FICGS turns into a social network

  

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Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-06)
FICGS turns into a social network !

An enormous update just occured, FICGS now has a complete social network connected to various forums.

A few links will explain better than words :)


http://www.ficgs.com/whole_display_people.php?id=9

http://www.ficgs.com/network.html
http://www.ficgs.com/discussions.html


Feel free to create your profile to discover the features : A powerful search engine that helps to find people you may know or people around you, a complete blog with 6 levels of privacy, tons of forums, a friends inviter & so on......

Feel free to let me know what you think about it, all suggestions are welcome.

I hope we'll find more and more players with these new tools :)


Marc Lacrosse    (2009-01-06 21:54:35)
Too much time lost lately I fear

I do not see anything interesting in these developments : there are better dedicated sites for this kind of things
Isn't it just a way to try expanding general traffic and thus advertising income?
If this is the aim, I do agree to some point: You have offered to us all a very nice tool for free and I will allways be very glad if you can earn something significant from your site's activity
But I fear that you are more and more busy in money-making trials than in core site improvements (chess and go).
This could well lead to a problem as it led one day or another many another site that followed the very same path...
If you do not care enough with improving the core of your site people will leave as soon as another one offers more appealing features partly built on what you were first to offer.


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-06 22:18:38)
Social networks & money

Hi Marc, thanks for your comments.

It is true that I'm trying to make money with the site now, also to increase significantly the prizes offered in the future, but I did not sell my soul & the site will remain a chess server before everything else ! Money can do so much too, before it becomes too much ;)

About the other social networks, well... of course a new social network is created every week but most of them are dedicated to a particular function (couchsurfing, viadeo, reunion, facebook, myspace, hi5 & so on...) and are not exactly in concurrence. Let's see how this one will go in this sea, I have many features to add yet :)

About the core of the site, I already thought about removing the ads in the chess server... It may happen very soon if most players agree that it would be a significant improvement. The ads will remain in the general forums... Believe me, I'll do the necessary, that's why your comments & suggestions are always welcome here.


Wayne Lowrance    (2009-01-07 00:48:40)
Site Core

Tribault, I think you will not find very many who complain about your adds,the nature of them and their position, etc. We are all very much interested in your income prospects here, I know I am. I can appreciate it maybe a little more than others, as I have mentioned both of my sons are programmers and their sole income come from internet and they are doing quite well.. Wayne


Ulrich Imbeck    (2009-01-07 08:36:51)
interested to see

These developments exists in the www. I'm interested to see these development here. But first of all I have to make my moves :-)


Normajean Yates    (2009-01-08 04:36:46)
I find this update excellent!

I've seen that chess sites with social networking features allow people to interfere with chess players by intrusive comments/messages etc.

OTOH, I like Thibault's model - it:

1. keeps an excellent separation between the social networking part and the chess-play part.

2. provides much more privacy.

And why should Thibault not try to make money??? Do you think this is a charity or soup-kitchen or what? How many of you do your jobs [salaried/self-employment/business] for free???


Don Groves    (2009-01-08 09:17:12)
I agree...

... with Normajean. The separation is adequate protection for those who prefer only to play the games and never to socialize.


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-08 12:30:06)
Separation

That's the way I want to do it indeed. As Marc said, protecting the core of the chess server is essential, but there's no problem while creating some connections between these different parts of the site IMO.


Wilhelm Schuett    (2009-01-08 13:45:28)
Contact

Hello everybody! I'm new here. How can I get Contact to someone if he is not on the social network? Can I get Contact to someone if he is only on the games server?


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-08 14:10:08)
Contact

Hello Wilhelm,

When you invite someone (by adding friends), you send one email to each contact of yours. If then this contact registers in the games server, you'll see him/her in the games server & the same in the social network (with much more features). The games server & the social network are completely separated so you may have to register in both & invite friends in both.


Hannes Rada    (2009-01-08 18:53:24)
Chess improvements

To be honest I would more prefer to see an improvement of the chess features here. I.e. Conditions moves, better tables, better layout modern forum (phpbb) What I do not understand: How can Thibault earn money with this "social stuff" ?


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-08 19:17:53)
Chess improvements

Hi Hannes,

What do you mean better tables ? About the other improvements, this may be a choice in some cases. As you may have seen, there are forums with more options (ie. bbcode) inside FICGS, but I'm not sure this forum should follow the same way. The FICGS chess server is somewhere between IECG & the numerous over-featured servers, maybe it should keep its 'sober/serious' side, what do you think ?

I'm still not a fan of conditional moves, but I'm open to other improvements.

Finally, about the "dark side of FICGS", any improvement may bring new players :)


Hannes Rada    (2009-01-08 19:55:05)
Tables

Hi Thibault, Just a few ideas. I mean 'spreadsheet-like' tables with cells where you can not only see the points, but also the results (1,0, 1/2) between all players. Furthermore on the tournament page I would prefer to see the notation first and then diagram of the actual position. I think this is more logical to see first who is playing and what has been played (the moves) and then the actual position. I think it is also an idea to show only the running games on the (main) tournament pages and to show the finished games for a specific tournament on a second page per tournament. Chess fonts (?) on the ICCF Server looks a little bit nicer then those here. I have been playing now my first tournament on the ICCF server where (secret) conditionals are allowed (chessfriend had this feature already many years ago). And I am a big fan of it. Conditionals can help to speed up to game significantly. Some openings like the Grunfeld, the French, and The Sveshnikov really cry for conditionals :-) I don't see any disadvantes regarding the introductions of conditionals (maybe except for the programmer :-). Why are you against them ? But finally I have to say that I really appreciate playing here. I can imagine how tough and how much work it is to maintain such a server as a 'One man show'. I really appreciate your efforts.


Hannes Rada    (2009-01-08 19:59:59)
Paragraphs ?

What the heck is that ? I had a lot of paragraphs in my previous posting. But when I press the Post - Button they disappear ??


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-08 21:17:38)
Paragraphs

See at the top of the page : "please use <br > html tag to begin a new line"

About the tournament tables, did you try to click the magnifying glass near the name of the tournament ? ie :

http://www.ficgs.com/crosstable_FICGS__CHESS__CLASS_GM__000001.html

About the tournament page & diagrams, that's a nice suggestion, I may change this quickly.


Don Groves    (2009-01-09 04:06:59)
Images in messages

Salut, Thibault! What about embedding images in a private message to another player, or in a forum post. Is this doable without too extra work for you?


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-01-09 08:47:35)
Images in messages

Salut Don, no this is not an extra work, I can do this easily but I chose not to allow it to avoid kind of spam or authoring problems. But I could add it (just like the photo near the name). Are many of you really interested in this ? I'm not sure :)


Wilhelm Schuett    (2009-01-09 14:00:34)
phpbb

A new german chessforum, http://www.schachkiste.de/ , uses phpbb.


Joseph Thomas    (2009-01-11 22:35:06)
Social Networks and Money

Thibault, while I probably won't use a social networking site on here, I may always change my mind. I don't use www.myspace.com or www.facebook.com either, and since I am 25 I should fit into that demographic. I really enjoy the site though. And I the advertisements nor the social networking they way you have it now is not intrusive for me. Great site!


Normajean Yates    (2009-01-15 07:04:32)
sober/serious look - yes!!!!

from thibault's post - "maybe it should keep its 'sober/serious' side, what do you think ?"

YES!!!! That is the *unique* sober elegance of this site. Must not be disturbed.

The forum - with < br > and now chess diagrams -- that is good enough. My vote is against adding any more html/phpbb features in the forum.



Nadia Kaif    (2009-03-20 05:36:59)
This is good

This is really good