Comments by benr

Aaron,

You are not a "Contributor" yet. In step one of "Post your own game", the first paragraph mentions this, and the "How you can help" page discusses it in more detail. In short, we require one submission directly to an editor to help prevent spam/bot submissions. (You may send an email with a simple description of the game, without conforming to our formatting requirements; then I will give you contributor status and allow you to post the game through the online form, as this is a bit easier than us maintaining the page directly.)

The CVP have received an email asking for references to "any publications
using special symbols for variant pieces in running text, for example in
figurine notation".  He already has "plenty of examples of
typographically rotated chess symbols as used by fairy chess problemists",
and is seeking specifically variant piece images (if I've read
correctly).

I am unaware of any such; does anyone else here know of any?

It looks to me like most of the logs _are_ accessible... the ones that are not are the oldest, and it seems like the problem is that the initial board layout was changed after those games were played.  When the log is called up, the game rules are checked anyway, and since the current game rules think the first pieces moved weren't actually where they started, it objects.

I would prefer to leave any changing of the scripts to Fergus.  If someone knew what the starting positions in those early games were, they could create a new settings file for that, and I could modify the logs to indicate that they use that setup, which I think would fix the problem.

I went through one of the logs,

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Wild+Kingdom+Chess&log=maeko-verderben-2009-48-740

and managed to fix all the piece names (in the old log many pieces had two-letter names, but not so in the current preset).  But now it's throwing an error with the final resign command.  I'm not sure what's wrong.

Neptune does not show up in searches because it has been specifically flagged "deleted", and these do not appear in the index. I'm not sure why this game is flagged as such. Since we have a separate flag for "hidden", probably msdisplay should be modified to not show such variants at all. But, uncertain of the original intent, I'll just punt the issue until I hear from the author of Neptune and/or a more senior editor.

As for the 403 error, that is external to this site. It used to be M. Winther's site, but that has since moved. Presently you can find it at
http://mlwi.magix.net/bg/chessvar.htm
and more specifically
http://mlwi.magix.net/bg/minixiangqi.htm

(I'm not sure how easy it would be to transfer the game to a new, "member-submitted" item for you to edit, and we cannot just give you editing access to this page.  It's not hard for me to upload a new copy of the html file, if the header and footer information is in there correctly.  If you make small changes, it's even easier for me to make those changes directly in the existing html file.)

@hcl4: Then it is a draw. The technical answer is from a related page, the 50 move rule: neither player can do much of anything and so 50 moves will pass without a capture or pawn move, and that rule will kick in to say the game is a draw. Of course, since this is bound to happen, both players should just agree now that the game is a draw.

Edit: Actually, looking around a bit more, it appears that (perhaps because of time controlled games) my technical explanation was incorrect. It is a draw because checkmate cannot possibly happen.

Many of the old links on the CVP can be found archived on the Wayback Machine. Here's a link to an archived version of the second link's rules page:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990423233042/http://members.aol.com/dcpltd1/AOLWEBPAGE/CHESSRULES.html

Thanks Christine. I have created a new Settings file for the game and modified several of the logs to use that Settings instead. They appear to be working now.

A couple of notes:
1) Probably a Settings file should not be able to be modified if any logs use it. I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement on our side, but in the interim, if a user is aware of logs on their games it would be best to create a new Settings file instead of modifying the current one.
2) For some reason I was unable to use the GC Menu to create the new Settings file (I went into the file system as an editor instead). It should be possible to create a new Settings file even if you don't own the original, right?
3) Perhaps there should be a list somewhere of the different existing Settings files for a given GC Preset?

I've unhidden this now because I'll be busy the next few days, but you need to include how the pieces actually move (essentially the content of the pdf you emailed; diagrams would be nice eventually).

Good news, everyone!

2015 is the 20th anniversary of the CVP! As such, we would like to hold another variant design contest. We're still working out details like the official rules and prizes, but I wanted to let everyone know about it now so you can start developing! Likely the rules will mimic those of our 10th anniversary contest; in particular, your variant should reflect that this is our 20th anniversary.

Steven, it does not sound to me much like Spartan Chess.  Team 1 is missing
the queen; Team 2 has the usual army except for the doubled king; Team 2
loses if either of their kings is lost.

This seems like a good thing to set up and run many games on a computer.  I
would guess that the double royals is more of a detriment than a benefit.

I like the interactive diagram.  For use on this site, I would be a little worried about compatibility; for instance, your script doesn't run on my tablet, so I'm left with just the static arrangement of pieces.

A short answer to your main question, from the front page: "This site seeks to catalog the vast number of Chess variants created throughout history, as well as to nurture the creation of new variants."

This site is not just for hobbyists and inventors of new variants, but for those who may want to find a variant to play (and often, for them to play those variants here).

The Recognized Variants are a good starting point for someone interested in variants. I think it natural then to keep its size somewhat limited.

As for a more in-depth listing, our Favorites page is a great place to look.

No, we don't have a facebook page.  (Should we?  What purpose would it serve?)

@Daniel: this one?

http://chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MS2queenrockyhor

One of the downsides to having pages pulled from the database is that Google doesn't find those pages.  I might move the Google search on the Gindex page to a less prominent location.  

You'll likely have better luck with the Advanced Search's regular expression function.  I found the above link by searching for
.*Lycanth.*
where .* is the regexp version of a wildcard.  [Or so it seems; I don't know much about regexps yet actually.]

We've received an email asking if we know of where one can purchase a
hexagonal chess board (especially for Glinski's variant).  I didn't find
such with a quick online search; does anyone here know where one can be
found?

I did respond to your question, by email, a few days ago.

There is a Piece article type.  You can submit your own article, then an
editor can change the article type to Piece.

The Piececlopedia is for pieces with some kind of established history.  Not
every Piece article should be put into the Piececlopedia.  It is perhaps
unusual that a new piece becomes popular enough to be put into the
Piececlopedia, which might explain the fairly static nature of this list. 
(The rules for the Piececlopedia have also sometimes not been applied
consistently, so it could probably use some cleaning out as well.)