Club Redesign: Five questions to @jdcannon

Verified it's a beta issue

Thanks and Good bye, Beta.

I always had a doubt about announcement notifications, as I was the only one in my club doing announcements. I had the feeling they were not going through, or that most members had notifs set to off.

Now another admins is doing announcements and I got less than 10% of notifications for either posts or edits. No wonder the view count is less than 5% of the member count...

It’s now 4 weeks since the iPhone app notifications link bug appeared and no fix. Is it not seen as a high priority by chess.com support?

It's supposed to be fixed in version 4.2.17 but I don't think it's available on the app store yet.

Update from comment #1154 (and linked now in comment #1 to be easily found):

We've now a total of 73 unanswered questions, 19 still "unticketed" descriptions in detail and 16 announcements without known follow-up (most of them are pending for more than three months).

A – Questions without answers

Five questions to @jdcannon

1. What did you assume in February, "how clubs work and feel"?
2. What do you know now, "how clubs work and feel"?
3. You've stated, the current club design "kind of sucks": What are the main problems?
4. Which innovations and novelties in the club redesign will manage a better experience now?
5. Several club admins are complaining about a lot of difficulties for their clubs and for themselves. What will you do next to better this situation? (@Tournamentix, all #1)

Other general questions

1. (Preparation of club redesign) Who and when did they ask for feedback? (@Kookaburrra, #282)
2. Did they publish the results of the interviews or surveys or whatever they did? (@Kookaburrra, #285)
3. Is there a single person here who thinks this whole process has been even satisfactorily (or adequately)? 
4. Why doesn't it work at least as well as the previous version by the time it's released? (@stephen_33, both #294)
5. Curious ... what the heck was bad with the current/past version that needed fixing? (@Cornfed, #364)
6. A never-ending list of problems which are not getting solved yet new introductions with new problems are being introduced. Is this a merry go round in which we cannot get off?? (@Commando-Poppins, #391)
7. I'm still not clear about what the problem is that needs fixing? (@stephen_33, #458)
8. Shouldn't club admins/coaches be allowed to message members of their clubs without being monitored by Chess.com automated muting filters? (@Tournamentix, #546)
9. Is Chess Clash the "other" project or is the project, which urgently needs club redesign's code still unreleased? (#708)
10. Did anybody who actually uses clubs design this (transmitted by @surfsnook, #715)
11. Perhaps they could report to their supervisors - whomever gave the direction to 'make it better'  (we haven't actually heard from them, have we)? (@Cornfed, #758)
12. Will someone remind Danny Rensch about his still missing answer on clubs' situation? (#876)
13. Would also like to get finally some general information, what was and is intended to achieve with this project ... How will it make situation of clubs better?
14. How will it reduce the negative impact on our clubs caused e.g. by unreliable notifications, inappropriate communication conditions, uncompleted work like for Multi Club Arenas, long lasting deteriorations as for vote chess games or intentionally introduced difficulties like voided home pages? (both #890)
15. What have we club admins together all done wrong, to be treated in such an unfriendly manner and all this still for an unknown reason? (#903)
16. How long will it take to correct all these wrong decisions, bringing back at least all previous standards, suppressed options and creating a few ameliorations?
17. How long will it still take to see Chess.com understanding, that until now not a single one of the most important problems for clubs, their admins and leagues is addressed with this project? (both #914)
18. Those, who are refusing general information answers to general questions, are doing their very best to create rumors everywhere, aren't they?
19. What's the "other" project, which has needed club redesign's code and has caused its premature release: Clash Chess, Opera Chess Browser ... or are we still waiting for another breathtaking news? (both #1000)
20. What is needed, to get one day some Help and Support from Chess.com? (#1010)
21. Wouldn't it be better, if designers and developers would try solve real, long lasting and important club problems? (#1034)
22. (Muting admins) Then the chess.com bureaucracy comes alive, leaps into action and threatens to, or actually does, mute or close that caring, friendly, loving, un-paid, volunteer admin's account for abusive and harassing behavior. Who is actually abusing and harassing who? (@surfsnook, #1163)
23. So you are saying clubs are a sideline now, not popular enough and marginalized. Is that an official site viewl? (@Kookaburrra, #1184)
24. (Toasted notifications) Why is Chess.com allowing this sort of spam while still (presumably) restricting us from messaging team members which they treat as spam? (@ImperfectAge, #1245)
25. Testing? Sorry, what gives you the idea that the devs here have any clue about testing or QA? (@Tricky_Dicky, #1279)

