Chess.com Articles

Edit: this a response to Gonnosuke

In both systems editors would have to filter material (reading through lots of it), in my system the filtering would be better adjusted to personal tastes. After it's filtered, the accessibility is fine. In both systems the accessibility depends on editors pointing out articles they like. I don't see the difference between the systems in terms of accessibility in that sense.

Am I to understand correctly that you (or Batgirl, or both) propose that a board of editors read through all proposed articles and sift the good from the bad, as a sort of groundwork for a later stage where readers amake their actual choice. I'd say that's a lot of work for little (even doubtful) benefit, for what is basicly a suggested reading section, like it exists now (on the homepage).

Compare this to the magazines I propose. Articles are more likely to find their respective audiences if there are clear channels for them. That article about chess in seventeenth century Gambia will likely benefit more from a coverage in a chess history magazine then fifteen minutes of fame  in a much broader suggested reading section. And it's author is more likely to take up his cause with the chess history editor and be taken seriously.

I think the system I propesed will increase accessibility more than the Batgirl  system (again, sorry for the name) will, at lesser cost (in man hours). I also think that while there are some benefits to the Batgirl system, the Magazine system works better even in those respects.

Edit: corrected a very annoying then/than typo.

Let me be clear.  I'm not an elitist and my original idea wasn't necessarily to delete poor articles and keep good articles, but rather to define what an article is and eliminate those things that only purport to be articles.  For instance, posting a game with "I really liked this game!"  is not writing an article.  I'm not really sure I follow what mathijs is suggesting, and it sounds somewhat complicated, but he's a smart cookie and worth listening to.

I do like costelus' idea to form a chess.com "group" that could hammer out these things.

Wait -- You want a group dedicated to filtering articles for you? Aren't there already various ways for the community to do this? For example, this site has a rating system, a sorting system,a tracking system, etc... 

I don't mean to be a wise-ass, but I'm willing to bet there are already many ways to float the good articles to the top of the list. 

That said -- I do have a suggestion. I like games with lots of annotations. Maybe the site could identify the articles with annotated games, according to how much of the game is annotated. Say 0% - 50%, or > 50%. 

Batgirl, I sympathise with your idea, especially from your personal perspective (juxtaposing your articles with the unannotated games type is more than just a good rhetorical trick), but I can't help but feel that claiming a certain article is objectively not good or not "article-like" is elitist (even if the elite happens to be a majority (quite unique)). Also (in, fact because of that) it's not so useful to do that, nor very practical.

I see that I haven't been clear enough about my suggestion, so I'll try to paint a clearer picture. The problem as I see it, is that there is a big unorganised mass of writing of many levels and many interests, let's call it a blogosphere, and that it is hard to navigate. Batgirl's suggestion is to appoint a group of people to deem writing "wheat" (an article) or "chaff" (a blog) (I don't mean to oversimplify, but the definition of "chaff" has yet be discussed). My suggestion is to create a structure in which chess.com members can more easily get to content they find of interest.

Here's how that would work. A member could found a magazine. When he reads an article (or blog, or whatever) that he deems interesting for his magazine he could mark it. Members could subscribe to his magazine. Subscribers would be notified of any new marked content and gain access to an archive of marked content. The magazine founder could appoint other editors who would be allowed to mark content for the magazine. Members would be allowed to found any number of magazines.

I'll take again the example of the hypothetical member with two interests, in historic content and in content he considers humorous. He founds two magazines ("chess history" and "fun chess"). Whenever he reads an article about chess history that he finds interesting he marks it for his history magazine. He appoints three acquaintances editor to his history magazine, because he feels that their taste in these matters is similar. They too can now mark content for the history magazine. He is the sole editor of "fun chess". Anybody who thinks he has a knack for finding interesting history articles can subscribe to his "chess history". Anybody who feels he has a good sense of humour can subscribe to his "fun chess".

This system has the following advantages over Batgirl's system (I take it you don't object too strongly to the name, Batgirl):

- It avoids an objective discussion of what an "good" article is, so that no member will ever feel left out. Really bad or uninteresting articles will simply not be in any magazine. (this is what I meant when I said the magazine system is less invasive than Batgirl's system).

- A recommendation by an editor in the magazine system will be much more valuable, it's not just a sign that an article meets some standard of "article-likeness", but that it is of actual interest to a specific audience. (this is what I meant when I said the magazine system is more refined than Batgirl's system).

