News

About 10 hours back, one of the En Garde Ranking Trackers out there sent me an error message, about a failed database access. My other websites were also misbheaving. So, not caused by the En Garde system. I instantly informed the web hosting company. While I have been sleeping, I received four more error messages via email. They sent me an email later, that there is a greater problem right now, and they are working on it.

So far I see, all duels have been properly written into database. Let me know, if you observe any hiccups.

Note: Event got rescheduled!

Feel free to join this virtual seminar on Chat Control - an attempt of the EU government and beyond to forbid/circumvent/crack encrypted communication and implement automatically scanning of user data, e.g. emails and messenger chats.

Date: 30th November 2021

Time: 10am SLT (8pm CET, 7pm GMT, 11am PST, 2pm EST)

Place: COU Red Quixote Memorial Hall in Caledon Oxbridge Village

Presenters: John Doe and ZenMondo Wormser

Full Panel participants will be published prior to event.

With panel discussion and extensive Q & A.

Summary:

"We believe that the citizens, from young to old, have a fundamental human right to privacy and self-determination. During the past few months, we have lost more rights, than since World War 2. This is why you really should participate. To gain the knowledge, know what are your rights and learn how to defend them! Join us!
 

Why should you participate? Unsuspected citizens are having their private conversations, images, messages and emails scanned under EU’s ChatControl legislation.  

Many of you don’t even know what ChatControl legislation is and its follow up, ChatControl2. They don’t make to news headlines or pinned tweets and posts in EU Commission ‘s social media handles.
 

Without knowledge what is happening to your rights in the shadows, everyhting you took it as granted can be stolen away from you."

Additional Resources:

Original announcement @hacker-ethic.flynnos.org

Why chat control is so dangerous @netzpolitik.org

Chat Control - The End of the Privacy of Digital Correspondence

If you wish more privacy regarding the rankings system, it is possible now, but not required, to hide your name from the website and also from in-world displays. To do so, go to En Garde > Your Profile and follow the instructions.

Dear Duellists

At the suggestion of our new group member, Miss Fenwitch (ecsammie), I began implementing an Elo Rating to the SL En Garde Ranking system. The Elo Rating system originally was developed by Arpad Elo as an improved Chess rating system, but later found its way into other sports and computer games. Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

When playing on our four pistes in the fencing hall, you will receive an IM, telling your current Elo as soon you hop onto a piste. It is based upon all duels you had so far, as a registered duellist. As soon as a duel has ended, you will again get notified about your updated Elo. Give it a test: Teleport to Caledon Oxbridge Fencing

When playing at other places, your duels are already considered for Elo -  just that the tracker does not tell you the Elo yet. Those places might update soon. Additionally, there is a new page on my website, listing all duellists and their Elo. It excludes registered duellists with an Elo of exactly 1200, because this is the value a duellists begins with. The page also shows the Elo Distribution, which ideally is a normal distribution, with a slight drift to the (b)right side. See it here: http://www.pader.world/en-garde_elo-ratings.html

Please note: Whether the Elo Rating system is applicable for En Garde at all, has to be seen later on, when we have more duellists and duels done. The system was invented for Chess, a pure 'skill' game, but En Garde is for a fair part also based on 'chance'. The higher the 'chance' influence is on the Elo calculation the smaller the distribution is. As a consequence, the algorithm has to get optimized for En Garde. As soon I change the algorithm, the Elos of all duellists will get re-calculated. So, your current Elo is not gravelled in stone yet.

Other News:

• There are new Name Displays at our four pistes. For other users they will get bundled with the next Ranking Tracker.
• The upcoming Ranking Tracker version will inform the owner about available updates.
• The Ranking Tracker can now be pulled from the vendor in our fencing hall, for L$ 1.
• Team play will be implemented soon.

Sincerely yours
Ravelli Ormstein

Today I uploaded a bunch of missing albums to the gallery. I hope you like them:

• September 2017
• October 2017
• January 2018
• December 2018
• July 2019
• August 2019
• September 2019
• October 2019
• March 2020
• April 2020

Dear Duellists of Caledon

At the request of new group members and in the hope of reviving the group Caledon Oxbridge Fencing (COF), I'm now offering a weekly En Garde fencing training session every Friday at 1 pm SLT. I hope for lively participation, lots of fun and that no one gets hurt. Coming dates will be announced in-world via notices in the group Caledon Oxbridge Fencing and in the calendar.

Ravelli

Today I released version 1.7.19 of the RO PHP Destination Guide. Some functions have been rewritten. Otherwise just some minor changes, but more to come. Test and download it here.

A list of all changes:

• v1.7.19: View of categories now also shows the count of destinations in every category
• v1.7.18: new function getCSVasAssocArray()
• v1.7.17: About: Added an icon as image
• v1.7.16: Added a favicon
• v1.7.15: includesfunctions.php.flushCache(): Optimized for missing CSV file

Today I released version 1.7.14 of the RO PHP Destination Guide. Just some minor changes, but more to come. Test and download it here.

A list of all changes:

• v1.7.14: functions.php: new function getTeleportButton()
• v1.7.13: If SLurl is missing in CSV file, teleport button is red and blocked
• v1.7.12: Bugfix: Back button does not work, if you access the About page directly

Today I released version 1.7.11 of the RO PHP Destination Guide. It automatically clears its cache as soon you update the CSV file with the destinations. In addition, some optimizations and bugfixes. Test and download it here.

A list of all changes:

• v1.7.11: destination-guide.php.18: Removed the set time limit
• v1.7.10: About: added missing alt and title to IMG tag
• v1.7.9: functions.php: new function getLocator()
• v1.7.8: addedd a .htaccess file to compress and cache data
• v1.7.7: CSS: disabled selection frame of links (a:focus)
• v1.7.6: Bugfix: Back button in About page was English only, now it depends on viewer language
• v1.7.5: Back button in About page now returns to previous page, not to start page
• v1.7.4: new arrows in the Back button of the About page
• v1.7.3: destination-guide.php: Added support for control of PHP error reporting
• v1.7.2: Bugfix: includesfunctions.php.showDescription(): When displaying destinations, the link to CATEGORIES contained a "?"
• v1.7.1: Bugfix:  includesfunctions.php.showCategories(): Spaces in category URLs now replaced by "%20"
• v1.7.0: Cache gets cleared as soon as you update the destination .csv file

In the latest release v.1.6 a new feature has been added, which automatically generates proper cropped and scaled thumbnails of your destination images. That makes your workflow a bit easier and the Destination Guide loading much faster. You can place JPG, PNG and even BMP into the image folder. Test and download it here.

A list of all changes:

• v1.6.5: CSS: Teleport-Button: reduced letter spacing
• v1.6.4: readme.txt: updated
• v1.6.3: destination-guide.ini.php: Corrected one wrong default value
• v1.6.2: includes/functions.php: Improved getURL()
• v1.6.1: SLURLs in CSV without a region name are handled correct no
  (no additional colon behind output SLURL)
• v1.6.0: Images are now being cropped and scaled to cached thumbnails
  •   can read jpg, png and bmp files
  •   if files in 'images' already at proper size, they will be used unchanged
  •   if files in 'images' are being overwritten, thumnails update too
  •   can write jpg, png and webp (webp should be avoided for now)