So where to discuss chess these days?

Date: 09 Jun 2007 23:29:55
From: Richard
Subject: So where to discuss chess these days?

I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?

Date: 26 Jun 2007 11:59:52
From: Greg
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Jun 26, 5:58 pm, Ron <[email protected] > wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
>
> Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Please accept my apologies for your experience with Phobetor, I'm sure
> > he didn't mean to come across dismissive, I have previously warned him
> > about thinking more about the way his posts can be read : )
>
> > I hope this hasn't put you off continuing to be an active member on
> > the forums,
>
> It's fine. I haven't - directly - had any problems with him. I just,
> very quickly, saw the potential problem. Being the most active poster
> and the moderator on a bulletin board is like playing the game while
> being the referee - it's easy for their to be an appearance of a lack of
> impartiality (whether or not there actually is any) which can generate
> ill-will.
>
> I'm optimistic that he'll learn, and in subsequent emails it appears
> that he's starting to figure that out. We'll have to wait and see.
>
> -Ron

Thanks Ron,

I appreciate your experience and input on this matter,

Regards,
Greg

Date: 25 Jun 2007 23:31:17
From: Greg
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Jun 25, 9:50 pm, Ron <[email protected] > wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> > But unfortunately there is a moderator there called Phobetor where
> > closes threads when he doesn't want
> > opinions different from his own to appear. That's why i had to leave :-
> > (
>
> > He did it just once, but that was enough. He says in his profile that
> > he is 18 years old so i understand his behavior. Teens don't like to
> > be proven wrong. :-)
>
> Yeah. I sent him a gentle email saying that I'd seen it be a problem in
> the past when a moderator had been a little to vociferous about his own
> opinions, and felt the need to get a last word in (which Phobetor
> clearly does). He was a little dismissive but hopefully he'll get the
> hint.
>
> -Ron

Hi Ron,

Please accept my apologies for your experience with Phobetor, I'm sure
he didn't mean to come across dismissive, I have previously warned him
about thinking more about the way his posts can be read : )

I hope this hasn't put you off continuing to be an active member on
the forums,
Thanks, Greg

Date: 26 Jun 2007 09:58:06
From: Ron
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

In article <[email protected] >,
Greg <[email protected] > wrote:

> Please accept my apologies for your experience with Phobetor, I'm sure
> he didn't mean to come across dismissive, I have previously warned him
> about thinking more about the way his posts can be read : )
>
> I hope this hasn't put you off continuing to be an active member on
> the forums,

It's fine. I haven't - directly - had any problems with him. I just,
very quickly, saw the potential problem. Being the most active poster
and the moderator on a bulletin board is like playing the game while
being the referee - it's easy for their to be an appearance of a lack of
impartiality (whether or not there actually is any) which can generate
ill-will.

I'm optimistic that he'll learn, and in subsequent emails it appears
that he's starting to figure that out. We'll have to wait and see.

-Ron

Date: 25 Jun 2007 13:03:54
From:
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

> Hi everyone,
>
> Thanks for your comments regarding www.ChessForums.org, its good to
> see that people are supporting the site.
>
Yes it's a very nice forum! It has many different and interesting
topics.
But unfortunately there is a moderator there called Phobetor where
closes threads when he doesn't want
opinions different from his own to appear. That's why i had to leave :-
(

He did it just once, but that was enough. He says in his profile that
he is 18 years old so i understand his behavior. Teens don't like to
be proven wrong. :-)

Date: 25 Jun 2007 13:50:24
From: Ron
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

In article <[email protected] >,
[email protected] wrote:

> But unfortunately there is a moderator there called Phobetor where
> closes threads when he doesn't want
> opinions different from his own to appear. That's why i had to leave :-
> (
>
> He did it just once, but that was enough. He says in his profile that
> he is 18 years old so i understand his behavior. Teens don't like to
> be proven wrong. :-)

Yeah. I sent him a gentle email saying that I'd seen it be a problem in
the past when a moderator had been a little to vociferous about his own
opinions, and felt the need to get a last word in (which Phobetor
clearly does). He was a little dismissive but hopefully he'll get the
hint.

