Please Bring Back Censorship

Like a million other users, I love to solve the Daily Puzzle on chess.com.  Even more, I love looking beyond the solution to find alternate solutions, sometimes even defending the puzzle against critics who claim they've found a better move.  At least, I used to enjoy that . . .

Increasingly, I find that I can't enjoy it anymore.  Not because the puzzles aren't fun (and let's not open the old debate about puzzle complexity; another place, another time people); it's because trying to read the puzzle post is becoming so tedious that it sucks the fun out of even being there.  It started with the six-year olds who had to state the obvious fact of the number of their post.  (Yeah, you're second.  Yeah, we can see that by looking at the post number in the top right-hand corner of your comment.  Anything else?  Thanks for that enthralling revelation.)  Then came the people who realized that there was apparently no limit to the number of posts you could make on a topic, so it became a big thrill for them to fill up 3 or 4 pages of 'commentary' by posting their 'thoughts' one word at a time.  Sometimes not even words, just a character or number, in order to be truly annoying.  And now, the latest incarnation of Satan: posting nothing but a dozen or so smilie-faces in various shapes and sizes.

Look, if a web-site wants to provide a public forum, that's fine.  Promote free-speech within reason?  Also fine.  But why permit these obviously nonsensical comments that add absolutely no relevent discussion to the topic at hand?  More than ignoring the topic, they drive the serious chess player away from the discussion, eventually making the puzzle itself less relevent.

Would it be so bad if we deleted the post that added nothing to our lives but another emoticon or the letter 'Q'?  Can we get people to realize that posting the word 'first' is a waste of time because it won't be there for long anyway?  Can we actually foster discussion about (gasp) chess by limiting the discussion on that board to chess?

Censorship has gotten a bad reputation, but I believe it has its place.  This is an example of one such place.

First to answer!

Why does it matter that they waste their lives posting that stuff? Just ignore it, nobody is forcing you to look at it. If it takes you 5 extra seconds to find a quality post, oh well. If you don't have 5 extra seconds to spare, you probably shouldn't be here in the first place. Also, who gets to decide, and by which criteria, which posts are worthwhile?

@RyanMK

It used to take 5 seconds to skip past that stuff.  Now it takes several minutes of loading page after page of inane garbage.  I have 5 seconds.  I have 5 minutes for something worthwhile.  I don't have 5 minutes for something pointless and completely unecessary.

Who gets to decide?  By what measure?  How about letting the staff at Chess.com decide by the measure they have (supposedly) already set in place.  Their policy reads:

The following topics are not allowed in the main public forums or chat rooms:

• offensive/vulgar language
• personal attacks
• religious or political debate
• spammy/pointless/distracting posts
• discussion of illegal activities (drugs, etc)
• advertising competitive sites
• cheating

I believe the rule has been made.  It is only the enforcement of the stated rule that is in question.  And let's be reasonable here; it's pretty easy to decide if your post stays or goes.  You talk about the puzzle, your comment can stay.  You don't talk about the puzzle, it doesn't.  I realize that still leaves a legion of people whose only intellectual contribution will be 'Good one' or some such, but that still leaves us waaaay better off than we are today.

agreed. we'll clamp down on this.

Thank you, Erik.  You are truly a scholar and a gentleman.

the iron fist has begun it's swing... :D

you mean "its"

once again i disgrace myself and humbly bow out

son of push wood i am 13 and i think it is it's

but i have always been bad at grammer

Erik, I would like to suggest one thing - static puzzles.

You know that feeling, when you are solving tactical puzzles from a book or a newspaper? You are looking at some positions for few minutes, trying to analyze every single line in your head, and you still can't find the correct solution. And when you finally do solve it, you are even kind of proud of yourself. Moving pieces randomly or solving position after position on TT is completely different. And I bet that a lot of members here don't study chess from books and don't know this feeling.

Also, members would actually start posting explanations rather than pointless garbage. And to get members to actually write something decent, you could award a trophy to the one who posted first correct and insightful explanation.

I think that daily puzzles have much bigger potential.

