Making the Chess.com Forums Better

hicetnunc wrote:

Mitch_Schwartzen wrote:

Commercial sites want to encourage as much posting as possible.  Internal site activity such as posting is "interlinking" which directly influences the algorythims used by search engines which pushes the site higher on search engine queries.

This is very important in the wider scheme of things.

Well, then I guess it's okay to keep the current level of crap in the public forums as it is

Not all of the forums are bad. Participate in the ones you like.

I'd much rather see extensive and useless quoting limited than limiting those who post.

bigpoison wrote:

Nope.  Worse.

Ok, +1, first part, two types of trolls, ask Macer for details. Some troll just for comic relief, and some troll to purposely get in a fight and insult someone

It's only really Off Topic which gets full up with junk and I doubt the people going there mind much - it is self evident that quite a few like the place.

I've visited chat boards on gaming sites since they first appeared and the forums here are better than most. Lots of rules isn't going to achieve much, I suspect, and tolerating a certain amount of imaturity is almost certainly the best policy. It is certainly easier.

Anyway it is erik and his fellow owners' site and if they want more regulation that is how things will go. I wish them good luck.

Yes, I agree. But at some point you have to put the cursor somewhere on the pure quality / pure quantity line. Imagine if the 'articles' section on chess.com  was managed the same way : we would certainly lose many valuable contributions !

If I was a new member, I may be turned off by the public forums on this website.

Yeh, its true.

You'd be punishing the majority of the legitmate contibutors for the sake of the minority.

A slightly over/under moderated forum is way better than an inactive forum where you have to be priveleged to post more.

              Can I just add 1 little minor correction, that should be EMPHASIZED.  Somewhere in Eric's speech, he said,  "If you are found unable to follow these rules, you may have your posting abilities restricted". Just change it to,  "you WILL have your posting abilities restricted".

Erik's seemingly underlying thought is to give kindness and consideration dips over sterness and rigidity.   He wants to give people second and third chances to cooperate with what he hopes is a more friendly atmosphere. 

                Then there's no sense in having the rule. There's 2 phrases there, with a time element implied. IF you have allready broken the 1st one, and there's no teeth to it; your giving a green light with no punishment to members who cannot follow the rules. And then the mods are stuck in the middle. The system we have now is fine for everyone. You get 1 warning; after that, out of the pool.

I'm just speaking from my window here, and I understand the business' concerns may be vastly different, but you're also driving away most of the good chess content from the forums.

Maybe the situation has evolved over the past months, but last time I was active in the public forums I found the level of aggressiveness and rudeness which was allowed was incredible.

I mean, yes, it's easy to have a very active forum with endless strings of meaningless posts such as : "the last one to post will be GM on Friday", but what's the point for the readers ?

The best chess forum on the Internet (won't name it) is heavily moderated, and last time I checked, there were only a small handful of valuable contributors left in the chess.com forums.

              Mitch read my post again. I'm not trying to tell Eric what he meant. I suggested 1 minor change. Either he'll do it, or he won't. He asked for input. That's my 2 cents, and after suggesting it, I bumped into the blindfolded knife juggler.

There are places designed just for either elite players or people heavily into analysis - serious players and heavily moderation helps maintain that level of seriousness.   Chess.com isn't such a place. It's far more ecumenical and has to reflect that in the forums.  However there are groups here that can serve that purpose if one choses to use them in such a way.  I doubt the forums here will ever serve that purpose for the most part.

The only thing that really needs to be done on this site IMO is that people who put up photos of unbelievably attractive women, and then play really fantastic speed chess, when in real life they look like Wayne Knight, should be severely punished.

Does anyone know who I'm talking about? I don't know if I'm in love, or if... eew!

Thank you! A perfect example of a dumb spammer/troll that comes to forums to just lower the qualitly of writing. A joke would be welcome or something to lower the tone of the philosophical seriousnes but not just some non deep dumb 2 word attack that ruins a nice forum. Also, bigpoison brings up his faliure. I made a forum once "player of the month" and bigpoison immediatly tried to destroy it but I out trolled him and he ended up being the Joke of the month instead of having his way by destroying another harmless forum. The cat eating the mouse. 

My feelings are very hurt.  Why don't the kiddies empathise with me?

I fully agree. Actually, I should make a distinction between the quality of the chess content itself and, let's say, the 'civility' in the forum.

It's not about chess.com providing high-level chess content in the forums (I agree it's not the goal), it's about the lack of civility making any valuable chess content disappear

Interesting. Here's my 2c:

Among the online communities I frequent, some offer "Like" or "+1", others offer up- and down-votes. Chess.com appears to offer neither. I very much prefer the first type.

Quite often I read a few forum posts, and don't feel inclined to say anything myself (there are too many words out there already), but I do like to indicate that I agree with someone; so a FB "Like" or a Motley Fool "Rec" exactly meets my need. I'd like to see something similar on chess.com.

I completely support erik's sentiments and new regulations. If properly heeded, they will make the forums and the site in general much healthier and uplifting.

Another key to creating a positive atmosphere, in addition to having greater empathy, is that we should all avoid taking offense where none is intended. Interpreting offense in tone-less comments is often a reflexive and instinctive reaction. When we feel that rancor welling up within us, we should not immediately start typing. We should stop and think about the variety of tones that could have been intended. We should stop and think about appropriate ways to respond. Then, when we've cooled down (after an hour, a day, or however long), we will hopefully be able to avoid escalating antagonism.

As I have been repeatedly saying: Regulations should not be placed on trolls. First, it would not be obayed and if it was inforced people would be banned for trolling which would not be good as has been proved by Cheater_1 and daeth who have giving rise to more trolls than before. Second, it would scare good trolls like me from being bold and helping everyones day for fear of being banned since we also attack people (although i only attack bad trolls or spammers). Another reason is that the Cat eating rat method is more effective in permanetly getting rid of the bad trolls. When a Cat (good troll) kills a rat (bad troll) it is because the rat realizes that he has been severely embarresed and isn't the best on chess.com anymore. He knows that he won't be taken seriously anymore if he posts and he choses to not post. If you try the plug method (banning them) you are just closing the hole where the rats come out and the rats build up until they break through and destroy everything, out of control of the cat now. I hope you understand my analogie,

Ajttja

Edit: this is in responce to Itude's latest post

I think it's partly this civility (or lack of it) that Erik hopes to address.  Certain restraints will be lifted in the Off-Topic area, but that leaves the regular forums hopefully more free from that sort of thing. (fingers-crossed)