60 questions to Chess.com's Support

Tournamentix

Updated: Aug 16, 2024, 9:26 AM | 57

While opening Chess.com's new help menu the incoming question is (in German): „Hi Tournamentix: How can we help?″

As this is very friendly and a good question as well, here are my 60 questions to Chess.com's Support (posted on May 2):

As a member in two clubs I can choose for which club I want to play in a vote chess game: Why am I not allowed to do the same in a daily chess match?
Reminder on May 12.
As an admin in two clubs I can easily arrange a daily chess match between these two clubs: Why am I not allowed to do the same for a vote chess game?
Reminder on May 13.
If you have the link to a daily match challenge you can easily check parameters: Why are we not allowed to do the same for vote chess game challenges?
Reminder on May 14.
As a club admin you can cancel an open daily match during registrations: Why are club admins not allowed to cancel an accepted challenge to a Multi-Club Arena?
Reminder on May 15.
If you click on the link to an accepted daily match challenge, you get a „Ressource not found″ message. Wouldn't it be simply better to get redirected to the now open match?
Reminder on May 16.
Chess.com's notifications about newly opened daily matches don't show any longer the match name: What's the intended advantage of suppressing this information?
Reminder on May 17.
If comments are locked in a forum, you get the wrong message „You must activate your account to comment.″ This is known for a very long time: How long will it still take to fix this?
Reminder on May 18.
Since at least two years Chess.com's support tells clubs admins, that they should stick to club tools to reduce the risk of being muted. Two years ago Chess.com introduced a „Report Spam″ button and made all messages, which are created with these tools as easily reportable as spam as all other messages are: What was the reason for this confusing looking decision?
Reminder on May 19.
Every now and then club admins are threatened to get their account closed for abusive behavior. A standard text mentions that they have shown „harassment″, were reported by „recent opponents″ and have trash talked in „game chat″. Since 2022 there are several cases where Chess.com's Support had to acknowledge, that there wasn’t „harassment″, that there weren't reports from „recent opponents″ and that „game chat″ wasn’t used: How long will it take to improve the level of double-checking facts before threatening account closures?
Reminder on May 20. Update: "I've also spoken to Support to make sure we are extremely conservative in applying mutes to admin accounts, and these mutes should not be applied for any club related activities that members may report as spam." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9).
Each single time a club admin gets muted all their content disappears. If a league admins get muted this effect can stop immediately all league activities: Is there some chance, that Chess.com will manage to avoid hiding content at least from super admins in their own clubs and generally in official leagues?
Reminder on May 21.
Multi-Club Arenas exist since nearly three years now: Their results aren't correctly shown after their end, because e.g. scorer settings aren't taken into account in offline shown results. Chess.com knows about this for several months: How long will it take to show complete and regularly correct results for Multi-Club Arenas?
Reminder on May 22.
Update: "We also want to include important information (like the number of top scorers, that were counted) in the results page." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Code for Multi-Club Arenas is still incomplete: It's not possible to create Arenas with rating limits, there is no way for organizers to pass general information to players, all Arenas must be created from the scratch. All this is known for long time: How long will it still take to improve Multi-Club Arenas' code?
Reminder on May 23.
There still aren't the same notifications for Multi-Club Arenas as there are for all other live events: What's intended with this refusal?
Reminder on May 24. Update May 28: Passed as suggestion to developers.
"We expect to have some notifications for Multi-Club Arenas on the website in near term. Notifications via email and App will take more time, but are intended." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
One of the great advantages of Multi-Club Arenas is, that players can arrive, when they like to do so and play as many games as they like to play. For an unknown reason the entire Arena will be cancelled, if there aren't at least four players registered and online at the scheduled start time. Experience shows, that already a few minutes after the start of Arenas there are much more players than at this scheduled start time: It would fit better to the format of Arenas to start them and wait for players (at least for e.g. fifteen minutes), wouldn't it?
Reminder on May 25. From the answer on May 25:
As exactly nothing has happened, I've sent a reminder to this message on June 28.
Update: "We have requests to postpone or keep open tournaments, which don't have enough registrants at the start. | We aren't able to support that." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Lists of pending challenges to Multi-Club Arenas are completely fictive: They are showing pending challenges to the Arena in question and to other Arenas as well. Nothing can be done with these shown lists: What's the intended advantage of this presentation?
Update: "The pending Multi-Club Arena challenges list in inaccurate. | We also can't reproduce this." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
If you want to get the link to an upcoming Multi-Club Arena you will click on this Arena in the list of upcoming events. If you've pending challenges to another Arena you'll get redirected to them. Only after stepping back you can copy the link to the Arena: What's the intended advantage of this procedure?
If you want to add challenges to an upcoming Multi-Club Arena every single time you go to the Arena you'll get a message about „shareable events″. There is no way to stop future appearance of this very repetitive message. What's the intended advantage of this annoyance?
Update: "The modal to share a tournament pops up every time someone goes to the tournament page. | This is more time consuming to change than it might seem, but we will get it fixed." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Before a Multi-Club Arena will end there are two different types of FPV closures. In a minority of cases players and their results aren't counted and are shown at the bottom of the list. In a majority of cases results are still counted for the player and their club: What's intended with this practice?
Reminder on July 15 (after another still counting FPV closure during an ongoing Arena)

