See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_A...(1913)

<al wazir>'s suggestion is an excellent one. Beyond that, shifting from automatic to manual, admin-reviewed registration would require more work up front, but I think it would save a lot of headaches in the long run.

You'd certainly avoid registering new members with names like <temp.account>, along with parody accounts like <HeMatesMe> (although I have to admit that was funny, unlike your uncalled-for sarcasm about passports).

Believe it or not, I'm trying to help. I want this site to succeed, and to be a pleasant environment for all of its legitimate members, which at present it is not.

It might scare away too many though?>

<cg> shot down this idea just a month ago: chessgames.com chessforum (kibitz #22600)

In that case the suggestions were $5/year or $10/year for posting privileges, which CG rightly rejected. The $1 would be paid by all the same people who would pay the $10/year, and the results would be the same except that <cg> made a lot less money.

Wait. They gave you your own room?

Sockpuppets are taking over the site. You trip over them in every forum. They attack members and grandmasters alike, and if banned, they titter and come right back under another name because no mechanism is in place to discourage them.

There are ways to control this behavior. I think it's past time to adopt one of them. <al wazir> has suggested one; I another, and <Tabanus> a third. If <cg.com> doesn't like them, there are others.

But ignoring this problem won't make it go away.

Biographer Bistro

However, taken in conjunction with manual registration, it could make a dent in the problem, so I think your idea has merit.

On the topic of "anti troll measures" —

I'm sorry if I came across sounding sarcastic with the passport quip, and I do know that you are all trying to help. Some of the ideas discussed recently are good, others are untenable, but none of them are original.

We do in fact monitor IP addresses and from time to time block one. However, such blocks have to be only temporary, and even then innocent people end up getting caught up in it. Meanwhile there are 1 or 2 very pernicious trolls who are very well versed at changing IP addresses and this measure has no effect on them.

The idea of micro-charges to gain authorization is to my knowledge only used in one industry: websites that peddle smut. When they do it, it's usually under the guise of "proving you are 18", and then if you read the fine print you've just given them the right to bill you recurrently if you don't cancel your "free" subscription. In short, it's a scam. We don't want to model Chessgames after a scam born out of the adult industry.

The idea of monitoring new sign-ups takes place daily. I don't see any advantage to "manually approving new accounts", because unless the username is outrageous there'd be no reason for us to decline a new account. Admins can review all the accounts registered in the past 48 hours and when a name is inappropriate, action is taken. Occasionally we make a note to keep an eye on the person if we have reason to believe it might be a troll, based on IP address or just a pattern in the email or naming methods. They are still innocent until proven guilty.

Usernames like "temp.account" are not violations per se. We have to wait and see what the person does with the account. Usernames that imitate or mock another user get banned the instant we notice one, although sometimes one slips through and we need to be notified via the Whistle.

The one original idea that's been introduced recently is the PITA score system. Under this system, the rate at which you post is modulated by several factors, notably the number of people who ignore you. In the worst case, the rate of posting floors out at two posts daily. Some users have found an obvious workaround to the system: register 10 accounts, so that while each account is limited to two posts per day, they can still hop from account to account and end up with 20 posts daily. However, unless they are really careful, we can easily catch them hopping from account to account and then ban them on the grounds of multi-accounting. What's more, even if they can manage to juggle so many accounts that they can squeeze in 20 posts a day, by the very definition of the PITA score it must be true that they are massively ignored. And so their posts invariably fall on many dead ears.

My advice is twofold:

(1) First, if somebody is obviously a troll / stalker / joker, or if you just can't stand their contributions, ignore them. If you are alone or nearly alone in your assessment, then they won't be banned, but you won't have to read their posts. If many people agree with you, they will become severely limited in posting frequency, and possibly even banned.

So the game listed simply as 1 was played on board zero? And there are two games from both rounds 2 and 3 that are listed just as 2 and 3.