Making the Chess.com Forums Better

ajttja wrote:

chessdex wrote:

DrCheckevertim wrote:

ajttja wrote:

Wow, amazing speech there Erik. Unlike other people who take the TL;DR aproch I read the whole thing because i saw that what you said was important and worth reading. Of course to every long piece that someone writes there are some parts that need improving and comments. This is what I have to say.

I speak for trolling, I don't know if all trolls think the way I do but this is what i have to say for the chess.com community. Some trolling is bad and offensive as are some types of trolling like spamming (just posting meaningless stuff over and over again) but the right type of trolls are benificial to the chess.com comunity. Imagine a chess.com without the type of trolls that i am mentioning. There would no longer be times when they are not appreciated but there would also be no one to troll the mean people to death. They would hount chess.com with no one with the gut or the right words to take them down. Also chess can sometimes get a little dull after talking about it for hours and we start to wish that there is someone to say something that can lighten up our mood. It doesn't have to be very funny, just something that lifts some of the weight of our shoulders. Sometimes no one recognizes it and trolls still remain hated, but that uncousious post that isn't a serious chess anaylisis or commentary makes us more happy and glad that there is a chess.com comunity to keep our spirits up. I am not much for speeches but this is what i have to say for trolling.

Ajttja

To be fair, a troll isn't a troll isn't a troll. There are different levels of trolling. For example, the thread asking about how to teach chess to his 1-month-old kid and turn him into a GrandMaster.  That is clever and much needed comic relief.

Another kind of troll is someone whose purpose on the forum is to completely ruin discussion and mess with other people at any opportunity. Sometimes these people are just lost in their own world of misery, and want to bring others down with them -- or occasionally, it's one of the "want to watch the world burn" types. These are the types of trolls that are a problem. They bring people down and crush the sense of discussion and community on the forums. These trolls should be moderated and limited -- or, ghasp -- muted, suspended, or banned. It's certainly not "fair" or "conducive to free speech" when one person is juggling knives blindfolded down a large public sidewalk, and sometimes throwing those knives at other people.

+1

congrats on writing the shortest post on this thread. Writing something that is not deep or philosophical in a thread that requires that. At least expand a little on what your are saying and talk a little about what your are "+1ing"

+1, first part. Better?

Nope.  Worse.

hicetnunc wrote:

Mitch_Schwartzen wrote:

Commercial sites want to encourage as much posting as possible.  Internal site activity such as posting is "interlinking" which directly influences the algorythims used by search engines which pushes the site higher on search engine queries.

This is very important in the wider scheme of things.

Well, then I guess it's okay to keep the current level of crap in the public forums as it is

Not all of the forums are bad. Participate in the ones you like.

I'd much rather see extensive and useless quoting limited than limiting those who post.

bigpoison wrote:

Nope.  Worse.

Ok, +1, first part, two types of trolls, ask Macer for details. Some troll just for comic relief, and some troll to purposely get in a fight and insult someone

It's only really Off Topic which gets full up with junk and I doubt the people going there mind much - it is self evident that quite a few like the place.

I've visited chat boards on gaming sites since they first appeared and the forums here are better than most. Lots of rules isn't going to achieve much, I suspect, and tolerating a certain amount of imaturity is almost certainly the best policy. It is certainly easier.

Anyway it is erik and his fellow owners' site and if they want more regulation that is how things will go. I wish them good luck.

Yes, I agree. But at some point you have to put the cursor somewhere on the pure quality / pure quantity line. Imagine if the 'articles' section on chess.com  was managed the same way : we would certainly lose many valuable contributions !

If I was a new member, I may be turned off by the public forums on this website.

purrfect

off-topic is relative

Yeh, its true.

You'd be punishing the majority of the legitmate contibutors for the sake of the minority.

A slightly over/under moderated forum is way better than an inactive forum where you have to be priveleged to post more.

              Can I just add 1 little minor correction, that should be EMPHASIZED.  Somewhere in Eric's speech, he said,  "If you are found unable to follow these rules, you may have your posting abilities restricted". Just change it to,  "you WILL have your posting abilities restricted".

Erik's seemingly underlying thought is to give kindness and consideration dips over sterness and rigidity.   He wants to give people second and third chances to cooperate with what he hopes is a more friendly atmosphere. 

what if erik actually means may, not will?

cross post with the bat

based on the amount of time you've been here, your input is very valuable.

                Then there's no sense in having the rule. There's 2 phrases there, with a time element implied. IF you have allready broken the 1st one, and there's no teeth to it; your giving a green light with no punishment to members who cannot follow the rules. And then the mods are stuck in the middle. The system we have now is fine for everyone. You get 1 warning; after that, out of the pool.

I'm just speaking from my window here, and I understand the business' concerns may be vastly different, but you're also driving away most of the good chess content from the forums.

Maybe the situation has evolved over the past months, but last time I was active in the public forums I found the level of aggressiveness and rudeness which was allowed was incredible.

I mean, yes, it's easy to have a very active forum with endless strings of meaningless posts such as : "the last one to post will be GM on Friday", but what's the point for the readers ?

The best chess forum on the Internet (won't name it) is heavily moderated, and last time I checked, there were only a small handful of valuable contributors left in the chess.com forums.

              Mitch read my post again. I'm not trying to tell Eric what he meant. I suggested 1 minor change. Either he'll do it, or he won't. He asked for input. That's my 2 cents, and after suggesting it, I bumped into the blindfolded knife juggler.

says the dude who's been here for less than 2 weeks.

There are places designed just for either elite players or people heavily into analysis - serious players and heavily moderation helps maintain that level of seriousness.   Chess.com isn't such a place. It's far more ecumenical and has to reflect that in the forums.  However there are groups here that can serve that purpose if one choses to use them in such a way.  I doubt the forums here will ever serve that purpose for the most part.