Answer from Judit Sztaray, Director of Chess Club Relations, on July 16:
"So there are two different kind of FP closures:

one is a direct affect of closing the account due to the games played or behaving incorrectly (sandbagging etc) in the event. then they remove the points.

and the other is closing the account due to FP violation in general, but not directly related to the event in progress. then they don't remove the points."
Club Audit Log still ignores all usual admin activities related to Multi-Club Arenas: What makes them different from the same activities for daily matches or vote chess games?
"We have requests to add more information to club audit logs. | This may be something we can do eventually, but it is not something we are able to do soon." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Challenges to Multi-Club Arenas can't be cancelled by the organizer: Why?
If you send challenges to a second Multi-Club Arena and a club admin accepts or declines a challenge to the first one you get redirected to this first Arena and loose the list of clubs, which you wanted to challenge next: What's the intended advantage of this procedure?
If you've sent challenges to a Multi-Club Arena and are playing in another one you get redirected to the first one at the moment a challenge is accepted or declined there. As a consequence you loose contact with the Arena you're playing in: What's intended with this?
If you send a challenge to a vote chess game, the time stamp of the challenge is shown as start time to the challenged club. This simply looks to be nonsense: What's intended with this presentation?
Why am I not allowed to follow a closed forum, like e.g. this one: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/clubs-progress-update ?
Jonathan Cannon announced on September 15 to post „a high level summary of what we've finished in the last week and what is currently in progress″. Last complete update was on October 27, last comment on January 31 (https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/clubs-progress-update): How long are Staff member’s weeks usually?
Danny Rensch told us on January 2, that Jonathan Cannon is our „point of contact″ for clubs related issues: Since then Jonathan has posted four comments in forums about these issues: What's Chess.com's definition for and expectation to a „point of contact″?
Jonathan Cannon announced on July 6 Chess.com's designers are „revisiting forums based on your feedback“. Nothing has changed since then: How long will it approximately take to complete this task? (Source: #94 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon)
Jonathan Cannon announced on July 6: „The customizable home pages and clubs events from home pages were temporarily removed to reduce the load on our servers so that we could the site afloat while growth was so out of control. As soon as we can handle the load, they will return.″ Nothing has changed since then: How long will it approximately take to see customizable home pages back? (Source: #95 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon)
Jonathan Cannon confirmed on August 23 to bring back the percentage of completion as the proven ranking for current daily matches. Nothing has changed since then: How long will it approximately take to complete this task? (Source: #535 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon)
Jonathan Cannon has announced on August 31 to bring back „granularity″ to club settings. Nothing has changed since then: How long will it approximately take to complete this task? (Source: #645 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon)
Jonathan Cannon has announced on September 8 to introduce for Multi-Club Arenas „the option for reoccurring events for at least some event types, so you can entirely skip having to create weekly Arenas for example″. Nothing has changed since then: How long will it approximately take to complete this task? (Source: #870 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon)
In September 2023 Chess.com introduced „clubs redesign″. Is there any general information available, what was and is intended to be achieved with this project?
If you click on the link to a pending daily match challenge without being an admin of one of both clubs, these challenges are wrongly presented as fictive open challenges since September 2023: What’s the reason for this confusing looking decision?
In September 2023 clubs redesign stripped country and location information from clubs' start pages: What was and is wrong with this information?
Stripping country information from clubs' start pages probably broke the possibility to use the „Find clubs″ menu to get a list with clubs from the same country: What's intended to achieve with this still broken feature?
Clubs redesign introduced in September 2023 several wrongly calculated statistics about prior club events: What's the reason for adding this false information?
If you open the menu for upcoming events you see them correctly ranked only on the first page. On the second page you need to filter them to get them correctly ranked: What's intended with this confusing looking decision?
Clubs redesign stripped in September 2023 links to club names in daily match challenges: What's better without these links?
