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

Elections are ALWAYS a scam, your votes mean nothing, they happen to give you the illusion that you can make a difference and then when SHTF it is your fault because YOU voted this way.

hehe...

Well politicians never keep their election promises, I gave up a while ago believing campaign SWORN promises.. promises that got them into power. Here the Labor party swore black and blue they would never bring in a carbon tax at the last election.. so they got the votes they needed to win office, scraped in... but what did they do once in power, brought in a carbon tax. Now the Labor Queensland Party just got smashed and booted out in the state election there and the prediction is that is what's going to happen in every state's election and in the Federal election next year, because so  many were against the carbon tax, more against it than for  it, which is why they voted Labor in and now that trust/promise has been broken. No surprises there, and very dumb on their part.

babs, in response to your comment #642, I say wasn't everyone eligible to vote on the question, whether premium or non-premium member? I think so. Each vote cast was an expressed opinion just as the verbal opinions, ranging from the serious to the frivolous, were. The important difference is that the votes are quantifiable opinions, whereas the verbal opinions are anecdotal and probably supernumerary to the votes anyway. Therefore, the preference expressed by the votes should be given greater weight; and those preferences should be given great deference by Erik. After all, presumably, the customers of the site provide him and his staff their bread and butter. Successful businesses satisfy the majority of their customers. So should he. Erik asked for the preference of his customers by a vote. He got it, and it is for "correspondence chess." So he should replace the term "online chess" with "correspondence chess" on the basis of the preference expressed in the vote. Also, we don't have to assume that the members who voted for "correspondence chess" are a good sample of the general membership. Everyone was free to vote. Some did; some did not. We don't have to assume anything. We just need to count the votes.

It is the same everywhere in every election every time, tuition fees, taxes, wars,  yet people still refuse to see that their votes are irrelevant. Its political X factor nothing more.

Oh, I got the idea that you were thinking that only paying customers should have a vote and that that poll should decide it.

Is was this: "Why don't you just defer to the wishes of your customers? After all, they do pay for the site."

It's interesting that the German term for correspondence chess does not imply that there's a particualr method of correspondence.  "Fernschach", which consists of the root "Fern" (in addition to "schach", which is the German word for "chess"), meaning "distant", the same word as used in the word for TV (distant viewer, literally).

Well I agree with you Sooner, that 'Correspondence Chess 'is the winning choice here, but Erik might say he was only after ideas here, not votes because he wouldn't rely on the votes of a minority of members when there are 5 million members here (of course not all active). Some  might argue that the minority who voted here for 'Correspondence Chess' isn't a true sample/reflection on what the rest of the site would want / vote for. I personally think we can rely on that sample  being valid and enough to go on because I think the  majority of the others 'out there' either don't care or would vote for 'Correspondence Chess' if they knew there was a place to vote for the  name to stay or change. So putting aside those that don't care and reading the intelligent and logical reasons  given by many to have the name 'Correspondence Chess', I think it's not wise to go with any other name.  

And also  because it's a 'recognised' name in the world of chess players already.. another reason not to have another name...

'Daily Chess' says nothing..   we can play any kind of chess daily.. Live chess, OTB Chess, Correspondence chess.

I know. But erik keeps mentioning the number of users on the site as such; how hard it is to deal with 5 million demanding customers pointing out bugs, etc. as opposed to just registered users. :)

I find it amusing. I think the server would crash, and then throw up all of its data all over the internet if that many came here at once, causing new myspace-like sites to spawn everywhere.

Wow, that's perceptive & intelligent comment!  Reading between the lines think what Erik want's is crisp,sharp,modern presentation of the site so it has broad-appeal & fences with other competing-sites ?

& why not ?? ( as long as chess & it's tradition respected anything goes )

@chess_kebabs (post#654)

Look at a sites such as '' Chesscube ''' for example there is a world of difference in appearnce & though chess.com better does not want to miss picking up new-members browsing around the web ?

There aren't 5 million active members here.. how many are duplicate account holders? How many are accounts of people who drifted away from the site and didn't bother closing their account.

I bet TONS.

And we can see by how many people are playing Live chess at any one time, usually somewhere  between 5000 and 8000 members, that 5 million active members is very inaccurate. As well as how many are online in chess.com at any one time... right at this second there are 4,974 members online. 

But being able to show there are almost 5 million accounts in chess.com would be good for marketing to advertisers, so hey, more money coming into the site is a benefit to all, if spent on the site . :)

according to the online rank, there are just over 252,000 players.

I agree with you almost perfectly, babs. Except to say that "Erik might say he was only after ideas here, not votes" is mere conjecture. What he said was: 

Click here to vote on the name!

I can tell only what he said, not what he might say.

 Well if changing the name to something that is very casual will make a 'signficant' difference to gaining more members, gaining more paying members, and possibly more advertisers as a result, hence more money coming into the site, then I would support that if it means more money being available and used for further site developments. 

Like some said it might attract more of the casual players.. not the serious players, I don't know.. I know for myself whatever the name is called for these types of games is not going to be the deciding factor if I joined or not. 'Understanding' what's available here would be more important to me.

Do you mean online now?

I missed that post or any posts asking for votes Sooner. 

Erik has also stated today that he still only likes Daily Chess and Anytime Chess, which gives me the impression that the votes won't matter. :)

Agree Babs. Think first-impressions count & with Erik on that (Is good-business). Doubt serious chess-players would be turned-off by modern appearance/names for chess-variants. Are intelligent people & would quickly navigate to what they need.

When I first came across this site (years ago) thought it was quirky/old-fashioned in appearance (still liked though !) & did not play chess here for quite some time. Future of chess very important with young-people & must attract them to this site as 1st-choice.

chessplayer11, yes, that's it exactly.