Erik from Chess.com here. Ask me almost anything!

Hello Chess.com members! I'm the... _____ (boss? CEO? head? founder? i hate all of those terms....) of Chess.com. My job is to hire amazing people and coordinate our work to make Chess.com better. We've been hard at work on the upcoming version of Chess.com, and I've had my head in the details for too long! I need to do a better job being available to answer your questions. So here it is - a place for you to ask questions and get answers from me! 

You can ask me questions about Chess.com, about me personally, and just about any other question and I'll do my best to answer.

I'll try to answer as many as a I can and as quickly as I can. But I'm also human, and I DO sleep for 7 hours a day, and I have this crazy Chess.com company to help run, so if you see a lag, that's why...

on a scale of one to ten how afraid of lichess are you?

first post!

Are you keeping V2 and V3 ?

 According to Wikipedia: "Lichens are composite, symbiotic organisms made up from members of as many as three kingdoms. The dominant partner is a fungus. Fungi are incapable of making their own food. They usually provide for themselves as parasites or decomposers." 

So as long as I don't touch them, they can't eat me, right? So, zero.  

Seriously though, I'm focused on making Chess.com the best possible experience. That's all I can do!

 For now, yes. Once V3 (new site) is done and much better than V2 in every way, then the old site will be retired. It has to go away so that we can progress even more into the future. Kind of like how VHS tapes had to go away...

Hi Erik,

I just got a Premium Membership that I'd like to give to my friend, not me.  Can I change my membership to regular(free) and give the premium membership to Thoriumman?

Thanks

What is your personal favorite feature in V3?

Is the Black Death the same as the bubonic plague?

 Yep. Reach out to our awesome Member Support team and ask for Matt (patzer24) and he can help you with it!

http://support.chess.com

Thanks!

If you could be the world's biggest rockstar, (better then T-Swift, Beyonce, the likes) or the world's geatest chess player, which would you pick?

do you watch my little pony? 

 Personally I love the left menu option the most. Allows me to see more of the chessboards and content that make this site great!

For those of you who want to use the new site, click on "Try the new Chess.com" at the bottom of any page. And if you want to try the left-menu, click on this icon at the top.

 The world's best ____ comes with huge tradeoffs which I wouldn't like to make. I would absolutely hate being famous. (That's why I sometimes hide away from being the face of Chess.com and let Danny do all the famous stuff! )

That said, I'll take chess player. Seems less crazy!

Hi Erik,
Few questions for you:

1.There seems to be some "national" teams that do not really have a nation. They are not participating in any other competition worldwide except here, on chess.com. Take Team Galicia for example, but there are more. Any motivation for this?

2.Chess.com used to publish a list of cheaters. That list helped the enthuziasts that are running World League and European League in order to decide how to count the games and score the matches. I do not mind if you are not publishing the list, but can info about account closure motivation be given to WL Directors?

3.In conjunction with the previous question, if info is not possible, comes next. Why not supporting somehow the WL and EL competitions with standings and calculations that will take in account the closure motivation for closed accounts?

Thanks in advance for the answers. I will shoot more questions if any other "bright" idea comes to my mind.

Best regards
Dorin 

 Thinking back 20 years to public school education, I believe so. Wikipedia seems to confirm this. 

Hi Erik !!!

How many chess addicts does it take to change a light-bulb?

 No. And I never had any sisters or bronies, so triple no. 

Just another question.

As I am The King of Patzers, I suggest chess.com insert the initials KP in front of my nickname, as it does with GM, WGM, IM...

@ Erik  I checked out V3 about 6 months ago and it seemed very confusing where as V2 is like taking a walk in the park. Will V3 be like taking a walk in the park when you are done?

 1. We have allowed some groups that self-identify as nations to participate. I'm not in the politics business, and I know this is controversial, so we tend to say "YES" rather than no. I know that some people don't like that. I'm sorry. 

2 & 3. Yes we did. We have decided to stop doing that, as you noted. The reality is we live in a world which makes it difficult to make claims without people getting upset - especially guilty people. If you want to message me privately we can discuss the idea of doing some score off-sets to help out! I agree that would be useful. 

Thank you!