Ah erik, I didn't mean to come off as intolerant. And I'm not going anywhere, I have a few fun thread ideas I plan on getting to later today.
I agree that it is the members that make it up.
It is a forum, yes. And you're right, you can't make everyone happy.
Nevermind. I was trying to encourage this person to stay. Frustrated to lose a friend. Forget I said anything. I'm deleting my comments and my blog on this issue.
Rael: No need to delete anything. And I don't think you were being intolerant. I think you were expressing one side of the coin - a side I strongly feel too. But at the same time, there are so many sides, and so many opinions, and so many feelings... and I'm just sad that we can't make everyone happy. In the end it is up to the individual to both be positive in their contributions AND tolerant in their reactions. And to those who cannot... well, tough. I've seen people come and go and it pains me each time someone goes. But always on reflection I have to tell myself that it was their choice and I can't 100% customize Chess.com to be a perfect world for them.
Well, I wouldn't delete anything, as it is a great idea. But here is an idea - why not have private groups for discussion? Rael, you are an excellent speaker and voice - why not create a group (private) where people who generate excellent topical ideas can come and share ideas? We would know that they generate excellent ideas by seeing their previous posts.
I am not saying that all people would be in an agreement, but there would be a bit more fulfillment in their posting if "so-and-so" didn't add his half a cent.
Live and let live for do we not have a different out look on life?Do we have to jump when one says jump?
Let the people exprime themselves if they do not insult or deteriorate the will of the other,we have all different age groups with different point of views which if one reads in between the lines can be very educational for all,other wise if taking to seriously can leed to uther confusion for some,a laught for the other.....etc.
I would just like that the users would restrain from slander or indecent words for there are a lot of children whom are vunrable to such words!
Because the main forums are important. It's not a good idea to drive everyone into caves.
Anyways, I'm going to continue as usual. I was just thinking of daily point caps and the like... 20 points to "spend" daily for non-paying members, for instance. Way more than most ever need, especially if they put thought into their posts.
but having the "let's set a new chess.com record" at the top of the forums always?
Rael wrote:
Because the main forums are important. It's not a good idea to drive everyone into caves. Anyways, I'm going to continue as usual. I was just thinking of daily point caps and the like... 20 points to "spend" daily for non-paying members, for instance. Way more than most ever need, especially if they put thought into their posts. but having the "let's set a new chess.com record" at the top of the forums always? /lol. tool. //lol. tool. ///lol. tool. ////OMG SEND ME A TROPHEEE
That's a fair point, everything in Groups would remove the spirit from the community.
Interesting idea about having forum points to spend, might prevent a few of the 245 lol comments.
rael, i never even look in the Off Topic section, so i probably miss a lot of it.
if there are point-pumping offenders, just report them and we'll deal with it.
Rael wrote:
Because the main forums are important. It's not a good idea to drive everyone into caves. Anyways, I'm going to continue as usual. I was just thinking of daily point caps and the like... 20 points to "spend" daily for non-paying members, for instance. Way more than most ever need, especially if they put thought into their posts. but having the "let's set a new chess.com record" at the top of the forums always? /lol. tool. //lol. tool. ///lol. tool. ////OMG SEND ME A TROPHEEE
For is that not just innocent fun for some that does no harm to others?If not why not,lol.
The English language has always been complicated by slang,I do not think that it will stop here for that is the pure joy of such an over tired tounge,a little bit of difference!
Rael wrote:
Nevermind. Forget I said anything. I'm deleting my comments and my blog on this issue.
No need to go there. Clearly, you are one of the more active and more intelligent members in the forums. If you start censoring yourself, then you will be aiding in the "dumbing up" of the forums. We need your intelligence interjected into the sea of mindlessness.
I agree that a lot of the topics/posts have become very repetitive and/or lacking depth, but that is going to be the case no matter where you find a public forum. I wouldn't be able to follow ALL of the forum topics/posts even if I wanted to. So I just concentrate on the ones of interest to me. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing which threads were started by Cheater_1 and don't bother wasting my time to even open them anymore (you wanna talk about contributing to mindless babble...).
The group forums may lead to things getting a little "clickish," but again what's the alternative? I like talking about college football, especially about the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry, but I know a lot of chess.com members don't care about American Football and/or the Big 10. So we confine our discussions to the College Football Group, and we don't bother anyone else (unlike Cheater_1 who seems intent on getting in every one's face as often as possible).
Erik is in the precarious position of walking a very fine line. It's impossible to please all of the people all of the time, and yet that's what many expect from him. I didn't read your thoughts as intolerant, and judging by the big grin, neither did Erik. You made very logical observations with some very sound points. Please don't censor your thoughts, cuz you have good ones. And if you withdraw to the safty of the group forums, please let me know which ones, so I can join them too.
The solution is simple. Start enforcing posting rules (that's what moderators are for).
Anything not related to chess should go to Off Topic forums - and offenders warned, or their posts simply deleted.
Also - I think there are way too many forum categories, so everybody just ends up posting in the main section.
Hey everyone. I'm dropping it... don't worry. It's fine. It doesn't matter.
* holds his hands in the air *
Innocent speculation. From this point onwards I will only discuss this issue by making reference to The Dark Knight.
/I just want my phonecall...
You see, district attorney Harvey Dent wanted to clean up Gotham, you see? He wanted to put the mob behind bars.
But the forces of chaos make it impossible and bring about his downfall.
It's not the hero you deserve, but the one you need.
I see what I have to become to fight men like him.
/why so serious?
cheater_1: Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face - the right choice. Chess.com needs you.
/haha
//let's put a smile on that face!
