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stevemcd87
Member since Jun-06-20 · Last seen Oct-19-25
<Updated October 28, 2024>

Hello,
I am a web developer contracted by Chessgames.com<CG> to help maintain the website.
<Feel free to report any bugs here.>

Lichess profile: https://lichess.org/@/stevemcd87

Current tasks:
- Update Endgame and Sacrifice Explorer
- Update Engine Server
- Stonehenge: After uploading games via <Upload a PGN file>, <Update Event Name> doesn't work. Also, it says <No Processed Submissions> even after the games are actually processed.

Bugs:
-<jnpop>,<z>: Purge voting queue Game Collection Voting && stevemcd87 chessforum

- <Stonehenge>: ...Take for example <last FIDE rating>. This should update automatically but it doesn't. chessgames.com chessforum .

- <kingscrusher>: ... on a big TV with Silk browser, the font size seems to be huge as if the TV is being treated like a big mobile phone. stevemcd87 chessforum

- <Messiah> Random Game Feature: Feature leads to bad links chessgames.com chessforum

Enhancements:
-<MissS>: update accepted tags for gameloader
chessgames.com chessforum

- <z>: update the auto-magic linking to Winter's articles, Add <Event/Site> searching, And adding round number to game listings,
chessgames.com chessforum && stevemcd87 chessforum

- <Stonehenge>: Remove annotation symbol for games that only have a comment at the end of the score Biographer Bistro
<Awaiting confirmation>: chessgames.com chessforum

- <YoungEd>: Ability to like comments chessgames.com chessforum

- <Chessical>: Update Advanced Search feature to only filter surnames stevemcd87 chessforum

- <Email requests>: Adding filters to the Refine Search section (ECO, Gametypes)

- <kingscrusher>: Extra filter for Advanced Search chessgames.com chessforum

- <Chess Bookie>: We will need to reach out to someone that can better explain this to me. I'd love to try to get this up and running, if there's still a "fan base".

- <Willber>: A page where someone can post a position he/she finds interesting and ask for opinions chessgames.com chessforum

>> Click here to see stevemcd87's game collections.

Chessgames.com Full Member

   stevemcd87 has kibitzed 568 times to chessgames   [more...]
   Oct-12-25 stevemcd87 chessforum (replies)
 
stevemcd87: <Chess.com> seems to have an API that may work for us( https://www.chess.com/news/view/pub... ). It'll take some time to implement but can be extremely useful for future events if it works. I'll keep you posted.
 
   Oct-11-25 chessgames.com chessforum (replies)
 
stevemcd87: <Tab> You can now edit the Elos on the game page. Let us know if you run into any issue. <z> Thanks for the confirmation
 
   Dec-27-24 Susan Freeman chessforum (replies)
 
stevemcd87: <fredthebear: What is the reason for the Analysis function to remain disabled? Did an operator get fired? What is the prognosis?> Sorry for the delay. It seems we're in the home stretch now. stevemcd87 chessforum
 
   Nov-26-24 Ding Liren vs D Gukesh, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: Ding pushed his a-pawn into enemy territory before move 10 again. It seemed to have worked well for him yesterday.
 
   Sep-16-24 Rapport vs D Gukesh, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: Here's a similar game where white wins: N Abasov vs R Sadhwani, 2022
 
   Sep-12-24 V Stefansson vs D Gukesh, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: Lichess is down
 
   Apr-22-24 R Shcherbakov vs V Isupov, 1990 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: White to play 48. ? [DIAGRAM] My original thought: 48. Qh7+ Rg7 49. dxe6+ Kf8 50. Qh8+ Rg8 51. Qxf6+ Ke8 52. Rd8# Another variation if 49... Kxe6 instead of 49... Kf8: 48. Qh7+ Rg7 49. dxe6+ Kxe6 50. Qxg7 g4 51. Qd7+ Ke5 52. Qd6+ Kf5 53. Rd5+ Kg6 54. Rg5+ Kf7 55. Qd5+ Ke8 56.
 
