Chat Rooms in Season 5

This was a huge debate once before, but since we are starting a new season, before we actually get started, I wanted to get everyone's input on what (if anything) we should do about chat rooms.

If I remember correctly the last thing we said was that a ban on chat rooms would be hard to justify and even harder to enforce.  Is that still the general consensus?  There are clearly a number of players who would still like to see chat rooms banned completely.

I totally understand how a few bad apples have abused the priveledge (and had their accounts closed as a result of it), but should that prohibit the honest teams from using a tool which is clearly beneficial?

If chat rooms are used, should the comments be re-posted in the game comments?  Even if you are only using the game notes, you can still go back and edit posts.  So if you are a dishonest player looking for a way to cheat, there's no way we can completely stop you from covering your tracks, but I'd like to believe that those players are in the minority and that most of us want to have some good clean honest fun.

Before the new season gets underway, I'd really like to hear everyone's opinion on how we should proceed so that we are all on the same page.

My thoughts are this: When this very first started everyone used the games notes happily. I have been a member of several teams playing SVC as you know and I find as long as everyone knows to refresh the page (f5) then we could all easily do that again.

I know it would be hard to enforce but if chess.com gave us the option of playing chess at 10 minutes per move then one would automatically assume that chess.com thinks that the game notes be sufficient too.

I am in support of not using chat rooms for this reason.

One of the values of vote chess is getting to read and learn from the archives after the game.  I'd much prefer to see all the game related comments on chess.com.  This will also provide transparency in order to monitor fair play.

Im totally against chat rooms for the SVC, it may not be possible to stop notes being deleted , edited etc, but banning them imo is a step in the right direction towards making the games more open , and hopefully honest.

I have played many svc games in different groups some that use chat rooms , some that dont.

 As mentioned earlier in thread the main reason people want to ban chat rooms is thst we cant see the decision making process in the games. This makes it harder to see which users are people and which are engines.

All the teams I played svcl with have had at some point players banned for cheating - no group is without sin so to speak.

Those of you who have played 10 min games before know the limitations of using team comments. 

In team commentsyou can only see notes if you refresh, which means if you have a comment to make on the next move you wont see what everyone else is thinking until you have posted your comment.

The main advantage of team comments is the ability to publish diagrams.

A chat room will allow you to see other team member comments while you are typing. A great advantage in short time games.

Disadvantages, you cant post diagrams, and if its a large group of players a  fee for chat room maybe needed.

I think each team should be allowed to chose if they wish to use chat rooms , but if they choose to do so, they will have to publish the chat for that move in team comments. 

I tried unsuccessfully to get some of the teams I played for to post chat logs, and would still be in favor of doing that.

There is a shortcoming on posting chat, on the site favored by most people the history goes away pretty quickly unless it's a premium (paid) room.  In response to that I attempted to teach the group how to use IRC, but it didn't work out.

For fast games like the SVC a chat room is necessary. The team comments section needs to be refreshed always to see newer comments. If there are only a few players this is okay, but with a large number of players, one will find himself spending most of the time refreshing the page.

To catch cheaters some other means should be used, banning chat rooms is not the solution.

Please give us your suggestion then please?

Suggestion for catching cheaters: Report them.

If we have to refresh , we do so , 10 minute is by any definition fast and furious, the same for all teams. However its managed, team comments afterwards must be available to the other team, whether its chat room or not.  This will deter cheaters , hopefully.  

for IRC wouldnt the team members all have to download/install software?

not sure if everyone would agree or have the admin rights to do so

Just because some speed vote teams still insist on hamstringing themselves by using cumbersome web refresh, rather than more efficent means, doesnt mean all teams should be held to this.

I agree team comments should be available
If a teams refuses to do this, then dont let them play.
Team admins / captains should be reponsible for publishing these team comments. Ideally after every move.

If everyone agrees to this and thenwe find that a team has played a game without pblishing their comments team, I would suggest that some form of penalty , minus 2 pts from the teams result would be appropriate.

Many IRC servers have a web interface, so it doesn't necessarily mean installing software.

i havent used IRC since the late 90's

you learn something new every day , thanks Dave

would you need at least 1 user to install to act as server? or would this all be 3rd party?

This is one of my favorite things about Vote Chess as well - going thru the comments (of both sides) after the game and trying to understand the thought processes that led to both the right and wrong moves.  The transparency issue is certainly a huge factor too.

I wish this were not true, but unfortunately I agree with you.  Nobody has room to point a finger at anybody else.  Most of the guilty parties have had their accounts closed, so this isn't about accusations or blame, it's just about moving forward and trying to make sure those events don't reoccur. 

This is a perfect summary of the advantages and disadvantages to both systems.  For people like me who take a long time to post my thoughts (cuz I'm so wordy), the ability to see new comments as I'm typing helps incredibly cuz frequently my question will get answered before I'm done asking it.  Also, when it's getting down to the last minute, and a decision needs to be made, it hurts that you can't type and refresh at the same time in the team comments.

If the key chat points are posted with each move tho, not that much will have scrolled off (even when we're super chatty, the log will still go back for several moves).

It really sounds like everybody is in agreement about one thing:  after the game, Team Comments must be published for all to see.  Nobody is against this that I can tell.  The issue is how to actually make it work.

It sounds like there are still a lot of people who would like to use chat rooms, but are willing to post the key points in the team comments with each move (sometimes it might get posted in the next move for obvious reasons, as long as the comments are kept current).  Are the people who are against chat rooms willing to accept this compromise?

If so, what is the actual rule going to be?  Do we wish to establish some kind of empirical standard (posts per move, etc.) that needs to be maintained and a penalty for not meeting those standards?  I'm not really sold on that idea at all to be honest - opens up a huge can of worms.  But will it be enuf to just ask everyone to comply, and warn them if they don't?  If a team has been told more than once to publish their comments, and stubbornly refuses to do so, then they're simply not good sports, and shouldn't be allowed to continue in the league.  I can't imagine anyone actually refusing to obey the rules tho.  We simply need to define exactly what that rule is.

I have posted the rules for the new season (which will obviously be modified pending the outcome of this discussion).  The key differences are the tie-breaking/point awarding modification proposed by DaveShack regarding games that forfeit/timeout in less than 16 moves and the extension of each month by 2 weeks (1 before and 1 after - which should allow for more flexibilty in scheduling games around the holidays, etc.).  If there are any other changes you'd like to see, now's the time to say something (as long as it's not about sections).  

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/svcl-season-5-official-rules

There is a very close association between chat rooms use and organised cheating, i.e round the clock Houdini cover in shifts, and people being refused particiation in teams if don't play the agreed software move. All the recent winners of competetion have had this hiding of methods in chatrooms and extreme organisation. The competition won't have creditability if chatrooms are not banned.

I have already told all groups that they must use their main group, and not a small invite-only sub group.  The whole "Vote as we tell you to or get banned" was definitely not in the spirit of this tournament.  We want as many people to play these games as possible, not just a pair of individuals with computer assistance.

The International 10 min. vote chess team does not use outside chat rooms.

I'm struggling to think of a winner of this tournament that didnt have engine assistance.

I agree that we should try every means available to discourage cheating. If there is a majority agreement, chat rooms should be banned. (having 2 windows open and refreshing 1 to view team mates comments would be workable)

If there is agreement for no chat rooms how would we police it?

Easy if you can't see how a team produces their moves, they lose the game.