Civility and Sportsmanship

The level of courtisy, politeness, and overall civility on this site is appauling, and making me seriously consider giving up chess all together...

I thought this was a gentlemens game... you find more civility at the end of a hockey match.  Something has to be said about this, becuase eventualy, nobody is going to like chess or chess players if it keeps up.

I used to like playing here becuase win or lose I knew the other person was having a good time and they would politely accept whatever outcome there is... Something I couldn't find on the other websites offering live chess online. But these days, I can barely find a single player who has the slightest bit of common decency.

Is this a sport for arrogent jerks?   I play at the beginner level live online (between 1200 and 1500)  and have been displeased and even shocked by the responses i've gotten to a simple, "Good game."

Sportsmanship is something every good coach teaches their players, and on this site, in this game online, without any real coaches, it seems that there is no sportsmanship. There seems to be nothing about the love of the game on this site. Only the love of winning and rubbing your opponents face in it.  And if thats what chess is about, then I think you can count me out.

And disabeling the chat function isn't really a solution, I find that more anoying than the poeple who simply don't respond, becuase it doesn't even give me the chance to show my civility and respect. I might as well be playing solitare chess becuase the human aspect feels lost.

In the real world I find less and less people to play chess with and I think it is becuase it has become a very uninviting game to play. When you go onto a site like this and lose, you hear responses like "Booya" even if your rating is hundreds of points below your opponents.  Or when you say "good game" you might read, "no, I played a good game, you stink."

Is that the kind of game we want the world to see? Is that what chess has devolved to? A way for people to force others to feel inferior?

In the real world away from chess and this website, if nobody likes chess and chess players becuase they know how arrogant, unsportsmanlike, and uncivilized they are, then nobody is going to want to be related to such a primitive sport.  Because a game is only as evolved as its players, and if everyone playing it starts acting like a neanderthal measuring who has the bigger stick, then the real loser becomes chess.

It is just a game (at levels lower than professional at least), and I think that something about respect and sportmanship should be just as important as tactics and strategy. Otherwise we're no better than the kids who (stereotypicaly) used to beat us up in school for playing it.

Yep, people are jerks sometimes, even when playing chess.

what might be helpfull is a rudeness level...   after a game you get the chance to vote on how rude/polite the person was... that way you can avoid the jerks out there.   kindof like the "avoid this player" option on xbox live.

 we have talk about this before and it can easily be abused.

But, what would stop the jerks from screwing that up? You know, 'cause they just like to be jerks, they would vote against people who are polite.

simple solution for this... have two ratings... one that says how often they are voted jerky. and one for how often they vote for jerkyness.    it cuases to phenonmonons of publicity...   people in general want to be seen as good.   Being seen as an abuser of the system is not good, and being a jerk is not good.  if those two things are made public, then both will be used with discretion....    being a jerk will be reserved for those you feel deserve it, and voting for being a jerk will be reserved as well.. its simple sociological psychology.

i understand the controversial nature of this. but honestly, if you think people are THAT rude as to abuse the system into obsolescence, then what faith in humanity should we maintain. 

send a simple guidelines post to all current and then new members, and i garuntee you that the desire to be socialy conformative due to the public nature of these actions will cause people to conform to the rules 95% of the time.

Sure abuse will be possible. But most people aren't jerks becuase they want to be jerks. If someone they cared about thought that they were a being a jerk (even just someone they happend to friend on this site at random), they'd think twice about their actions. They're jerks becuase nobody knows about it, and thus it becomes easy to think its okay and that they're justified.

Also, even with abuse, it will be obvious to determin the jerks from the civilised, becuase no matter what abuse occurs, it will level out in general...    consider it this way...  everyone will run across about the same amount of jerks abusing the system on average. (guidlines on not provoking the jerk vote would be helpful for preventing it though)  thus we will all have the same general base rating of jerkyness due to abuse...    those who are jerks however, will be called out as such by both jerks abusing the systeme and polite people alike, thus their scores will spike.  

that is unless you believe that the majority of people on this site are such d-bags as to abuse a system made to make this site a better place.  in which case, my original statement stands. chess may very well be a game for jerks, and since i don't want to become one, quitting might be the right thing to do to save my humanity.

If you do nothing though, this site will eventualy become, like said above, yahoo chess... with perks.  

don't tell me that, tell erik. 

After reading this, how were you able to correctly spell "sociological psychology"?

well if eric were here, i would... but i don't think he'd listen to a lone message from me. anyone know how to get him here to read this?

put it in the "site feeback and suggestion" category, btw is 'erik'

Solution to your problems: become an NM. People generally speaking are very curteous to me, even in live chess.

ozzie do you think his ideas will work ?

I'm sorry, all the young people are using these newfangled emoticons, I don't know what they all mean.

Zen...say nothing hear nothing...

you can ? how you do it on the forum ?

There are two mechanisms already in place for providing feedback: send trophies to saints; block sinners.

artfizz :  trophies involve cumbersome reasearch into their profile page, and blocked status isn't plublic, and since it isn't public the effect is void. who cares if one person out of a thousand blocks you. The reason you act civil (sometimes) playing over the board is becuase people are there to watch and judge you.

Estragon  :  I said before, I might as well play a computer program, they can't talk back either. well maybe not fritz sometimes ;) Plus, i like to tell people gg as a sign of good will. without chat i have no good will to give. I NEED to give my good will!

kco:  do YOU think my ideas will work?

Ozzy :  I'm working on it. ;)

Trysts :   When you've taken the courses, you pretty much learn how to spell them forever.

In general, I support the idea of a feedback system. In the design discussion, I would like to see these topics addressed:

• Is the design flexible enough to adapt after the inevitable gaming of the system, by some members
• Reduce the chances of a "race to the bottom" occurring. Perhaps make it difficult to check all players' sportsmanship scores.
• Some people would really get hit hard by this type of system. Some deserve it, some don't. It would be nice if players didn't get hit harder than they deserve, so to speak. I'm thinking specifically of the type of player and forum poster who is generally contrarian, disagreeable, and yes sometimes rude. But since this type of personality gets their energy from being disagreeable, not from being rude, it would be nice if they didn't get overly penalized just because they're like that.

One idea is to have ratings be non-visible for a time. Another is to have just a pilot system in place (slow rollout). But above all you want to make sure you don't release such a feature, and then have to pull it back because it just didn't work (technically, or the user base rebelled, or whatever).

@batmanng a wise person once suggested *handshake* at the end of games, instead of gg, good game, well-played, or anything else. Seems reasonable to me.

Of course then you'll run into this:

you: *handshake*

them: *punch you in face*

But you can't win them all! :-)

Hmmm, Batman and Oswald Cobblepot appearing to agree on something. Shurely shome mishtake  Perhaps it is part of some subtle and fiendishly cunning plan ...