Why the Downgrade?

I get that not everyone likes change, i get that not everyone ants change, I get that not everyone is happy with change.  I get that some simply do not care for V3 here.  So lets get past all that stuff, and lets look at it this way.  Lets just say that Erik made a mistake, and refused to listen to anyone, and continue to roll out V3.  Lets assume he knew it was a microsoft abortion, and still didn't listen.  Lets assume his people presented him with mounds of evidence that V3 was a failure, and he refused to listen.  Erik runs the site, he runs it the way he wants to, and ill be damned what anyone else thinks or wants. 

Now...assuming all this.  What is your constant complaining going to do about it?  Especially since he sees that diamond next to your name.  Since i don't know, i will ask.  Has Erik approached you about meeting to discuss your complaints?  I mean, a genuine approach, not a message/email, about how he "understands your frustration"

EDIT:  I'm not saying your wrong, or don't have valid complaints.  Im just curious what you hope to accomplish?

I moaned about V3 plenty last year, and the forced sidebar instead of the top bar I used to use even in V3, but I've worked out how to start a game of chess so I tolerate it.

Thats my point.  I was a major complainer about V3, but when i thought about it.  It wasn't that i didn't like V3, or thought it was horrible, it was that i didn't like change. 

I like change:

I have to confess that V3, since I had to learn it after September last, is not quite as bad as I thought. You can still get a game OK, and it looks very pretty, but for  Chess Player who actually wants to analyse, as against for a gamester, and engine user, it is not all that great.

So, I do not use TT hardly at all any more, and Daily Games, I have two going now. They will be my last. Unless they restore some of the old V2 features.

So, millennials, go for it! You know all the New Tech and Symbols, and are rapidly losing the ability to talk, or even communicate.

Happy tapping and scraping! 

And I spent a lot of time with version 2, learning how to use a different colored fonts. Setting up a really nice-looking group home page. Those are hours and days I will never get back. I also think version 2 was better.

Today, someone sent my team a Vote Chess challenge.

I attempted to accept it.  ****BOOOOOM**** 

BIG RED BANNER:  "Sorry, your club is too big to accept this challenge."

What is this?  6th graders can write better code than this.  A simple IF-statement would sort this predicament even before it went across the wires to my Message inbox. 

And what's more, when I try to respond to the chap who sent me the challenge, I get yet another NASTIGRAM stating "So-and-so only accepts messages from friends."  🤦🤦

So, someone who does not accept communications from strangers ought not be allowed to send random challenges to strangers... would that policy not be logical?!?!

Leave it to the Powers that Be in chess.com to come up with something completely asinine.

#V3_is_still_a_downgrade

@IMBacon - yer staff and it shows.  I get that.  You have a vested interest in being a naive Yes-Man to Erik.  V3 never looked prettier, right?  Your keyboard probably smells like roses and unicorn breath when you log on to Chess.com.  I get that.

Here - try doing this.  Try finding the cross-tables of who played whom in the Wijk aan Zee (Tata Steel) tournament this past week in Round 3.  Try finding links to the games played.  No.. inside chess.com.  You may happen to stumble across one link or two in Peter Doggers (sp?) summary reports here or there, but its a shot in the dark.  You'd probably have better odds of figuring out how to play 4-player chess with 3 random strangers.

This V3 version of chess.com is 6~6.5 years old now.  I've been fussing over the UI of V3 for as long.  I can still clearly recall how much easier V2 was back in the day.  I could find things.  The menu was simple.  It had words... and icons.  (I.e., it was bi-generational, it spoke both Millennial and Dinosaur.)

V3 caters to STAFF.  Who else?  What is V3 about?  V3 of chess.com about chess?  I hardly see anything about Titled Tuesdays anymore.  What is chess.com now about?

In V2, the users primarily created the content.  User-driven content.  V3 is about content from the Powers on High.  Well, getting back to my circuitous point, V3 really isn't about anything.  Sure, you have News about this tournament or how that opening is laden with traps, or a hot-topic of who's really #1 in the world, and so on, but, aside from those articles, where is there a concise, well-organized calendar of *Master-level chess tournies around the globe?  If chess.com wants V3 to be the End-All of chess sites on the internet, there is a TON of CONTENT missing from this site.

The Openings database is woefully basic and difficult to traverse (let alone find in this wonderful UI of V3).  V2's has/had essentially the same content, but was easily arguably a better interface.

The Alert system in V3 is shoddy on a good day.  Many times, I never get ALERTs for Vote Chess team communications or updates of Notes in Clubs I participate in.  In V2, if someone made a comment in a Daily game post conclusion, an Alert was generated and one could quickly click a link to see whether/what someone had written.  In V3 - good luck seeing someone write even a simple, congratulatory "good game" in the game chat post-mate.

And for all the hooorah about how shiny and bright V3 is .. V2's chessTV was easier to interface with and had more content about on-going live games than V3's.

V3's biggest problem has been there from day 1: a downgrade of a user interface.  With V2, chess.com could simply add in another menu item to link to Tata Steel Matches, say.  And, we could have had a single click take us to a new page with sublinks to everything Wijk Aan Zee.  V3 generates no hints of ANY kind that such a thing as a cross-table of games on Day 3 at Tata Steel even exists!

So, once more - to whom does Chess.com cater?  What's the point of a new UI if one cannot readily identify the purpose of this site?  <-- that is a failure of Marketing (and whomever that is, ought to find another vocation because it certainly isn't working here).  For cross-tables, I venture to another site.  For opening databases, I venture to another site/platform.  For tactics, I sometimes use this site.  Other times, I refer to other sites.  For historical game data (classic games with commentary), I venture away from this site.  You know, things pertinent to building one's chess acumen.  Chess.com has 3-check!! woo-hoo...!  sarcasm.  Puzzle-rush!!  woo-hoo...!  more sarcasm.

Seems to me STAFF here are little more than Yes-Men intent on maintaining good relations with Erik and little more.

Just a thought for those who suggest that because it's over V2 supporters should stop talking. One of the key arguments I saw when the change was that nobody talks about V1. So when the V3 you love so much changed to a V4 that losers a bunch of features and slows down the interface you'll hear the same argument. But if the V2 guys are still there you'll have a solid argument to say that's untrue.

Personally I was never very vocal and I'm doing fine with V3 but I do think that the problems I had with it being too slow for example are still true to this day.

@Spacebux I believe @IMBacon has closed his account and anyway has not been a member of staff for a few years. Good rant though. I see you are paying for diamond membership - may I ask why given your continued dissatisfaction? 

Oh my mistake, it looks like he has re-opened it. 

@IMBacon is staff now, at least according to the profile; pretty sure he wasn't when the quoted post above was made and was just a regular member.

I'm behind the times! Cheers Martin. 

Jings... wished i'd noticed the staff tag when he gave me this stupid reply in the forums... do they give out staff badges to every unhelpful sod?

The tag wasn't there 27 days ago.

thanks Martin, that'll be how i didn't notice it then...

And, Ur still here responding to this thread?  Lol.

@Strangemover - if you are saying I should vote with my wallet, I have.  I did around the time Erik cut access to V2.

Also, I quoted @IMBacon specifically because he had the STAFF tag next to his name.  When/how/why he has it, I have not a clue.

So, you quoted something from over a year ago and attributed motivations to the poster based on an icon just because of that?

We need to accept the reality that the OP is absolutely correct, V2 was better than V3 and that V3 is indeed a downgrade for all the reasons specified.