I promise I will be modest and polite

Elitist much?

Everyone including many of my Spanish girlfriends agree that everything that has to do with "doblada al castellano" is worse than the traductions they do for latinamerica.

C'mon, that sounds pdelish. You can make believe your imaginary Spanish girlfriends whatever you want. I'm old enough to have swallowed tons of USA cartoons dubbed across the pond and still sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

We have brought to chess.com the oldest and dumbest debate in the Spanish speaking internet! 

Wife: "¡no más mojitos! ¿Tiene Aquarius, por favor?

Mexican waiter: "¿ah?"

Me: "bebida isotónica".

Mexican waiter: "acá le desimos Gueeeeitoreid".

I never drank or smoked. ....until i joined Chess.com.

I never trolled or said nonsense...until I joined chess.com

with reluctance I will again comment.

for there's a lot to say.

as a long time regular to the forum- I'm not entirely sure the past was THAT much better.  Perhaps some of the topics were less repetitious; was it because there was less people and the topics hadn't been said.  ofc, what seemed "new" to me might have been old, tired "repetition" to an experienced guy back then.

I also think rather strongly that the moderators are Doing their best.  are they muting and deleting every little thing??  no.. but THINK guys- whats the end of that?  of these posters that you can't stand-  Won't they just retaliate in a load of "censorship" crap? and frankly, then the buckle down and write alot more. 

there IS a lot of 'humor' in the forums.  there really must be, for there's not really much instructive thoughtful stuff to be said then has been written before- if not here- but also in articles and by authors and thinkers (at least in chess terms)

so If we tolerate humor (and we do, Eric clearly has decided that)-- we must accept some stuff that is edgy ; so long as it isn't Pg13+, abusive, or about topics that eric has deemed subversive and unacceptable.

I would say with Batgirl in mind.  that she personally has done MORE than anyone person in bringing real content to the forums- and we should all be very grateful for this particular poster in bringing educational material in it, and elevating it beyond the very repetitious threads any regular has seen a zillion times...

I would also very briefly comment to the semi-trolls.  Trex directly addresses kaynight- but there are others and we all know who they are.

those guys ARE what trolls should be at chess.com and are actually one of the chess.com better citizens.  Using the word "troll" and having some light humor is totally apreciated.  OTOH; there's guys here that seem pretty dark to me, that cause a lot of dissent, then pretend in other places to be the nice guys.  

I would urge them to give up their troll-like ways.  but most likely.... they would only smile at that.  because "trolls" by the nature really are doing this as a joke- OR if they are, they are fairly aware that they are mocking people.

if you have or do verbally abuse people shame on you.  seriously give up that crap.  this forum doesn't need that.  this should be a place of, if not friends, at least a friendly community where people are respected...

I know that words on the internet are not so menacing; but the noise and rancor is disruptive and prevents people from having fun and every once in a  while learning stuff.

and that is why I am here.

my opinion is that the mods do a fairly good job at stopping this, when they see it. 

ha! you were an exception ! read it over again...

Erik knows that  for some reason this forums are plagued with patzers that do not appreciate real chess discussion, and that the only way to keep this alive is to allow trolls to live.

as far as "REAL" chess discussion

how instructive is it to watch some patzer and pfren go at it?

masters understand the game in a way that patzers can't IMHO....

It is sad having to watch Pfren repeat himself because a stupid patzer feels he has solved chess.

It's not elitist to show a bunch of rowdy drunks the door at your book club meeting...

The crux of the issue is a point from a Billy Joel song:

"You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
Aw but that never hurt no one..."

...except that this stanza is BS.  Clamoring around a forum like bulls in a china shop does hurt everyone, as has been pointed out.  I'm not saying the forums completely suck...they are better now than the trolling heyday...but there's a scorched earth effect left behind, and nothing can grow back, so now we have a whole lot of blah, which invites the remaining trolls to keep posting junk.  

Batgirl's posts are the kind that we should see a lot more of, and I applaud her for the effort.  My own threads posted in this "combat the trash with decent chess content" direction (stuff like getting photos proving which directions all former champions face their knights, the origins of chess lingo, etc.) also have mediocre results, and I'm sorry to say that I am not as steadfast as Batgirl in holding the line on this front.

There needs to a be a more concerted effort, driven by chess.com, if they want to fix things.  Better moderation, and maybe a post or two from Erik asking people to step up with actual chess content.  The other problem is one that often happens thanks to technology giving us *too* much:  people and content are spread across too many areas for the good content to shine through...forums, groups, blogs, profile notes...it's scattered everywhere.

P.S. I am posting this in spite of the irony that is also a trolling thread.

Why are all the comments so friggin long?

I need to tell you a little about how Mr. SonofThunder 2  's hircosity and impudicity are an embarrassment to everyone around him. And so I shall. Alas, listing all of our nation's woes that are directly caused by SonofThunder would take up far too much of this letter: the spread of mercantalism; a newfound interest by unforgiving moochers in replacing our timeless traditions with SonofThunder's crapulous, rude ones; the increasing number of people who believe that every word that leaves SonofThunder's mouth is teeming with useful information; and so forth. Hence, to keep this letter to the point, I will limit its focus to a discussion of how the time has arrived to make a choice between freedom and slavery, revolt and submission, liberty and subservience. We must choose wisely, knowing that if we hunt down not only the perpetrators of radicalism but also all of the proponents of that myopic philosophy, we can live as truly free and empowered human beings. If, however, we let SonofThunder launch a salvo of Pecksniffian ventures against the somber, oppressed masses, we become little more than fearful, broken dogs condemned to exist in a world of unsympathetic statism. Those of us who are still sane, those of us who still have a firm grip on reality, those of us who still think that his comrades fight more for the negative destruction of opposing ideologies than for the positive promotion of their own, have an obligation to do more than just observe what he is doing from a safe distance. We have an obligation to dispense justice. We have an obligation to shed a little light on some of the ignorant prejudices that reside within his pea-sized brain. And we have an obligation to tear down his fortress of insurrectionism.

If society were a beer bottle—something, I believe, that SonofThunder holds in high regard—he would indeed be the nauseating bit at the bottom that only the homeless like to drink. He has no qualms about using “enhanced interrogation techniques” to coerce his nemeses into stating that SonofThunder is the ultimate authority on what's right and what's wrong. He doesn't want to discuss that, of course. He'd rather be out reconstituting society on the basis of arrested development and envious malevolence. What this tells us is that by refusing to act, by refusing to lead a jacquerie against SonofThunder, we are giving SonofThunder the power to substitute pap for art.

There is one crucial fact that we must not overlook if we are to perceive our current situation as it is, rather than in the anamorphosis of some “ideology” such as parasitism or collaborationism. Specifically, if I were a complete sap, I'd believe SonofThunder's line that I'm some sort of cully who can be duped into believing that loathsome sociopaths are easily housebroken. Unfortunately for him, I realize that SonofThunder wants to prevent us from challenging his victim-blaming ideology. If he manages to do that, he'll have plenty of time to focus on his core mission: forcing us to tailor our vituperations just to suit his beer-guzzling whims. With this letter, I hope I have made my views clear: Mr. SonofThunder 2   is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings.

@Bilbo21, you do realize I just red the first 2 sentences, right?

©scott pakin, I should say

Your attention span has grown, Mr Adamov

Lol. Im not Adamov. Im another troll, sorry to disappoint you.