Parameters for daily match challenges are incomplete since September 2023: Doesn't it sound logic, that if there are parameters, they always should be shown completely?
Parameters for Multi-Club Arena challenges are incomplete: Doesn't it sound logic, that if there are parameters, they always should be shown completely?
Parameters in Multi-Club Arenas are incompletely shown to players: Doesn't it sound logic, that if there are parameters, they always should be shown completely?
For more than a year „top players lists″ for daily matches are broken. Since a few weeks they appear in some clubs and are still missing in most others: How long will it still take to fix this?
Lists of upcoming, current and past events aren't editable by club admins. Making them editable would allow to prioritize events. Is there some chance, that Chess.com will allow club admins to pin e.g. two events in each of the lists (as they can do for forums)?
Update: "Some admins have requested the ability to order the list of upcoming events. | We won't be able to do this." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Since September 2023 private description in clubs are marginalized and less visible than before. Many clubs had used them in various different ways for internal club organization. Is there some chance to see this important club feature restored?
Since September 2023 notes in clubs are hidden and there is no option to make them as visible as usual. Experience shows that for many clubs these notes are the most efficient club tool: What's the intended advantage of hiding them?
Since September 2023 results in current events became nearly unreadable: What's the intended advantage?
Since September 2023 challenges to daily matches and vote chess games are more difficult to manage and need more clicks than before: What's the intended advantage?
Since September 2023 checking challenges to daily matches and vote chess games is more difficult and need more clicks than before: What's the intended with this?
For several months already it isn't possible to get access to all incoming challenges for Multi-Club Arenas: What's intended with this?
Since September 2023 Chess.com cancels daily matches with unfulfilled parameters at the scheduled start time. These matches are wrongly shown as „drawn″ and „completed″. What’s the intended advantage with this?
Update: "Some unfulfilled daily matches show as drawn or completed. | This will be fixed in time." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Chess.com's recommendation for pictures in announcements is 1,600 x 900 pixels. In December 2023 Chess.com has broken presentation of tons of pictures with more than 1,080 pixels … in forums, announcements and blogs: At many different places these pictures are still shown in a very ugly, while incomplete way: How long will it still take to fix this?
Update: "Images aren't correctly displayed in forums, announcements and blogs. | We aren't able to reproduce at this time." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
App users don’t receive notifications for new forums in clubs. App users can’t follow announcements, forums or match comments: How long will it approximately take to implement all elements of club communication to the App?
For several months already messages can’t be managed correctly in mobile browsers as code tries to load all previous messages which ends in seeing them „flickering″: What makes fixing this so difficult?
Within the last two years Chess.com has every now and then suppressed options to „copy and paste″ elements, to use soft returns, empty lines or double spaces to make text easier readable: What's the intended advantage of restricting managing forums, announcements and blog posts?
One of the biggest problems in vote chess games are missing notifications before voting period will end for each move. Is there some change to add such notifications, e.g. after two thirds of time per move to Chess.com's code?
For an unknown reason Chess.com is currently working to introduce notifications for clubs chat: Since September 2023 clubs can't hide any longer club chat. Probably the most important feature looks to be getting an option to avoid notifications for this mostly unwanted feature: Is it already sure, that such an option will arrive together with this additional notifications, which look to be more important to Chess.com than fixing clubs related issues?
With the introduction of Chess.com's new „Help″ menu we all got stripped the option to communicate with Chess.com's Support by simply sending an eMail: Why aren't we worth any longer to continue with this established way of communication?
As Jonathan Cannon has announced clubs redesign on February 1, 2023 he wrote: „We are looking to rework how clubs work and feel.″ Still curious to know, what he thought in February 2023 and what he know now, „how clubs work and feel″? Asked this last July, have sent several reminders and are still waiting for an answer.
From Chess.com's Community Policy: „Our goal is to create a fun, safe and fair place for all chess fans to enjoy the game.″ Does this fit with all the problems Chess.com is providing to clubs, their admins and leagues?
How long will it approximately take to see Chess.com's Support actively and efficiently supporting clubs, their admins and leagues?

