School kids have discovered online chess, according to my 14 year old daughter many are playing on chess.com. I am not sure why that started, but they are like sheep in their online behaviour, if one goes there lots will follow
Why not block new accounts for the time being?
Honestly, just curious. could you please ask your 14 year old how many of her classmates are playing chess online. just a rough estimate. 100% 90% 50% 20%... etc.
site is failing
truthfully, when the site crashes mid game & you receive messages about server capacity as a reason for the crashes and 505 errors, you know that the systems in place cannot handle the increased unusual traffic.
sadly nothing is being done & none of you know why the site is crashing so frequently or how to prevent it from happening. That's a site integrity issue at this point.
Staff have been working on a lot of different things and issues are occurring a lot less frequently. There's still work being done and it should keep getting more stable, though it's always possible there will be blips as updates are made.
According to what's been posted staff are aiming to be able to hand 3-5x the traffic when all work gets completed
Mods lock forum topics all the time...
It's censorship in its coldest form because it can be abused and arbitrary to be honest
Isn't it odd that daily user numbers are growing so quickly on chess.com without anything happening in chess????? I mean there is literally nothing happening right now. If anyone is objectively looking into this, then please search online for chess related events happening today. Nothing noteworthy is happening. so with nothing happening, people are rushing to open a chess.com account to play 100s of games nonstop for 30 days logging on every day because they suddenly got hooked on chess?
I do have an igloo in Montana to sell you if you believe that...
Mutes and locking aren't what the members that brought up not being able to post here were impacted by.
Not everyone getting involved in online chess is going to make the migration to over the board. Of those that do, some will only play with friends and family in person. Some will attend clubs and quickly stop. Some will keep that up and some will join tournaments and play.
Some members here have already posted they have seen higher numbers at both clubs and in tournaments. You have been discounting that as not significant, however It's apparently happening in a lot of places, which shows there has been an increase in chess interest that have made it to those OTB situations.
I'm suspecting that many of the new accounts are simply bots. There's a program that can control 30,000 online accounts and act just like you and me. Write, talk- and play chess. I challenged four newbies, all unrated games. Two never responded (bots?) and the other two I beat. I don't see how mittens increased the sport. I keep up a little bit with the chess news, and I heard about it, but I don't think it ever really ended up on the BBC. And why should anyone care? I never even checked it out until recently and now it's gone.
I don't doubt there are bot accounts on this website that aren't marked as such. Could be many of them. But I just don't understand how your experience challenging four new accounts and getting two nonresponses is any evidence to that effect.
People new to the website might not even know that they've received a challenge. They might not know how the alerts work. They could be on the app and not see it. They could be a young kid. Who knows
Or they might intentionally ignore it. I get challenges from random people all the time and I'm barely on this site apart from to play bughouse and read these forums. I get new friend requests from random people very often too. In both cases I have no intention of accepting but I often forget to decline or don't notice new ones or whatever.
I don't expect *anyone* to accept a challenge from a random person unthinkingly. People can if they want to, but honestly, someone not responding to a challenge is almost the default behavior that I'd expect, rather than evidence of something weird happening.
I wonder what the real numbers are on chess.com...
How many new accounts & what is the mass exponential growth factor that is causing systems to fail?
Can someone reveal this information to us so that we can assist with maintaining the site's integrity?
The site posted that they saw a 160% increase in early January. They also posted other metrics as well, some have been linked in this topic.
That said, members having that data isn't something that's going to enable them to assist with the issue. What's going to assist is staff continuing their capacity increases and optimizations.
Anyway to answer the question at hand, I guess there's nuance in there but for me it's this:
1) chess is growing in general
2) domain name
There are a few other random factors, maybe connected to content creators and other platforms etc but overall I do think those two things explain almost the entire phenomenon. To my mind anyway.
Holiday gifts? Christmas was nearly 3 months ago
Celebrities talking about chess? who? and why would anyone care about what celebrities think about chess if they cannot play chess well. I mean you have to be a 99% plus level player to even be an expert
Pog Champs... honestly a waste of resources for chess.com and a meaningless "chess related" but non starter event. fizzled
New years? Really? It's almost March. Whatever resolutions were made in January 1 are out the window for most and no one is sticking with chess in the long run if they aren't making progress by week 3. so no
63 days is almost 3 months? 
