As I have said, though, I don't necessarily view others who are much lower than me as bad players. For example, I think a 1400 is pretty good, even though I'm 500 points higher than that. Of course, good here doesn't mean that I will look at his games (or ask for his commentary ) for lessons designed to help me -- obviously I'd look elsewhere. If that's what you mean by relative, then I have no disagreement.

However, that doesn't change the fact that I have a lot of respect for that level. Sure, the respect wouldn't be quite as high if I were a 1200, but the respect is far from gone at the same time. Because I know that, having tried to cross 1400 myself, there is often a lot that goes into it, and becoming stronger hasn't changed that recognition of mine.

I'm not sure how I stack with everyone else -- at this point, I still think that someone 500 points lower rated than me is pretty good. Perhaps others view people 500 points lower than them differently? Maybe I just have a strange definition of good. All I can say is that I am better than a 1400, but I don't think that means that we can't both be good, even from my perspective. Sure, one person is more good than the other in this case, but I would, personally, still qualify both as good.

Don't forget user of boldface. 

Somehow I doubt when you're playing against a 1400 in a tournament, and we'll say about every 3-5 moves is an inaccuracy you check for exploitability, that you're thinking in your head "this guy is pretty good."

Sounds like you want to be respectful of people worse than you, which is fine.  Being a worse player doesn't mean they're a worse person or have any less claim to enjoy chess.  Or maybe, funnily enough, you're comparing them to people who don't know how to play.  Yes, a 1400 has made a lot of progress from day 1.  It's still a relative measure, you're just not measuring them up to you.

So sure... everyone's good.  That's great.  But like you said some are more good than others.  So after the scale is set from day 1 forward simply adjust the adjectives to fit the scale and we're back at a range of bad to good instead of good to more good lol :p

Just the fact that I may have to wait 25 moves for this 1400 to give me something, as opposed to say a 600 rated player, who will probably give me free pieces immediately, is indeed enough for me to think that they are pretty good. Not as good as me, but still quite good. Seriously, it happens a lot that when I'm paired down I am surprised at how long they can keep up with me; in terms of the actual result, I will almost always win the game if their rating is accurate, but nonetheless, I do often find myself respecting their play in the process.

This could, of course, be a case where we believe the same thing but use different words -- indeed, I look at most levels on the scale of "good to more good." That 600 player -- ok, I would not consider him good -- although that has more to do with their progress: as a 600, you still have not learned that much (of course, I would agree that the amount of learning one considers "a lot" is indeed relative, but that's a slightly different issue). If on the other hand I were a 2700, I might still consider the 1400 good, because, despite the fact that, mathematically, I would be just as much better than the 1400 as a 1900 is better than a 600, I know that a 1400 has to learn a lot to get there.

"Yes, a 1400 has made a lot of progress from day 1.  It's still a relative measure, you're just not measuring them up to you."

Ok, good point, but I think the main argument on this thread is that having a high rating gets in the way of people looking at those lower than them in such a way.

But ultimately, yes, I think you've got it -- I'm comparing players to those completely new to chess. And I like doing that because it reminds all of us, who are spread as far as 800-2700 or something, that we have to be pretty good if we are able to utterly destroy a casual or new player.

I guess I tend to do the opposite though :p  I tend to look at a player 600 points below me as "they suck" but also at myself as "I suck."  So my scale tends to go from "more bad to bad" lol.  (Except for 2600 players... they're OK ;)

I'm also surprised at how tough, say, a 1400 can play me in a tournament.    Sure it seems 9 times out of 10 there will be a game altering mistake on their part (or they'd be rated higher), but you're right it's not as if they're dropping pieces all over the place.

No offense brother, but this has to be proven in a series of games ya know.

The online ratings can certainly be misleading.  A 1400 OTB would find it tough (impossible) to get to 2200 in live games though.

lol, I suppose that's another way to look at it! You start out really bad, but if you work at it enough, you'll just be bad

They would find it tough in "online" chess to get to 2200 as well (although not quite as impossible). In my experience "online" ratings seem to be only 300-400 points inflated on average and that seems to be the consensus as well.

I think it depends on a lot of factors, but the higher the online chess ratings go, the less inflated they are. But a lot of players are like me and only spend a few seconds on the majority of their moves in online chess, so someone who is lower rated but spends more time thinking in online chess might well have a higher rating.

Yes, true.

EDIT:

Although a 1400 OTB player will have a tough time (to say the least) getting to 2200 online no matter how long they think about their moves.

It's not a coincidence that they all use elo ratings.