All forums like this need a crackdown. Regularly give out warnings to obviously idiotic double posts, spam, trolling (less people will take part in Cheater_1's threads(including me)). Let all the spam take place in Off Topic and the Daily Puzzle threads. Smart, real discussions should not be disturbed by the occasional troll.
This is a huge task, and will require some time and effort, but in the end, everyone will be posting less useless things and the forums will reattract the people with the most skillful prose and discussion.
Administrator: What do we got?
Lt. Gordon: Nothing. No point, no other accounts. Theme is... custom. Nothing in his posts but lols and 
The main topic is interesting, and you can still generate topics there, but in the spirit of topics, every topic has a basis - for instance, the excellent group on poetry and writing - it focuses its energy towards people who love to write and read. I like some reading, but not all - that's just me. But that group makes me smile, because I see a lot of love invested in it.
Another group I love - the Gambit Gang - where people post gambits that they enjoy, with the idea of sparking some conversation suited to something they love - gambits!
The public forums are an introduction, but people can, at the same time, join groups. I know, people can say (which is another excellent argument) that moderators are called for, but then you risk insulting potential customers, and then if you don't, then you risk insulting other potential customers, not to mention those who already pay.
Let's take a topic - a new line in the Sicilian that you want to analyze. Bringing it in public eyes is a good idea, but if you want to get deeper with the idea, take to a group of people who love the Sicilian - I guarantee your conversation will be richer, since you are speaking to people who love what you love.
Just ideas here. If people aren't satisfied with the level of conversation they receive here, why not start a group and search out like minded people? I constantly see new posts in my groups, and I get pleasure from a lot of the ideas and articles.
Rael wrote:
cheater_1: Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face - the right choice. Chess.com needs you.
You don't think he's the biggest contributor to that which you were complaining about? What "right choices" has he made? How could we possibly "need" him?
Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little post.
I've been participating in 'da interwebz' for well over a decade now. Forums were preceded by newsgroups were preceded by listservs were preceded by BBs. There has always been a population of seemingly sub-human typists willing to write anything just to irk someone else. There will always be these people. Just keep in mind -
1. If they could find satisfaction elsewhere in their lives, they would. This is truly the best they can hope for. Pity them at worst.
2. Not giving them material (in the form of responses to their posts) is the only thing you can do. They're seeking attention.
3. They're not going to go away until people stop responding to them. However, people are always going to respond to them because they have not yet learned that no matter how good their intentions or logical their arguments, these posters of piffle are either too dense to understand or too disingenuous to respond with anything but idiocy.
Simply take comfort in the friends you DO make in these places. They are the reward you earn by enduring the tornado of garbage that public forums inevitably turn into.
I've seen some people post about the quality of the Chess.com forums recently, so I thought I'd chime in.
Rael made an interesting post:
"You know, I'm seeing this more and more. If Chess.com can't retain guys like Quix and King_William then we're in trouble. These forums are turning into real gibberish for a few reasons -
A lot of the quality posters are leaving these main forums for the mature tidiness of groups (see: Qtsii, batgirl and the Chess history group. It should be the other way around - kids in the kiddie pool group who can engage in meaningless point hunting) or simply realizing that it is not worthwhile to even bother trying to "save" these forums with quality counter-posts than end up getting drowned in garble anyways. So the older, cool, mature demographic shrugs their shoulders and is content to play chess and just ignore this aspect of chess.com. This is a real issue. Chess.com cannot be the greatest chess site on the internet with a forum that alienates adult members (read: people with actual money who buy memberships) and lets it's forums collapse into a degenerate mush of endlessly recurring topics, grotesque spelling (yes, I know this is an international website, it still strikes the eye as garrish) and posts like "lol" or "i agree".
I could make a list of cool people who've told me they just don't post at all anymore because of this, and they also happen to be some of the cooler members this site has.
...This dusty town is full of lawless cutthroats and bandits, so many that the good people of the town are locking their doors, putting closed signs in their shop windows, or just plain up and leavin'.
...It looks like we may have to set aside our old feud and fight the real trolls around here."
My thoughts on it? This is a FORUM. It's basically a huge platform for people to talk about lots of different topics. There are thousands of virtual conversations happening right here in the forums. Some are amazingly stimulating. Some are rediculously dumb. But they are all by community members and participants who are viewing them at will. Nobody is forcing anyone to read anything. Personally, I read probably 5% of the forums topics on here and I know which ones to avoid by poster or topic.
So while I agree that it can be frustrating to have some people saying stupid things and posting nonsense, it is the responsibility of the reader as well to find what interests them and then also deal with the reality of the situation - that there are tens of thousands of active people on this site who range widely in age, culture, beliefs, social behaviors, etc. Deal with it :)
I tell you - as the owners of Chess.com we are stuck in a pickle. On the one hand we have people decrying "censorship!! censorship!!" for some things. Then on the other hand we have people saying "save us from this or that" and we can't do both. So what happens is that people who are easily offended on either end end up leaving - either because of censorship, or because of a personal attack, or because of the nonsense, or because of who knows what. But honestly I just can't help them. I can't make everyone happy. So I have built these tools so that most people can come have a good time. If it bothers it and you want it changes, just know that a change will end up bothering someone else who liked it just the way it was. Truly a difficult dilemna.
Sure - I'd love to see peole more focused on game analysis and more thoughtful posts. But I can't enforce that. But you can - if you end up creating your own group :) You can have your own private forums where you set the rules. In the end, if you can't stand the main forums, then maybe Group forums are for you. If that doesn't help you, then maybe you need to learn a little bit of tolerance :D