How do these forums and the rest of the site work?

I have been a member here for around a month or so. I got somewhat upset with trolls here, but it was very similar to WOW forums. I guess I just expected chess players to be more respectful than "gamers". I expected that for two reasons.

One there is far more work to get good at chess. Gamers will disagree, but I made it to being one of the top raiders in my "realm" within a couple years. The realm was Stormrage, the largest of all the WOW realms. Also, gaming requires eye hand coordination. Chess is pure intellect.

Two, chess, for thousands of years, has been a board game and all the best players play OTB chess in addition to online. All chess games I have had in person were always very respectful, so naturally I thought the forums would follow suit, but it seemed as bad as WOW.

However I blocked a few and no more trolls, so maybe that aspect is working. 

Anyway, I noticed I see the same people posting all the time and I have to wonder are we in some sort of Chess,com realm?

The reason WOW is set up into about 250 realms and they service 8 million members. Chess.com has 18 million members.

I'm just wondering how it is set up.

How many people interact with you, or do you have all 18 million you can interact with?

Is getting a game different from the crowd you meet on the forums?

I do notice people from all over the world on the forums, but surely we don't all share the same one.

It does seem we have access to study all titled players, who happen to be members, which is nice.

Thanks for the input guys. I hadn't considered the fact that WOW graphics and real time interaction with other players would create a cyber "black hole" for servers to keep up with. That makes sense. Also, just from looking at his thread, it is troll free, which is nice. I like the idea of putting the bad apples in one location. Sounds like the perfect solution. You can count me as one of the retired ones. I turn 62 in October and taking advantage of it then. Now I have to go Google "the dunning kruger effect".

Seriously... I like most gaming communities I've interacted with more than the "mainstream" chess.com community. And it has nothing to do with the "trolls." Chess.com has a bunch of self-styled intellectuals and people who think of themselves as paradigms of reason and rationality - and of course it does, because it's a chess site, and chess is supposed to be smart, and sophisticated, and more cutured than most pursuits, right? On gaming sites, people understand that there are no positive connotations associated with what they're doing, and they don't take themselves as seriously.

If it were only the professional chess players taking themselves seriously I wouldn't be calling them out. They're entitled to think highly of their skills (in chess, at least), based on what they've accomplished. But none of the "intellectuals" on chess.com are professionals (nor are they smug about their chess skills, but rather their intellect in general, it seems). They're just regular chess players, and compared to regular gamers they think much more highly of themselves.

Indeed, the 2000 has the ability to speak more authoritatively on (most) matters related to chess than the 1200. What I'm noticing, however, is that on average people on chess.com think more highly of themselves than people on gaming sites - and I'm not talking about matters related to chess. For instance, on chess.com as well as in gaming communities I frequently observe arguments eventually evolving into pure hostility. On gaming sites, the manifestation of hostility is mostly generic (but maybe occasionally creative) insults and swearing. On chess.com, on the other hand, there are a lot more seemingly sophisticated attacks full of latin terms and links to wikipedia that really just boil down to "I'm smarter than you," or "You're uneducated"... things like that. It's the same sort of argument-free personal attacks that you see elsewhere couched in seemingly erudite language.

An example off the top of my head is the "Is chess a sport? Ending the debate." thread.

Agreed that most commenters think they know more than they do and there are those who think they know-it-all.  Of course, there are things about chess that are obvious, like the guy who moves the same piece 4x in the first five moves or doesn't defend f7 in opening and wants to know why he lost the game.  The 900 OTB high school kids I coached could answer that instantly.  Then there are specific principles and rules of thumb that are clear to, perhaps, 1100 players like a Knight on the 4th Rank is a powerful as a Bishop, a Knight on the 5th Rank is more powerful than a Bishop, a Knight on the 6th Rank is devastating.  The 900 player may know the rule but the 1100 player has some understanding of when the rule does not apply.  When you get into complex strategies like determining where to attack based on imbalances and how to execute complicated combinations, it's clear the most of us less-than-master have a significantly poorer understanding than the master.

So it's NOT ridiculous to see a lower rated player giving advice in those areas where it fits but, as macer75 said, those "Ending the debate" posts ARE ridiculous as are the derogatory comments like "look at what an idiot my opponent was in this game."

Anyone can start a discussion. Some run for 52 pages, like the why do people play out lost games.

You really have to find the good people as you play, if they chat. I play Pirc defense that group is more like the intelligent group of people you'd hope to find.

Yes, some individuals take advantage of the situation and behave badly because they don't do it face-to-face. You know the type and they're here, too.

BUT, you can chose to only interact with the "good" players. Someone who will play best of three is usually a good sign of a player with some class.

Check out Pirc Cafe, see if you can find some players rated where you want and issue a challenge. If you want to talk chess in a forum, I think there is a list of threads running and maybe one will strike you as worth looking into.

There are still people here with chess etiquette and it's worth finding them. The ones you don't care for, just don't follow...or bother to change some trolls mind!

Good luck.

Thanks, this thread has yet to be corrupted, so the trolls I blocked seems to have worked. I haven't explored chatting during a game, since I only play 1 minute live. I want to get better at my daily and TT before going to the longer live games where chatting would be an option. Having spent 20 years online only playing 1 and 3 minute games has corrupted my long game ability, so I want to work on it before playing 15 to 20 minutes live.

Yea, I play 15/10 and usually use half of it and have time to actually communicate with my opponents; which may be one of the advantages of on-line vs. otb. Just try talking across the board and make a tourny directors day! Very few outside the club I was in were less likely to carry on a conversion talking to a rock! I think this generation of players is a lot less weird than Fisher-Spassky days.

That's interesting! I have never played in a tourney, but, granted, we rarely spoke OTB at the chess clubs I belonged too. However, when I play the one friend I have who does play we drink wine and talk a lot. Very enjoyable and he usually kicks my ass, since he belonged to his college chess club and is a generation younger than me. I look forward to the 15 minute games where I can chat, once I muster the courage to do so. Only no wine. 

Party chess with friends? Love it; especially when you get to that buzz of ultimate genius that gets shot to hell after you finish your next drink and it degenerates into ridiculous attempts to be serious. Plus, we live in Massachusetts, if you get my drift.

Heh, yeah Massachusetts is probably the chess capital of the US.

We didn't get that buzzed though (his wife is my doctor)