a wonder many of us have is the input those like you, that respond, have on implementation, or, at the least, have a voice in the room, so to speak.
In my experience: very little, I'm afraid. There are members of the development team who participate in the forums from time to time, like @termleech and @tyler, who would have a more direct influence on features, and sometimes various individuals have a personal connection with Erik or Danny or someone else in a position of influence and can suggest things to them off line, but we're all a bit removed from the nuts and bolts of development.
Chess.com uses a Slack collaboration channel for internal team communication and the moderators have their own channel there - we (or at least I know I) should hang out more there to stay in better touch with the rest of the Staff.
fair points, david. but, as a staff member, you have two duties-help cc and help members. not knowing the nuts and bolts, as you put it, makes cc look like the keystone cops. i understand staff are individuals around the globe, but, geez, 'ya gotta get on the same page and provide help or instruction for members of the site. i look at it this way-when i see a post from a staff member, it has clout. we, as members, should recognize the words of staff representing cc.
staff, at times, still can't answer some simple questions about how some things work! and, i'm stating this from experience. kohai muted me many times and banned me-for questioning the actions of the site.
what appears to be missing is the experience people have when visiting the site. i think this is missing from erik's mission.
Thanks <AlCzervic> for bumping my question, and <Bilbo21> for answering it :-)