   Apr-20-24 Nepomniachtchi vs Nakamura, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: <whiteshark: What about the other boards?> Praggnanandhaa vs Caruana?
 
   Apr-17-24 D Gukesh vs Caruana, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: At move 28, Gukesh has about 1 minute per move to make it to time control. Can he make it without any mistakes? [DIAGRAM]
 
   Apr-15-24 Nakamura vs N Abasov, 2024 (replies)
 
stevemcd87: At move 29, I'm somewhat surprised to see SF prefers for white to exchange rooks rather than Bh7 to get a rook for a bishop. [DIAGRAM]
 
(replies) indicates a reply to the comment.

Editors Page

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 23 OF 64 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: Look at Reykjavik (1964), should I sue Sue?
Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  jessicafischerqueen:

<Tabanus> Very good point brah.

It would take a lot longer than 3 minutes to clean up this disgrace: Reykjavik (1964)

Hopefully <Steve> and colleagues will adopt some of <zanzibar's> many pertinent concrete suggestions to solve this embarrassing problem. Perhaps Susan will have enough sense to make <zanzibar> an offer to join the paid staff?

Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: Most of the nonsense characters are safely enclosed in the <Kibitzer’s Cafe> and are entirely harmless.
Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: It appears <steve> is still experiencing the after-effects of the CPU burst.
Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  jessicafischerqueen:

<MissScarlett> If I had any money I would also hire you, though I'm not sure for which position.

Possibly "Mufti" or "Grand Piano," something along those lines...

Aug-03-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  jessicafischerqueen:

<MissScarlett> On a rare serious note, I am positive that <Steve> is busy repairing and building something that needs done around here.

One thing you can't say about that lad is that he's work shy.

Unlike one of your favorite targets, who was recently sidelined by the actual Il Presidenta of this website.

Aug-04-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: We are not amused.
Aug-04-21  Z legend of CG: Hopefully the bytes in the DB are still in the original encoding, which I suspect might have been Latin1 (Windows 1252 or ISO 8859-1).

I did try to point out some instructional links about various encodings, and howto's for converting between them.

To repeat a bit, here's a couple of useful basic pages from W3:

https://www.w3.org/International/ar...

https://www.w3.org/International/qu...

This could get sticky / messy if the character streams got "munged" accidentally. Hopefully a full back-up exists from before the migration - but even this basic safeguard can't be assumed.

There's always the wayback option for backup, though - but that's catch-as-catch-can.

For <Reykjavik (1964)> we can:

https://web.archive.org/web/2020110...

Aug-04-21  login:

'This should be looked into soon, as a constant stream of new Kibitzing coming in might complicate matters ...'

stevemcd87 chessforum (kibitz #417)

Maybe less understatement (not one single task in that posting was processed) is indicated in the future and trying harder soundling like a zdrama frog blowing everything totally out of proportion. On the other hand this seems to be the only way anything goes through on a website with constant input/noise of nonsense.


'..which I suspect...' ?

Everyone can easily examine/inspect encodings e.g. using addons like Charset (for Chrome). Help them posting (create an Email/Discord/TS/Jabber/..., dump screens) the findings, identify patterns and (I do not see what is difficult in) adjusting 'it' [dev solution] on a test build before rolling it out on the live page.


'We are looking into getting additional help for this issue'

Further reading (including several contacts), small sample, no specific order

https://www.larry.dev/fix-character... https://www.whitesmith.co/blog/lati...
https://www.sitepoint.com/guide-web... https://www.i18nqa.com/debug/utf8-d...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions... https://www.invivoo.com/en/how-to-s... https://onlineutf8tools.com/

Happy coding.


IMO stay away from the all Enhancements (exept 1,8). Not one single point is even noticeable for your casual members (99% of the population, the one who keep the lights on, not the few you read in here daily). It is not worth the effort.

But if anyone could get World Chess Championship 2021 live games tested and working (register as official broadcast partner, https://sourceforge.net/projects/pg...) that would be beneficial. Possibly your best chance for new genuine visitors (not because the feature is great, but the event going on for several weeks - knock on wood).

