<Let me start with something that's been attended to recently. You might call it "the topic of being off-topic." Specifically, player pages which have been used unorthodoxly. Off-topic posts on tournament pages etc. are a serious but different issue; I want to talk about the practice of using player pages for something other than discussing the player.

In its worst case we have juvenile jokes you'd expect of little children. It's actually disgraceful. How old does one have to be before they stop snickering every time they meet somebody named Dick? Nine? And yet grown adults do it all the time here.

Of course we just delete such nonsense, but such posts are like weeds: they grow back. The first post on the fresh page will likely be another childish one, and then it will attract the attention of another immature user, and the process starts anew.

There are other cases, far more benign. Just as an example, Louis Stumpers has hundreds of pages of riddles and puzzles dating back for years. Many of our members find it fun and interesting. So what's the problem?

Well, for starters it's disrespectful in that a real person's page is being used for an unorthodox purpose just because of nominative coincidence. It's obviously not very academic. And finally, there is no good place on this site to actually discuss that very strong master.

So historically, CG has deleted the off-topic kibitzing on some pages, while tolerating it elsewhere, and actually encouraging it on others. Perhaps this needs to be reevaluated.

For starters, why ever encourage something that violates the rules? Honestly, in many cases I think it's just delightful. It is an interesting an somewhat unique phenomenon of Chessgames that such things as the Stumpers or Beer or Odd Lie pages should sprout up organically. We never engineered these pages; they just happened.

Also, I've never wanted to be perceived as the "merriment police" who decides when people are having just a little bit too much fun, and I don't think many members want that either.

Nevertheless, I cannot deny that there is a problem that a handful of players are oddly separated for a variety of unusual purposes.

My opinion could be expressed like this: it's perfectly OK if we're not serious all the time, but we have to take the chess database seriously all the time.

So what is to be done?

[part 1, maybe part 2 later] ... >

Biographer Bistro (kibitz #14646)

What does that mean, exactly? It means, the Rogo page does a lot of volume. Web traffic. Clicking.

If you're a website you make a living via advertising revenue. You need web traffic. Whether you do or don't like the content in the Rogoff page, a businessman/woman has to accept the fact that more clicks, more web traffic = more advertising revenue.

As Ms. Freeman considered, above, just try a <politics> page for six months, visible to anyone who logs on at cg.com and see how it works out.

https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/i...

Or perhaps the forum photo should provide some guidance:

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/...

make rogoff/politics page chat visible to passers by and give it six months. See if web traffic improves (Maybe Mz scarlett can get a raise...)

Remember, the majority of chess players are just people who have general interest and skill level in chess. They are interested in a LOT of topics. That's why there is so much traffic on

1. Rogoff

2. Kibby cafe

3. sports page

because chessers, while of course looking at the latest Magnus Carlsen masterpiece or figting chess in the chinese national championships also like to talk about taxes, cheeseburgers, music and movies. By showing recent dialogues on <all> pages you maximize participation. More clicks means more advertising revenue.

What about the advanced players who can give you the best first 20 moves of the Ruy Lopez? They can just ignore the more traversed pages and speak quietly to each other.

Here are some URLs as wrecked by chessgames:

fiercehealthcare.com/providers/cvs-health-walgre- ens-shift-covid-vaccine-policies-providers-say-n- ew-fda-criteria-creates You can see the original uncorrupted URL if you click on https://tinyurl.com/7evckvtt

https://realestate.usnews.com/place... You can see the original uncorrupted URL if you click on https://tinyurl.com/mvhvn2c2

User: l3eadership

I think this is a well known "feature" of the site.

Let me double check to be sure:

<https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/pr...>

Paste-and-copy a long url directly into a post is fine, so long as you let <CG> turn it into a link.

If you want to expose the url in plain-text, well, that's a different matter:

<https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/c- vs-health-walgreens-shift-covid-vaccine-policies- -providers-say-new-fda-criteria-creates>

(Technical note - substitute the first / in the url with the html-entity &sol; to fool <CG>'s auto-detection of url's)

You can see <Daniel>'s so-call "auto-magic" text processing in action - inserting spaces in order not to have text spill over the margins he uses in formatting text in posts. In this case, he hyphens a word allowing line-breaks, but wrecking the url.

I discussed with Steve who expressed some reluctance because it might be difficult to undue.

What I cannot guarantee is people not posting their political discourse in the new <Kenneth Rogoff> PID if this all occurs at the same time.

So perhaps it should be rolled-out in stages so the natives become accustomed to posting in <Chessgames - Politics>?

It won't work unless

1. you make chessgames politics dialogue visible to all passerbys, not just preemies, not just people who have logged on, but anyone who has visited cg.com.

2. you keep Rogoff <blocked>, to minimize participation.

Most people who post things at Rogoff want to have a dialogue with as many people as possible. If <politics> was visible to everyone it would quickly eclipse the <rogoff> page.

as was suggested, give it six months, see what happens. Yes, the serious players, many of them, despise the malarky on the <Rogoff> page. However, a LOT of chessers are guilty of malarky.

That's beyond my control, but it should be part of the overall plan. This would need to be done by Steve.

However, I do like <Tabanus>'s suggestion of keeping it out of the Recent Kibitz's box, but give it a dedicated spot on the homepage (along with the other popular non-chess related forums, like <Chessgames - Music> and <Chessgames - Sports>).

<2. you keep Rogoff <blocked>, to minimize participation.>