Can't create game with specific side any more

@tilr8 said in #540:

Another voice asking to revert this feature for casual games, I enjoyed selecting my side as black to train defenses, please bring it back, thanks!

The problem is the existing code, that not is able to give this possibility.

@duran_was_the_mvp said in #538:

No, the core analogy: People abuse features, so their ability to abuse it must be stopped. Sandbaggers abuse rating, so their ability to do so is stopped by early resignation detection. Fair players should still be given the option to resign, and fair players should still be given the option to play for rating.
Has Lichess achieved this? Absolutely!
Wrong analogy yet again.
Lichess deals with cheaters and sandbaggers on a case per case basis. It dealt with ''color abusers'' by removing that feature. That's a universal change, affecting everyone, not a case by case measure. Not the same analogy at all.
I could be, but you are making claims about this, so I was interested to hear about the underlying calculations for this
Im still waiting for your professional estimation. By the way, dont forget to include the Lichess budget, because an upkeep estimation is meaningless without the income.
The way you're fixated on the upkeep cost, as if that was what drove the Lichess developers to remove the color selection, makes it seem like it must have strained Lichess's funds. Soon, they might even take away the rating range selection. Are those austerity measures truly needed? Nobody knows, which is why we are patiently waiting for a professional to chime in.

It's a huge upgrade, not a downgrade. Of course we should not roll back abuse-prevention.
It's objectively a downgrade.

Yes, that would be treating it the same as cheating or sandbagging. You could do it a couple of times, but abuse would result in a ban. I could see that working.
Do that then.

I'm sure the majority of players has no direct problematic experience with sandbagging. They get free rating points and very little resistance in their game when he is pushing his rating down. It could be a 2000 level player who's playing among the 1200s. When the games starts, it's totally fair and the same, and it's only one game against that person.
Except it isn't fair, and we should not be allowing sandbagging back, even though I'm sure on a hunch that most people wouldn't mind it.
Playing with black is truly like playing against a sandbagger.

Okay, so it is an unfair advantage, but only a small one. That's my whole point, it's abuse of a feature to gain an unfair edge
It's a meaningless advantage, you lose 35 rating points if constantly paired with color abusers. That's not the case, so in reality you would lose much less, 5% of 35 is 1.75 rating points. Truly unfair.
Wrong analogy again. The player's ability to use an engine should be removed, nothing more or less. Which is what Lichess achieved
You are twisting the analogy. You cannot remove the player's ability to use the engine and lichess definitely doesn't do that, how would you prevent someone using a local instance of stockfish? No, you ban the player. You don't get rid of the ability, the ability is there. You ban the player that got an unfair advantage. Thats totally different to deleting a feature entirely. If you fail to see how those things are different, there isn't much to say.

@NotTakenUsername said in #542:

Wrong analogy yet again.
Lichess deals with cheaters and sandbaggers on a case per case basis. It dealt with ''color abusers'' by removing that feature. That's a universal change, affecting everyone, not a case by case measure. Not the same analogy at all.

Nope, wrong again. Lichess takes away every option available for sandbagging and cheating, without hindering any of the fair users. They have done exactly that for color abusers. The option to use it remains, but only for fair use.

Im still waiting for your professional estimation. By the way, dont forget to include the Lichess budget, because an upkeep estimation is meaningless without the income.

Yes, you said it wouldn't be so much, just ballpark me the figure and I'll relay the actual cost

The way you're fixated on the upkeep cost, as if that was what drove the Lichess developers to remove the color selection, makes it seem like it must have strained Lichess's funds. Soon, they might even take away the rating range selection. Are those austerity measures truly needed? Nobody knows, which is why we are patiently waiting for a professional to chime in.

It's not what drove the upgrade for fair play, but writing out specific features to accommodate these specific usecases is what Thibault has spoken about. It's a big factor over time, I would say that his opinion on the matter should carry some weight.

It's objectively a downgrade.

It's an upgrade, just like anti-cheating measures are.

Do that then.

Or you, who is advocating for this change, could make the change yourself

Playing with black is truly like playing against a sandbagger.

Forcing your opponent to play with black in all your matches is objectively unfair, just like sandbagging and cheating.

It's a meaningless advantage, you lose 35 rating points if constantly paired with color abusers. That's not the case, so in reality you would lose much less, 5% of 35 is 1.75 rating points. Truly unfair.
You are twisting the analogy. You cannot remove the player's ability to use the engine and lichess definitely doesn't do that, how would you prevent someone using a local instance of stockfish? No, you ban the player. You don't get rid of the ability, the ability is there. You ban the player that got an unfair advantage. Thats totally different to deleting a feature entirely. If you fail to see how those things are different, there isn't much to say.

They're almost identical. The site takes any measure it can against the use of engines. It detects plugins, detects if you're using the site's analysis board during the game, detects (to some degree) if you have been using a local instance of an engine for your games. It detects whether you're sandbagging in the same way.

Treating color picking like cheating would be fair, in which case the site should be banning it completely as much as it can. In the case of engine-use: You don't have players that put themselves in a lobby and say "I'll be using an engine in all my games against you if we're matched", nor do you have the option for players to say "I'll be sandbagging this match" in advance. If the option was there AND Lichess were to rely solely on detection mechanisms, I would think it's fair that Lichess removes this feature to start with and then detecs people who are still trying to abuse it (handling it on a case-by-case basis).

And this is exactly what Lichess has done: They have removed the option to abuse color, and they are taking a case-by-case measure against people that are still trying to abuse it (e.g. only playing white by starting games and aborting all black games).

It's the exact same thing, carried out to the best possible success by removing the option for it, and then handling persistent abusers on a case by case basis

@Mendelfist said in #535:

I'm deeply impressed by the stamina of @BeDecentForAChange who has stood unfazed in this hailstorm of attacks, garbage and worse for four days now. I bow to you.

All good! I don't mind the attacks so much. In some cases, it's lead to an interesting discussion on a fair middleground for the feature beyond the reasonable way Lichess has already provided us with this.

how the hell did a blog get 542 posts and I did not even notice

@Sofia-Mary said in #541:

The problem is the existing code, that not is able to give this possibility.

Nope, there is no problem in the code. The code works perfectly and does what it should!

@Sofia-Mary said in #539:

This could be a good solution, mb better than to punish all players. This would give players, they train for openings (both colours one after the next) here, a chance to stay.

Yes, I also think this would be a good solution. But how would this work then? If you treat it like cheating, it should be banned completely (like it is now). So how would you 'kind of' allow it?

I am irritated, because the existing problem not has been discussed with us players, before a wrong decision of changes has been brought to us.

Nope! not a wrong decision but in fact a great one. Everyone has a fair chance on the site now!

Has Lichess made any response to this at all yet? Just wondering.

Thanks.

@Benedictine said in #548:

Has Lichess made any response to this at all yet? Just wondering.

Thanks.

Other than the message on Thibault’s Pull Request, nothing

Ok, thank you. A bit disappointing.