Making the Chess.com Forums Better

There's that conciliatory tone Erik was asking us all for.

Also, a +1 is sufficient.

sorry, I meant that the Premium member catagorie will have more members than the new catagorie that is being proposed

I think that if chess.com was interested in empty +1 comments they'd have implemented a "like" feature.  Why not add your own thoughts?  Tell people why you liked something.

C'mon TheGrobe!  You're, singlehandedly, ruining this thread with your reading comprehension and stuff.

It would be a shame if this thread were moved to "off-topic" just because of your pragmatism.

TheGrobe wrote:

chessdex wrote:

And besides, are you claiming you are not a dumb spammer troll or something? Because it seems like you encourage harassing people. In what ways have you contributed to this community?

There's that conciliatory tone Erik was asking us all for.

Look, I only responded after he called me a dumb spammer troll who harms chess.com. What do you want me to do, agree with him?

that is what i was telling chessdex

I think you read far too much into what was a two word post.

hey, when did i call you that? I was calling bigpoison that not you? (unless you are bigpoisons other acount)

TL;DR summary: kumbayah

lol, the irony. Pre-emptavly moving the blame from yourself to TheGrobe when this thread gets moved to off topic

ajttja wrote:

chessdex wrote:

TheGrobe wrote:

chessdex wrote:

And besides, are you claiming you are not a dumb spammer troll or something? Because it seems like you encourage harassing people. In what ways have you contributed to this community?

There's that conciliatory tone Erik was asking us all for.

Look, I only responded after he called me a dumb spammer troll who harms chess.com. What do you want me to do, agree with him?

hey, when did i call you that? I was calling bigpoison that not you? (unless you are bigpoisons other acount)

What? I thought you called me that after my +1 comment. If not, I'm very sorry.

This new forum sounds suspicioulsy like the old forum.

Oh, sorry, ajttja, I misunderstood you.

wow, If you hadn't explained your anger at me we could have become enemies over a misundestanding. BTW misunderstandings are often the root of some big arguments on the forums and lets hope that this forum does not die because of misunderstandings. Another reason explaining ones self is very helpfull.

batgirl wrote:

This new forum sounds suspicioulsy like the old forum.

In what ways?

The bickering, I think.

Ha!  I guess somebody has to pick up Reb's slack.  Never miss a chance to bash a hippy.

I agree with most of the OP, except for that part. Not that it matters - erik being the commander-in-chief/supreme leader/whatever, he may set the standards of moderation he wishes (within US law of course).

However, I feel like most useful contributors come on that site for -err- chess ; for instance, take pfren : though his posts are usually the last step before outright insults, he nonetheless is of great advice, and sticks to chess forums.

In my view, off-topic posts does not belong to chess.com. Of course, political or otherwise controversial views can come up during casual forum conversation, but right now they mostly seem to come up with threads entirely devoted to them. If you force trolls to talk about chess, you just starve them away.

But, will you say, the blind-knife-juggler needs a place to practice (or the guy who plays something you don't like on the piano, for a milder analogy). However, chess.com need not provide this place. If blind-knife-juggling was forbidden in every place on Earth, it would surely be tyranny, and chess.com would be an island of freedom in a world of censorship ; however, the world is vast, and demanding from each person that one of his house's rooms be free-to-blindly-knife-juggle would also be tyrrany.

Nowadays, quite a few sites offer free forums or blogs. You can find forums dedicated to almost anything, and a blog is about whatever you wish. Why should chess.com be the garbage disposal of political, religious, science, etc. forums ?

Don't mistake me : I don't like censorship, for whatever reason it might be, even against outright obscenities or blatant disinformation. And I am not happy to live in one of the two "civilized" countries not in green on that map. However, chess.com does not need to be free-for-all-posters when other places are, and does not have to feel any ethical responsability - if, starting tomorrow, chess.com decides that any post containing an odd number of 'm' or 'n's will be hammered, that's totally ok with me (even if of course I will not be pleased, I will not complain it's immoral).

Now, again, that's my view, and I do not claim that a large fraction of chess.com shares it. I would actually believe to be quite alone, especially with the "censorship is always bad" part. Maybe erik when reading this will dismiss it as utter nonsense. But it's better to dismiss an argument you'e heard than never hearing it.