Talk:Internet Chess Club

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Malathion 22:20, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)This article is full of POV language and looks like it was written by a 14 year old with severe ADD, jumping from topic to topic, often within a single paragraph. I'm going to make some edits and attempt to organize it into some kind of logically progressive essay.

"best chess playing service on the Internet" is hardly NPOV. Rewrite so it is not an advert. --Daniel C. Boyer

ICC is the best place to play chess on the Internet (IMHO), but objectively it can't claim to be the largest collection of on-line players. At any given time, more chessplayers are logged onto Yahoo, Pogo, or perhaps even Microsoft's Gaming Zone. As I write the numbers are

  • Yahoo - 8356
  • Pogo - 2897
  • ICC - 2242
  • MSN - 1510
  • FICS - 488

A good article about ICC also needs to include its history, i.e. its origins as a free (volunteer-run) server, the bitter rift when it became commercial, and the establishment of the rival FICS server.

--Fritzlein 14:15 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)

Contents

[edit] Larger numbers do not mean better quality

What makes ICC and FICS the best playing experience on the internet is the hard core cadre of long time serious users. Altough fewer in gross numbers, these are more likely to be serious about their game. On both servers one will find large amounts of players with well more than 10,000 games. This group also serves to create an etiquitte of sportsmanship not found at sites such as Yahoo. The ELO system original written by Dan Glickman (Glicko) is a great ratings system.

Elaborating on the differences between FICS and ICC and why one might choose one over the other:

  1. ICC costs money. They offer a discounted rate to students and free accounts to titled players. A free trail is available.
  2. ICC uses some of its funds to advertise in places such as ChessLife which helps to bring in new members.
  3. Both broadcast simuls of big chess matches, ICC more so than FICS. ICC's more active population of titled players is also a draw for those that like to watch.
  4. Communication and conversation between members creates a community on both sites. FICS tends to be a little more liberal about public conversation topics, even to the point of bagging on thier own server.
  5. Coding at FICS is more or less open source allowing users to create their own interfaces. ICC requires use of their own.
  6. Tournaments are always ongoing at both sites.
  7. Both react to demands of the user base for new features.
  8. Player playing quality at both sites is about the same and many filter are available to find players of the level you may seek.
  9. Players at both actualley teach others and have in depth conversations about openings, tactics, and the like.
  10. Rarely do established players suddingly log off in the middle of a game or spew profanity at others. The sportsmanship is very good. Measures are taken to rid both of problem users.

Kevin

Just to counter #5, ICC provides their own Windoze only based interface called Blitzin, although they did try to release a Macintosh version but later dropped. There are several interfaces that can be used with the ICC and the server interface is documented (and generally much better so than the FICS). There are at least 3 Macintosh interfaces that can be used as well as XBoard for Unix. ICC does also have a Java applet available but the OS specific interfaces are generally much better. ICC is the best place on the Internet for playing and observing chess IMHO. FICS is a good alternative if you do not wish to pay for a membership. ICC does offer free GM and IM simuls to members several times a week as well as GM commentary on major international chess tournaments (e.g. Linares). Yes, I am a member of the ICC. RedWolf 06:51, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, only a few players on FICS at least have this sporting etiquette you mention in my experience. The ones that do are typically over 1700 rating. The test is when a high ranking player meets either a low rated player or a guest.(actually an unknown challenge, many guests are extremely good players to start with) A large proportion of players of ratings 1400-1700 abort games on move one in this situation, where a higher rated player usually sportingly gives a good game, offering a "handshake" after the inevitable result. This is to be greatly applauded as it is only by playing better players that weaker players will learn to improve their game.

[edit] Guests and Cheating

A sizeable number of the players you mention who are very very good e.g. guests are in fact, very very strong computer chess programs such as chessmaster 10 and fritz 9 the operators behind them are only 1200-1350 strength hardly experts!

All this make you wonder why they bother! And also goes some way to explain why you are often treated off-handedly as a guest and with some suspicion, and also explains why some people abort the games with guests at move one- all this is quite bad for the game really. Obviously, if you are very good, you want to play with good humans- but there should be a good game for everyone on the net.

[edit]  ???

It seems to me that the first paragraph, listing the features, sounds like an advertisement and is not neutral in respects to other sites, ie. FICS, yahoo, etc. I'm surprised it didn't contain the words "but wait! there's more!"

Correction to service page (which is commercial and detestable in Wiki. Im surprised its being permitted at all).

1. ICC does NOT offer lessons by professionals. ICC simply runs the service that allows professionals to offer lessons to members.

2. Lessons are arranged by members, who find a "professional" and contact him or her.

3. These lessons by professionals are NOT included in the price of membership. 24.19.88.55 03:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The edit that you made on lessons is fine and clarifies the point. The article is neutral in that it states the facts without any POV hyperbole. If you look at Free Internet Chess Server you will find a much longer article. By all means extend its list of features if necessary. I have put World Chess Network in the same format and will be doing the same for Playchess. There are thousands of articles abput, and links to, commercial services and products on WP. There is nothing 'detestable' about them. BlueValour 16:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of services

Regarding the deletion from Services Available section:

  • computer opponents for practicing basic endgames
  • a professional team of "computer busters" working to detect and stop cheating with chess programs
  • each player has ratings modelled on the Elo rating system in various categories such as bullet, blitz, standard, correspondence, and wild variations

I would think these are more important than some items which are currently in the list, such as "a variation of the game Legend of the Red Dragon" and "a trivia game" and "play money betting on tournaments". Those are certainly not "main services". Regarding the deleted items: ICC may be the only server with paid employees whose job is to detect computer cheating. This is certainly of interest and important, because computer cheating is a big problem on chess servers. The seven endgame bots are useful for training. I believe the various categories of ratings was of interest too. This was the only mention of correspondence play in the article. Potzy 11:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Good points, which I have incorporated in a rewrite. BlueValour 17:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
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