Later asked questions:
Quoted comments in blog posts are shown completely (including e.g. screenshots). Quoted comments in forums only show text: What's intended with this different presentation? (May 6) Update on May 8: Passed as suggestion to developers.
In forums and chat newest comments are at the bottom. In club notes, blog posts and announcements they are at the top. Assuming, that there are pros and cons for both: Wouldn't it be better to give users an option to switch direction of sorting? (May 7)
Reminder on May 27.
Since September 2023 all upcoming events are shown as if it would be possible to join them. Live events can only be joined during the last hour before their start. What's intended with this confusing looking presentation? (May 8)
From an answer on May 15:
If a club disables "private content" I would assume, that content is visible for everyone. In fact comments to announcements are visible only for members. There are comments to this announcement: https://www.chess.com/de/announcements/view/einladung-zum-3-geburtstag-der-deutschen-regionalvereine Can you see them? What's intended with hiding comments to public announcements? (May 9)
Reminder on May 26.
Update: "Comments on public club announcements are not visible to club members. | This is obviously a serious one, but we haven't been able to reproduce." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
In vote chess games all comments from all teams become public after the end of the game. After FPV closures all content from these members disappear. This particularity create difficulties to asses if comments from now closed accounts had influence on the outcome of the game (or at least on critical moves): What's intended with suppressing this part of information, which may make the entire (and now incomplete) discussion within a team incomprehensible? (May 10)
Reminder on May 29.
Challenges to daily matches come always in as messages from @CHESScom: They are mentioning the challenging and the challenged club. Challenges to vote chess games are coming in as messages from the challenging admin: They aren't mentioning the challenged club: What's intended with this different presentation of incoming challenges? (May 10)
Update May 23: Passed as suggestion to developers.
Vote chess games start at the next full hour after challenge has been accepted. Between accepting a challenge and starting the game clock shows for the white team just a few remaining minutes, as if they would need to move very quickly: What's intended with this confusing looking presentation? (May 11)
Reminder on May 30.
The best way to check your ongoing vote chess games is https://www.chess.com/votechess . All games are shown there from the white side. Under the positions you'll find information about clock situation and about having voted. All is fine, if you're in the white team. If your playing in the black team, this is again and again confusing. What's intended with this presentation? (May 16)
Daily matches with book openings can be created as "rated" or "unrated". If you choose a book opening for a live event, then there is no longer an option: The event is "unrated" in any case. Why are club admins not allowed to create "rated" live events with book openings? (May 17)
Since September 2023 live events, which have been crashed by Chess.com before being completed, stay in the list of "current" events. In some clubs, like e.g. "Chess.com Deutsch" you'll find several of these fictive "current" events. This makes it more difficult to check current events: What's intended with this? (May 18)
Update: Martin_Stahl let us know, that this is a bug without confirming a ticket (May 18)
Update: "On a server crash, some events that were affected were "stuck" in the current events list. | We know that this did happen and was frustrating, but we think that one problem case is now resolved." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Update: Situation is exactly same for the given example.
Update: Most likely it's fixed – stuck events from the example disappeared (Aug. 16)
After more than three years Ä å æ ā ă ą à á â ã é ê ë ę ė ě ĕ ə ē and many other characters aren't any longer allowed in club names. What's wrong with them and the languages they belong to? (May 21)
Update: Martin_Stahl let us know, that this is a bug and there is a ticket. (May 21)
Update: Fixed before August 9.
For an unknown reason and already for months announcements in clubs aren't an efficient tool to inform members: They are regularly seen by just a few members (to my records 2-10%). Now Chess.com looks to have stopped sending notifications about new announcements at all: Admins are showing examples with 0 to 1% views. As clubs are depending on internal communication: Is there any chance to get some detailed information, which part of other notifications is still working? (May 28)
Update: "Notifications for club announcements aren't being sent to members. | At this time we aren't able to reproduce missing announcements for those who have the correct settings." (VP Sam Copeland, Aug. 9)
Update: Checked an announcement from two days ago (118 reads out of 7,745 members): 1,5%.
Is there some chance that Chess.com will undo their new restrictions on the length of forum comments? Here is an example for today's and the previous situation: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon?page=109&newCommentCount=1#comment-103246505 (June5)
For an unknown there is a new restriction for the content of "About clubs". What could be posted for years there, doesn't work anymore. Here's an example: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon?page=110#comment-103426989 Is there some chance that Chess.com will undo this new restriction? (June 12)
On May 2 I've passed 60 questions to Chess.com's Support: https://www.chess.com/blog/Tournamentix/60-questions-to-chess-coms-support Quickly I've received a message, that all of them will be answered and that Jonathan Cannon is in charge for most of them. Six weeks later I've confirmation, that one of the questions has been passed as suggestion to developers and also got a message, that a "designated team is working on it". That's all until now ...: Is this really the best that Chess.com's Support has to offer? (June 13)
There are quite a few "official" clubs on Chess.com: What advantages does Chess.com grant these clubs? For example, do their admins enjoy faster and more direct access to Chess.com's support? Are there any benefits for the members of these clubs? If so, what are they? (June 23)
Want to change the club picture in one of my clubs: For an unknown reason this doesn't work. Had the same problem already in another club a few weeks ago: Had to send the new picture to a Support agent, who has managed to change the picture. Would you please help me again? (August 7)
Update: It's possible to change club pictures. The broken element is only the preview: After uploading and saving the new picture appears. (August 7)
Since more than two weeks I try to bring some attention to increasing problems with challenges to Multi Club Arenas. Have posted a lot of details e.g. in comments #2311, #2314, #2316, #2318, #2328, #2430, #2431, #2440 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon
There still isn't any reaction, while more and more clubs can't any longer participate in their usual Multi Club Arenas ... Please help. (August 9)
In the last 11 weeks you have more than 25 times you passed one of my questions to a human teammate. More than 25 times nothing more or else has happened: Is there some chance to get finally first answers? (August 9)
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From an general answer on May 14:

From an answer on May 15: