Nothing is wrong with Chess.com

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Avatar of The_Krieg

Chess.com has no problems at all

System capacity is not an issue

Site is stable

Everything is fine

Automation is a positive

-Klaatu

Avatar of Martin_Stahl

Completely stopping new registrations likely isn't a workable solution for the site. I would imagine they thought about it but decided not to.

Avatar of BoardMonkey

This really is only temporary. I think turning away people could make them go somewhere else and maybe never come back to join CDC. So a short term problem could end up costing long term memberships. It's too late anyway. CDC has already allowed too many new members.

My idea is rationing. We have the members we have but only so many games that can be played. All you have to do is administratively limit the number of games you can play until the system gets fixed. It's a matter of allocating scarce resources. It's brutal but fair and there would be no overloads. Remember non-paying members are being paid for by the advertisers. So let's not slight them.

Overloads are unfair. We don't have to have them.

Avatar of Martin_Stahl
The_Krieg wrot

Not a workable solution??????

The Server is constantly crashing making it impossible to play games consistently or reliably online

So they would compromise the entire site integrity for the sake of adding even more users when the current numbers are crashing the systems?????  Makes no sense

 

In addition, if the site is constantly crashing, then forget about ad money because that will dry up as players begin to see it as a nonviable site.  You have to address the problem which is server capacity.

 

You can accomplish that by 1) spending the money to do so 2) in the absence of that, then reducing server overload by halting new accounts temporarily and reducing automated activity on the site.  Believe me.  My solution would work and is probably the least costly approach to restoring site integrity

 

The members are already here using the site. New members likely are just an incremental increase and not all of them are on at the same time.

 

But as mentioned, staff have likely thought of mutiple options and since they haven't stopped registrations, it's very likely they have already rejected that as an option.

Avatar of JuergenWerner
The_Krieg wrote:

Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online.  By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity.  That leads to massive crashes in your systems 

 

Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!

Avatar of Martin_Stahl
JuergenWerner wrote:

 

Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!

 

Closed accounts don't create load on the servers. Also, accounts are linked to games, content, etc, so there will always have to be account records on the DB to link to them. 

Avatar of SpringPow
JuergenWerner wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:

Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online.  By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity.  That leads to massive crashes in your systems 

 

Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!

what do you mean?

Avatar of SterlingArcher2009

Well idk what the right solution might be but something has to be done. The server crashed for the millionth time today in the middle of a game.....My internet connection shows red but everything else works fine, so it's not that

Avatar of Porcelaindoll
What about disallowing play until email confirmation permanently? Also a 24hr cooldown to play games after the creation of a new account should stagger things
Avatar of BoardMonkey
The_Krieg wrote:

If you see 10,000 games being played by a single account in a month or close to that, then you know that's not normal.  flag it.  algorithm it and begin the purging process

Man, are there really accounts like that?

Avatar of Outmachin

How do you happen to know the issue is about automated accounts ? Do you have anything to show to support this theory ?

Avatar of BoardMonkey

Take it easy on us. We're here to listen.

Avatar of EndZoneX
The_Krieg wrote:
BoardMonkey wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:

If you see 10,000 games being played by a single account in a month or close to that, then you know that's not normal.  flag it.  algorithm it and begin the purging process

Man, are there really accounts like that?

 

duh

that's the reason why the servers are at capacity and overloaded.

temporary solution & the cheapest most effective solution is to temporarily halt new account generation & actively go after the automated play

Imagine being a new chess player, who, as part of the recent chess boom, is about to sign up for chess.com (and possibly become a paying member!). How would you react to not being able to join?
It would be so bad for chess.com's growth if they stopped account creation altogether. That would be like an airline canceling all their flights during vacation season. It just isn't good for them, as they want to take advantage of the chess boom.

Avatar of JuergenWerner
The_Krieg wrote:
SpringPao wrote:
JuergenWerner wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:

Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online.  By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity.  That leads to massive crashes in your systems 

 

Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!

what do you mean?

 

I believe that some of the closed accounts were actually wrongfully closed 

 

Perhaps close and cancel accounts that were caught violating the fairness standards but there has been some arbitrary account closings on chess.com 

 

That is why some of the more popular members on the site no longer post here.  They made it fun and were silenced by some overly conservative type that was given the ability to silence them unfairly

 

Delete all of the closed accounts that were not closed to fairplay and so forth. If those accounts posted posts in the forums then mark the usernames as "system account" or something indicating that the accounts have been deleted.

 

Also, you're correct that non-paying users being only allowed to play will have them leave chesscom for sites like lichessorg and such.

Avatar of BoardMonkey

Maybe if we had new non-premium accounts pay a one time membership of $10. You're not going to field an army of bots that way. Let there be one or two credit cards per household.

I don't believe this army of bots exists btw. But I'm following this. Keep going.

Avatar of KingMoored

When this all started I was also suspicious that Chesscom could be under attack from an automated account creation bot.

But I've been occasionally looking at the Newest Members List and haven't seen anything that looked suspicious:

https://www.chess.com/members/newest

Avatar of justbefair
The_Krieg wrote:

When Elon purchased Twitter, he realized that there was an underlying issue with automated accounts that were plaguing the system.  Those automated accounts cost money to maintain and take up system capacity and exhaust site resources due to the need to constantly police those violators.  

 

That is why twitter began cracking down on automated accounts & weeded out rule breaking automation 

 

On chess.com, there are literally 10s of thousands of accounts created daily by automation.  It's fine if its actual people playing chess.  Limit them to say 10 accounts thats fair.  Those accounts are fine.  The problem are the automated accounts that sync with computers and play literally thousands of games per second per minute per hour.  That causes resource drain & also forces constant resource drain because you have to hunt down the violators and waste time and systems on checking games over and over suspending accounts and closing those accounts.  Solution:  temporarily halt all new accounts & start cracking down on the automated accounts sync to the system.  

 

If you see 10,000 games being played by a single account in a month or close to that, then you know that's not normal.  flag it.  algorithm it and begin the purging process

Please provide a list of some of those accounts playing 10,000 games in a month...

I have only seen several that could have been capable of that:

https://www.chess.com/member/pokerbloke99  was up to 450,000 games before account was closed in February 2022.

https://www.chess.com/member/peacemyfriend  was up to 394,000 games but stopped playing in November 2022.

 

Avatar of Martin_Stahl
The_Krieg wrote:

Your logic is flawed here

Stopping new accounts temporarily doesn't permanently exclude anyone 

site integrity is necessary in order to have a site at all

If your site does not work, then no one will want to play here so the issue of system overload and server capacity diminishment has to be addressed immediately.  

Both can be done now without much cost

 

If someone comes to the site and can't create an account, they'll most like go elsewhere.  If they have no issues creating an account elsewhere and they find the site useful, they may never come back.

 

With the exception of peak times, the site is pretty stable and staff have been continuously making changes to help solve the overall problem, so even peak times will get better as well 

Avatar of Woollensock2
Hey Guys 👋….you’ve earned it , it’s time to take a break, coffee and doughnuts 🍩 are now being served ! ✌️😎
Avatar of BoardMonkey
Woollensock2 wrote:
Hey Guys 👋….you’ve earned it , it’s time to take a break, coffee and doughnuts 🍩 are now being served ! ✌️😎

The doughnuts can wait and coffee makes me cranky. It's interesting how @The_Krieg has gone from accounts with 10,000 games a week down to accounts with 2,000 games a week. It's a switch straight out of the demagogue's toolbox. 2,000 is an outrageous number so he started us out with 10,000. Keep flooding the zone Krieg.