Okay, I think if there is a big tournament going on the members expect to see it featured on the homepage immediately, that is true. And when it's not, it's a problem, because they will go elsewhere for their chess content.

But all of the other stuff is small potatoes.

Meanwhile, the Rogoff Page allows <ceegee> to show the world what chess players are really like.

Do you know something we don't?

<<fabelhaft> Yes, I am a whining freeloader. And any mention of problems with the site always come back to that only those paying for membership should be allowed to say something about it.>

There is a way to constructively point out a problem and a way to simply complain that you now have to "suffer" with things like ads or that the problem that you brought up is not being solved quickly enough for your satisfaction. The former benefits all members, non-paying and premium alike. The second is simply an expression of dissatisfaction that as a non-paying member I don't believe that you have the right to express. Simply accept what you are offered for free without complaining.

<I think you are right that I should stop visiting and posting>

I never said that you or anyone else should stop visiting and posting. What I said is that if you complain about perceived deficiencies that are not fully resolved to your satisfaction or solved in a timely manner without being a Premium member then you are, as <you> said, a "whining freeloader". Again, simply accept what you are offered for free without complaining.

<But I wrote that the site gives the impression of not being worthy of the attention of the administration (not me). It’s the community that is the good thing.>

Yes, and that last part I believe was Daniel Freeman's vision and it's reinforced in the Help section on Kibitzing: "At Chessgames.com, however, kibitzers are very much wanted, for they are our most valuable resource." But remember that the administration and the staff of this site are working with limited resources and they are doing the best they can with what they have. It's often just a question of priorities, and all of us probably have different ideas as to what the priorities should be. And there will always be disagreements as to what's important and what isn't, and what the priorities should be.

When I was a software manager we recorded problems in a Software Trouble Report (STR) database, and we assigned both a severity (the consequence of not resolving the problem) and the priority for correcting the problem. And of course there were many discussions as to what the severity and priorities for each of the STRs should be. There was also the acknowledgment that some problems did not have sufficient severity or sufficiently high priority to assign personnel to fix them, and therefore they were not going to be resolved.

<<nok> To think you should pay to speak your mind is profoundly dumb.>

Here's a news flash for you, just because you think that someone is profoundly dumb doesn't mean that they profoundly dumb. For example, I may be dumb but I don't think I'm <profoundly> dumb. Although, of course I might be. Besides, why do you think that you have

<Conversely, we all know paying members who make this place worse.>

<<realdumptrump> And not all of premiums paid their own way (or so claimed), let's note in passing.>

<<Sokrates> Your attack on <fabelhaft> is really low and not what I expected of you. I am actually shocked. You honour a troll like <tuttifrutti> with serious posts and treat the honorable <fabelhaft> as if he was a troll.>

It's nothing personal against <fabelhaft>. I've criticized other non-premium members for complaining that (their) problems or issues are not being resolved quickly enough for their satisfaction. And as far as labeling a "whining freeloader" that's not my term, that's what he called himself. See Tata Steel (2021) (kibitz #161). I don't think that I am attacking him when I simply agreed with the label that he attached to himself. In some circles that would be called "agreeing with him" and might even be praised.

Besides, he's not the first person to label non-premium members as freeloaders. See, for example, Sinquefield Cup (2019) (kibitz #227).

<Since when has CG become a collectively owned site with the paying members as share-holders who should feel guilty if they don't do the job that the owners and their assistants are supposed to do?>

I never said that paying members (or even non-paying members) should feel guilty if they don't do the job that the owners and their assistants are supposed to do. But let's face facts. Maintaining a fast changing, large, and expanding site such as this one takes effort, and effort requires people. There simply isn't enough revenue to pay qualified people to properly maintain this site and there aren't enough qualified and/or well-motivated volunteers to properly maintain this site in the manner that many of its members, paying and non-paying seem to expect. Maybe the expectations of many of these members are unrealistically high given the realities of the situation.

<Are the endlessly forbearing, loyal and patient members responsible for the decay of this site? No, this is turning things upside down.>

I never said that either. The only thing that I said, and repeatedly have said, is that if you are not financially contributing to this site or are contributing to it in a non-financial way, you don't have a right to complain that it doesn't work the way you want it to work or that things that you like to see are not being done as fast as you would like them to be.