-Ron

Date: 22 Jun 2007 00:58:29
From:
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments regarding www.ChessForums.org, its good to
see that people are supporting the site.

I started the site back in February, so its come a long way since
then, we are now up to 433 members, which I believe has been a really
great start. With starting a new forum its been a bit if a catch22
situation, you can't tempt the more experienced players to join
without having some experienced players on the forums. But I'm pleased
to say the site is going from strength to strength, and we have a
really good community developing. I set out to create a modern chess
forum, as there seemed to be a gap for this, modern in terms of its
software (vBulletin 3.6.7) and in terms of its design and usability.

I hope you get chance to check the site out, and if you like what you
see/read please register and help us develop the forums further.
I would also like to add that www.ChessForums.org has been setup by
myself, this isn't a company who also sell chess sets or a large
internet company, its just me and the admin team.

Thanks,
Greg

Date: 19 Jun 2007 15:31:06
From:
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Jun 19, 2:29 pm, James <[email protected] > wrote:
> Richard a =E9crit :
>
>
>
> > On Jun 19, 12:29 pm, CeeBee <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> On 19 jun 2007 Ron wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:
>
> >>> CHeck out the archives.
> >> I don't have to check out the archives, I was there when those archives
> >> you refer to were filled. It's not very special to the Usenet chess gr=
oups
> >> - it's basically the same everywhere: the signal to noise ratio on Use=
net
> >> is traditionally low. It was then, it is now.
>
> >> --
> >> CeeBee
>
> > No, Ron's right on this. The signal to noise ratio on this group
> > really wasn't that bad in the past. I just checked the Google archives
> > of rgc.analysis here:
>
> >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.analysis/about?hl=3Den
>
> > My own first posts to this newsgroup were in 2000, so that's the year
> > I'll use as an example. During that year, the total number of posts to
> > this group were between 507 and 1026 per month, with at least 892 in
> > half of the months of that year. So far in 2007, this group has gotten
> > between 129 and 429 posts per month, with most (4 of 6) months being
> > in the 200's.
>
> > Now click any random month from 2000 to see what the posts were about.
> > Click June, 2000 to compare to the current month, and the first post
> > that shows up is about USCF elections, which is spam for rgc.analysis,
> > since it should be on rgc.politics. But looking at the titles of the
> > first 25 posts listed, that and one other message about faster
> > internet service are the only obvious spam. Skimming some of the
> > ambiguous thread titles to see if they're spam, I see 3 or 4 others
> > that were about chess, but should have been in rgc.misc instead of
> > rgc.analysis (and were probably cross-posted to both).
>
> > So in June 2000, we had 4 times as many posts to this newsgroup as in
> > June 2007 so far (or even May 2007 if you want to compare to a full
> > month), and 75% of them were on topic. Look at this group now, and
> > you've got posts about USCF elections, Sam Sloan, Hal Bogner (I don't
> > know or care who that is), off topic cross posts about professional
> > chess player salaries, Winboard, and ... The Beatles???
>
> > So there are now more total spam posts, despite having only 25% as
> > many total posts. I'd call that a decline in the signal to noise
> > ratio.
>
> > --Richard
>
> I am probably one of the oldest reader of r.g.c, even before it was
> splitted in many different newsgroup (I even was the "author" of the
> first poll in the r.g.c newsgroup to create a r.g.c.c group, poll which
> was rejected at the time (~1992)).
> In those days, people were polite, there was no spam, and no robot to
> grab your addresse.
> Robert Hyatt or the regretted Michael Valvo were active participant, and
> Feng Hsiung Hsu or Johnathan Schaeffer were there also. There were
> interesting duscussions about Artificial Intelligence, analysis of great
> games, and so on.
>
> Yesterday....
>
> Now I am just reading it from time to time, with a little bit of nostalgy=
.=2E.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Your best bet is now www.talkchess.com. That's where Dr. Hyatt and
several other engine writers hang out, plus lots of very knowledgeable
people and fans.

jm

Date: 19 Jun 2007 22:02:06
From: Ron
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

In article <[email protected] >,
[email protected] wrote:

> Your best bet is now www.talkchess.com. That's where Dr. Hyatt and
> several other engine writers hang out, plus lots of very knowledgeable
> people and fans.

