Originally posted by moonbusI found the site when I was looking for a place online where I could play chess.
Suggestion noted.
As one of the premier members at this site, what, in your experience, made it worth joining in the first place? And what makes it still worthwhile?
In earlier years I had played postal chess and was not too interested in anything like that again, but the correspondence chess offered here looked ok. I mainly wanted to play real people and not software like chessmaster, etc.
My first game was game number 18 against a member named Paul.
At that time membership was free, there was no forum and communication with your opponent did not exist either. There were a number of bugs still in the software as well.
Bugs were fixed and the forum was created very shortly after that, but the original forum was nothing like what it is now. If you have ever used the wayback machine to check this site you can probably see what we had.
We also very briefly had live irc chat, but that was very short-lived because of a few of our 'high-drama' members of the time. Because of these same members our forum started getting out of hand and resulted in the forum being shut down for a period of time. When it cam back, it included moderators to help keep things a little more civil.
With continuous increases in membership the expenses were getting high so many of the members of that time made voluntary financial contributions to help with costs. That helped for a while but probably was just a band-aid, so subscription membership was introduced. (I don't know if this is a true story, but Russ sold the car he had at the time to help keep the site up and running. That might have just been a tall tale but only Russ can say for sure!) I also understand that at the time someone made a very substantial donation to help out, but only Russ would know for sure. He did announce it at the time but did not name names. So we probably all owe a big thank you to that member.
Our first tournament was managed by some of the members and was not officially organized or controlld by the actual site. The games were played here but matchups and statistics were manually managed by members. I think it was called "USA vs ROW" (Rest of the World) or something like that.
RHP tournaments, clans, ladders, sieges, clubs, Blitz etc. were all introduced in time, along with the ability to access the site using various other devices other than just PC's.
Communication options also have improved and we now can send in-game messages, private messages, or chatting in the various forums, and we can go back and review messages, etc.
We have a decent rating system, good statistics, and the ability to save our games and store them in a variety of folders or download them.
In other words the features and capabilities have steadily increased.
I personally don't use that many of them, but I am still here because I can play real people online, which is all I really was looking for in the first place. ( I think I was the first foreigner 'non-brit' to join the site)
This is way more chatty than what I started to post in reply to your question. But do PM me if you have any questions I might be able to answer.
Marc
Here is the wayback machine. Follow the links to see how things looked during the first few months and years. One of the links will show a monthly calendar and a timeline bar at the top of the page. When you see that click the blue highlighted dates or the years to see the site at various times as it developed. You can also read some of the news bulletins seen on the home page to see the type of things that were happening at the time. Some of the pages you will see are not fully navigable but you can still see how things looked.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010514021527/http://www.redhotpawn.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20010315000000*/http://www.redhotpawn.com
Originally posted by moonbusOriginally posted by moonbus
Thank you for your long and thoughtful message, and the links.
Cheers,
Moonbus
EDIT: I see that playing against the Rival engine was offered in the beginning. Is that no longer on offer?
"EDIT: I see that playing against the Rival engine was offered in the beginning. Is that no longer on offer?"
Still offered as a 'chess workout' by one of our competitors to premium subscriber members.
Originally posted by mwmillerI did sell my car many years ago - it was at the time when I increased my % of time working on the site - mainly because I wasn't commuting so much (plus it wasn't appropriate for a young family!). But I did still have a family "bus" vehicle. And a bicycle.
(I don't know if this is a true story, but Russ sold the car he had at the time to help keep the site up and running. That might have just been a tall tale but only Russ can say for sure!) I also understand that at the time someone made a very substantial donation to help out, but only Russ would know for sure. He did announce it at the time but did not name names. So we probably all owe a big thank you to that member.
@Paul is an old drinking buddy of mine. 🙂
Someone did make a donation - about $600 if I remember correctly. This was significant, because our hosting was WAY cheaper back then, and it gave me some confidence that people actually really liked this project and were serious about supporting it. We had hosting covered for many months as a result. They are no longer active on the site now though, unfortunately.
The original subscription's/donations here were tied to registering a copy of Windows Rival Chess too. That didn't last long though.
Rival Chess can be found here still.
http://www.redhotpawn.com/rival/download/download.php
Chris recently did some Android engine updates to address the complaint that the Android App is too difficult to beat at all skill levels. This will be receiving a bit of UI work before being updated on the Play Store (when I get the time).
