We could go grab the PGN one at a time for these events, or we may decide to grab the gigantic zip files from a source like TWIC. However we have to do that carefully or we could end up with a ton of duplicates, plus we may want to enforce some kind of "rating > 2300" rule.

We may want to make these tournaments kibitzable, even though it's doubtful anybody has anything to say at this point. (The point is simply that they will assemble themselves into the New Games page properly if we make them kibitzable.)

Your effectively trying to censor what i have to say,even though iv behaved and apologised to those iv wronged in the past....

Il just leave you with this last thought.....If iv crossed the line this time,then i think AJ goldsby's lapped me !!!

All the best

<...There are holes in our database from recent years: tournaments that escaped our eagle vision when they were happening and now leave holes in the 2009 & 2010 years.>

May I suggest assembling a chess calender to flag when significant events are to be played so you don't have to chase after them after the fact, especially those events that are both heavyweight and significant to the World Championship cycle?

<...We may want to make these tournaments kibitzable, even though it's doubtful anybody has anything to say at this point. (The point is simply that they will assemble themselves into the New Games page properly if we make them kibitzable.)>

My initial question is to ask whether there is a significant amount of extra work to make them kibitzable? For example, if you assembled Hastings 1895, San Sebastian 1911, AVRO 1938, 20th century super tournaments generally, and even something like London 1851 as kibitzable, I'm sure you'd get quite a few kibitzes in due course, as chess history is alive in ways other histories are not because of our evolving understanding of the games that have been played.

The Asian Continentals might not attract much attention at this point, but I have no doubt that as China and India grow as chess powers, so will membership of this site from those countries will grow concomitantly, as the number of English speakers in these countries continue to grow...I understand that English is now taught to all Chinese school students from an early age.

Another query is that if you make a tournament kibitzable, can you simultaneously apply the 2300+ filter? Also, can the 2300+ filter be switched off for selected games after you've assembled a page, just in case there are early games of someone who subsequently comes good that you may wish to add back into the mix?

<In short, if you have a specific need for these tournaments you can send us the PGN through our PGN Upload Utility or simply by email.>

I'll try to do this.

<However if you were just pointing it out so we can fill in the gaps, let us go through with importing a bunch of games that we missed from recent years and see if that fills in the gaps you noticed.>

The games are the main thing of course, but in an ideal world, games would be assembled within linkable tournament pages. These are really, really useful links for biographers and historians in this site, as well as easily accessible entry points to the collected games of a given tournament, which are otherwise scattered through the database.

I imagine from the dissatisfaction you've expressed about the New Games page, that you will be redesigning it in due course. As a committed user and biographer of your site, I'd suggest a New Games tournament page that is <<consistent>> above all else, with an internal search engine. The chronological system you have now is IMO reasonably adequate, especially if you can tidy it up a tad and make it just a bit more user-friendly as I've mentioned previously, but it has significant holes in every year, especially the early years, and of course nothing before 2002, which is the biggest hole of all.

My apologies for the ignorance I'm no doubt exhibiting here, as I'm still largely in the dark about what's practicable and reasonable on the one hand, and what is achievable technically and resource-wise on the other. Many games, maybe even most of them, aren't linked to tournament pages and presumably sit in a large undifferentiated database. This seems to resemble a document collection which has some files (tournament pages), but with most documents sitting inside the base folder (games not linked to tournament pages).

IMO every game in your database should be linked through to a tournament page, even if the record is incomplete, as this would make it easier to identify gaps in the record that your members could help backfill. There seems to be plenty of members that are keen to help you expand your tournament databases, if recollection of some quickly scanned posts on this page from a few months ago are any guide, and a few members with some marvelously well assembled tournament collections that may be unique on the internet.

Another idea, probably lame, but still: how about expanding the opportunity for volunteers to contribute to some of these kinds of enhancements? You would be understandably reluctant to allow access to your databases by anyone not on staff, and I imagine the bio fields of player pages are thoroughly firewalled and cordoned off from your main database. But if resource constraints are a big issue, why not set up a parallel database to which volunteers could contribute to projects with which you might request assistance, and simply back them up into your online database if the contributions pass muster?

http://www.chessbase.com/

I just downloaded the latest issue (#879) of "The Week In Chess." (I just click one thing, and the CB prgram does this automatically.)

Now here is a serious question, and I am NOT trying to be a smart guy.