Talkchess.com seems really focused on stuff that's priily appropriate
for r.g.c.computer.

Nothing wrong with that. It's where I'd go for that sort of discussion.

Chessforums.org seems like a better place for .misc and .analysis type
discussions, although in my opinion it still clearly needs more people.
(It seems to be growing, and to have as many - if not more - B to expert
level players as we do, but, again, it's still a long way from where
these newsgroups used to be.)

-Ron

Date: 19 Jun 2007 11:16:31
From: Richard
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Jun 19, 12:29 pm, CeeBee <[email protected] > wrote:
> On 19 jun 2007 Ron wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:
>
> > CHeck out the archives.
>
> I don't have to check out the archives, I was there when those archives
> you refer to were filled. It's not very special to the Usenet chess groups
> - it's basically the same everywhere: the signal to noise ratio on Usenet
> is traditionally low. It was then, it is now.
>
> --
> CeeBee
>
No, Ron's right on this. The signal to noise ratio on this group
really wasn't that bad in the past. I just checked the Google archives
of rgc.analysis here:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.analysis/about?hl=en

My own first posts to this newsgroup were in 2000, so that's the year
I'll use as an example. During that year, the total number of posts to
this group were between 507 and 1026 per month, with at least 892 in
half of the months of that year. So far in 2007, this group has gotten
between 129 and 429 posts per month, with most (4 of 6) months being
in the 200's.

Now click any random month from 2000 to see what the posts were about.
Click June, 2000 to compare to the current month, and the first post
that shows up is about USCF elections, which is spam for rgc.analysis,
since it should be on rgc.politics. But looking at the titles of the
first 25 posts listed, that and one other message about faster
internet service are the only obvious spam. Skimming some of the
ambiguous thread titles to see if they're spam, I see 3 or 4 others
that were about chess, but should have been in rgc.misc instead of
rgc.analysis (and were probably cross-posted to both).

So in June 2000, we had 4 times as many posts to this newsgroup as in
June 2007 so far (or even May 2007 if you want to compare to a full
month), and 75% of them were on topic. Look at this group now, and
you've got posts about USCF elections, Sam Sloan, Hal Bogner (I don't
know or care who that is), off topic cross posts about professional
chess player salaries, Winboard, and ... The Beatles???

So there are now more total spam posts, despite having only 25% as
many total posts. I'd call that a decline in the signal to noise
ratio.

--Richard

Date: 19 Jun 2007 23:29:37
From: James
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

