[Rant] The Chess960 forum has been on a Downward Spiral.

Would it be more popular now due to your promotional activities?

I think I'm done, but actually, I have to come back for just one more thing...

No offense intended vickalan, but don't play the fool. You know exactly what the key points of my thread are.

EDIT: May I repost to all who may find his quote out-of-context...

No, no, I had to post it in the forums. Any publicity is good publicity. In fact, the more publicity, the better. But publicity doesn't save you from your reputation and PR, no matter who you are. Donald Trump is one of the most public figures in recent history, and his reputation is extremely rocky. Some love him, some hate him; some want to storm into the White House and stick C-4 where the sun doesn’t shine.

Aye

2 AM GMT, woke up, had a quick look.

10 topics can be shown in the Most Recent window.

Last FOUR topics in the list are from the Chess 960 forum.

They have ALL been "hanging" in that list for more than 30 minutes.

Not sure when they will drop, usually 60 minutes is max, but have seen longer.

This is for the USA market, biggest viewership.

I know that 7 AM GMT is a regular shift, seen that for a year.

Another one may be squeezed in before that, say 4 AM GMT while Europe sleeps.

The last 2 that were hanging in the list dropped off at 43 minutes.

But they were replaced by 2 more at the top of the list, the moment the other 2 dropped off.

No bullshit, I sat and watched it happen.

Same 2 people were posting, usually have 4 in the list when the USA market is most active.

Good night.

Good bye?

Bump.

Meandering?

I wouldn’t have ranted otherwise if it was going to be aimless. That’d just be wasted energy. And I’m not going to be gaslighted into believing that people didn’t get the point.

But for those who on the off-chance actually didn’t get what the point of this thread was, let me spell my points out again, for those who want a TL;DR:

1. I am in no way attacking anyone who participates or perpetuates play-by-forum threads.
2. However, I have noticed a ‘trend’ where play-by-forum threads take up almost two thirds of the first page. You can find these kinds of threads going all the way back to page 17.
3. There is a rule that people follow in these threads, and enforce upon other users: if you’re not a player in this thread, you cannot post in it. Doing the maths, almost two thirds of Page 1 are taken up by threads, which cannot be posted in, and there are more threads on Page 2 waiting to take their places.
4. These threads are incompatible with the format of how content is generated on this site, that is, this is a public internet forum. They treat it more like an e-mail list. In an ideal world, these games would have been played via e-mail.
5. The fact that there is ‘more content’ after Page 1 means next to nothing. Maybe you might go looking for stuff, either for curiosity’s sake or to prove a point but the fact of the matter is the majority of users aren’t going to look past Page 1 for threads unless they’re ones they’re active in. Note that when I say users, I mean everybody that uses this website, not just some hugbox of a couple of people. 
6. People on this forum have an addiction to publicity, and the amount of play-by-forum threads are evidence of that. But publicity != reputation. Donald Trump is a fine example of that: whether you like/dislike him, he doesn’t have the best reputation in the world.
7. I compare the situation to that of one which occurred on 4chan 7 or so years ago, where content of a particular subject was being posted for a long time on each board (forum), each passing month increasing the amount that this subject was posted, until finally the administrator (moot) had to give into the demands of people who were pissed off and created a board specifically to cater to these spammers. It is now colloquially referred to as a ‘containment board.’ The spammers got what they wanted but at a terrible price.
8. If the point of these threads is to show chess.com staff we need more space, they are jeopardising this forum’s reputation. But the ends justifies the means, am I right? This is not a matter of a few individuals, this a matter of the forum.
9. I offer a solution that cuts congestion but makes the threads just as public. In an ideal world, this solution should work if everyone agreed with what I’ve said. But not everyone has agreed with what I’ve said.
10. PART ONE OF THE SOLUTION - GET RESULTS IN PRIVATE FIRST! A good variant is 80% re-working, 20% showing off. For most of these variants it seems that the rules are an afterthought.
11. PART TWO OF THE SOLUTION - MOVE ELSEWHERE! There is a forum with all the space one could ever want to discuss chess variants. The only reason one would not move their threads to this site is because they are too addicted to publicity; or perhaps another reason that has been swept under the rug.
12. (And this isn’t a point I made initially) Everyone on this forum is now cut down to 2 options: you can either double down and continue to do what has been going on for a while; or you can say, “Yeah, maybe the amount of threads are a problem,” and agree to try my solution to the problem.

Either way, I made this thread because I care for not only the users of this forum, but also for the forum’s reputation, which needs to be fixed. 

And if you are a member of this forum and cannot see the toll that these threads have taken: 

You are a part of the problem.

So, now that I’ve had the opportunity to blow off some steam, here are my afterthoughts. Anyone who I’ve blocked in the past 12 or so hours is now unblocked.

What it all comes down to is that these threads limit the diversity of discussion concerning chess variants. You’re in every right to make a thread concerning the rules of your chess variant, or a thread which acts as a hub for discussion, but because of how many games there are going on, the first page gets ‘too busy,’ as @vickalan put it.

Hopefully you get the point in all my frustration. Given the differing opinions of frequent posters here, and considering my confrontational attitude, I think the only way that this disagreement will be solved is through a compromise.

See, when I said ‘move to another site,’ I didn’t mean ‘cease being members of this forum.’ It’s no secret that the play-by-forum players are very, very active, and if it was my intention to chase you away - that’d be counterproductive, because that’s a fair portion of this forum’s userbase gone.

I will support the creation of a separate forum for these games. It doesn’t solve all the problems that have been outlined ITT, but it’s a start.