Club settings

1. Clubs have already made their decision in the current club design, for which kind of activities they want to get challenges. All this information looks to be intentionally lost. Is this Chess.com's way towards a better user experience? (@Tournamentix, #494)
   Answer with lost end in comment #645.
2. How exactly helps reducing privacy options to create a better user experience? (#549)
3. Is this a bug with the redesign or a "feature" (@ImperfectAge, #555 referring to #549)
4. Is it really that difficult to add some options instead of creating one club design for ten thousands of very different clubs? (#646)

Challenges

1. If you click on the link of an accepted challenge, you get some "Resource not found" message. Wouldn't it be friendlier to users redirecting them to the upcoming match? (#673)
2. (Switching back to Multi Club Arena challenges) Is there some chance to see this fixed? (#679)
3. (match challenges) Would someone be so kind and let me know, which advantages the modified design offers? (#750)
4. Could someone please explain the advantage of these additional steps (selecting daily match, confirmation of selection, filling in club names, unselecting auto-start) in the new challenging procedure to us? Partially solved: Nov./Dec.
5. What exactly is the advantage of suppressing access to a previous challenge and its parameters? (both #864)
6. (Workflow showing more steps, #864) Would be great, if we could come back to the the previous situation, wouldn't it? (#866)
7. ("Hybrid" shown challenges) What's the problem to fix this? Like to remind comment #673 about several other – all still unfixed (!) – points concerning match challenges. (#868)

Divers:

1. Can the club admins have the ability to choose which to show on the homepage by default between notes and forums? (@MasterMatthew52, #618)
2. (New placement for country and location) Where might it be useful ... other than above description?
3. What about the important problem, that Chess.com is causing to club admins for their usual communication with members? (both #646)
4. (Some clubs show members, others don't) How can I check the actual situation for my clubs? How can I change this, if it doesn't fit any longer? (#840) (solved by adding an option to club settings, Sept. 29)
5. (Events' statistics) Having played 768 daily matches and have won 432 of them gives a useful information, while have accepted 118 challenges to Multi Club Arenas and have won 0 of these Arenas doesn't look to be similar useful, does it? Why should both be summed up?
6. "Average participation" looks to be calculated with numbers from live matches, daily matches and vote chess games. These numbers for different activities are surely useful. What's the intended value of an average calculation? (both #846)
7. (Current events ranked ascending on each page) Would be great to know, what's intended with this update? (#862)
8. (Average rating of club members): Is there a chance that these stats will be back somewhen? (DirkDiggler, #911)
9. (Empty tournaments' page) Why does this not work as expected? When will it work as expected? (#918)
10. (List of events) If events are sometimes shown and sometimes not or sometimes counted and sometimes not, as @Martin_Stahl took note, how should one seriously work with such an unreliable list? (#928)
11. How will it be possible to know, that this is fixed and lists of events are finally reliable? (#931)
12. (Club Progress Update) I can understand not having others comments in but why not the follow button? (Commando-Poppins, #948)
13. Is someone here willing, feels ready and is allowed to create a ticket about adding "Follow" cases to locked forum topics in clubs? (#965)
14. (Crashed live events) How long is it intended to show this (and surely other) crashed live arenas and tournaments as current events? (#967) Update: Nothing has changed since Sept. 19.
15. (Events statistics) The biggest past event of the club had 16 participants, they have managed 19 events with a sum of 111 participants. Like to know, how exactly Chess.com has redesigned Mathematics to come up with an average of 380 participants? (#968)
16. (Challenges to Multi Club Arenas): Will club names become clickable?
17. Will challenges allow an access to the Arena without accepting the challenge? (both #986)
18. ("You must activate your account to comment.") Have seen this funny banner several times before, if comments were locked to announcements. Can't be the case here (vote chess game), how to understand this? (#1019)
19. (FAQ) Might it be possible, that in week 14 of "post development process" all these necessary updates to Chess.com's FAQ about modified procedures introduced by redesigning clubs are still missing?
20. Are you intending to wait for individual returns about all these information, which isn't useful any longer? (both #1020)
21. (vote chess) Was quite simple, to click on "vote chess" in the "Club menu" on the club's plage to get a list of current vote chess games, wasn't it? (#1022)
22. (changement of owner) What' the intended advantage of this modified procedure? (#1030)
23. Outgoing challenges to Multi Club Arenas aren't shown in the hosting club (...): Will this be fixed? (#1063) Solved: Nov.
24. (Empty tournaments' list) Might this be a bug, which should be ticketed? (#1064)
25. Would be great if accepted/declined challenged to Multi Club Arenas could be checked with Club Audit Log, wouldn't it? (#1129)
26. My major beef remains the messaging: I cannot scroll to the top of the page when I am at the bottom of a long messaging trail. How lame is that? (@Commando-Poppins, #1141)
27. (vote chess pairings with your own club) Can this be rectified quickly? (@knetfan, #1149)
28. (delayed notification: 390 minutes): How long will it still take to see regularly reliable notifications incoming? (#1195)
29. This is the new and improved presentation of results? Really? What about a bit more visibility ... for the background? (#1227)
30. (Multi Club Arenas) Would be great, if all parameters of Arenas would be shown to participants, wouldn't it? (#1240)
31. I don't know why the toast notifications were introduced. Does anybody like them? (@ImperfectAge, #1250)
32. The 1 million dollars question: given a notification, is it missing for all team members, or do different members get different notifications? Is it another ressource limitation issue, e.g. database request timeout or something? (@Ximoon, #1282)

