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=== Growth and rivalry with ICC ===
After a few months, FICS had 1,500 members.<ref name="Doggers-2024" /> In 1998, the Free Internet Chess Organization (FICS) was organized as a [[nonprofit organization]], although the formal entity was dissolved in 2007.<ref name="gambiter.com">{{Cite web|url=http://gambiter.com/chess/online/Free_internet_chess_server.html|title=Free Internet Chess Server|website=gambiter.com|language=en|access-date=28 September 2017}}</ref> The server is still maintained and administered by volunteers.<ref name="gambiter.com" /> FICS never matched the popularity of ICC, but as of 2012 it had about 900 people logged in at any given time,<ref name="Bouman-2012" /> and by August 2014 it had over 650,000 registered accounts.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Menn |first=Joseph |title=All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster |publisher=Crown Publishing Group |year=2003 |isbn=9781400050062}}</ref><ref name="gambiter.com" /> In 2016, 50,000 active players played a total of 23 million games.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ficsgames.org/2013_stats.html |title=FICS Games Database – Statistics for 2013 |access-date=3 August 2014 }}</ref>
The two servers used different names for similar features, which were then part of the rivalry. For example, very fast games in which each player only has one or two minutes to make all their moves are called "lightning" on FICS but "bullet" on ICC. The terms became [[Shibboleth|shibboleths]], marking members of each community and derided by the other.<ref name="Doggers-2024" />
==Usage==
[[File:babaschesssmallcrop.jpg|thumb|FICS using BabasChess interface]]
FICS is accessible via [[telnet]] and was text-only by default. Before graphical interfaces, users would see a board created by [[ASCII]] characters, with the lines of the board created by [[Hyphen|hyphens]] and [[Vertical bar|pipes]], and pieces represented by letters.<ref name="Doggers-2024" /> Whereas ICC has dedicated, proprietary graphical interfaces, several have been developed for FICS, with none having official status. The earliest were XICS and [[XBoard]], with subsequent programs including [[XBoard|WinBoard]], BabasChess, Jin, Thief, Raptor, eboard, [[PyChess]], and JavaBoard.<ref name="gambiter.com" /><ref name="Fernández Slezak-2010">{{Cite journal |last1=Fernández Slezak |first1=Diego |last2=Etchemendy |first2=Pablo |last3=Sigman |first3=Mariano |date=2010 |title=Rapid chess: A massive-scale experiment |url=https://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/152631 |journal=High-Performance Computing Symposium (HPC 2010) |language=en}}</ref> Though built with pre-web technology, which typically requires a dedicated client, there are also web-based interfaces. Users can play using an anonymous guest account or register for an account with a username. Registered users can play games rated using the [[Glicko rating system]], with separate ratings based on time control and chess variant.<ref>{{Cite web |author=vek/glickman |title=Vek-splanation of the Glicko Ratings System |url=http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/glicko.html |access-date=10 May 2010}}</ref>
Once connected, discussion takes place in a wide number of function-specific or subject-specific chat channels numbered 0 through 255. For example, channel 0 is for administrators only, 1 is for general help, 50 is general chat, and 49 is for tournaments.<ref name="gambiter.com" /> Though based in the US, FICS, like the ICS before it, was notable for its international diversity. Early descriptions of using the servers highlight playing against and talking with people from around the world, which was a rare experience in the 1990s.<ref name="Doggers-2024" />
=== Variants ===
== Relay ==
FICS relays major live chess events.<ref name="Hurst-1999" /> A bot takes the moves in ongoing games and relays them to special demo accounts on FICS. These demo accounts bear the names of the players in the event. Users and guests on FICS can watch the games in progress and chat about the games with each other. The relay has covered every single [[World Chess Championship]] since its inception. Other major relays include the yearly relay of [[Tata Steel Chess Tournament|Wijk aan Zee]], [[Morelia-Linares]] and [[Amber Melody]].<ref name="gambiter.com" /> The web-based [[Lichess]] platform obtains its tournament relays via FICS.
== Archive ==
All games played by registered users are recorded and made publicly available for free.<ref name="gambiter.com" /> The FICS game archive has been used in academic studies on memory,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nagy |first1=David G. |last2=Török |first2=Balázs |last3=Orbán |first3=Gergő |date=15 October 2020 |title=Optimal forgetting: Semantic compression of episodic memories |journal=PLOS Computational Biology |language=en |volume=16 |issue=10 |pages=e1008367 |doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008367 |doi-access=free |issn=1553-7358 |pmc=7591090 |pmid=33057380|bibcode=2020PLSCB..16E8367N }}</ref> decision-making,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Slezak |first1=Diego Fernandez |last2=Sigman |first2=Mariano |last3=Cecchi |first3=Guillermo A. |date=2 March 2018 |title=An entropic barriers diffusion theory of decision-making in multiple alternative tasks |journal=PLOS Computational Biology |language=en |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=e1005961 |doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005961 |doi-access=free |issn=1553-7358 |pmc=5851639 |pmid=29499036|bibcode=2018PLSCB..14E5961F }}</ref><ref name="Fernández Slezak-2010" /> and user interface design.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Picussa |first1=Juliano |last2=Garcia |first2=Laura S. |last3=Bueno |first3=Juliana |last4=Ferreira |first4=Marica V. R. |last5=Direne |first5=Alexandre I. |last6=de Bona |first6=Luis C. E. |last7=Silva |first7=Fabiano |last8=Castilho |first8=Marcos A. |last9=Sunye |first9=Marcos S. |chapter=A user-interface environment solution for an online educational Chess server |date=June 2008 |title=2008 Second International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/rcis.2008.4632106 |publisher=IEEE |pages=179–186 |doi=10.1109/rcis.2008.4632106|isbn=978-1-4244-1677-6 }}</ref> The server and its archive have been used to train [[Chess engine|chess engines]] and chess-related [[machine learning]] projects,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cheng |first1=Isaac |last2=Chico Camargo |date=2023 |title=Machine Learning to Study Patterns in Chess Games |url=https://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.2.30894.52807 |language=en |doi=10.13140/RG.2.2.30894.52807}}</ref> while the FICS code has been used to launch similar regional or thematic chess servers as well as influencing the design of other chess projects.<ref name="Bouman-2012">{{Cite web |last=Bouman |first=Egbert |date=2012 |title=Tribler-G: A Decentralized Social Network for Playing Chess [Master's Thesis] |url=https://egbertbouman.github.io/tribler-g/publications/Tribler-G%20A%20Decentralized%20Social%20Network%20for%20Playing%20Chess%20Online%20(MSc%20thesis).pdf |website=Delft University of Technology}}</ref>
==See also==
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