Debate: What to call "Online Chess"...

 wow, there's a surprise ;)

Good explanation e4n ! 

Dickensian Chess... ?

It's not so much that Correspondence chess is outdated, as it can still be used. But much like typewriters, which are still used by quite a few people, the term would be confused with keyboard.

If the post office no longer existed, then changing the meaning and carrying the term over wouldn't be as much of an issue. But honestly Correspondence chess is a mouthful. And Online Correspondence chess isn't making it any better. (I doubt most people could even spell correspondence.)

I'm starting to think that e-chess is fine. It's already called that in the url and turn-based chess is used elsewhere on the site.

But whatever, "online chess" needs to go. Someone wrote that they didn't play online chess, and the first thing I thought was, why are you here then? Till I realized what he was talking about.

If correspondence chess is still accurate, then I insist that MP3 players should be called by their proper name. Phonographs.
After all it's just an update of a completely different thing. Keyboards are typewriters and all other terms should use whatever seems closest.

I just played a game here of online chess and it had no email used at all. Yet was still able to finish the game. There was virtually no difference between it and a live chess game.
In both you have a clock. You both see the page update with the new piece location. The only real difference in online chess is that you can play a move out over several days and leave the page without the game ending. You can make multiple pre-moves. There's virtually no connection between online chess and correspondence chess.

As for the idea that it's widely used by everyone, then there would be no thread on this.

As for the argument that it's meaning has changed for modern times. How? Chess.com is the most popular chess site and has never called it that. So where is the idea coming from that it has slowly changed over time in the last few years.

I was thinking echess (could also be online chess), for reasons explained in post 907 and 912:

echess, bullet

echess,blitz

echess, rapid

echess, standard

echess, daily

echess, tridaily

echess is a lot better than 95% of the other names suggested.

Actually multi-day chess or daily chess may describe it best.

People think of it in terms of playing via number of days. Not by notification. No one had any problem with the survey question phrased as it was.

How should we rename "Online Chess"? (This mean [sic] non-live chess with multi-day time controls.)

And not (This means non-live chess play via email notification.)

When the internet was new, chess had to be played similar to correspondence chess via email. While Online Correspondence Chess may have been a better term for it, it's too much to write out every time.

Today it just doesn't make any sense to continue calling it that. This site never has, so there's no justification of keeping that tradition alive.

Chess960 is also "Correspondence Chess" as played here. But it's distinguished by being placed in the sub category Turn-based chess.

Is then the term "Chess Restante" , waiting correspondence, too subtle ,or could it grow in acceptance ?

1. This thread is much too long. 

2. "online chess" is completely misleading and has to go.

3. "correspondence chess" is a reasonably accurate description.

4. "echess" seems fine to me, if you want something snappier. It may be that  chess.com has sufficient clout to make echess mean whatever it wants.

Correspondence Chess - official term

correspondence is obvious, it is a latin-rooted word easily recognized in many languages, saying that it is 'too long' is ridiculous. (5 syllables in that )

What about C-Chess, letting people figure out for themselves what the "C" stands for?

It stands for "comfy". 

Ahem. Correspondence chess began with the telegraph. Postcards were much later.

The notion of correspondence chess implies that moves are transmitted over a distance--no more, no less. Consequently, the only real problem with the term is that one minute chess on a server is also correspondence chess as it uses twenty-first century move transmission technology.

What group made that "official." And what clout do they have?

Yeah, there seems to be a misconception that correspondence refers specifically to mail.  Mail is one example of correspondence, and since it was such a good adjective to describe it they became somewhat synonymous.

If you look at the actual definition of correspondence, it's non-concurrent distance communication between parties.  The medium itself is irrelevant.  In that sense, it's actually the perfect adjective for turn based chess here.

The only part of your statement I'd dispute is the notion that one-minute chess is also correspondence.  It's actually concurrent communication.

But if we're insisting on looking for new terminology, concurrent vs. non-concurrent also works.

It is the official-term of popular distance-chess that became less-so because of the type of person who thought it was clever to cheat using computers.

As this site very against that type of cheating too has lot's of clout & relevance.