What skill level is a 1400 at?

This is something I'm curious about. I've jumped into the 1400 range and I've managed to stay consistently in that range, sometimes playing games like a 1600-1800, other times like an 1100. I'm wondering though, what skill level would a 1400 be placed at? Is it still fairly noobish, or is it in the 'kind of getting good' area? Or maybe 1400's like the puberty of chess, the awkward middle phase where you're not sure what's going to happen? I'd love to hear thoughts, especially from higher-rated players. (you guys might have a better perspective) 

You’re in the top 5% of members. That makes you elite.

1400 is slightly better than a 1300 and slightly worse than a 1500.

Can you give us a source of telling that 1400 is in the elite category ? I don't think 1400-1600 is in that elite. I think near 1700 is the starting point to become in the elite, because there is chances for player of that category to face 2000s rated players as I have experienced, although not much. From there, one should try hard to get to 1800 which is I think the lower bound of the elite level.

Players of 1400s would become complacent when they are told they are already in the elite, hence will not make effort to improve.

Elite is obviously a subjective term. That you are in the top 5%, however, is clear in your stats.

When I fall into the 1700s, I think my play stinks. When I am in the 1800s, I feel that I have a chance to get back above 1900, which would be satisfying until I notice that my peak is over 2000.

We’re talking about rapid on a chess site.

OTB, I’m USCF A Class and have been since 2009. I’m okay, but no where near master class. Masters know the game. I’m a reasonably competent hobbyist. 

What I’m getting at: are you happy to be in the 1400s?

You’re no noob, but you likely still need work on some basics. Whether your most serious weaknesses are planning, tactics, endgames, or something else, I cannot say unless I spend a lot of time looking at your games.

I have experienced being in 1400s, and felt I was not talented compared to even 1600s players. So, I tried to reach 1500, and suceeded, tried to reach 1600 and then 1700, and sucessfully got there, although went back and forth between 1600-1700.

As I said elsewhere, in the level of high 1600-1700, we will have chances to play against 1800-2000 opponents, from which we can improve our skill. Although we will lose or just get draws from these strong players, we can take lesson for our improvement from that challenging games.

A way to answer this, would be that maybe around the 1400 rating, players miss things like waiting moves in certain positions or defensive moves, or play an incorrect move order more often than a higher rated player might do...

Take a look at the O'kelly Sicilian, there are a couple of systems or setups, that a 1400 could get wrong, on the other hand a 1800 would know what to do. Step by step you recognise patterns in the Opening Phase of the game until you know possible outcomes of a game.

Some Rook Pawn Endgames are complicated, and require over 30 moves just to bring a pawn to the next Rank.... that's where the Fun starts.....

I agree with this. And yes, we are talking about rating in Rapid time control which sufficiently describes our true ability compared to in Blitz.

It's elite in a scholastic tournament where the average age is 10, the average experience is one month, and the average rating is 500.

But in that context it's elite to know things like en passant and how to checkmate with a king and rook.

None of these things are elite among people who spend any amount of time with the game.

You can't tell the difference between 1400 and 1800, so you wouldn't know whether or not you're playing like one.

Anyway, to answer your question, it's better to use blitz since that's closer to OTB... so you're asking how good 1100 is. It means you've been playing for a while and know some basics, but you haven't mastered blunder checking yet, so sometimes you still give away a piece or a pawn to a simple tactic like a fork or skewer because you didn't see it was possible for your opponent to play that.

Blitz is closer to OTB ?

From my experience, online Rapid 15|10 is closer to even classic OTB. There is a plenty of time for me to do calculation in this kind of Rapid game. Sometimes I need to have the same confidence as I had in the past when I beat 1 FM and 1 NM in OTB simultaneous events.

Data that was gathered a few years ago showed that blitz ratings correlate better with OTB than any other time control. 

But, the experience of 15/10 is more akin to OTB in terms of the thinking processes. Someone once said that blitz is “smoke and mirrors”. http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2008/12/utter-chaos.html

I have no idea of the statistic, so you may be right about that. Although never playing in OTB blitz, I can feel that playing online Blitz will be that close to OTB blitz.

I am more concerned with the process of thinking which you also mentioned, because of that past experience.

Playing OTB Blitz and online are two different environments, you should see our internal club events like the Christmas Blitz, you have to touch the clock and think about your moves. In online Blitz you don't have the touch the clock with same hand as you moved a piece with rule, etc...

15|10 is probably massively overrated since it's mostly beginners who are interested in that time control.

Yeah, blitz is not proper chess, particularly the longer the games goes the more silly it becomes. Well played endgames (other than one side is easily winning or easily drawing) are nonexistent for example.

But it's hard for me to judge 1400 rapid since by the time I'd joined this site I was already way beyond that... so it's easier for me to try to figure out where a player is in terms of OTB.

Take that data with a massive bucket of salt as it has a ton of bias in it.

I know kids who play blitz all the time with ratings of 2200+ on this site with classical USCF ratings of ~1800.  I know people who are roughly 2000 USCF with ~1500 blitz ratings because they almost never play blitz.

When trying to see how good you are compared to people who play OTB, the only real way to tell is to actually go play OTB.

Or you could apply some obvious conversions such as kids are better at blitz, and people who play blitz all the time are also better at blitz... and thereby easily achieve a reasonable estimate.

That is the point.  The data had a form of confirmation bias built in because of how the data was collected (i.e. the population it was looking at).  Trying to expand that to look at the wider population does not hold much value.

1400 is a very respectable rating you are almost about to enter class A here are the rating classes 

Beginners 0-500

Class C 500-1000

Class B 1000-1500

Class A 1500-2000

Experts 2000-2500

Masters over2500