Why not just have the daily puzzle posted in a locked thread, then have a sister thread for discussing it.

That way if you just want to do the puzzle you can, without having to read the nonsense. If you DO want to see the chat then you also view the sister thread.?

Problem solved?

Some good points here. If you look at the comments to the daily puzzle on chessgames.com, they tend to far more thoughtful and interesting. People take the time to show analysis, to demonstrate various lines their computer came up with, etc. I'm not sure what makes that site any different... perhaps there are more "serious" chess players on there?

Yes, If I'm not mistaken chess.com and chessgames.com have two extremely different communities. This should not be surprising by what is offered on each site. There isn't too much to do for people not serious about chess on chessgames. However here, you have the likes of Rich who can have tons of fun. 

Many people, including myself, have suggested revisions to the puzzle itself before.  Some suggestions have included displaying a poster's solve time and/or success rate, limiting posts to people who solve the puzzle, offering an incentive or award to the first person to successfully complete each day, disabling the 'solution' button until the puzzle is solved legitimately, and several other ideas that have various levels of workability.

In the final analysis, I think Erik and crew have developed a very user-friendly, basic puzzle system that attracts a diverse audience.  That was the point, I am sure, and if so they have succeeded.  In catering to the niche audiences such as the advanced player or player who is deeply analytical, then perhaps this puzzle format could be revised.  However, I am guessing that if and when chess.com does decide to bump the difficulty factor of the puzzle for those people, it would likely be in addition to and not as a replacement for the existing puzzle.

actually, i heard that baseballfan (staff) has started deleting pointless and nonsensical comments in these type of forum threads. However, the only thing that annoys me is that the phrase [COMMENT DELETED] will take up sometimes over 10 posts, I have to take 5 minutes to look for a post which is truly about chess.

Why not warn those who post nonsensical comments? (Something like live chess warnings) If they do it more than once, they'll be suspended for, say, a week. I'm not sure if the staff are able to do that, but this is just my suggestion, so no offense everyone.

I stopped looking at the daily puzzle a while back. I too at one point enjoyed discussion on some of the puzzles. Some of them are quite tricky and since the solution is only the main line there are legitimate questions about sidelines and variations. I dropped out of these discussions for two reasons, one of which was spam. And my goodness has it gotten worse by leaps and bounds!

If I was site ownership I would not hesitate to implement a system where a staff member revoks forum posting priveleges for a first offense in this thead. If someone else on staff thought it was too harsh, I'd settle for one warning, then ban.

The users who post junk on the daily puzzle -- which is directly linked from the main page -- make the site look unprofessional and childish. It turns away good chess players. They subtract from the value of the site. The value of the site is what puts food on the table of the owner. If I was the owner, these people who quite literally are taking from me and my employees what we work very hard for would be banned from forum posting in a heartbeat.

 I agree 100% with this sentiment ! I rarely check the daily puzzle due to the problems mentioned here and when I do I usually regret doing so. Those who are responsible should be warned once and then dealt with harshly on their second " offense ".

I'm glad to see that pointless posts are being removed, and I would like to see them completed erased. Todays puzzle has some interesting lines and analysis, and is well worth the time to look through. Other days (particularly for the easier puzzles) I have often wondered whether I should spend the time, but I do enjoy the interactive style of the puzzles, even if import sidelines are missing. This is of course what is good about the forum element. I also visit chessgames, which always has useful analysis posted, but the static puzzle poses a different challenge, and I like the variety.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and thanks for taking action on this.

You heard correctly, I am doing that. 

As for the [Comment Deleted], right now, there's nothing we can do about that, but we'll see if that cant be changed (I'm not sure).

As for warning folks.. we don't have the ability to do it like we do in Live Chess (that would be a LOT of programming work), but I am warning folks, and keeping track of repeat offenders, and I will be taking further action if need be.

3 cheers for baseballfan.  Good work Josh.

that will help a lot.

There have been a few spammers in tactics too, but usually they stop when they realize the impact on moderators trying to answer valid user questions.