Making the Chess.com Forums Better

The only thing that really needs to be done on this site IMO is that people who put up photos of unbelievably attractive women, and then play really fantastic speed chess, when in real life they look like Wayne Knight, should be severely punished.

Does anyone know who I'm talking about? I don't know if I'm in love, or if... eew!

Thank you! A perfect example of a dumb spammer/troll that comes to forums to just lower the qualitly of writing. A joke would be welcome or something to lower the tone of the philosophical seriousnes but not just some non deep dumb 2 word attack that ruins a nice forum. Also, bigpoison brings up his faliure. I made a forum once "player of the month" and bigpoison immediatly tried to destroy it but I out trolled him and he ended up being the Joke of the month instead of having his way by destroying another harmless forum. The cat eating the mouse. 

the opposite.  the post bp was responding to, deserved this exact response.

My feelings are very hurt.  Why don't the kiddies empathise with me?

I fully agree. Actually, I should make a distinction between the quality of the chess content itself and, let's say, the 'civility' in the forum.

It's not about chess.com providing high-level chess content in the forums (I agree it's not the goal), it's about the lack of civility making any valuable chess content disappear

Interesting. Here's my 2c:

Among the online communities I frequent, some offer "Like" or "+1", others offer up- and down-votes. Chess.com appears to offer neither. I very much prefer the first type.

Quite often I read a few forum posts, and don't feel inclined to say anything myself (there are too many words out there already), but I do like to indicate that I agree with someone; so a FB "Like" or a Motley Fool "Rec" exactly meets my need. I'd like to see something similar on chess.com.

I completely support erik's sentiments and new regulations. If properly heeded, they will make the forums and the site in general much healthier and uplifting.

Another key to creating a positive atmosphere, in addition to having greater empathy, is that we should all avoid taking offense where none is intended. Interpreting offense in tone-less comments is often a reflexive and instinctive reaction. When we feel that rancor welling up within us, we should not immediately start typing. We should stop and think about the variety of tones that could have been intended. We should stop and think about appropriate ways to respond. Then, when we've cooled down (after an hour, a day, or however long), we will hopefully be able to avoid escalating antagonism.

As I have been repeatedly saying: Regulations should not be placed on trolls. First, it would not be obayed and if it was inforced people would be banned for trolling which would not be good as has been proved by Cheater_1 and daeth who have giving rise to more trolls than before. Second, it would scare good trolls like me from being bold and helping everyones day for fear of being banned since we also attack people (although i only attack bad trolls or spammers). Another reason is that the Cat eating rat method is more effective in permanetly getting rid of the bad trolls. When a Cat (good troll) kills a rat (bad troll) it is because the rat realizes that he has been severely embarresed and isn't the best on chess.com anymore. He knows that he won't be taken seriously anymore if he posts and he choses to not post. If you try the plug method (banning them) you are just closing the hole where the rats come out and the rats build up until they break through and destroy everything, out of control of the cat now. I hope you understand my analogie,

Ajttja

Edit: this is in responce to Itude's latest post

I think it's partly this civility (or lack of it) that Erik hopes to address.  Certain restraints will be lifted in the Off-Topic area, but that leaves the regular forums hopefully more free from that sort of thing. (fingers-crossed)

wrong, First you are defending him because you are also a spammer. two, chessdex's post was a posotive one that would have been nice if he had explained what he meant and what he was +1ing to so the poster would have gotten a smile and known that what he posted was worth something to someone.

Is your name like automorphic L-functions somehow, ltude?

I believe all that, or something along those lines, is coming... soon.

1. It is easy to lie on an empathy test 2. chess.com has a premium member section for forums which has a very small amount of trolls and probably will get more people.

Ajttja

Oh yeah?  I've got a bridge between the upper and lower penninsulas of Michigan for sale.  Cheap!

+1 I was looking through all this hard debate and then I saw this, turning a phrase into a nice Joke and it didn't harm the qualitly of the thread.

I just checked:  There have been five posts in that category in the past four days.  Four of them were in the same thread (with three posts from the OP), and one was a guy bumping his own thread from over a week ago (to which no-one but him has yet responded).

another random spam post that discusts me and destroys the thread.

P.S. I hope that Erik doesn't mind too much that his forum has turned into a battlefield because of bigpoison. It would be a shame if he had to lock the thread

That is my point. The Premium member forum hardly gets any attention so who would try to post in another forum that you have to take a test to get into and has more trolls? That is why the new forum topic would recive little or no attention.

ajttja wrote:

bigpoison wrote:

Nope.  Worse.

Thank you! A perfect example of a dumb spammer/troll that comes to forums to just lower the qualitly of writing. A joke would be welcome or something to lower the tone of the philosophical seriousnes but not just some non deep dumb 2 word attack that ruins a nice forum. Also, bigpoison brings up his faliure. I made a forum once "player of the month" and bigpoison immediatly tried to destroy it but I out trolled him and he ended up being the Joke of the month instead of having his way by destroying another harmless forum. The cat eating the mouse. 

Um, I'm sorry, can you read my comment about two posts down.

And besides, are you claiming you are not a dumb spammer troll or something? Because it seems like you encourage harassing people. In what ways have you contributed to this community?

Looked like you were saying it was a troll free haven poised for an influx of users.