A Curious Case of Elitism?
If you go to "Home" | "Groups & Teams" and then click "All Groups/Teams", you'll see the chess.com list of every group available. So far that much is nothing new. Most of you know that already. But have you tried joining some of the most heavily subscribed groups?
At the time of writing, the top three groups by membership are:
I have just tried to join them and found that CU membership is automatic but WCG and PoC membership is screened (although PoC have have just accepted me as a member a second ago). This pattern reminds me of what psychologists find about Olympic athletes.
According to the average person, it's good to get a bronze medal, better to get a silver one, but best to get a gold one. Not so according to what psychologists find from studies of happiness and satisfaction. The most satisfied are gold medal winners followed by bronze and then silver.
That's surpsing to some so let me explain the idea. Being gold (i.e. being the best) is pretty sweet so that part is understandable. But being silver or bronze seem to be interchanged against intuition. The current explanation goes that coming third in a competition puts you in a 'special' category and peopel who scrape into it are more focused on that idea.
First place winners and second place winners are common in that they tend not to define themselves as being "in the top three" or whatever and will be for more willing to engage with lesser mortals. The difference is that the best know they are the best, whether or not they're busy telling you so all of the time.
So here's the thought to leave you with: in your day-to-day life, wherever there is a ranking system with an official (or unofficial) boundary between levels, what differences do you see between upper/middle/lower members of a certain 'special' group of people?
-- shahhussainkcl
(Copied from http://blog.chess.com/view/a-curious-case-of-elitism)
