how the forums don't reflect chess

This reminds me of my old pfp

Reflect Chess?.....Jeezs Louise.....they don't even reflect the forums. The Covid thread got locked again. The OP was doing an excellent job keeping people safe. Along comes a moderator, who's only been here for 14 months....he bumps into the last post by a kid, and decides to lock it. .....thanks a lot clown! I'm sure the OP was asleep.....wherever he resides. These threads have more senority, and life span than some moderators. Look, I know you mean well BUT....to be a moderator, you need to be here for at least 1 yr. You've been here for 1 yr + 4 months. Are you like a bad 1st Sargent who thinks all moderators don't make mistakes? The thread alone has 3-4 times more history than U. The OP kept that thread clean for 3 yrs before you even came to this site. Maybe you should take a 2nd look. Maybe a number of us should ask Erik to take a 2nd look.!!!! If you can't re-open the Covid thread, than I may delete my PET thread. I sleep on it. Why don't you lock Elroch's science thread? That's only been going for 10 yrs. You know you're way around. You've been here a whole 14 months. The place REALLY is going to the dogs. Throw out all the adults, and let the kids run everything. If they have no attention span?....no problem.....just start another counting thread. What the hell were you thinking?....Its the ONLY MEDICAL thread here. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/covid-19-discussion?page=231

Ok...well, now that I am back in town, I agree and disagree in various ways.

Muting individual posters is usually preferable to locking a long standing topic (unless it is a trolling topic, but then it should be shut down fairly early on anyway). In this case, I disagree with the topic being locked only an hour some new posts that were out of line, since such things had happened numerous times before over 4 years and were all handled in a timely enough manner.

That being said and not liking the reasoning on the decision, I am happy the thread is locked, since it was usually attracting only trolls at this point who wanted to post political or anti-science stuff, and those who didn't like those posts in return . I never asked for my Covid thread to be chosen by the mods as the only Covid thread allowed to be running during the heights of the pandemic, and frankly it was just extra work for me at this point to check it every day or two to make sure it stayed clean.

Now the Covid posts and maybe new threads will disperse around the forum again (as well as other medical stuff), and mods will have to take of it, which is what should always be happening.

The irony of the once-mod-anointed Covid thread being locked by a new mod that doesn't know the history is not lost on me, but as I said...less that I have to do, and I don't mind. I have no real attachment to the thread itself, only the effort to keep misinformation at bay in general and specifically during Covid when misinformation was far more directly harmful.

I do wish that the inflammatory posts (on either side) at the end had never been posted, and I would have had the chance to have taken care of them myself. But I think locking the thread is actually a good thing long term. If this post could be appended there, I'd be happier about it.

P.S. For the record, bringing up Dr. Mercola or Tucker Carlson would not really be a violation of TOS or even the guidelines; neither are political figures at this point in time and no political flamewar ensued (which has always been the goal of the "no politcs/religion" mantra). They are both purveyors of misinformation for their own profit online. If Howard Stern and Joe Rogan are not considered political figures, then Tucker no longer qualifies either now that he was removed from Fox News political opinion programming. He's just a run of the mill online crackpot now, like Mercola.

Erik's guidelines prohibit religious and political *debate*, not the mere mentioning of either one.

Stop using chatgpt bruh 💀

All I wanna know is what was going through the mind of the moderator. Since he was the ONLY policeman on the crime scene at the time,......in all his worldly experience of 14 months...... did he think the best course of action was to shoot all the remaining hostages numerous times?? So it became a fight or flight reaction?

Not being able to distinguish between reasonable writing and vocabulary and ChatGPT is a sad commentary on modern society.

THAT'S the perfect post & reply for this thread. You have moderators who think their god and can shut down anything for any reason instead of just editing or deleting a post...... and then you have kids that are SO deluted with ChatGPT, that they can't tell the difference. Oh well chess.com another SNAFU.

The children are our future. So if we want to be part of the future, we'll have to behave like them. Go mods!

Wonder if they'd like to know my favorite color or if I'd kiss the person above me as well. The community must stay informed!

So it's not that AI becomes indiscernible from humans but rather that humans become unable to discern the difference. Go devolution

Speaking of Devo, who needs tin foils when we have plastic?

What are your thoughts on Igor Smirnov? I read somewhere that as soon as he got his GM title he just stopped playing pro chess and focused on making online courses and YouTube content. Maybe a little bit of coaching here and there? I don't know, but I do like watching his YouTube content.

If anyone can find any documented official pro games GM Igor Smirnov played after he got his GM title, please post them here.

https://www.youtube.com/@GMIgorSmirnov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Smirnov_(politician)

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/14110482

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Smirnov_(scientist)

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/igor-smirnovs-courses-worth-giving-a-try

Love the accent. "to take is a mistake" is all I remember.

To take is a mistake. A hard habit to break.

I like Igor's attacking style. A friend of mine that I play with in the outside world likes to play an opening where he sacks his opposite colored bishop with check on move 3.

Do you take it? Or move to e2/7?

We now have a p 0 r n bot invasion of general chess discussion. Yet I have to decorate the words or I might get muted for this post smh

That looks like an pop up ads while watching anime in an illegal site 💀💀💀

How would you know that? What illegal sites are you watching your "anime" on?

Nuh uh I protect pirate sites for being terminated

"In order to attack, you need to move forward." - GM Igor Smirnov

Learn lefong trap

That only works in mindless, premove, bullet chess. Learn real chess.