B Detailed descriptions without known follow-up:

1. Creating several challenges to daily matches (#750)
2. Calculation and presentation of event statistics (#846)
3. Comparison of workflow for daily match challenges (#864)
4. Unviewable incoming challenges (#940)
5. Unreliable and inconsistent presentation of events (#970)
6. Aborted matches for unfulfilled conditions (#1106)
7. How to create a void, drawn and completed match? (#1128)
8. Redirections while trying to "view" a pending challenge (#1131)
9. Different presentation of the same pending challenge (#1153)
10. Penetrant toaster ... (#1159)
11. How to follow two Multi Club Arenas? (#1190)
12. Dysfunctional top players list (#1193)
13. What you need to do to run a weekly Multi Club Arena (with only 25 clubs) (#1221)
14. How to get correct club results from Multi Club Arenas? (#1222)
15. How to decline seven unwanted challenges? (#1244)
16. Unreliable notifications (#1281)
17. Different types of FPV closures in Multi Club Arenas (#1297 and #1298)
18. Presentation of outgoing challenges (#1312)
19. Challenges to daily matches still don't show all parameters (#1323)

C – Announcements without known follow-up:

1. Our design is revisiting the forums based on your feedback; I will share update as soon we have it. (@jdcannon, #94, July 6)
2. 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. (@jdcannon, #95, July 6)
   Additional question: It's nearly tow months now, what makes this task so difficult? (#646) Update: It's more the five months in the meantime and nothing has changed.
3. (Top players list) I didn't mean to imply it was going away. It's certainly not. (@jdcannon, #424, August 18)
4. (Matches, which don't start due to unfulfilled parameters) I propose the match pages continues to exist, but is simply marked as cancelled. (@jdcannon, #456, August 20) Update: These matches are now aborted by Chess.com and shown as drawn and completed (#1053 and #1056, Sept. 29)
5. Will you bring the percentage of completion as the proven ranking for current matches back? Yes. (@jdcannon, #535, August 23)
6. (Club settings) Adding back granularity (@jdcannon, #645, August 31)
7. (Missing information (no logo, no player settings, incomplete registration info for all matches: Would like to know, what exactly the improvement towards a better user experience is?) Addressing; back with a designer to find a better solution. (@jdcannon, #645, August 31)
8. (Registered players for the oppossing team) Will be added (@jdcannon, #645, August 31)
9. (We would come closer to the previous level of quality by filling in club names during challenging and including the min. number of games, the content of "Quick description" and making club names "clickable" again. Is there some chance?) More to come. (@jdcannon, #682, Sept. 1) Partially solved: Nov./Dec.
10. (wrong match results) Will address. (@jdcannon, #693, Sept. 1) Solved. (Sept. 29)
11. (filtering current events) It's coming. Just need some time. (@jdcannon, #869, Sept. 8)

