Rebel wrote:Are you just unwilling to acknowledge the aftermath of the Rybka affair has created a problem for newcomers (modern programmers who borrow from open sources and the CPW) with an interest to participate or do we just have some kind of misunderstanding?
Of course I am 'unwilling' to acknowledge that. Because it is not true. It is not newcomers for which the Rybka affair is relevant, but cloners. You seem to mix up the two groups.
It's easy for us old-timers, we are above any suspicion. Newcomers especially when they are good are suspect by definition. When a new program enters you know the first question asked in every forum. The result of living in a post Rybka world.
Please don't pretend it's business as usual, it's not.
I can't understand why you are so focused on Rybka. No one cares about Rybka anymore. What has changed is that the World nowadays is flooded by Houdinis, Ivanhoes, FireBirds, Robbolitos, Vitruvii and what have you. The Rybka affair has absolutely nothing to do with that. Even if it had not happened, the situation w.r.t. WCCC would be exactly the same.
bob wrote: Simple question. WCCC Hong Kong. Do you REALLY believe anything there was better than deep thought? It was the ONLY program with a real GM-level rating. But a comm failure cost it one game. You attach too much significance to the "world computer chess championship" title...
It is not who wins the tournament but who partecipates that makes the tournament a world championship.
Correction:
It is not who wins the tournament but who partecipates that makes the tournament a respected world championship.
You do not have to respect the world championship and I also consider the world champion title in computer chess to be not very important as long as the best programs do not participate but it is still a world championship.
It will never be possible to have a formal definition of "too much" - as comforting as that might be for us. You will find that even with libraries of books on law it still comes down the judgement of a judge. We are not robots. I think that you are asking for some sort of formula where you tally each line of code with some sort of weight based on content (which I'm afraid would also have to be judged) and then come up with a precise answer?
As far as the other stuff is concerned, I don't know what to say. You keep talking about ideas, "number of ideas" and "chess knowledge ideas" as if that is related to the issue of the ICGA decision. I know you want it to be about that, but it's just not.
My concern is the future, there must be guide lines for newcomers hence my programmer_code initiative. The ICGA needs one for themselves. For the sake of the future "too much" needs a definition. Before the Tilburg WCCC I wrote to David:
I foresee a rapid developing future that on ICGA tournaments the 5-10 best programs in the world can not play. Anno 2011 I wonder if programs like Houdini, Critter, Komodo, Stockfish could pass rule #2 successfully. Without a firm change of rule #2 I foresee a future I wonder if it makes sense for programmers to spend considerable time and money (new hardware, hotel costs, tickets) and travel 4000 miles around the globe to play in a second division tournament.
And in retrospect looking at Tilburg my prediction became reality even sooner than I expected, a second division tournament. And one obstacle is the unclear rule #2. I am pretty sure if I would do a poll if rule #2 can stand the pressure of 2012 the result would be negative. It needs an update.
Rebel wrote:My concern is the future, there must be guide lines for newcomers hence my programmer_code initiative. The ICGA needs one for themselves. For the sake of the future "too much" needs a definition.
There must be something wrong with my eyes...
Below I quoted WCCC rule #2. Can you underline the "too much" in there that needs clarification?
2. Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.
Rebel wrote:Are you just unwilling to acknowledge the aftermath of the Rybka affair has created a problem for newcomers (modern programmers who borrow from open sources and the CPW) with an interest to participate or do we just have some kind of misunderstanding?
Of course I am 'unwilling' to acknowledge that. Because it is not true. It is not newcomers for which the Rybka affair is relevant, but cloners. You seem to mix up the two groups.
Ed seems to think that this is new way of doing things, that all new "programmers" take the best open source code as their starting point. In this way everyone can be a programmers and compete and you do not even need to know how to program. So newcomers at a tournament would primarily be a room full of Ivahoe's, probably half of them weakened by misguided attempts to improve them and a few with minor improvements and the exceptional one might have substantial improvements.
There would be a LOT of participation, I am surprised at how many people want to be the man behind the program. They have cracked down a lot on this (which is old fashioned) but on ICC there used to be 30 or 40 Crafty's playing and although nobody claimed it was their own program each operator took fierce pride in their version, protecting the rating and getting upset over losses and such. When I tried to play my program at the time I was faced with an endless stream of Crafty's.
It's easy for us old-timers, we are above any suspicion. Newcomers especially when they are good are suspect by definition. When a new program enters you know the first question asked in every forum. The result of living in a post Rybka world.
Please don't pretend it's business as usual, it's not.
I can't understand why you are so focused on Rybka. No one cares about Rybka anymore. What has changed is that the World nowadays is flooded by Houdinis, Ivanhoes, FireBirds, Robbolitos, Vitruvii and what have you. The Rybka affair has absolutely nothing to do with that. Even if it had not happened, the situation w.r.t. WCCC would be exactly the same.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
Well, there is nothing against conducting a World Championship of Ippolit improvers. Just like there is nothing against holding a contest for who can travel 43 km by bus the fastest. (In some countries this can be a real challenge! ) It is just that most of us would not be interested to partiipate.
And I still don'get what that has to do with Rybka, or what needs to be clarified w.r.t. rule #2.
You always end up talking about the same stories.
issue after issue.
They have never asked anyone can do in this world,
one amateur, not professional,
when you want to make your own engine and has 7 or 8 free programs to work.
And you post after post, one can speak of the same.
hgm wrote:If people are not interested to participate, it is a pity,
If people is not interested to partecipate to what is called "World Championship" is not a pity, it is a failure of tournament organizers !
It means there is a problem, a problem that people organizing the tournament (not the players) should ask themself "Why?" and "What we can do to improve this?". In any sport, if a world championship is organized and none of the strongest partecipates then the event is a failure and there are some consequences. Acting as "nothing as happened" is very arrogant and shortsighted.
There are a lot of reasons participation is low and it's not all ICGA, a lot of it is society or people who have changed. At least in the USA there has been a big change, people are much more entertainment driven and much less cerebral. So more people think of chess as something way over their heads and otherwise very boring to them. 40 years ago people read the newspaper, now they don't read anything but a computer screen. I believe, and I don't know this for sure, that people are much less likely to make a trip overseas. So if you have a world championship in the USA, you won't get very many European participants. The USA, and it hurts me to say this, is probably now the worst place to have a world championship because chess is just not popular here. We would rather sit on our couches and watch professionals play sports for us. I don't know what the state of the art is in computer chess, but most of the talent in computer chess is not coming from this country.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
) It is just that most of us would not be interested to partiipate.