Originally posted by moonbusYes, playing against RIVAL was an option on the early site and was useful. You could play the robot on the occasions when you couldn't find a real person to play a game with or while hanging around waiting for someone to make a move. They were just unrated games as I remember and no statistics were kept for wins and losses.
Thank you for your long and thoughtful message, and the links.
Cheers,
Moonbus
EDIT: I see that playing against the Rival engine was offered in the beginning. Is that no longer on offer?
Originally posted by RussWell Russ, when I heard the 'selling the car' story I was skeptical and just assumed you actually traded it in on your first Rolls, on speculation of how things were going to be for you when the subscriptions started coming in!
I did sell my car many years ago - it was at the time when I increased my % of time working on the site - mainly because I wasn't commuting so much (plus it wasn't appropriate for a young family!). But I did still have a family "bus" vehicle. And a bicycle..
Originally posted by mwmillerThanks for the historical anecdotes, and to Russ, of course, for the gory details.
Well Russ, when I heard the 'selling the car' story I was skeptical and just assumed you actually traded it in on your first Rolls, on speculation of how things were going to be for you when the subscriptions started coming in!
I believe I now have enough material to submit the proposed article to the Wiki editorial vetting stage.
I sent an email to Natalia Pogonina, one of the higher-rated members here and probably "notable" enough to merit mention, asking her permission to link to her RHP blog. I have not yet heard back from her; all in due time.
Cheers, and thanks to all who have made suggestions.
moonbus
Originally posted by Williamsmarina WilliamsIf you are looking for guys with brains, you've got the right forum but the wrong thread.
Hello Dear My name is Anita Williams, I hope that you are in good health condition and also successful in all your endeavors I hope you will be the true loving, honest and caring person that I have been looking 4, And I have some special thing to tell you about myself,So please contact me directly through my email address i will also ...[text shortened]... ards, Anita Williams contact me directly through my email //
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I agree with you Suzi. In that there should be at least a side note. But I don't see any purpose in making it the headline. What was at one time is not what it is today. WW-3 is over and it's a new and exciting day. We don't want to scare people away. Most of us would like Russ to be able to recruit new people to the site just like many of us would like to be able to recruit new people to our clans and clubs. This is a good site and a good place to mingle and enjoy the many games this site has to offer beyond just chess. Which of course is the sites main feature. This site is still an evolution process and we should all be proud of that. I think if anything the past is a good selling point to our new future. If presented appropriately.
BTW the members of this site created a new game called 'werewolf chess' as you know. There are so many activities why wouldn't someone want to be a member of this community? There are so many memories, past and present that tells me that this wiki add needs to focus on the most positive points that our Captain Russ has provided for us. Who has always had an open door policy that is very unique and unusual to most chess sites. He really does try to solve most site issues and have fun right along with us in the forums when time permits. Not as speedy as some might hope for. but he usually comes around.The humanity really shows in this site. There is not one day..good or bad that I don't appreciate what site he has provided for us to spend our play time, along with our friends and pseudo enemies. To many of us there were a lot of memories of the good o'l bad days. But let's look to the future.
Originally posted by cashthetrashOriginally posted by cashthetrash
I agree with you Suzi. In that there should be at least a side note. But I don't see any purpose in making it the headline. What was at one time is not what it is today. WW-3 is over and it's a new and exciting day. We don't want to scare people away. Most of us would like Russ to be able to recruit new people to the site just like many of us would like to ...[text shortened]... . To many of us there were a lot of memories of the good o'l bad days. But let's look to the future.
"The humanity really shows in this site. There is not one day..good or bad that I don't appreciate what site he has provided for us to spend our play time, along with our friends and pseudo enemies. To many of us there were a lot of memories of the good o'l bad days. But let's look to the future."
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Well stated, cashthetrash. Kudos! Though Red's MIA, the voice of TSM is still here and being heard.
Status report: a third revision has been submitted for review. The first revisions failed for lack of notability (in the sense required for entry to Wikipedia). If anyone has an idea why RHP is notable, or a good plan to make it so, do tell. (Personal testimonials don't seem to do the trick--unless you yourself are so notable as to merit a Wiki article of your own.)