Richard a �crit :
> On Jun 19, 12:29 pm, CeeBee <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 19 jun 2007 Ron wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:
>>
>>> CHeck out the archives.
>> I don't have to check out the archives, I was there when those archives
>> you refer to were filled. It's not very special to the Usenet chess groups
>> - it's basically the same everywhere: the signal to noise ratio on Usenet
>> is traditionally low. It was then, it is now.
>>
>> --
>> CeeBee
>>
> No, Ron's right on this. The signal to noise ratio on this group
> really wasn't that bad in the past. I just checked the Google archives
> of rgc.analysis here:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.analysis/about?hl=en
>
> My own first posts to this newsgroup were in 2000, so that's the year
> I'll use as an example. During that year, the total number of posts to
> this group were between 507 and 1026 per month, with at least 892 in
> half of the months of that year. So far in 2007, this group has gotten
> between 129 and 429 posts per month, with most (4 of 6) months being
> in the 200's.
>
> Now click any random month from 2000 to see what the posts were about.
> Click June, 2000 to compare to the current month, and the first post
> that shows up is about USCF elections, which is spam for rgc.analysis,
> since it should be on rgc.politics. But looking at the titles of the
> first 25 posts listed, that and one other message about faster
> internet service are the only obvious spam. Skimming some of the
> ambiguous thread titles to see if they're spam, I see 3 or 4 others
> that were about chess, but should have been in rgc.misc instead of
> rgc.analysis (and were probably cross-posted to both).
>
> So in June 2000, we had 4 times as many posts to this newsgroup as in
> June 2007 so far (or even May 2007 if you want to compare to a full
> month), and 75% of them were on topic. Look at this group now, and
> you've got posts about USCF elections, Sam Sloan, Hal Bogner (I don't
> know or care who that is), off topic cross posts about professional
> chess player salaries, Winboard, and ... The Beatles???
>
> So there are now more total spam posts, despite having only 25% as
> many total posts. I'd call that a decline in the signal to noise
> ratio.
>
> --Richard
>
I am probably one of the oldest reader of r.g.c, even before it was
splitted in many different newsgroup (I even was the "author" of the
first poll in the r.g.c newsgroup to create a r.g.c.c group, poll which
was rejected at the time (~1992)).
In those days, people were polite, there was no spam, and no robot to
grab your addresse.
Robert Hyatt or the regretted Michael Valvo were active participant, and
Feng Hsiung Hsu or Johnathan Schaeffer were there also. There were
interesting duscussions about Artificial Intelligence, analysis of great
games, and so on.

Yesterday....

Now I am just reading it from time to time, with a little bit of nostalgy...

Date: 19 Jun 2007 07:58:19
From: Richard
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Jun 11, 2:22 am, Ron <[email protected] > wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
>
> Richard <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
> > Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
> > elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
> > actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
> > grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?
>
> It's not spam, so much, as the dwindling supply of serious players
> posting about the game here.
>
> I haven't found forum as vibrant as r.g.c was ten years ago.
>
> www.chessforums.org has potential, seems well organized, etc, but
> doesn't have enough strong players participating yet. Maybe soon.
>
> -Ron

Agreed. I wasn't playing chess 10 years ago, but I do remember 5-6
years ago that these groups had far more serious content than they do
now. That's why I was wondering where everyone went to discuss chess,
since they aren't here any more.

I agree that chessforums.org seems like a good one, but there aren't
very many active participants yet. Everyone go over there now! :)

--Richard

Date: 19 Jun 2007 15:15:44
From: CeeBee
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On 19 jun 2007 Richard wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:

> Agreed. I wasn't playing chess 10 years ago,

I was...

> but I do remember 5-6
> years ago that these groups had far more serious content than they do
> now.

...and I remember that since I first visited these groups about 12 years
ago I regularly read the same complaint. Either we hit even deeper than
rock bottom, or it's simply a matter of perspective. I bet on the last.

--
CeeBee

*** entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem ***

Date: 19 Jun 2007 09:05:30
From: Ron
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

In article <[email protected] >,
CeeBee <[email protected] > wrote:

> ...and I remember that since I first visited these groups about 12 years
> ago I regularly read the same complaint. Either we hit even deeper than
> rock bottom, or it's simply a matter of perspective. I bet on the last.

CHeck out the archives.

It's clear that the situation has become worse. But it has all over the
usenet, which has lost a lot of ground to web-based boards, which, of
course, didn't exist 15 years ago.

It seems to me that there are only four or five people here now who
answer chess-related questions. And we've lost a lot of experienced
people like Mig, Tim Kokesh, Daniel Quigley, etc ... without getting
players of comparable quality to replace them.

-Ron

Date: 19 Jun 2007 16:29:47
From: CeeBee
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On 19 jun 2007 Ron wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:

> CHeck out the archives.

I don't have to check out the archives, I was there when those archives
you refer to were filled. It's not very special to the Usenet chess groups
- it's basically the same everywhere: the signal to noise ratio on Usenet
is traditionally low. It was then, it is now.