The traffic increass started being more noticable in mid-January. It still remains to be seen if the increases are going to be sustainable as more time passes or if there will be a drop like happened after the Queen's Gambit spike.
I'm not into popular culture, but I know there were some sports personalities that mentioned playing chess or had more than a mention. Someone doesn't have to he good at chess to have an impact; they need to have a following.
As mentioned, there appears to be a lot of different factors that fed into increases, and it's very possible, all the causes will never be known.
The local chess club here in Preston, UK has had a significant increase in new people turning up this winter.
what do you mean by "significant"
significant
/sɪɡˈnɪfɪk(ə)nt/
adjective
Sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention; noteworthy.
I understand the meaning of significant as a term. However, I am specifically asking what does he mean by "significant" How many? What is the increase being cited to support the argument that chess.com user activity is being driven by this mass increase in interest in chess. So what is the number?
30% increase since the start of the year.
And don't make the mistake of behaving like you are the arbiter of what is significant.
Significance is not arbitrary. it is quantifiable.
30% increase of 10 is 3 more people. That's insignificant
You don't get to decide what is significant. You are not in charge here.
GothamChess and Queen's Gambit probably
I wonder what the real numbers are on chess.com...
How many new accounts & what is the mass exponential growth factor that is causing systems to fail?
Can someone reveal this information to us so that we can assist with maintaining the site's integrity?
The site posted that they saw a 160% increase in early January. They also posted other metrics as well, some have been linked in this topic.
That said, members having that data isn't something that's going to enable them to assist with the issue. What's going to assist is staff continuing their capacity increases and optimizations.
in other words... site is crashing constantly because of increased traffic and daily use numbers and those in charge lack the foresight to do anything about it because they don't know what is causing the surge.
Chess.com isn't addressing the problem. even increasing site capacity is a temporary fix or bandage over an open bleeding wound. Allowed to fester, the wound will only get infected and lead to even larger problems.
The reason being that chess.com does not have a clear understanding of exactly what is causing the drastic increase in numbers. as one of the other mods mentioned earlier and provided links, increase in chess interest does not explain how puzzles went from 5000 to nearly 1 Million to 2 Million use numbers
I dont care if every single person that joins started doing puzzles at the same time, that would not justify such a radical increase on a normal adjusted rate of site numbers. That means that interest in chess alone does not adequately provide a reason for the exponential increase in daily use numbers
In addition, many new accounts and users based on daily usage are increasing to the 99% of chess skill within days of joining the site. thats unusual considering that beginner level players will often take years to accomplish that in a normal manner.
The world isn't able to manufacture 99% level chess players as fast as the numbers have increased on chess.com.
The local chess club here in Preston, UK has had a significant increase in new people turning up this winter.
what do you mean by "significant"
significant
/sɪɡˈnɪfɪk(ə)nt/
adjective
Sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention; noteworthy.
I understand the meaning of significant as a term. However, I am specifically asking what does he mean by "significant" How many? What is the increase being cited to support the argument that chess.com user activity is being driven by this mass increase in interest in chess. So what is the number?
30% increase since the start of the year.
And don't make the mistake of behaving like you are the arbiter of what is significant.
Significance is not arbitrary. it is quantifiable.
30% increase of 10 is 3 more people. That's insignificant
You don't get to decide what is significant. You are not in charge here.
Actually logic and sound reasoning decides what is significant.
As I stated objectively speaking an increase of 30% from a baseline of 10 members is merely 3 additional members. that's insignificant from the perspective of an objective person judging the increase. such an increase is therefore irrelevant and not a driving factor with regard to chess.com exponential growth in daily user numbers.
So in a way, I do determine what is significant... and my perspective is that of an objective intelligent individual. you might not share my perspective but I didn't say that you fit into the category of an objective intelligent individual.
