I second that. Unofficially, the limits already are removed, though ;)
I had a chess break of a few years and used to be an avid correspondence player next to playing quite a lot OTB. When i came back i was surprised to find that these days all sites consider database and engine assistance as cheating (except the "official" ICCF of course and national CC federations).
In forums i found many tiresome debates with people who are not very good at chess but insist on their "cheating" claim. Many guys just lack the understanding to get that assisted play is about opening research and then guiding the engine into favourable structures or towards winnable endgames. Basically the human does the strategy and works out plans and the engine helps making the tactics work.
Beating guys who just execute the engine's 1st move is challenging these days since the machines have become quite good over the years, but it is still very much doable. The human will at least get pressure and some edge in each game but will also sometimes fail to convert. Especially if you open with your standard OTB stuff and dont design the openings to lead into positions that the machine won't handle well.
50,
Creativity is not killed, a human planning the long term strategy and the engine checking the possible tactical miscalculations is fine. Besides the engine analysis is not really perfect yet.
We are now in modern times. Let the CC games helps find the truth about chess and variants.
And again this cheating allegations going here and there will be buried forever.
This also helps the quality of the Lichess database. Lichess already provided the fun 1/2 minute game. This can now be balanced with quality games from CC with unlimited help. Sooner the GM's will come here in Lichess to search for those interesting games from CCU - Correspondence Chess Unlimited.
Creating a database with actual relevance for high level OTB play, that is a very good point, Capa. Experienced (correspondence) players would probably swarm this site for its standout feature CCU: Why pay the ICCF a fee when you can have the same for free on lichess?
Ok, i can already hear people complain: "But i dont want to play against an engine." They won't have to, though. Rating will take care of that automatically and split the player pool into three parts: At the bottom humans without assistance, in the middle engines without assistance, and the cyborgs on top of that.
53,
I agree with classification, if that is really needed.
But I am afraid on this,
"" At the bottom humans without assistance """
will just generate chaos investigating the brilliant cheaters :-)
#54 This can help as well. Lichess should be moderated by algorithms more than humans...this is also a part of the nice things related to Open Source software.
So if "humans without assistance" do something similar to "humans + engines" you know how to detect them.
Also this feature must not exist in Antichess or it will be absolute chaos since almost everybody will use Watkins' lines (that's before antichess gets solved) and the game will be basically a coin flip if anti does get solved as a white win.
What about people who don't wanna play against engines/databases?
And don't tell me now they should play the other losers at the bottom of the rating, because naturally the field will be mixed up. Someone starting out who uses an engine will destroy all the non engine users etc. This will never be clear cut and will lead to one thing: Everyone is forced to use databases/engines, because if you know/suspect your opponent does it's painful to realise you will likely lose no matter how you play anyway.
I want to remind you all that the previous correspondence system is working, and that such changes would simply lead to players (like me) abandoning correspondence on lichess. Someone mentioned icc. If you wanna have engine wars go to icc and play mindcrushing beautiful games that last for 2 years, but in my opinion lichess has no reason to copy this system.
The topic needs clarification. This has gone from bad to worse. Just because you can't stop someone from using the help of databases/engines doesn't mean it should be legitimated and encouraged. That's a travesty.
56,
" What about people who don't wanna play against engines/databases?"
One option is to play games with Classical Time control perhaps 90+30.
It is actually fine if you are not using an engine in CC, and your opponent uses an engine, in this case your ability, resourcefulness, and creativity will be tested (I like that). Is it not that this is one of your goals why you play CC in the first place? If you are defeated no questions asks, because your opponent uses an engine, but if you lose to a player that is not using an engine and who played almost perfect chess, are you not going to complain about your opponent's play making allegations that he is cheating?
CCU is the future.
Or make CCU the default system, and for casual games, no chess engines are allowed. So in this situation you can still play CC here. So the rated CC games will be added in the explorer, these are games with high quality, these games deserve to be there.
57,
You have never played a correspondence game on lichess. I believe you just want others to play computer chess so you get high quality results in the database to improve your 2 min game.
I get it, but do not fret, the database will grow and improve without a million engine games. You will be fine.
Your belief is wrong. There are a lot of sources to get quality games.
I am only concerned of this unending cheating accusations and production of quality games from lichess.
See the whole point hitting two birds with one stone. Stop these cheating accusations by allowing unlimited help and producing quality games, the games that really matter.
My grandfather visited today. We had a nice dinner were we talked about chess. He said he played back when he was younger and talked about how full of wonder he watched Kasparov play on television.
He then asked me: "This lichess website you are talking about, is it possible for me to play some games there? I think it would be nice to get my old brain working again. You know, like the good old days. My mind works quite slow these days though, so is it possible to play correspondence games?"
And, so I replied: "Depends, what kind of specs does your laptop have, got a quad core? Oh and do you have stockfish 6 installed?"
Please pay your respects for my late grandfather, for he died of a heart attack.