I’m more concerned, however, about not if a request will be made, but when a request will be made. This has been discussed in the past, and nothing has been done, presumably because we’ve had to wait to see if these threads have blown up as they have done.

If this thread, and the current trend is anything to go by - now is the time!

Because if we want to keep the diversity of discussion open to everyone in the 960 forum, it’s better to do it now while there’s still time, rather than run things into the ground.

Hi, I am a proud part of the problem here. To be honest the only "real" problem I see here is that the games are clogging up the forums. Some other things mentioned:

The threads "cannot be posted in".

This is false. The only thing we don't want is for others to discuss the current position. Seeing a game in progress (with a lot of diagrams) helps others to see how a game can look like and others can post things like who they are rooting for or ask rule questions.

"In an ideal world, these games would have been played via e-mail".

As you might already know this would not allow other members to watch the game. I'm not going to try to deny that we want exposure.

"People on this forum have an addiction to publicity"

Without publicity the games would never be played or watched by anyone. It's not an addiction, but rather something that is required.

"If the point of these threads is to show chess.com staff we need more space..."

I don't think that is the point at all

"PART ONE OF THE SOLUTION - GET RESULTS IN PRIVATE FIRST! A good variant is 80% re-working, 20% showing off. For most of these variants it seems that the rules are an afterthought."

When it comes to event chess, I have played it otb for many years. But regardless, I don't see why you need to be an elitist about it. The public forums are for EVERYONE, where everyone can share their ideas of their chess variants. Not just those that are already refined.

"PART TWO OF THE SOLUTION - MOVE ELSEWHERE! There is a forum with all the space one could ever want to discuss chess variants."

Like it or not, but the chess.com forums are a good place for exposure of chess variants right now with several members interested in trying out new chess variants. We don't want to move unless we have to. Personally I like the suggestion by @vickalan to create a new feed for chess variant games. If those does not pop up in the "Most Recent" list to the right of any forum page, then I don't really see any problem with having the games played on the forums.

Thanks for taking the time to write out all that, @Martin0.
You posted at the very same time I gave my afterthoughts, so I thought I’d make you aware there’s a new post above yours.

Well, if I hadn’t made a stand, 1: I wouldn’t have been very honest with the users of this forum, and 2: Things were most likely to have continued as normal, which isn’t the best outcome for this forum, as I have seen with similar situations.

And sometimes, you have to BE the problem in order to FIX the problem.

Regardless if you agree/disagree that there is a problem and regardless if you agree/disagree with the solution I think it is important to discuss these things.

I will say though that with that long rant it is easy to miss what your main complaints are. If you can keep your arguments short and concise there is a higher chance your message comes through. Just a little bit of advice.

That's true. Not everyone wants to read 2000+ words worth of WORDS WORDS WORDS. But if you've read through most of it I appreciate that.

(I'm not good at writing short, is what I'm saying.)

As one of the Event Chess players, I agree that this is somewhat inconvenient, and that a separate place for these things would be nice.  However, there is not such a place.  And this is a forum on Chess 960 and Chess Variants.  So this is a chess variants forum.  There isn't another place to play, and in order to share ideas and popularize variants (like the highly successful Bulldog), they can be in a public place.  That is the point.  If they're a little crowded ... I mean, come on, this is an online forum.  Of course it is crowded with topics that you may not like.  I get bored of all the 'just reached 1200', 'this guy was rude', and 'my computer lagged' threads, but they're there.  It's not a big deal.  When you're on a public forum expect to scroll through endless pointless topics.  

And these correspondence games have a point.  We are trying to play and publicize ideas.  It's a sharing of ideas.  What else is a forum for?

Chess.com should REMOVE the "Most Recent" window.

People across ALL the forums are abusing that little window.

Step 1: Get your topic into that window so that EVERYBODY can see it.

Step 2: Get your topic into the HOT topics list so that EVERYBODY thinks that it is popular.

But the HOT topics list is shit really, because people have to actually go to it.

No, the Most Recent window, which I call the ADVERTISING WINDOW is the best target.

For all the narrow minded people this is not a problem that is specific to the Chess960 forum, it applies to every single bloody forum on this website.

A group of people on say the Off Topic forum spam shit, it gets into the Most Recent window, we have achieved our objective, we have been noticed.

A very conservative member, say a chess collector on the Chess Equipment Forum, now sees their shit every time he logs on and goes to his regular forum.

This is what is actually going on for the forums on this website, people are cross contaminating ALL the forums with their shit.

The forum abusers are not content with their little backwater forum that hardly anybody visits. At first they try posting in the General Forum to get noticed but the mods kick the topic out, back to their little forum that few forum members are interested in.

So we need another plan to get our shit noticed.

This is why there is so much spamming on this ENTIRE website, groups of people posting one line comments in rapid fire bursts because they are targeting the HOT list and above all else the Most Recent list.

That is why ALL of YOUR comments ring hollow with me, there is no real substance to it, you do after all have YOUR OWN AGENDA.

Remove the Most Recent window, free up lots of space on the web page, use that space for REAL ADVERTISING.

Chess.com is the FIRST forum that I ever used.

Chess.com is the ONLY forum that I will ever use.

I was shocked at first, the nature of people.

Then I started noticing the abuse, at first the obvious things.

Then I started noticing the more sinister types of abuse on the forums.

Then I formed my OWN AGENDA.

I will find the FORUM ABUSERS and I will TAKE THEM DOWN.

Sorry, silly me, I forgot...

Bump.