Is Talkchess still the centre of computer chess programming?

[hgm]

Open-Chess seems very dead, at least for programming questions. There still are some very elementary questions there from last year (like "how can I print a PV"), whichstill have zero replies. Questions that did receive an answer seem to just get a reference to the Chessprogramming Wiki.

[mclane]

IMO talkchess is as dead as css forum.

Here strange new engines appear. The programmers do not tell us why their engines appear.

In the css forum the people discuss how to win at chessbase server.

As if this has anything to do with chess.

[mvanthoor]

IMO talkchess is as dead as css forum.

Here strange new engines appear. The programmers do not tell us why their engines appear.

In the css forum the people discuss how to win at chessbase server.

As if this has anything to do with chess.

* shrug *

So what? Then spend your time with engines that are open source, and of which you like the code, or the author. There are too many chess engines in the world nowadays to be bothered by those you don't like for whatever reason.

[smatovic]

Bump.

I read now and then that the pro computer chess programmers do not come in here anymore. They all have their own Discord channels going on etc. The main forum maybe was always meant to be ignored for programmers, too much political community stuff going on, too low tech level. And, obv. the pro programmers have outgrown of the tech level present in the programmers section. Nevertheless:

- perft_gpu by Ankan was announced and discussed on TC
- Giraffe was announced and discussed on TC
- AlphaGo and AlphaZero papers were posted and discussed
- Lc0 was anounced on TC
- SF NNUE by Nodchip took off via TC

It seems only natural that dev teams come up with their own channels for discussing their stuff, SF did it, Lc0 did it, OpenBench etc. My point is that for some folks this is the right place to be, it is their computer chess home, it might not be edgy for the top20, top80 chess engine programmers, but still of value for others, please respect it in that matter.

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Srdja

[crem]

I believe there are two technical reasons this forum is dying, both are easy to fix, and both noone cares to fix.

1. It's not possible to register for new people (if you are really persistent, it is, but it will take several months and emails to do that).
2. The forum is not discoverable by Google'ing because it's disallowed for crawling: robots.txt

With this, there are mosly old members here, and the forum is gradually dying, naturally (even biologically, I'd say).

[AndrewGrant]

I believe there are two technical reasons this forum is dying, both are easy to fix, and both noone cares to fix.

1. It's not possible to register for new people (if you are really persistent, it is, but it will take several months and emails to do that).
2. The forum is not discoverable by Google'ing because it's disallowed for crawling: robots.txt

With this, there are mosly old members here, and the forum is gradually dying, naturally (even biologically, I'd say).

Can tack on a 3. Which is that the forum is (still?) inaccessible from certain places in the world. So even the old members are being pruned.

[smatovic]

I believe there are two technical reasons this forum is dying, both are easy to fix, and both noone cares to fix.

1. It's not possible to register for new people (if you are really persistent, it is, but it will take several months and emails to do that).
2. The forum is not discoverable by Google'ing because it's disallowed for crawling: robots.txt

With this, there are mosly old members here, and the forum is gradually dying, naturally (even biologically, I'd say).

Can tack on a 3. Which is that the forum is (still?) inaccessible from certain places in the world. So even the old members are being pruned.

Several members tried to engage into fixing the technical issues, IMO this about the founding fathers/elected moderators and the hosting-sponsor/site-owner, not a technical plane, I suggested to solve this by setting up a registered society to run TC withing an legal framework, it seems no one was interested to spend time in this. I am a tech guy, I can only fix the tech, if I am allowed to do, I can not fix the legal TC issues, or alike.

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Srdja

[Werewolf]

4. Around 50% of the posts are by 2 or 3 idiots who refuse to learn and spout nonsense or misinformation. The mods don't delete their posts. Meanwhile, people who know tons post rarely. Just saying.

[smatovic]

4. Around 50% of the posts are by 2 or 3 idiots who refuse to learn and spout nonsense or misinformation. The mods don't delete their posts. Meanwhile, people who know tons post rarely. Just saying.

Hehe, maybe another POV, we had our "fireworks" with Lc0 and SF NNUE, now it is more about incremental process, and the signal/noise ratio alternates again.

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Srdja

[hgm]

I believe there are two technical reasons this forum is dying, both are easy to fix, and both noone cares to fix.

1. It's not possible to register for new people (if you are really persistent, it is, but it will take several months and emails to do that).
2. The forum is not discoverable by Google'ing because it's disallowed for crawling: robots.txt

With this, there are mosly old members here, and the forum is gradually dying, naturally (even biologically, I'd say).

Where did you get the idea that (1) would be the case? I register several new accounts daily, almost always within a day from their application. Most of these accounts never post, (one assumes they only register to be able to use the search function), but some post the next day. I almost never receive mails of people complaining their account (or an account of someone who approached them) was not activated.

I am not an expert on robots.txt syntax. But isn't it true that Google bot ignores this command? The file was installed because the website was frequently overwhelmed by crawler bots, which caused the underlying database server to crash. What do you think should be in the file to only allow access by Google and keep out other bots?