12. We intend to remember your last challenge settings so that when you visit the challenge page again, everything will be filled with your last challenge settings which should save you quite a few of these steps. (@jdcannon, #870, Sept. 8) Done: Nov. 6. What should be restored as an option has now become mandatory always and for everyone.

13. We will again auto populate of the event as before. (@jdcannon, #870, Sept. 8) Solved: Nov./Dec.

14. Additionally, intend to have the option for reoccurring events for at least some event types so that you can entirely skip having to create weekly arenas for example. (@jdcannon, #870, Sept. 8)

15. (series of games with black pieces) Is the player right? What will Chess.com do to avoid repetition? (#1192) There is already been code implemented to resolve that. (@Martin_Stahl, #1196, Nov. 20)
16. (iOS App) It's supposed to be fixed in version 4.2.17 but I don't think it's available on the App Store yet. (@Martin_Stahl, #1352, Dec. 12)

Went through 200 comments to make this update: none of the pending questions has been answered, had to add another twelve unanswered questions and ten detailed descriptions without known follow-up.

Clubs Progress? Not really.

Created a club to get an idea about the level of missing notifications for announcements.

Yesterday six testers joined the club, two confirmed having received a notification for yesterday's announcement, two others mentioned not having received a notification.

Today club has ten testers: 45 minutes after a second announcement, there are already two confirmations, that members did not get a notification for the announcement, no one has confirmed having received a notification..

In all these four cases, which represent already 25% of missing notifications, members reacted on my corresponding question in the notes: Impossible to know, how many notifications for new notes are missing as well.

Thanks a lot for the experiment, now we know it's not just missing notifs overall but each notif has a chance to hit or not in a random way.

In my experience notes are reliable though.

.

Great. If Chess.com is apt to make notifications reliable for notes, why aren't they apt to make them reliable for announcements, forums or club invitations?

Update: Now there are five confirmations, which represent at least 31% of missing notifications.

Update: Now there are six confirmations, which represents at least 38% of missing notifications.

No wonder people aren’t responding to announcements and club invites and messages. Include the links in the app that don’t work. Wow.

I've just seen this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-owner-issued-a-vote-chess-challenge-but-was-put-in-opponents-team

What's this? It appears from time to time without any consequences (since toasted notifications for mobile browsers exist).

As I'm still logged in, I only need to touch the screen outside of the message to continue as usual ...

This should be a new forum + official report. Looks like a more important issue that should not be happening.

Every time I have ever seen that I'm actually logged off and it has only happened when I open an old session.

@Martin_Stahl: As mentioned I'm not logged out and it's to let the message disappear ... until it pops up again a few days later.

What about this "The site says: 'Realm'"?

I haven't dug into it when I've seen it. Just refreshed the page and was logged out so I just logged back on.

.

I spend already more than enough time with forums ... and have never made a positive experience with reports.

Probably I should do as @Martin_Stahl suggests and take this as some kind of unimportant nonsense, which simply happens on Chess.com.

The site says: "Realm" – why not?

Sounds better as if site would say "Nightmare" or "Torrent" or "Your device will be destroyed in 20 seconds".

Realm is a database used for apps. You shouldn't be able to log into it as a user.

Not sure what the login would log you into, I assume the site. Still, a user shouldn't be seeing this if it is what I think. This is why I said to send an official report, just to be safe even though you're probably right - just nonsense if your session expires something.

I could be wrong and Realm could be something completely different for Chess.com's purposes, but still...