Holiday gifts? Christmas was nearly 3 months ago
Celebrities talking about chess? who? and why would anyone care about what celebrities think about chess if they cannot play chess well. I mean you have to be a 99% plus level player to even be an expert
Pog Champs... honestly a waste of resources for chess.com and a meaningless "chess related" but non starter event. fizzled
New years? Really? It's almost March. Whatever resolutions were made in January 1 are out the window for most and no one is sticking with chess in the long run if they aren't making progress by week 3. so no
63 days is almost 3 months?
The traffic increass started being more noticable in mid-January. It still remains to be seen if the increases are going to be sustainable as more time passes or if there will be a drop like happened after the Queen's Gambit spike.
I'm not into popular culture, but I know there were some sports personalities that mentioned playing chess or had more than a mention. Someone doesn't have to he good at chess to have an impact; they need to have a following.
As mentioned, there appears to be a lot of different factors that fed into increases, and it's very possible, all the causes will never be known.
Yes 63 days is over 2 months and nearly 3 months. having passed the mid point of 1.5 months by 18 days, it is closer to 3 months than the starting point. so its almost 3 months.
Provide the actual numbers and user data so that we can correlate the chess related news and activity with the sudden spike in user daily account activity and account generation.
Open the books to the chess community so that we can see what is really going on to assist chess.com with solving the server crashing issue.
GothamChess and Queen's Gambit probably
Anyone want to go down the rabbit hole and research the subscriber and viewership numbers for uh... Levy.
I'm in if you are... might uncover some truths about the internet and mediums online.
Guess what? We are back to Twitter and social media traffic and user numbers!
So if we find out something is odd, can we call out specifically what is happening?
LOL... wait. you projected 2 members that you know of who referred you to suddenly 10 million members who play chess suddenly recommending chess.com to people to join for no reason at all other than their sudden urge to do so...
That's like trying to justify investment in a business by citing that a business' industry of operation is a 10 Billion dollar industry. So valuation should be based on that 10 billion dollar industry valuation because we're supposed to project rapid share acquisition based on say getting 2 out of a 100 OMG we have the potential for millions of users and business consumers because we just need a 2% share of this 10 billion dollar industry.
Yeah... still selling that igloo in Montana. Looks like a lot of you are in the market for this beautiful igloo with delivery in mid July sometime. give a or take a few hundred degree days
GothamChess and Queen's Gambit probably
BTW, Queens Gambit came out 3 years ago in 2020. It is not a driving factor for the chess.com exponential growth of daily use activity.
try again
GothamChess and Queen's Gambit probably
I don't know I feel like I've been seeing it more often lately. I think resolutions probably helped too since chess is a nice hobby for people to learn and they want to get good at it. It could just be the universe's puzzle pieces aligning in the correct way to guarantee an explosion in the interest of chess.
BTW, Queens Gambit came out 3 years ago in 2020. It is not a driving factor for the chess.com exponential growth of daily use activity.
try again
Yes 63 days is over 2 months and nearly 3 months. having passed the mid point of 1.5 months by 18 days, it is closer to 3 months than the starting point. so its almost 3 months.
Provide the actual numbers and user data so that we can correlate the chess related news and activity with the sudden spike in user daily account activity and account generation.
Open the books to the chess community so that we can see what is really going on to assist chess.com with solving the server crashing issue.
Most months are 30 or 31 days. That's just over two months. But what do I know, I only have a degree in Mathematics 
You're not going to get access to the site's underlying numbers and there's no reason for them to do it. Some random people on the site aren't going to be able to add any value. If staff needs help, outside of the skills they have, they'll be able to find qualified assistance on their own.
Chess has been a sudden increase in players due for many reasons
1. holiday gifts
2. Celebrities talking about chess
3. Pog Champs Chess
4. New year resolutions
these are just a couple of the reasons why.
Holiday gifts? Christmas was nearly 3 months ago
Celebrities talking about chess? who? and why would anyone care about what celebrities think about chess if they cannot play chess well. I mean you have to be a 99% plus level player to even be an expert
Pog Champs... honestly a waste of resources for chess.com and a meaningless "chess related" but non starter event. fizzled
New years? Really? It's almost March. Whatever resolutions were made in January 1 are out the window for most and no one is sticking with chess in the long run if they aren't making progress by week 3. so no