English Chess Forum

This was dropped on us today and is as you would expect unpleasing to look at and a complete shambles. No doubt it cost a lot of money, we have on this forum a member of FIDE's Management Board who may know.

I am particularly cross to see that Alex H now has the IM title, apparently awarded before he had even played a rated game. My successor as QC Chair got one as well. Where is mine? Clearly undue influence is at work.

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/418668
More seriously, the entire archive, under threat for some time, is now gone. There may still be ways to edit URLs, but expect those to be closed too.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:58 pm

More seriously, the entire archive, under threat for some time, is now gone. There may still be ways to edit URLs, but expect those to be closed too.

Are there any individuals or organisations (or chess historians?) that may have enough influence here to ensure that at least offline copies are kept or digital forms of archive documents. Particularly any records that are 'born digital' (i.e. there are no physical copies) or where the pre-existing physical originals may have been destroyed (because they had been digitised)?

Christopher, the simple answer is no. Whoever may be the legal owner of these records, they do not wish them to be freely accessible.

sent to /dev/null

Other idiotic comments are welcome.

sent to /dev/null

Gone now, perhaps I have influence after all!

It looks like the archive can still be accessed by typing in old.fide.com in the address bar. If you want to refer to it in the future, then I suggest you choose one of the many ways of downloading an entire website and point it at old.fide.com.

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 22, 2025 6:28 pm

It looks like the archive can still be accessed by typing in old.fide.com in the address bar. If you want to refer to it in the future, then I suggest you choose one of the many ways of downloading an entire website and point it at old.fide.com.

I have of course been doing that for five years, but they have fixed it so that the links now take you back to the new site.

It used to be possible to access the top 100 from ENG and the top 100 from a specified junior age group, but now Top Fed doesn't open up further information. Is there any way round that?

Advanced Search still works, although you need the guess the level to get precisely 100 results.

The calendar update is a disaster, IMO - much less user friendly

The new, inferior site no longer states when titles were achieved.

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 23, 2025 8:27 am

The calendar update is a disaster, IMO - much less user friendly

Agreed.

No doubt other bits have dropped off that we won't notice until we need them.

More interestingly, can anyone identify an element of the new website which is an improvement?