The latest issue has 3,511 games in it. Some issues have 5000 games ... or more.

I am no math expert, but if there are 52 weeks in a year, then that is about <175,000 to 200,000> (or more!) games per year.

A.) Does this change your assessment of the number of games?

B.) How many games does CG currently have?

C.) Do you use TWIC as regular resource, and if so, why not?

D.) I have a file of all the games of TWIC - of the last few years - (without the text stuff) in one DB ... it also has dozens - if not hundreds of games that I personally entered in from various sources like "Chess Life" magazine. This file represents literally hundreds of hours worht of work. #1.) I could e-mail the compressed CB version of this file, although I am not sure how long this would take, it would be a HUGE file. #2.) If e-mailing is not a good idea, if you mailed me a really cheap flash drive, I could load it up and send it right back to you.

E.) I have lots of other ways and ideas for updating your database, if you are interested. (Mass updates from PGN files. Most big events now offer these free, on-line.)

<Twinlark> You asked <is [there] a significant amount of extra work to make [tournaments] kibitzable?> Only a bit. We have to do enough research to have the facts of the tournament. We don't even have to do that much, it's just sort of a tradition. By "facts of the tournament" I mean 1. the day it starts, 2. the day it ends, 3. the city and country, 4. the "write up" which, for past events, is a quick summary of the winner(s).

< if you make a tournament kibitzable, can you simultaneously apply the 2300+ filter? > I'm not sure what you mean by that. Keep in mind we can apply any filter we want to; for an U12 tournament we'd lower it to 2200 but for a European Individual Championship it might go up to 2400. <Also, can the 2300+ filter be switched off for selected games> Sure, and it often is. We don't have many games of the U12 World Championship '94 but we do have Ponomariov's games.

<every game in your database should be linked through to a tournament page, even if the record is incomplete, as this would make it easier to identify gaps in the record that your members could help backfill.> That's very ambitious but I'm not sure if it's realistic. However, we fully support you notion of <expanding the opportunity for volunteers to contribute to some of these kinds of enhancements?> Like the biography feature it will only get truly great when volunteers take over.

<LMAJ> <that is about <175,000 to 200,000> (or more!) games per year. ... Does this change your assessment of the number of games?> I believe that when you say "3000-5000 per week" you are not taking into account that games appear in one week's file, then appear again in the next week's file. For example a half completed tournament gives you 100 games this week, then next week you get the entire set of 200 games, but there are only 200 games (not 300 in total). Nevertheless, it is a huge number of games. As time marches on it goes without saying that the number of recorded games goes up, and also a good number of those games are not particularly interesting to us (scholastic events etc).

< How many games does CG currently have? > That figure, rounded down, is always visible on our homepage. Last I checked it was 603,000.

<Do you use TWIC as regular resource> Yes.

About your file in compressed chessbase format, you say <it also has dozens - if not hundreds of games that I personally entered in from various sources like "Chess Life" magazine.> -- that is very valuable to us. If it possible for you to extract that portion of the file and submit them then we would love to have it. The mountain of data that was formed chiefly from TWIC is not so valuable to us; we have free access to that same data.

<I have lots of other ways and ideas for updating your database, if you are interested.> We're always interested in new sources but there are only so many sources in the world. The most exciting prospects are ones that aren't simply duplicating the data from other sources but actually provide new game scores. This usually involves somebody rolling up their sleeves and typing a game in by hand from a copy of an old tournament bulletin or chess magazine.

I really was just trying to help. I will try just to submit the games ... one at a time, via PGN upload ...

My only problem, for games that I put into this one big file, (about 400,000+ games); that I did not flag them in any way, so I have no clue as to how to isolate them and pull them out. But if I run across any more in CL, (games that are NOT here); I will be sure to:

A.) Add them to my file.
B.) Submit them (here) via the PGN upload.

If I get more than 2-3 at a time, is it OK if I put them into a PGN file ... and just e-mail them to you? It IS a little easier for me that way.

Keep up with the good work ... and I apologize. I did not mean to sound "snotty" in my last posting, (I was just sort of "thinking out loud,"); to sound arrogant or high-handed was truly NOT my intent!

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Hey! Here's a "feel-good" idea ... for the individual user ... it would not be me, but is there any way you could list your "Top Five" (or top ten) submitters? I think that would be a cool way to honor guys who have worked hard and submitted the most games.

9th Asian Continental (2010)