A chess related thread get started but become off topice get tranfer to the off topic thread (by the mod.) -no problem.
A topic that get out of hand by flame war/spamming/personal attack is get lock by the mod.- no problem.
So iwhen a off topic get into off topic does go into the trash-can ? :-)
So iwhen a off topic get into off topic does go into the trash-can ? :-)
I think an off-topic thread only goes into the trash can if some twit tries to hijack the discussion around to some chess topic . . . 
I say let the thread go off topic. It will probably come back around to the main sooner or later. If not then the subject is probably dead anyway. A simple reminder by a moderator is probably better than trashing an otherwise productive discussion. These things might be annoying but I can live with them. Take the good with the bad.
Are you saying you'd rather it was closed or deleted by moderators? "If you know" is in the Off Topic forum now. Why does it need to meet someone's definition of productive?
I didn't get beyond the first page. After three or four comments I lost interest. But the forum has more than 1500 entries. So should it be deleted or closed by a mod? My method of dealing with it is to navigate away from the forum and not return to it. Why delete it? Why not delete it? It is there. It exists in cyberspace where nothing really is true or real. It takes up space on the chess.com server which is of no consequence to me. I don't know if I've gained or lost because of it. But it is not unlike the ordinary conversations I hear day in and day out anywhere I go. I treat those the same way; I navigate away and don't return. I can't delete them.
Has anybody noticed the improvements in the forums since the last site upgrade?
We now have spellcheck and can insert images (even using Chrome).
I didn't notice the spell-check addition. I use a system spell-check that loads at boot-up and automatically underlines misspelled words in most programs as I type them, including web forums.
Yes, comments are much more logical and intelligent now.
are you kidding me, have you notice what happen in the last 24 hrs ?
Which reminds me: What's the best hour of the day to play chess?? Huh? When? Wheeeeeeennnnn?
I didn't notice the spell-check addition. I use a system spell-check that loads at boot-up and automatically underlines misspelled words in most programs as I type them, including web forums.
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/a-few-small-updates---july-7th-2010?page=1
Is there really an upgrade to spellcheck? 
All I have noticed is that it works again but it still does not recognize "fianchetto" as a word.
At least now we can insert pics and place text beside it like this. But what we really need are chess tools; such as a utility to create adorned diagrams like the one on the left which I used to convey a general plan (instead of a specific move order) in one of my vote games. A picture is worth a thousand words.
I created this one using SCID and then did a screen copy and edited it in paint shop pro and uploaded it after having to solve several problems with file naming and other PC nightmares. In short, it was a real time consuming pain to do it that way so I don't do it very often. It would sure be nice and useful in publishing articles and tutorials if we had a tool for this purpose.
Were the non-chess threads initiated in the non-chess forums? If so, no problem. People who don't want to read about anything except chess won't encounter them. If the threads were originally about chess and the topic wandered away, I guess there could be a policy requiring a topic to split out to a separate thread in a non-chess forum, although personally I don't mind when a thread jumps around. It only takes me a couple seconds to skip posts I'm not interested in-- a lot of times all I have to do is see the name of the poster and I know to skip straight down to the next post in the thread. And if the topic was in a chess forum but was never about chess in the first place, the moderators might move it to a different forum.