Rating's importance for yourself

Over the long term, all ratings are important to me, as they are the best indicators of my progress that I have (assuming there aren't confounding variables like timing out lots of online games, consciously spending less time for online games than in the past, or trying out new openings and approaches).

I don't understand why anyone would not regard their rating as important (given the caveats above) if they think improving at chess is important. That definitely doesn't mean that you should strive to maximize your rating (e.g., learning silly traps in hope of suprising your opponents, playing unsound but very dangerous openings for the unprepared, or playing only the type of game that you are best at rather than striving to improve your weaknesses), but that you should strive to improve your chess ability, and over the long-term, your rating will track your ability and thus provide a uniquely informative indicator of ability.

all ratings are important....live and OTB (not CC for me....I don't take that seriously).since I don't have a OTB rating...then my online ones are even more important since that's the only thing I can go by to measure my actual strength.

I think your answers reflect most chess player's beliefs.

 MY RATINGS VARIED FROM 910 TO 1340- I AGREE THAT THE BASIS FOR EVERY GAME IS NOT TO PUT YOU RATING FIRST BUT TO ENJOY THE GAME IF YOU WIN OR LOSE.

Maybe you are right,maybe not.

I just wanted to make something like a "discussion forum post survey"..

So, by your last sentence you are saying to everybody here,and mostly to website owners that

a)their website is not so representative of chess in real

b)it is good only for practise(maybe chesspractise.com was a better name)

c)there shoudn't be any great difference if there were only unrated games in onlince chess because all online games' ratings are meaningless.

I can't say much about the cheater situation, but I've not yet encountered anything that looks like cheating to me here... that said, I actually think my turn-based ratings here are more indicative of my skill than my USCF rating over the board.

First, I'm able to play many, many more rated games here. There are very few rated tournaments where I live (Hawai`i) and it's expensive to travel to the mainland to play USCF tournaments. (The fact that I can play so many games on chess.com that I play too fast, affecting my rating, is not chess.com's fault.)

Second, USCF uses a system that to all intents and purposes is an ELO system. Chess.com uses the Glicko system. Glicko is not perfect but I think the use of the RD factor increases rating accuracy. By contrast if I play USCF rated every weekend, a game has the same K-factor as if I played one tournament in three years. That makes ratings very volatile.

I think playing only with traps and dangerous but rare openings will never help someone to improve his skills-not even his rating

I value my rating as an indication of how I am currently going. I try to keep track of trends and when my rating starts to drop dramatically I know that I need to change something (usually not playing when I'm half asleep will do the trick).

As for cheaters I don't think I've ever encountered one on chess.com and I have 800+ games under my belt now. I'm not really worried about cheaters.

What ever, ratings reflect playing strength with a margin of error of about + or - 130 points.  Unfortunately time-outs distort the ratings of a small number (15% ??) of players.  Just my guesstimates [].

Care about/don't care about ratings or something like that would be more appropriate for this topic (thus the nitpicking comment). For/against ratings is another issue, since even if you dont care about your rating that doesn't mean you are automatically against ratings, especially since they are quite useful, especially online, so that people can play agaisnt people similarly strengthed.

I'm not saying that ratings are a precise representation of strength, but they are a representation and are usually accurate enough to be helpful. There may not be a noticable difference in strength between a player rated 1800 and 1750, however between 1800 and 1000 there is little doubt of a difference, and it definitely matters in choosing an opponent.

edit: the ratings above are, naturally, used assuming that the ratings "are mature" and contemporary.

 Gotta disagree with you on that...money doesnt rule everyone's life.

 Yes cheating is common, whether its a chess engine or sand bagging.

I'd say its just a general indication - online ratings are affected by playing too many games at one time, too much wine, playing when tired, watching TV at same time and not paying full attention to games, people cheating, time outs, some people only play lower rated players, people playing way above or below their true ratings  etc etc...

I played on another site and my ratings swung from 1900 to 1500 in a few weeks

I fully agree. This is a wise statement. Of course, the best thing of all is to enjoy the games and the pleasure of playing chess with players from all over the world (and for free if you wish; chess.com is extremely generous in allowing virtually unlimited play to free members).

Rating is like penis size.

Everybody wants it to grow, but nobody knows how to handle it.

I don't care raising or increasing my rating on internet cos I can't :) cos of cheaters that use progs ! 
And nowadays no one can win recent engines !! 

At your rating level you shouldnt really worry that much about progs, they are rare.

I don't care about rating. Rating will increase automatically if you deserve it.
Care about playing/finding the best move by move.
it is more motivating trying to win a tournament than a number.
 

yes you are right ! 
My connection is too weak so I lost alot of maches but I participated in blitz tournment and got the 1st position ,, and in bullet tournment and got the 3rd in standard I got the 2nd ^^ I like that even my rating is not so high !