Chess.com Month In Review: August 2019
Hey, chess lovers!
Just like that, another month is behind us, and what a month it was.
If the list below looks a bit scant, it's because so much love and effort was (and is) being directed at some amazing projects that are just now preparing for full release in early September: Puzzle Battle and site-wide chat.
But that's not all that went down in August 2019. Let's get the big picture.
Puzzles
- New Puzzle Rush time controls: The classic five-minute mode is now joined by a zippier three-minute format, plus a survival mode.
- After a Puzzle Rush, you can now use your keyboard to restart with enter or close the game over message with the esc key.
- Added ability to reset your Puzzle Rush history, via settings.
- Added a cooler-looking share image to help show off your Puzzle Rush scores.
- Added a time-control field to the Puzzle Rush history table, to clarify whether it was a three- or five-minute Puzzle Rush. Rows for three-minute games start with the lightning bolt icon, whereas five-minute Rush shows a stopwatch, similar to blitz vs rapid in live chess.
- Added visible rating value for each puzzle in the view of a completed Puzzle Rush.
Website
- Member flair and custom status messages have arrived! 🦄👀(See full announcement here).
- Huge progress made toward releasing a new site-wide chat feature!
- Fixed some format and spacing issues in the mobile version of the website, including better support for data in tables.
- Added a new link in the side panel of club pages to recognize that club's top gifters.
- Made some improvements to the logic used when hunting through games to find new puzzles .
- Released new, better-looking member profile page.
- Improved member search feature (username lookup).
- Refactored code dealing with Apple payments.
- Post-game analysis will now include more subtle errors under retry mistakes if the level of play was high enough to avoid serious mistakes.
- Added a profile page ribbon to recognize our top bloggers.
- Added API support to include the opponent's move in move notifications (coming to our apps very soon).
- Added dozens of new records to our list of top players.
- Pagination controls are now at the bottom and top of the comments section.
- Improvements to our current chess ratings page (for the top 100 players in the world).
- Having trouble finding the trophy you want to give? Now you can search for trophies by name.
- Added watch and comment count for each video shown on the videos main page.
Android
Work proceeds on several excellent initiatives you'll see in near-future releases, including:
- Issues with notifications
- Computer analysis
- Game-over UX improvements
- Adding Puzzle Battle!
iOS
The future is bright for iOS users, too. Here's what we've been focusing on:
- More granular control of your notifications from within the app
- More access to account settings from within the app
- New Puzzle Rush formats
- Improvements to chat and emoji
- Major progress on an entirely new navigation scheme for the whole app
Behind the Scenes
- On August 31 (remember that scheduled downtime?!), we completed a vital migration of servers to a more powerful hosting location
- New "infinitely scalable" data storage techniques undergoing experimental use, particularly in the context of the new and forthcoming site-wide chat functionality
Fair Play and Sportsmanship
- 68,630,540 games reviewed for fair play
- 2,885,431 accounts reviewed for fair play
- 6,117 accounts closed for fair play (6 titled)
- 185,846 abuse reports received
- 14,842 accounts muted for abuse
- 27,530 individual mute actions taken
- 38,051 accounts closed for abuse
Member Support
- Average time to reply: ~28 hrs (estimated, because we stepped up to a new support platform this month.)
- Average quality (by member rating): 9.20 / 10
- Total Ratings: 1580
So long, August! Let's check back in a month to see what September brings.
As always, please let us know what you think, and thanks for reading!
