Please assign starting ratings to titled players equal to their FIDE ratings

Dear chess.com administration!

I understand that some of the ratings on the site, including 'online' (correspondence) chess ones, are inflated.

But please note that having titled players start from 1200 is not only impolite to themselves (they need to work the rating up to what they deserve), but also unfair to their early opponents, who lose rating points because the titled players are grossly underrated.

Ideally, you should give all players an opportunity to submit their FIDE/national ratings to get a fair initial one, but that would be a tiring job for you.

However, you don't have too many titled players sign up daily, and you have to verify their FIDE membership anyway, so why don't you give them adequate ratings from the very beginning?

Why should I get a 7-point penalty (so 13-14 points for the two games!) for losing to an FM currently rated ~2000 in online chess (Tilicheev_Viacheslav) just because I'm his ~20th opponent lifetime in turn-based chess and I want to play fast out of courtesy, whereas I'd get only a 1-point penalty if his rating was set to ~2400 from the very beginning (his FIDE one is 2408)? He more likely to play at 2400 strength in online chess than at 2000 strength, isn't he? And I'm yet lucky; imagine the feelings of the players who got him when he was 1200-1500 - they had a double-digit number of rating points thrown out of the window.

Shall I stall (like probably everyone else) and play slow and up to checkmate or naked kings, just to get my fairer rating adjustment when he becomes rated somewhat adequately (>2200)? Or will you try to reevaluate titled players' ratings and reimburse their early opponents for their lost points?

Thanks for reading, I guess I'll have to rely on myself for now and try to squeeze half a point out of him 

It's not that bad: starting players have a very high Glicko RD, reducing the impact on the opponents' ratings.

But the idea is sensible anyway.

This would amount to even more rating inflation. Wouldn't it? And I'm sure you don't want that to happen.

I'm aware of the fact that the Glicko system makes this effect less harmful due to its concept of rating deviation. And I have to thank chess.com for using this cutting-edge system.

However, the point behind the high initial RD is that the strength of the player is unknown at first (e.g. I don't have a FIDE rating yet). Any external information about one's strength, incl. the FIDE card, is useful for making a more educated guess than the default '1200 plus-minus 300' or whatever.

To prevent rating inflation, the default initial rating should then be set to less than the 'average' 1200, namely, to the average rating of those players who aren't rated by FIDE and national federations, which is smaller because rated players are more serious and stronger than unrated hobby players.

Ratings here only seem inflated when compared to other rating pools. Since it doesn't make sense to compare different rating pools, why care about inflation?

Better yet, assign unrated players a rating of "UNRATED" instead of a fixed starting rating. That will allow all players to find their natural level much more quickly. 

Titled players don't need to be given special treatment, the site just needs to implement the rating system the way it was designed to be used.

^ Right, this (assignment of starting ratings basing on the performance rating over the first few games, i.e. on the score and the opponents' ratings - that's how FIDE does it) would work fine as well 

just play the game. enjoy. forget ratings.

Ratings are useful. We want them to work properly. That helps us playing the game.

^^ I see the following uses for chess.com ratings:

1) Confidence boosting;

2) More efficient pairing in team matches (i.e. with opponents of as close strength as possible);

3) More efficient pairing in standalone challenges ('Let's Play') as well if one wants to play with unknown opponents.

The second factor matters to me because tourneys are too slow (I'd have to wait for all the slowpokes to finish the round), and I feel like bringing glory to my teams as opposed to individual challenges, so I'm a team match player.

Other than that, indeed 'the status is the number of feathers' [in a peacock's tail] 

I agree that if players' strength is known, verified, etc. then they should start with a better estimate.of their rating/rd, not the default 1200 with high rd.

If your skill levels are high, it makes no sense to play on chess.com and start at 1200.  Therefore a lot of players, may play on other sites.