Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Previous comment has an invisble smiley.

Regarding 'cockles', below.  Note that the link actually provides no
solution to the meaning of 'cockles' in this sense.  Neither does the
Oxford English Dictionary, which has much the same info as the editor's
link.  The upshot is, we don't know what 'cockles' are.
I once read a hypothesis that suggested that expressions that were used
formulaicly, but made no sense (like 'dead as a doornail') were actually
the punchlines of forgotten jokes.  Sounds dopey, but think of how many
punchlines you use as metaphors in colloquial conversation, and how often
you really tell the jokes they go with.

What about ratings abysmal, mediocre, and superb?

Keeping the discussion alive alive O, I always thot that cockles were a
type of dialectic seafood, suitable for the musselbound.

However, if in doubt, the question can be submitted to alt.usage.english, a
font of linguistic wisdom.

Submit without review is not necessary as long as it is made obvious that
submit can be found within review: we are accustomed to pesky and insecure
programs asking us 'are you sure, are you really reaaly sure, should I do
what you said or are you a jerk?

99 and 44/100ths, not 99.4; Ivory Soap (tm). It's your turn in the barrel,
as Safire recently apologized for saying -- the phrase is the punchline of
a *dirty* joke, you see.

Many adages and colloquialisms come from jokes or from Ad Age; and they are
ephemeral, for example who today would know what ad agency I one worked for
if I specify that it sounds like a suitcase falling down a flight of
stairs, as Marcel Duchamp once said. Oh, sorry, it was Fred Allen who said
it.

As comedians in the Borscht Belt once asked, 'Where's the beet?'

Back to topic, how can there be a Comdey Chess, in which every move is a
joke??

if a comment is submitted in html mode, its left margin is indented.
<P>
Non-html comments start at page left.
<P>
The above is true when viewing with lynx. Your mileage may vary if you
use
any of the inferior alternatives.
<P>

if a comment is submitted in non-html mode, things that appear to be html
tags are not printed. Are they interpreted? here's an hr:<HR>
<P>
The previous line appears blank but contained left-angle-bracket. P,
right-angle-bracket.
<P>
This is inconsistent behavior.

if a comment is submitted in non-html mode, things that appear to be html
tags are not printed. But the preview prints them!!!
<P>
The previous line appears blank but contained left-angle-bracket. P,
right-angle-bracket. In preview mode, I saw the html tag, but when viewing
comments I see a blank line.
<P>
This is inconsistent behavior.

Most of the recent flood of commants/feebback was caused by my article on
''Chatter Chess'''', which has not yet been seen.
<P>
Imagine what may happen if chatter chess ever sees the light of day, will
the comment system be able to handle such volume?
<P>
These are important considerations....
<P>
<Blink>

If you think Ruddigore Chess seems playable, by all means test a bit more
and write it up! You're the inventor. I just blathered away with a crude
sketch of the rules and a crazy suggestion, you saw the possibilities and
found the specific rule-set that makes it work -- in other words, you do
all the hard work, it's your game.
<P>
You'll mention me, of course, but you know I would never have pursued the
idea further...

So, given the amount of chatter about Chatter Chess and Ruddigore Chess and
so on, do we need 'virtual' comment pages so we can discuss variants that
haven't actually been posted?  Then, going forward, the comments will be
where they belong.  I mean, who's going to think about looking for comments
about Ruddigore Chess attached to the Archoniclastic Chess page?

Also, to David, I like the little subtle link to the recent comments at the
top of the What's New page, but I don't think in GMT.  Maybe we could
include the current time in GMT, or the time elapsed since the last
comment, or something like that.

I fall between Peter and David here.  When I write a comment, I don't
really plan it.  Something in the page, or another comment sets me off, and
I just start writing.  If it leads somewhere not completely germaine to the
page being commented on, so be it.

BUT, the result is that discussions that are potentially interesting or
inspiring get buried attached to pages that effectively conceal them from
later browsers.  (Look at the recent discussion attached to the
'Archoniclastic Chess' page.)

To do the thing properly, comments should be limited to the variant they
are attached to, and any flight of fancy should be moved to the discussion
group.  I think this is against human nature (at least mine) and I would
probably never make 50% of those posts.  Furthermore, the discussion group
posting may be cryptic outside of context of the variant page that inspired
it.

On the other side, the number of people 'misusing' the comment system are
relatively small.  It would be a huge waste of time and resources to build
a parallel discussion system for a handful of 'chatterers'.  Also, the
public discussion board has a better possibility of attracting random
searchers.

Maybe a compromise is possible.  Let me note here that I am no programmer,
and I have no idea how difficult any particular idea would be to implement.
 An idea that seems simple to me might be to allow the writer of an
extended comment to select a small set of keywords ('Ruddigore',
'double-move') which the comment system could also search for.

Better ideas?

The comment system allows you to see the whole discussion on one page,
instead of needing to access (and then page down past all the garbage) a
new page for each message.

This is a huge advantage, and I expect that people will abandon the yahoo
thingy and flock to the chessvariants.com comment pages.