In general (only) catering towards the spoilt handful misfits (you should know their nicks by now, they are so very talkative) will not bring the site closer to survival. Their primitive appetite (never seeing the bigger picture, just their sole entertainment) is insatiably and they have the undefeatable advantage to get even the dumbest ideas through as they have unlimited spare time on average 10+ years (guess why). The amount of idiocity that gets constantly repeated in self-contained circles is nothing unusual for an old online community past its prime and with a very inexperienced owner. Still I expect a tech department should not get contaminated by this comedy of intrigue.


Re-write (all Java related is obsolete)

Chessgames Help


Record everything scrupulously correct as the next person in this hot seat will need all tools available as last resort.

Aug-05-21  Z legend of CG: <login> you're get better mileage if you emphasize just one or two main points, and do it without taking unnecessary potshots at others.

Why antagonize others when there's no clear benefit or purpose?

Also - are you sure your posts are comprehensible?

You clearly identified the utf-8 problem first, but rereading your original post it's obvious why it was missed.

stevemcd87 chessforum (kibitz #417)

Again, focus on a main point, try to communicate more clearly, and please do so without flaming everybody in sight.

Aug-05-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: <? mark inside a tilted black square>

To ease communication I suggest this be referred to hereafter as the Sasquatch Symbol, or simply SS.

Aug-05-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  chancho: The dreaded internal server error is rearing its ugly head for the last two minutes on the recent kibitzing page.
Aug-05-21  Z4all: <Steve> another suggestion...

Please consider injecting update comments into a post in the forum, as well as updating your profile heading.

Rationale- so we don't have to reread a long, mostly static, profile heading to pick out the new bits each and every time.

The summary heading is useful, but tends to hide any new updates.

Aug-05-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: <I've created a script to update all games with erroneous dates.>

Good grief. I hope this is not why the old Gibraltar Masters swisses (2014, 2015, 2016, maybe more years) had wrong dates.

Aug-05-21  Z4all: (Poor <tab>... I hope <steve> and <Susan> knew enough to keep backups of the DB and the rest)
Aug-06-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Stonehenge: Steve, please fix https://www.chessgames.com/playerli....

Also when new games get uploaded with text in ... , 95% of the time it is no annotation.

Usually it is something like time or more moves were played etc.

Can you change the default to *no* annotation. Otherwise games like that get a yellow pencil as a sign that the game is annotated while it is really not.

If there is actual annotation then it's a piece of cake for the editor to change it to *yes*.

Aug-06-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: <Can you change the default to *no* annotation. Otherwise games like that get a yellow pencil as a sign that the game is annotated while it is really not.>

Right. <Steve>, quit lurking. Speak!

Aug-07-21  Z legend of CG: Yikes! It's deja vu all over again.

(First it was <Sargon>, now it's <Steve>'s turn - the curse of the Miss in the Mist ain't no myth)

Aug-09-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  jessicafischerqueen:

<Stephen>

Might be a good time for an update on what you guys are doing?

Most welcome would be a really specific update that shows some evidence you have been carefully reading the bug reports/suggestions from members- especially from those members with coding expertise such as <Z>.

Aug-10-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: This quietude has gone beyond disturbing; now it's plain creepy.
Aug-10-21  Z truth 000000001: Quietude is next to beatitude.
Aug-10-21  Z truth 000000001: Which is next to servitude....
Aug-11-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  jessicafischerqueen:

<MissScarlett, Z>

"Quietude"?

I am also worried, but I think referring to <Steve> as a "Quiet Turd" is going a bit far. Sure he can be a little reticent at times, but he's been a fine fellow when all is said and done.

Aug-11-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: The encoding inferno caused replacement characters and mojibakes :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speci...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojib...

Aug-12-21  Z truth 000000001: <JFQ> "Quiet Turd"?!

What turgid aptitude is this, I must ask with disquietude rectitude?

.

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