502 ?? Server error. Our fault. We will look into it!

Maybe you re-read my post, this time paying attention to what you are reading. Then you'll see that I never said that they did not admit there were server issues.

Why a rant? Because I am fed up with how this company handles communication with their users (including paying customers) when such technical debacles happen.

Fed up?  Well you have only been a member for a little over a month.

Those of us who have been around for a while have seen multiple technical issues over the years.  You can look back and see many attempts by Chess.com to communicate during past membership surges.   They have been improving a great deal over the years in passing along some of what issues they are facing and what they are doing. 

I thought that Erik's blog post last week was pretty detailed and apologetic.

https://www.chess.com/blog/CHESScom/chess-is-booming-and-our-servers-are-struggling

Naturally, it has been torn apart here in the forums and Chess.com hasn't assigned anyone to respond to each and every post asking why they didn't anticipate such a surge.  

You only joined the site in December.   Presumably you noticed some of these issues.   If they were so upsetting, Chess.com has a generous refund policy for first time members.

That is upsetting to me.  I had been working every night to delete those posts but the absence of the "Unanswered" link makes it very difficult to find them.

This is not my first account here. I've been using chess.com (on and off) long enough to know the pattern of their communication when there are technical issues with the site.

To you all who are complaining and trying to “ scare” chess.com by saying you go to a reliable site: just go! Than we, who are staying, will have more space, no more overloaded database. 😀

As I said above, I've been here long enough. I know chess.com's communication strategy during technical debacles pretty well. The first stage is always radio silence: ignore the issue as long as possible hoping it will just blow over. Only if does not for a long enough time, so that ignoring the outcry becomes impossible, will they start talking.

And this melt down followed the pattern perfectly, by the way. We had to wait for this blog post from Erik for quite a long time.

They had this three hour State of Chess.com broadcast on December 21st.   

https://www.youtube.com/live/nvWxHvEZ5hE?feature=share

I don't remember hearing a lot of concerns being expressed about the site's operations.

The current melt down started at the end of December or beginning of January. How is this chess.com's broadcast from 21/12/2022 relevant?

We had to wait for about 10 (!!!) days for chess.com to come out and even acknowledge the issues. Not very surprising knowing their usual ways, though.

You can look at the earlier posts in this thread and it looks like reports increased 20 days ago, which would be January 10th or 11th.  It looks like they realized there was a problem and made a Twitter post about it on January 11th.

It did not take ten days to acknowledge the issues. 

It did take another 12 days for them to put together a plan and make a public blog post about it. 

For those that have been around awhile, ignore the ignorant rantings. I doubt any of them have any experience with server hardware, database architecture, or Software design. They wouldn't know an index from a select, a 'for' from a 'while', or an 'update' from an 'insert'.  I think most of them just want to have an adult respond to their wailing so they can feel good about themselves. 

I have three websites that I have built from scratch. One of them is chess related and with the help of chess.com, it is gaining members. I have voluntarily halted it to relieve my small impact on the server loads until the error is remedied, which I have NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER will happen soon. This site is the most popular chess site on the internet. It is gaining chess players from all over the world, each and every day. It is gaining because of all the options available to players, REGARDLESS OF THEIR SKILL LEVEL! 

Why don't you just SYF and let the folks here get on with fixing the issue? Play against the computer for a while, and see if you can beat what you think is your level. Have fun, stop complaining, and just enjoy the game for the sake of the game!

That's all I have to say, and if you don't like it, find someplace else that offers as much as chess.com. Don't let the door hit you in the fanny on the way out!

CC's exposed level of IT and organisational incompetence is nothing to be proud of. People have the right to express their frustration with poor service especially given how long it's been going. So @YankeeBastid why don't you stop telling people what to do and mind your own business, literally and figuratively?

IMHO, things have not gotten better.  They're worse.

Stockholm syndrome?

And, to the full post, er, ..... no.

little, what area of incompetence are you speaking about? You only are aware of the symptom, not what work has been done to isolate the issue. You think you are so cool condemning others without understanding the issue, obviously. My post is meant to ask for patience, yours is to inflame the situation. 

and Sagebrusesea, ok, you don't like my post? <shoulder shrug>

Telling people to shut their face is hardly asking for patience. Perhaps you should follow your own advice, @YankeeBastid.

I don't recall saying that anywhere. show me.

Some folks have mirrors.  Some don't.