- Because a magazine provides a clear channel (although it needn't be specific in conten't, one could imagine a magazine of the type "mathijs today" of all the articles that member enjoyed) content would more easily find it's audience. If a writer feels he has written an article of interest to history buffs and he knows of a history magazine, he has just to take up his cause with it's editors, who only have to deal with material that apparently relates to their field of interest. It's easier for the writer to find his audience and less work for the editors. (In batgirl's system they would plough through reams of indiscriminate writing) This will increase accessibility (even more than Batgirls system and at less cost).

Clearly the magazine system will need some time to grow. I think benefits will be reaped fairly quickly, at least in some fields (editing interesting material isn't much extra work for somebody who spends a lot of time reading it anyway). And the growing and further refining of the system will never cease.

I have come to recognise over the years that explaining things is not my forte. I've done my best, but if any unclarities remain and you haven't lost interest by now, please ask specific questions.

Edit: I do apologies for the length of my post. Loquaciousness is my substitute for clarity.

Thanks for the loquacious elaboration. 

The Mathijs System does indeed have many advantages over my own proposal, with which, as I initially stated, I was never totally comfortable.   In fact, the more I consider the Mathijs System , the more I like it.  

Of course, my proposal's singular strength is its ease of implemetation requiring little or no programming or special knowledge - just some elbow grease.

If Erik & Co. could find a way to implement your system, I'd vote for it in a heartbeat.

Batgirl, you're allowed your bit of revenge, of course, but I am really uncomfortable with the name you've chosen for the Magazine system. Imagine that the system would actually be implemented...

Although I am not at all an expert on programming issues, I would imagine that the single bitter pill of programming the magazine system (I expect it will be some combination of the tracking system and the group structure) would be easier to swallow than the constant flow of articles to be adjudicated by a chess.com appointed staff. But I very well could be wrong about that.

Could you explain a little your reservations, Gonnosuke? What frustrates you about the group system (that is relevant to the magazine system)?  The idea is not Balkanization, but seperating interest groups (they wouldn't fight each other). Admittedly, high quality content could still slip through the maze and unsatisfactory articles may still end up in a magazine to which you subscribe, but that's inevitable.

Edit:

I missed that that second explanatory post. I hadn't really thought about that yet. Two ideas come to mind. First, crude, but useful as a starter, lists of most popular magazines. Second, a search function for magazines ( founders could gives their magazines some tags, e.g. "Teichmann variation" for a blackmar-Diemer Magazine, so that any search for Teichmann would give the magazine as one outcome). Thirdly, perhaps articles could show (perhaps under a link) the magazines that feature them, for instance in order of popularity. That way if you keep coming across some magazine while reading interesting articles, you'll know where to look.

They have indeed, I edited my post. I'd like to add here (besides confusion) that no matter what, it will always take time before you find an environment that suits you well and shares your interests. That in itself is no reason not to create such environments.

Agreed. Did you you notice my suggestion in that direction in the edit to my post.34? Things got a little confused when our posts crossed.

But do you agree that the magazine system is a good way to build such environments?

Yay, another conversion. Now go into the world and spread the good news, my child.

I've always had some trouble with the idea of Groups.   While they allow people of similar interests to congregate and share those interests, they also stratify and separate people.  I've generally found that too much association with "like-minded" people tends to limit one's own experiences and to stifle one's own ability to expand.  I'm not sure I see the connection between Groups and the Mathi... I mean the Magazine System,  though I'm sure one could be established.

Can anyone clarify this?

I'm new at chess.com so I'm going to keep this short.

At another site I participate in they set up a moderation board to deal with content issues (in this case photographs and uploaded files). 

It required a huge volunteer effort.  It took a lot of people to review content that arrived in large volume and that had to be dealt with in a timely manner.  Inevitably lag times grew, so that material often took weeks to see daylight.  Then, there was quite a bit of favoritism, politics, and game playing.  Just as a simple example...I used to upload my material at certain hours so that the European moderators would catch it first and approve it, because I knew they looked more favorably upon my work than the American moderators.  It finally got so bad that the moderators themselves had to be moderated.

I think the magazine idea is a much more equitable and simple solution.

Or perhaps a system like they have at deviantart.com could work, where the "favorite" material rises to the top and is more easily found.

Amy

Batgirl, a connection between the group system and the magazine (thank you) system is that they both create environments of like-minded people. Actually, I think the magazine system will have a stronger tendency to do so, because magazines are about content, not playing chess together.  While I agree that too much association with kindred spirits may be crippling to the mind, too little association with them can be rather tiring. Subscribing to a magazine or joining a group (if it isn't scientologous, so to speak) doesn't prevent you meeting other, alien minds.

