They must have brought in some management consultant, to really make sure get the right advise
Votechess rules - sharing opening database research
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Still hoping...
Nov 14, 2016
0
#24
The issue has been resolved (I hope):
"It is OK to discuss opening lines found in game databases (including win/draw/loss statistics) and strategies for using opening databases in TEAM forums"
The above is quoted from https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444820-how-do-i-play-vote-chess-?b_id=12321
Enjoy!
WOOHOO!
Nov 15, 2016
0
#26
But the databases must not contain games involving engines as players, correct?
Nov 15, 2016
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#27
It shouldn't contain engine scores and probably should be the vast majority human vs human, same as for daily chess.
Cool 
, definitely a step in the right direction. I'd still love to read an article that lays out why votechess and daily chess allow external resources in a general sense, so people can philosophically understand the rules.
Nov 15, 2016
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#29
btickler wrote:
Cool , definitely a step in the right direction. I'd still love to read an article that lays out why votechess and daily chess allow external resources in a general sense, so people can philosophically understand the rules.
The philosophy is fairly easy to describe -- the daily chess are supposed to be an online version of the traditional postal chess. At least this is what I gathered from some message exchanges with Erik a couple years ago, which were prompted by some ambiguities (and bad grammar) in the rules as they were shown in 2013. Some history of that was captured in the Evolution of the site rules thread (which lives in the Cheating Forum).
I don't have a similar opinion about vote chess, but would guess that they are a conjunction of daily chess and consultation chess.
Yes, I know it's pretty easy to describe (I did it on page 1)...but it still needs to come from chess.com in an official capacity, or people won't pay any heed and argue over particulars and details when a broad explanation of why these resources are allowed would deter that kind of thing.
Summary of the distinction:
If you are doing research yourself using any reference material (books, videos, opening databases), it is okay as long as you and your team are ultimately determining the moves to be made.
If you and/or your team are using any external resource that is identifying exactly what moves should be made (engines, tablebases, outside players), you are breaking the rules.
Knowing how this works would actually allow people to figure out on their own if something is legal or not in votechess even for scenarios and resources that have not been argued about before...which would head off having to dig for/write up official snippets for each scenario that some player gets into their head.
Nov 16, 2016
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#31
Why are computer games suddenly prohibited?
How can you tell if a game is computer-assisted if the game headers are simply players' names (ie, not an engine name).
Completely unworkable...
Nov 16, 2016
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#32
I'll have to look for references, but I'm pretty sure I've seen staff comments on the the databases being used needing to be human games, at least as much as possible.
If you had a database of mostly engine games and used that to generate move choices, it really isn't much different than using an engine, for at least as long as you have a valid game. I don't think that there is a absolute ban on games being in a database though.
I could also be wrong 
Nov 16, 2016
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#33
Nov 16, 2016
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#34
Martin_Stahl wrote:
so... 10 months ago...
I guess i should strip out all my computer vs computer games, games played on certain other sites which now (although maybe not always did) allow engine use, Gazza versus Deep Blue, advanced tournaments (which display players' names but not engine names in their headers) and all the games played on chess.com by players who have since been banned for cheating...
Oh, and then there are hundreds of thousands of games which were analysed by me, and now contain engine evaluations.
not happening...
To stay true to the original postal chess format, if it's been played before it should be considered theory.
Nov 16, 2016
0
#35
Yeah, my game analysis contains move suggestions too. But the vast majority of the games are human games. I'm not going to discuss any reasons on why it was stated, as the conclusions are fairly obvious, especially in line with a database containing mostly engine games.
Nov 16, 2016
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#36
Martin_Stahl wrote:
Yeah, my game analysis contains move suggestions too. But the vast majority of the games are human games. I'm not going to discuss any reasons on why it was stated, as the conclusions are fairly obvious, especially in line with a database containing mostly engine games.
my database doesn't contain mostly engine games, it's only a small proportion of the whole database (about 2%), but nevertheless still a substantial amount of games. But there are probably twice as many where i really couldn't say whether engines were permitted or not...
Nov 16, 2016
0
#37
I would say that is within the spirit of what erik mentioned, for the most part. I know you understand the overall implications though, and the reasoning for the restriction is less likely to cause issues when most of the games are majorly human moves.
The engine moves clause is to prevent people from using databases generated by engines. Of course there is no way to catch/eliminate engine games or engine assisted games from a database you are using, and there's even no way to catch/stop people from adding known engine games to their private databases.
However, if you use a database that was largely or completely generated by engine play (say, by just taking the Stockfish opening database, which bootstraps on its own evaluations, and turning it into a searchable opening database), then that's what they are trying to curtail.
Follow-on...The original player that complained does not accept the new clarification and in fact reads it completely the opposite of the way it is intended. Surreal stuff ahead...be ready:
20 hrs ago-
20 hrs ago
Nov 19, 2016
0
#40
The including clause adds additional information that can be considered from the databases, including the actual games and who may have played those games. Just because Kasparov liked a move in 1999, doesn't mean he would still recommend that move anyway.
Also, using articles and books are also fine and it is possible to get more recent analysis of some lines that way.
Now, if you emailed Kasparov and asked him what move he recommended now, that would be prohibited, unless he was part of the team.
Ok, cool, thanks :).