Forum feature I would like

I'd like a feature where I could block certain recurring forum discussions from continuing in my forum listings as they take up space of posts that I may be interested in.

please be more specific?

sounds like you want a filter that will take out what you don't want. like at google you can type -enter and it wont show you anything that has "enter" in the results.

i would like sections specific to rating. this would be good because i ccould more easily find and help with problems that people have at different ratings.

Such a filter is unlikely to be effective.

A quick search (using both Google and Forum Search) indicates that a very wide set of topics would caught in a simple keyword net e.g. resign.

   i was not trying to create a real solution, but trying to explain what i thought he was talking about.

   If i were to do it then i would creat a system of taging your topic with a keyword, then other people could filter out those keywords and topics, but that would rely on good keywords. If there were a small group of premade keywords that you could only choose from then it might be better then just creating your own. But then if you filtered out one of those keywords you would probably miss out on more then what you wanted. anyways, I still want forums for different ranges of ratings.

edit:

after thinking about it more and looking at the forums it seams like it is already well divided, each forum subgroup could be a key word, but no point in that. it would help if the OP explained a little more about what exactly they dont want to look at.

Do you mean entrely new categories from the existing ...

• General Chess Discussion
  
• Chess Openings
  
• Game Analysis
  
• Game Showcase
  
• More Puzzles
  
• Endgame Study
  
• Chess Players
  
• Chess.com Community
  
• Fun With Chess
  
• Chess Books and Equipment
  
• Chess News & Buzz
  
• Scholastic Chess
  
• Tournaments
  
• Chess Organizers
  
• Live Chess
  
• Chess Mentor
  
• Premium Members
  
• Off Topic
  
• Help & Support
  

e.g. Members 1200 - 1500, Members 1501 - 1800, etc. ?

or do you mean that certain categories ( e.g. Chess Openings) should be further subdivided by rating range?

The rating of the person asking a question in the Forums is already available (it takes 2 clicks). When the proposed rollover mechanism is in place, it will be even more directly accessible.

While we're waiting for clarification from  amac7079, we could explore keyword tags a little further. If chess.com published monthly statistics on the bottom-ten of these putative keywords along the lines:

resign: filtered out by 1300 members

chat: filtered out by 1050 members

chess: filtered out by 822 members

it might have the effect of reducing new topics about these topics.

I raised the idea of searchable keywords recently. I believe it has merit.

A useful facility - in the absence of being able to edit the title (other than by completely deleting the discussion and starting over) - would be the ability to add a subtitle. In the case of this discussion:

TITLE: why do patzers delude themselves that non-patzers are cheats?

SUBTITLE: whiner-patzers

I'm thinking that a subtitle is something you might add later on in the discussion to emphasise the essence. (And it would be neat to be able to edit it, of course!)

Ideally, the sub-title would act as a searchable keyword - but not be part of the URL to the topic ()

no, those are great ideas but I was only thinking that I just did not want some of the chain postings to keep reappearing in hot topics and topics i have posted in. the latter, i can change by not posting but i am interested for a while sometimes but my attention span wanes especially when threads start to deviate or become repetitive. i dont want to sort all topics, just "hide" some like artfizz said. cheers.

The only list we currently have explicit control over is Topics I am Tracking. When you get tired of a particular topic, you can explicitly unset Tracking. Your point is, perhaps, that if you have untracked a topic in this way, you would like Today's Hot Topics to be customised for you in the same way (and maybe New Unread Posts and Unanswered Posts as well).

Presumably you would not want to filter any topics out of Topics I Have Posted In or Topics I Have Started - otherwise it would be quite difficult to find those again - except by searching.

Suggestions for hiding unwanted threads were discussed here (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/what-to-expect-from-chesscom-forums).

(Proposals for highlighting threads discussed here -  http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/trophies-we-can-all-aspire-to)

i think taking advantage of the tracking system is the best way to deal with unwanted threads.

Indeed, but amac7079 is drawing attention to the point that:

• Hot Topics is a generic (same for everybody at that moment) list containing 15 items
  
• Recent Posts is a generic list containing 10 items
  

If amac7079 has grown weary of seeing some popular thread or other, but these two or three perennial topics virtually always feature in Hot & Recent, then effectively, those lists could be thought of (by some people) as two or three items short of fresh posts.

There are a lot of posts about Mate in 3, Mate in 2, etc. I personally don't find them fascinating so I would hide them from Hot & Recent, given half a chance. I already don't start them, post in them, track them or read them, of course.

I will go in to more detail about what I want for rating specific forums. I believe that people at certain levels of skill(ratings) basically have the same strengths and weaknesses. they know the same concepts and play similar games.

for example, a bishop being generally better then a knight. at a certain level you know this, at a higher level you use the board to determine what is better, at lower levels you dont really understand this, and at even lower levels you dont understand the values between the pieces.

the best way for them to improve is to have one on one coaching from a better player. They should be able to see what the player is missing.

what i think should be in the forums are some rating specific sections. for example a 1600 section. people who are rated 1600 can go there and ask whatever question they have or get one of there games analyzed. after a little while i believe we would see a trend of things that most people dont understand at that level.

these sections would be more like coaching sections, diffrent from all the other sections in that responses should be about improveing the players skill. if i go to the openings section right now there are lost of stuff unorganized and no one can really use that to improve. they would have to post something like "i want help with my opening" then the first question asked would be "what opening do you use?" eventually he would just get pointed to a opening database.

here are two example topics in the openings forum.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/hi

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/gambits

in the second example a person rated 1051 asked about gambits. many people responded by posting gambits. but i don't think that helped him at all. if there was say a 900 to 1300 section he could go there and learn about basic concepts of the opening. in a later post he states that gambits never work for him and that is because it is too advanced for him to take advantage of what a gambit offers.

more later got to head to work.

my basic point will be that the sections will make it much easier to improve and find what it is you are missing.