<OCF: Is the IMDB issue prodding you to have some thoughts about the long term viability of this site?>

<<Daniel> I hope you heed <Ohio's> query.

As I've asked before, what provisions are you going to make for the long term viability of this website?

That means when you die (God forbid, and as we all must), what happens to this website and all of the work you and so many others have put into it?

Everybody dies, <Roger Paige> RIP, as you may have heard. And so did his website.

Sadly, for solo entrepreneur webpages, they all die eventually. Books in libraries don't die until someone sets fire to them. Please give your website the longevity of a book?

I think you have created the best chess website in the history of the internet- it would be a shame if you didn't make provisions for the posterity of this- the very best- chess website. I can't even imagine a better idea than the one you have made a reality here.

Sadly, the "Wayback machine" is't sufficient as a back up plan. As <Tabanus> and I have found after numerous experiments, it's impossible to surf cg.com via the <Wayback Machine>.

Please preserve what you have created? I know it's up to you, and really none of my business to begin with.

All that said, I'm still enjoying cg.com on a daily basis, so thank you for creating and running it- you've given me the best 11 chess years I have ever had in my life.

<Cg.com> really is unique- kibbutzing, historical work, great database with many pages full of informed and humorous comment, fake gambling (not to be underestimated!), contests, head to head matches with grandmasters (time for another I hope, soon?), opening explorer... the list goes on.

I recently took up correspondence chess again and your Opening Explorer is a Godsend to me.

After Danny’s death things were unstable. No provisions were made. It didn’t help that I was hiking in Alaska with little internet.

Sargon jumped in and took over.

As I said, I am well prepared for my demise, and that includes this treasure.

Hopefully my demise is a long way off. I think of myself athletic and fit as a thirty year old. My back knows better, but hopefully surgically corrected. . Even that is a result of attrition from the gym.

What I want to prevent is anyone usurping the web site and disrespecting the uniqueness. I don’t want any vultures to swoop in.

This is not native to me. My only expertise is science and medicine. But I am learning to know what I don’t know , and I have some darn good help, for which I am grateful.

Danny never got ill and thought he would live many more years, and so did I. (I was always after him to get more exercise. )

Either get rid of all the political banter, like they do over at chess.com.

Or allow it.

To pick one side or the other and muzzle the other side would be a serious mistake.

A very, very serious mistake.

Just one more unsolicited opinion about the <Rogoff> page and I will say no more about it.

If the habitues on that page even made the slightest attempt to discuss politics in a civil manner, this would make a world of difference.

Like <Boomie>, I think it is a mistake to leave a player page as a dedicated political forum. If you want to retain that function then make a politics board and a sports board (Rogoff and Lim page, as it stands now).

To the <Rogoff> habitues- I counsel an attempt at civil discussion. It's easier than you think. Just make the same point you would normally make, but leave out the insults to those who might dare to disagree with you.

I am fond of telling people that IMDB shut down their chat function altogether because of the vicious fighting on the horror board. I was in the middle of that and I can confirm that the horror board was the worst place on the internets. It made 4-chan look like a bluestocking book review board.

It wasn't the horror board that prompted <Colonel Needham> to shut off the IMDB chat though. It was the politics board.

<Susan> thank you, I appreciate your clarification, and I understand, believe me.

<Olga Man!> Thank you for your idea as well sir. Some call you <Olga Man!> because your ambitious plans may well prove worthy of a super hero.

<Olga Viewer> By "yahoo banter" do you mean banter by actual yahoos, or do you mean the banter on the Yahoo news chat?

If the latter, Yahoo recently banned all chat on their news page eh.

Some of us have tried (at times, other times no). With little response from the other side.

<Jim> sorry this "other side" charge does not wash with me.

I have read enough Rogoff page to know that folks from "your side" are just as prone to indulge themselves in this respect. You, not so much, but others certainly. For what it's worth I have always considered you personally to be a polite and reasonable chap.

But if you really wanted to see a model of how a left/right debate could be carried out in a civil manner, without acrimony, you wouldn't look at the <Rogoff> page.

Look instead to the plentiful, and extremely popular debate series among the <Intellectual Dark Web>.

Here you have endorsers of <Bernie Sanders> (Joe Rogan) sitting down to a spirited, principled, yet jovial debate with endorsers of <Donald Trump> (Ben Shapiro).

How can this be? Easy, they respect each other, and much, much more importantly, they hold the ideal of civil debate and compromise to be paramount over their personal ideological opinions.

And so many more- from the left, right, and center stream: <Sam Harris>, <Bari Weiss>, <The Weinstein Brothers>, <Dave Rubin>, <Russell Brand>, <Jordan Peterson>, <Richard Dawkins>, and still others.

All with multi million viewerships. You can confirm this for yourself simply but checking the view counts and subscription accounts on the material they release to youtube.

They all publish on other video platforms as well, often on pay sites. But all release a generous portion of their fare for free on youtube as well.

An enormous slice of America is listening to these folks.

I will defend what I have written on that page. Certainly abuse goes back and forth, with the lefties on the receiving end for two years after Trump was elected, until the midterms. With constant references to how "the electorate applied a giant boot to the asses of worldwide snowflakery and its allies in liberal media."

Now of course the "boot" situation has been reversed with Trump's defeat.

We have our personal paid forums if we want to discuss non chess matters. I’ve allowed my forum to be a free speech zone and I don’t delete posts, even ridiculous one about purgatory and other such nonsense. The tone there is mostly civil as a quick browse will show.

Pretty convenient of <big pawn> to pick this exact moment to want to get politics off that page. The biggest, most aggressive Trump fan on this site.

<We have our personal paid forums if we want to discuss non chess matters. I’ve allowed my forum to be a free speech zone and I don’t delete posts, even ridiculous one about purgatory and other such nonsense.>