and I hope others got theirs also. End of story.

Originally posted by wittywonka
I see where you are coming from, but you aren't applying your stance to both sides of the argument.

Firstly, there may be some players who didn't move in games for reasons other than the fact that they didn't care or happened to be in a losing position. For example, some of these games may have had very small time controls. You can't simply dismiss t ...[text shortened]... record, I just now saw that you addressed the problem for games with short time controls.

Edit - For the record, I just now saw that you addressed the problem for games with short time controls.

Noted and thank you.

Originally posted by KingDavid403
See that's your and Nemesio problem, I'm not here to argue. I'm here to play chess, and I don't have to present crap to you or Nemesio. And you two are the one's who look stupid by trying to keep a argument going on this issue.
And respones like this make you look as stupid as Nemesio.
And just because you two numb skulls can't seem to open ...[text shortened]... oint in me feeding into your and Nemesio need to try and look important anymore. Bye 🙂

Yet again you come back with a stream of insults. Perhaps that is how you have been taught to debate, I know not.

I don't have any "problem", nor I am demanding anything of you, whether it's to "present crap" or otherwise. All I am doing is pointing out where you are failing to pick up on things.

Likewise I am not forcing you to come back to this thread. As I write this, you have said "bye" or otherwise excused yourself from further responses 3 times, yet you still appear to be as engaged as anyone in the discussion. Excusing yourself from a debate is fine. I do it myself. But you have to stick by it. It's no good saying "And that's my final word on the matter" and then coming back for another word.

I'm glad that you "accomplished" timing out your opponent, but nothing that I've read here makes me believe that you've taken on board a lot of the finer points about the need for timeout suspensions.

Perhaps you don't see why there is a problem?

All I can try to do to explain it is to pick up on something you have already ceeded to. You accept that in a 24hr timeout game a suspension must be present. You've said that much. Now, in a 7 day timeout game, a player is entitled to move in ANY of those 7 days, including the 6th day. You might see it as "dragging" the game to only play your move on thath 6th day, but it is legal and it is perfectly correct play. Yet for some reason you cannot see that if someone came to make their move on that 6th day and was unable to because the site was down, that they shouldn't have some pause in which to do so.

Of course, what's happened now is that you mistakenly see this thread as some kind of battle. I'm not interested in such things to be frank. I'm a grown man, not a schoolboy. I'm certainly not here to try to "look important". But I do believe in fairness, and I also see open forums as a place to debate issues. Particularly issues that are of direct relevance to the threads. That's why I respond. I cannot, of course, speak for others.

Originally posted by KingDavid403
😴😲 Did someone say something?? Nope guess not.😴😴😴

It never ceases to amaze me how some people are capable of providing the mot succinct and compeling arguments to prove the point of someone with whom they disagree.

Just to stir the pot a little, I believe there are some points that have not yet been considered (or at least not voiced).

A person who embarks on a 7/x game, may do so knowing they have but one opportunity per week to make a move. If the site is unavailable at that time, then they could face a timeout. At best, they face unplanned timebank depletion.

Technically, the same applies for someone embarking on a 21/x game.

Surely a 24hr ban on timeouts is not 'fair' to these people. Also, surely a 48hr ban on timeouts is overly generous to people playing 1/x games.

Another consideration is 0/x games. A ban on timeouts still leaves the person whose turn it was to move during the outage with an 'unfairly' depleted timebank; and a ban just after the outage is no help a week later.

Finally, a person whose timeout/timebank had depleted to 0/0 before the outage started (i.e. was already at risk of a timeout claim), should surely not benefit from any timeout protection. Before the outage, it would have been a matter of 'luck' as to whether the player could make his move before his opponent claimed the timeout. Surely the same situation should exist after the outage?
Actually I suspect this was KingDavid403's point, though I do not believe it was clear.

On the subject of fairness: Would it be 'fair' to to spend time and effort developing the perfect solution to deal with the occasional timeout; thereby depriving us of the useful features that we'll use regularly? Or is it 'fair' to provide a simple imperfect solution, and get on with the features? I know where I'd spend my money.

Originally posted by Russ
We hit a problem yesterday which took us completely by surprise. We did not have a database failure in the normal sense, but the problems were database related, caused mainly by the vast amount of data we now retain, for games in particular.

For well over 12 hours each move made was not being archived. This has resulted in incomplete/corrupt PGNs and gam ...[text shortened]... d before we guarantee this will happen) This should be available within 2 or 3 days.

-Russ

Dear Russ
I have read your note about the database problem and that you are working to recrify this.
I have a problem with one of my games (Game id 4464701) apart from the log being incorrect, when you play through the game it jumps about a bit, putting pieces where they weren't before and such like.
If the last move by my opponent is legal then I have a forced mate in two moves, as my opponent isn't that bad a player I wonder if his last move is because he is seeing something different to me.
As I have a few days before I need to move, I would be obliged if for the sake of the game and my sanity you would check this out if possible, and let me know if the position is correct.
Yours faithfully SuperMac

Browsing the game history has now been disabled altogether for affected games.

A tool has been created that requires the manual entry of missing moves from memory, but its value is debatable, so it may not be made public.

I will update further on this tomorrow.

-Russ

Originally posted by SuperMac
Dear Russ
I have read your note about the database problem and that you are working to recrify this.
I have a problem with one of my games (Game id 4464701) apart from the log being incorrect, when you play through the game it jumps about a bit, putting pieces where they weren't before and such like.
If the last move by my opponent is legal then I have a ...[text shortened]... k this out if possible, and let me know if the position is correct.
Yours faithfully SuperMac

superMac
i see what you mean i just look at Game id 4464701 < and i see what you mean i got to move ( w26 ) before it started jumping about
Yours faithfully fireballxl5 😕 😕

Originally posted by Russ
Browsing the game history has now been disabled altogether for affected games.