--
CeeBee

*** entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem ***

Date: 11 Jun 2007 06:22:31
From: Ron
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

In article <[email protected] >,
Richard <[email protected] > wrote:

> I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
> Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
> elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
> actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
> grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?

It's not spam, so much, as the dwindling supply of serious players
posting about the game here.

I haven't found forum as vibrant as r.g.c was ten years ago.

www.chessforums.org has potential, seems well organized, etc, but
doesn't have enough strong players participating yet. Maybe soon.

-Ron

Date: 11 Jun 2007 00:10:57
From: Chris F.A. Johnson
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On 2007-06-10, Richard wrote:
> I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
> Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
> elections than about the game itself.

Use a killfile; I do, and I don't see those messages.

> So where do people go to actually talk Chess these days? Is there a
> forum somewhere that's grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of
> spam?

I see very little spam here,

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org >
===================================================================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Date: 15 Jun 2007 19:27:09
From: Macchess
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

Chris F.A. Johnson a �crit :
> Use a killfile; I do, and I don't see those messages.

Can you elaborate on that? I use a Mac and Thunderbird and want to get
rid of SS's messages.

Date: 18 Jun 2007 10:14:11
From: David Richerby
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

Macchess <[email protected] > wrote:
> Chris F.A. Johnson a �crit :
>> Use a killfile; I do, and I don't see those messages.
>
> Can you elaborate on that? I use a Mac and Thunderbird and want to get
> rid of SS's messages.

Look at Thunderbird's filtering options. You should be able to
automatically delete messages from the addresses that the fake and
otherwise Sloans use, and any others and any other subjects that you
don't want to see.

Somewhere like here, filtering out anything posted to
rec.games.chess.politics is a good idea.

Dave.

--
David Richerby Enormous Transparent Smokes (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a pack of cigarettes but you can
see right through it and it's huge!

Date: 10 Jun 2007 12:26:53
From:
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

There is the Yahoo Unorthodox Chess Openings Newsgroup. The main focus
of this group is on Unorthodox Chess Openings and Gambit Chess
Openings. I recently posted messages about 2 chess opening gambits
with games posted in the files section. This was on the Konikowski
Gambi (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 d5) and the Cordel Gambit
(1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 f5). This group also has a quarterly
chess newsletter in pdf format which is excellent. It looks very
professional. And you can access
prior newsletters in the files section. Recent discussions have been
on the Lundin Defense 1.d4 Nc6. I also recently posted a
message about the new chess engine called Strelka and a gambit
tournament I ran using Strelka. Strelka is a very strong chess engine
probably up there with the best chess engines. There is no posts there
about chess politics. The moderater will probably kick out anyone from
the group who posts chess politics or spam. He has kicked out users
who have posted spam in the past. There are other chess newsgroups
that I belong to on Yahoo. These are Chess Malaysia, Chess Engine
Testing, French Defense Newsgroup, 65th Square, Sri Lankan Chess, &
Chess Database.

Best Regards
DarthMusashi

On Jun 9, 11:29 pm, Richard <[email protected] > wrote:
> I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
> Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
> elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
> actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
> grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?

Date: 10 Jun 2007 15:37:46
From: CeeBee
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On 10 jun 2007 Richard wrote in rec.games.chess.analysis:

> I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
> Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
> elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
> actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
> grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?
>

Google for "chess forum". It might give you some options.

--
CeeBee

*** entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem ***

Date: 10 Jun 2007 10:47:51
From: Bill
Subject: Re: So where to discuss chess these days?

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 23:29:55 -0700, Richard <[email protected] >
wrote:

>I'm getting back into the game after not playing for over a year.
>Apparently, this newsgroup is defunct. There are more posts about USCF
>elections than about the game itself. So where do people go to
>actually talk Chess these days? Is there a forum somewhere that's
>grown popular while the rgc.* groups died of spam?

I came back to these groups and now I remember why I left:

Sam Sloan.