1. Mathijs idea looks good, but it is certainly way too complicated to be put into practice. I look for something simple, when I go to the articles section I want to find quickly good quality articles. I don't have time to "subscribe" to "magazines" and all those things you describe.

2. The whole point was not approving or not an article, but recommending it or not. There can be two sections: articles which were not recommended or which are currently under review, and recommended articles. Thus, an article appears online as soon as it is submitted, but it may be "recommended" several weeks later.

A magazine is ok but it's not the solution to this problem, I don't think. A magazine is nice for somebody else to choose and select THEIR favorite articles, and we could even have two or three magazines. But I think we're looking for something different  -- more expansive than that.

If I understand correctly, we're looking for a way for many "quality" articles to float to the top, as someone said. And from there, each person can pick and choose their own reading materials. So we don't want one person or group excluding materials -- that leads to the problems qixel mentioned with favoritism and capricious choices. 

Instead we could define the general characteristics of a quality article, and then have the sorting process take care of "floating" those to the top. Example: I think a good article has annotated games, not just moves but actual text. So we can have a tag or category: Annotated Games -- the server will select and group those out, put them under a link, and voilá -- I no longer have to be afraid that I will miss an annotated game. BTW -- I think Patzer24's are a good model for this. Now I have a "pool" of articles and I can pick my own. 

I would still be interested in seeing somebody's magazine, but not having them choose my articles for me. 

So maybe the first step is to define what features make a quality article -- features that can be "tagged" so the webserver can group those out automatically under a tag link ... 

hmm... this is getting deeper and deeper.

The entire purpose of any potential revamping of the article section is to better connect a seeker with content.  I still think there can be objective criteria against which to judge content.  Objective criteria help to prevent abuse such as qixel is concerned with even when the auditors within an oversight panel fluctuate.   The Magazine System does solve some problems and is a wonderfully creative approach but after reading cofresi's contribution,  I'm not sure I would completely discount my original suggestion.
Trying to "float" sought-out content to the top, I  searched in the Article section.  It seems to me that the search tool only looks at titles and is worthless for finding content.  Tags would help, I imagine. So would a better search tool.

I'm not sure of what the best solution might be, but I've learned a lot already in this informative discussion and I'm grateful for that.

Nothing against Erik, but when I want to search on chess.com I go to google and specify site:chess.com

e.g. batgirl site:chess.com

This is what I was trying to get at. 

I would be very happy if there was a tag for "Annotated" games, or at least a way to mark or filter for them. Right now I use the tracking feature to follow favorite writers. And this site does have daily columns with excellent writing too. But it would be nice to easily ID blogs or notes that have annotated games too. 

Cofresi, I agree that tagging articles is an excellent idea (I assume you see the tagging done by the writers of the articles). I don't think it will help in sifting good articles from bad ones (edit: and I don't think it should), but it will certainly make it easier to find articles of interest. It's complementary to the magazine system in that respect. Any other improvement in the search function would be too.

But I still think that having a general standard for good articles and applying it to all articles is not useful (you're tagging system is not of this nature, even though you seem to think so). As Batgril aptly put it, the problem is connecting readers with content. Let me give you an example of how these problems are met in the real world. In a library there are massive amounts of books (undoubtedly, most of them bad). When you go to the library for a book on a very specefic topic (ballet in 19th century Paris) or something very general, like a thriller, then that information is all you need to search a book. There is no section of approved books in the library and there are no librarians franticly reading through all books trying to apply some general standard of quality. And if there were it would serve little purpose.

You seem to have misunderstood my magazine system. There would be much more than two or three magazines in the system (see post 29 for my best effort at an explanation). But your tagging idea has given me the best analogy for the magazine system so far: youtube.

Obviously, youtube faces the same problems, connecting content with viewers. Tagging videos is a very important tool there. In addition you can subscribe to channels (same as tracking a member here). And you can view the favourites of a channel. A magazine would be the favourites of a channel, but with several refinements. First, you could subscribe to it (I don't think it's currently possible to subscribe to favourites on youtube). Second, a channel could have several types of favourites (members can found more than one magazine). Third, more than one member could be allowed to add favourites (there could be several editors to a magazine). I hope this clarifies the nature of the magazine concept. I hope it also shows that there is no need for an approved article section (there is no such thing on youtube). And, something I had not realised myself until now, this shows that the systems can probably be implemented technically.

i think we can fix this with a few changes: +/- recommendation tool (or getting people to use the RATING star thingy more), better search, better categorization, and better moderated content (sending non-articles to the user BLOG). we'll work on this soon!