A tool has been created that requires the manual entry of missing moves from memory, but its value is debatable, so it may not be made public.

I will update further on this tomorrow.

-Russ

If you have a tool to reinstate 'lost' moves, then both players must agree on the 'restored' moves - maybe not having to both enter identical sequences, but there should be a way for one to enter and the other to agree.

There are bound to be disputed games, and there are bound to be different sequences leading to the same position - I know I can barely remember this morning properly, let alone chess moves from last week, so the sooner this tool can be used the better.

Presumably you know how many moves need to be re-made for things to add up, and the end state of the board has to match the current state - and I also presume that the missing moves are contiguous? Quite tight parameters for any fix. I think it would be very useful - provided that both players agree.

I'd be interested in seeing/testing the tool - I think I only have two affected games though.

Originally posted by Russ
Browsing the game history has now been disabled altogether for affected games.

A tool has been created that requires the manual entry of missing moves from memory, but its value is debatable, so it may not be made public.

I will update further on this tomorrow.

-Russ

I agree that the value of the tool for re-entering missing moves is debatable. But why has browsing the remaining moves been disabled?

I spent (a not insignificant amount of) time figuring out the missing moves in the affected games so that I could recreate the games from the missing moves and moves still in the game log. Unfortunately, I did not record the moves still in the game log. Maybe I'm in a minority, but I would like to see the non-missing moves returned to the game log.

Originally posted by fiftyonehz
I agree that the value of the tool for re-entering missing moves is debatable. But why has browsing the remaining moves been disabled?

I spent (a not insignificant amount of) time figuring out the missing moves in the affected games so that I could recreate the games from the missing moves and moves still in the game log. Unfortunately, I di ...[text shortened]... aybe I'm in a minority, but I would like to see the non-missing moves returned to the game log.

I'm also keen on seeing the existing game history. However, the errors seem to be causing confusion, and disrupting game-play; see SuperMac's post above.

Perhaps allow existing Game History to be emailed or opened as PGN; then we can attempt reconstruction for our own databases/studies. In particular I have two games against Korch that I'd certainly like to study after the fact - but both have been affected.

As a side note, Russ, how are/were the problem games identified? I have a completed game against Packetman that has been flagged. When game history was available I could see that there was just one simple mistake. I copied the game by hand last night using the game log, and that doesn't seem to have any mistakes?!

Originally posted by fiftyonehz
I agree that the value of the tool for re-entering missing moves is debatable. But why has browsing the remaining moves been disabled?

I spent (a not insignificant amount of) time figuring out the missing moves in the affected games so that I could recreate the games from the missing moves and moves still in the game log. Unfortunately, I di ...[text shortened]... aybe I'm in a minority, but I would like to see the non-missing moves returned to the game log.

I think Russ felt he had to disable the history because the strange behavior of the analyze board was confusing people enough to effect the outcome of some games.

It's a real pickle. We need access to the history in order to figure out what moves are missing, but leaving it available causes worse problems.

I'm curious to know what the scope of the problem is. How many total games have been effected? And, of the users who have effected games, what is the average number of effected games per user?

What I envisioned when Russ mentioned a tool to fix the problem was a page that listed all the effected games, with a link to each game allowing either the two players of that game to access it, correct the history, and probably a requirement that both players indicate that they concur on the result. Then I figured some kind of mass message would go out to the effected users asking them to please participate in a community effort to correct the games.

If we had something like this fairly quickly I think the RHP community might have the will to review and correct these games from memory, but perhaps not the ability depending on the scope of the problem. Either way time is short if it is to be tried. Personally I've always been very impressed with the way this site maintains historical data and I think it's a shame it's been compromised. I'd like to see it restored as much as possible. I have a hunch that most people would be glad to help out in the effort if asked. Even if we only fixed 50% of the effected games wouldn't that be better than none?

Anyway, like you I have already reviewed my handful of effected games for the missing moves and am ready to fix them if given the opportunity.

Ok, for those who would like to try it, this is the tool to use.

http://www.redhotpawn.com/gameanalysis/gamefix.php?gameid=xxxxxx

Replace xxxxxx with the id for the corrupt game id.

This tool is rather unsophisticated. Things to note before diving in :

a) The missing moves must be restored from memory.
b) Games with the first move missing cannot be fixed.
c) Errors made when restoring moves cannot be fixed.
d) Either player in a game can attempt to restore missing moves.
e) No restored moves are verified, so if you make a mistake, that
mistake will be recorded.
f) Move dates will be recorded as a time within the outage, and are not accurate.
g) Each restored move will have a chat message saying [Restored move] against it. This cannot be edited.

Within a few weeks, all games stored at RHP will be tested for completeness and correctness. Any failing this test will have their history removed altogether.

So, if a game move is restored incorrectly or has not been restored at all, and the game history does not result in the current known correct game state, the history will be deleted for that game. (Note : the game itself will not be removed, just the history) This process must happen because storing any corrupt game history data will no doubt cause problems in the future if the accuracy cannot be depended on.

So if you do intend to try and restore you games, please do it ASAP. It is not easy to do, so good luck to all those who attempt it!

-Russ

Thanks Russ.

Just to clarify, does the game in question have to be complete?