English Chess Forum

The thread on British Correspondence GMs has a link to the Chess DB site for Keith Richardson as follows:-

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=410152

where the photo isn't Keith but, presumably, a random Keith Richardson from "America's most Wanted".

Investigation of the site shows there are plenty more apparently random photo-links. I found I was on the site with a rather handsome middle aged gentleman attached however they now appear to have found a photo that approximates to my likeness. Board contributor Ian Kingston will be pleased to know that his photo appears genuine but as for the following:-

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=409146
http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=1800183
http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=405272
http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=405736
http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=404128

There are dozens more - the more I check the worse it gets!

I checked my record: http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=824895
The picture is not mine either. Funny thing is, I actually know who's in that picture and our names are nowhere similar.
Dropped them an email, let's see if they remove the wrong picture.

My record has only a placeholder rook+knight image. Ah well, at least my record isn't a photograph of some random person with a child riding piggyback on their shoulders, as in Jack's case! (fourth link in Neil's list above). I'm also puzzled as to why they have links to non-existent Wikipedia pages. Mostly only the GMs (and a few others) will have Wikipedia pages, and not even all of them.

In fact, underneath each picture you have a button to report a wrong picture for deletion.
You also have arrow buttons to scroll pictures, there's more than one in fact associated to me. The last one is rather flattering (in a chess sense), being a picture of Vladimir Kramnik!

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:My record has only a placeholder rook+knight image. Ah well, at least my record isn't a photograph of some random person with a child riding piggyback on their shoulders, as in Jack's case!

Well, click a few times on the right arrow underneath the picture and be ready for a shock

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=421634 is my favourite so far for pictures

Paolo Casaschi wrote:

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:My record has only a placeholder rook+knight image. Ah well, at least my record isn't a photograph of some random person with a child riding piggyback on their shoulders, as in Jack's case!

Well, click a few times on the right arrow underneath the picture and be ready for a shock

One of those pictures is Jack! Three of them, in fact. Though were you referring to the record on me??

Rob Thompson wrote:http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=421634 is my favourite so far for pictures

You mean the picture of a leaf. That is... bizarre. They are obviously using some automated sort of program.

Paolo Casaschi wrote:

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:My record has only a placeholder rook+knight image. Ah well, at least my record isn't a photograph of some random person with a child riding piggyback on their shoulders, as in Jack's case!

Well, click a few times on the right arrow underneath the picture and be ready for a shock

In my case, it is just bizarre. Very random pics. Which is surprising, as there are pictures out there of me, they are just picking up the wrong ones. Quite how they got a picture of the front page of The Times, I don't know. That and a woman in one of the pictures...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Rob Thompson wrote:http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=421634 is my favourite so far for pictures

You mean the picture of a leaf. That is... bizarre. They are obviously using some automated sort of program.

I'd certainly avoid this guy

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=402893

though this one looks strangely familiar:-

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=400653

Neil Graham wrote:

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Rob Thompson wrote:http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=421634 is my favourite so far for pictures

You mean the picture of a leaf. That is... bizarre. They are obviously using some automated sort of program.

I'd certainly avoid this guy

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=402893

though this one looks strangely familiar:-

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=400653

Hilarious. Though at some point I suppose someone will complain if they are associated with a mass-murderer or something. It would be nice to be able to link to the 'wrong' ones, but the humour goes stale after a while. Good for a laugh for a few minutes if someone hasn't seen it before (I'm sure there are other photo or automated personal data aggregating services that are equally bad - aren't some social networks infamous for this sort of thing?).

Wonderful. Simply the best! Click twice on the left button to see my pic!

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=425354

I wonder: Where they don't have a picture might they have obtained one by googling for an image of the player's name + "chess"?

I am not complaining about mine - it can stay up...

http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=402605

Just noticed the link to the FAQ (was that there before?):

http://chess-db.com/public/datafaq.html

"All player photos are found through searching and indexing the internet. Once one or more photos are linked to a player they get indexed and then displayed for this player. [...] For most of the players the displayed thumbnail is just an automatic search result using the official Google APIs and quering images.google.com. Thus the result (and the pictures displayed) will not be more accurate compared to if you go to image.google.com directly and then type your name in there. Such search queries are sometimes returning incorrect results, which in some cases might even be offensive to you (or the player). Please excuse us for this, and consider the following options in such cases. [...]" etc.