And, no, I don't think that I'm barking up the wrong tree. I have had many bad days in the past and I have hopefully acknowledged that quickly enough. But this day isn't one of them. I stand by my perceptions and observations.

<<moronovich> CG has lost many fine members during the last couple of years so let us try to communicate with each other instead of the opposite.>

<<morfishine> Free Loader? This is way off base if not downright inaccurate and thus untrue. Non-premium members do not receive anything like a hand out; In fact, a non-premium member receives far less benefits than what a premium member receives>

I see that my use of the word "freeloader" has resonated with many. But, as I pointed out above, it was <fabelhaft> that used that label for himself; I just agreed with it. Maybe he was also having a bad day at the time.

And I'm not criticizing non-premium members for receiving a handout. I was a non-paying member for many years until I decided that the site was worth supporting with more than my occasionally (but unfortunately rare) witty commentary so I decided to contribute to the site financially. The only thing that I'm criticizing is that non-paying members complain about things like pop-up ads showing up or problems not being resolved to their satisfaction or not being resolved quickly enough.

<<metatron2> The only problem that I see with <AK> view, is that he expects people to contribute by either actively helping with the site's administration, or by paying premium membership.>

That's not quite my view. I don't expect people to contribute to either helping with the site's administration or by paying premium membership if they are unwilling to or unable to do so. That's, after all, each member's decision. I would love to be able to commit in taking an active part in helping this site become a better site, but with all the demands and, frankly, conflicting priorities on my life I just can't.

1. There is no team. Not officially. I think to fill Daniel's shoes it takes 3-4 "staff members" contributing (some-what individually) where they can. There is communication and a common goal of course. I continue to only work on client-side elements for the site (PGN Viewer) as they can be used despite what happens server-side.

2. As before, the only things driving development are the procurement of the (legacy) server system, and the continued effort to improve the content by adding more tournaments, games, players, chess history, etc. <Stephen's> moderator tools are critical for the long term survival. Allowing the collective community to Sherrif the games just makes sense.

<In terms of PGN viewers and their technology> Java technically still exists, and likely you could get <PGN Deluxe> running on your desktop machine. Not in the web browser though. That is okay, the technology was ready to go. PGN4Web exists as a kind of fallback for users that did not like Olga when it was first released. After Olga became the default, there wasn't a lot of work in this area. There are 100s of PGN Viewers (most of them freely) available. The best ones however are typically proprietary.

However - to properly integrate any client-side PGN Viewer (meaning it runs on your computer or phone, not in the cloud), work must be done on the server-side to properly inject the PGN and other data like user style preferences. No one within CG.com is extensively knowledgeable about the legacy server code-base. Changes made quickly can produce difficult to find bugs that might cost the programmer working on it many hours of headache beyond the simple fix.

To your point on software lifecycle and management tools, well they don't exist. There is no team manager, no one to fill in weekly reports on progress or coordinate with the team of developers on deadlines and direction.

Again, there is no team of developers.

<On a positive note>, there is a plan. I'm sure through consulting and discussions <Susan Freeman> is putting together the <best> plan she can. <Remember> that decisions are not cheap in this industry. There are lots of different paths to reach the same goal some much more expensive than others.

Here is the reality, it is 2021. Ad-blockers are <built into> web browsers now. The freemium + ad model likely is in a downward descent profit-wise. If you look at most sites, they require you to have some sort of account to get the games raw PGN.

<An Analogy->
Chessgames is like a museum. That museum is in need of massive remodeling and new preservation efforts for the galleries and exhibits. The walls have miles of old wiring and the building has become dangerous to work on in its current state.

You misunderstood my post <AK>, I actually said exactly what you explained here. You just quoted one paragraph from my post here, without its predecessor, and hence took this paragraph out of context. My first paragraph was:

<metatron2: I think that <AK> meant to say, that he expects that people, instead of constantly complaining about the site's situation, will either contribute to improving the site, or just accept the situation as is (and if they can't accept it, and don't want to contribute either, then they are free to leave).>

LOOOLS!

This reminds me of that teenage boy who just got dumped by his first girlfriend.

I think we should punish grumpy complainers.

Hi Steve, the ads were gone after this, but, starting in the last couple of days, they are back. Can you make the update again?