Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Ben Good wrote on Thu, Aug 1, 2002 05:43 AM UTC:
well, it's not a big deal, but hiding the inventors' names helps prevent voter bias. to think that this won't occur seems optimistic to me. in addition to people who might deliberately vote for their friends and against anybody they don't like, it's also easy for people to honestly believe that they're not doing it and do it nonetheless without being aware of it, and somehow rationalize the results. when i judged to 40 square contest, there wasn't anybody i didn't like, but i had to constantly remind myself not to go easy on my friends. <P> there's also the problem that an inventor with a reputation for excellent games may be judged more critically because people expect more from them - any musician or author who has had a bestseller is acutely aware of this problem. <P> those of you who were around for the large variant contest and read the yahoo board may remember one of the finalists openly admitting that he simply had all his friends and family members vote for his game without even reading the rules. actually, hiding inventors' names wouldn't eliminate this problem, but it makes the point that honest voting does not always occur. <P> fergus has largely eliminated this problem by requiring voters to vote on more than one game and to put in meaningful comments. it looks like fergus upgraded the comments requirement, possibly in response to the comments from the large chess variants contest. i read through the comments to this contest today and some of them are insightful but some of the commentators obviously couldn't judge their way out of a paper bag and don't understand the concept of objective judging. i looked at the 100 square contest comments too tho and they seem a lot better.

Edit Form

Comment on the page 84 Spaces Contest

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.