Completely stopping new registrations likely isn't a workable solution for the site. I would imagine they thought about it but decided not to.
Nothing is wrong with Chess.com
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Feb 4, 2023
0
#3
The_Krieg wrot
Not a workable solution??????
The Server is constantly crashing making it impossible to play games consistently or reliably online
So they would compromise the entire site integrity for the sake of adding even more users when the current numbers are crashing the systems????? Makes no sense
In addition, if the site is constantly crashing, then forget about ad money because that will dry up as players begin to see it as a nonviable site. You have to address the problem which is server capacity.
You can accomplish that by 1) spending the money to do so 2) in the absence of that, then reducing server overload by halting new accounts temporarily and reducing automated activity on the site. Believe me. My solution would work and is probably the least costly approach to restoring site integrity
The members are already here using the site. New members likely are just an incremental increase and not all of them are on at the same time.
But as mentioned, staff have likely thought of mutiple options and since they haven't stopped registrations, it's very likely they have already rejected that as an option.
The_Krieg wrote:
Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online. By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity. That leads to massive crashes in your systems
Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!
Feb 4, 2023
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#5
JuergenWerner wrote:
Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!
Closed accounts don't create load on the servers. Also, accounts are linked to games, content, etc, so there will always have to be account records on the DB to link to them.
Feb 4, 2023
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#6
JuergenWerner wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:
Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online. By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity. That leads to massive crashes in your systems
Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!
what do you mean?
Well idk what the right solution might be but something has to be done. The server crashed for the millionth time today in the middle of a game.....My internet connection shows red but everything else works fine, so it's not that
Feb 5, 2023
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#8
What about disallowing play until email confirmation permanently? Also a 24hr cooldown to play games after the creation of a new account should stagger things
Feb 5, 2023
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#9
How do you happen to know the issue is about automated accounts ? Do you have anything to show to support this theory ?
Feb 5, 2023
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#10
The_Krieg wrote:
BoardMonkey wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:
If you see 10,000 games being played by a single account in a month or close to that, then you know that's not normal. flag it. algorithm it and begin the purging process
Man, are there really accounts like that?
duh
that's the reason why the servers are at capacity and overloaded.
temporary solution & the cheapest most effective solution is to temporarily halt new account generation & actively go after the automated play
Imagine being a new chess player, who, as part of the recent chess boom, is about to sign up for chess.com (and possibly become a paying member!). How would you react to not being able to join?
It would be so bad for chess.com's growth if they stopped account creation altogether. That would be like an airline canceling all their flights during vacation season. It just isn't good for them, as they want to take advantage of the chess boom.
The_Krieg wrote:
SpringPao wrote:
JuergenWerner wrote:
The_Krieg wrote:
Limited server capacity can be easily resolved by focusing on weeding out the automated activity online. By allowing automated activity to go unchecked, it uses up valuable resources (server capacity) with the automated unfair activity. That leads to massive crashes in your systems
Best solution is to delete all of the closed accounts!!!
what do you mean?
I believe that some of the closed accounts were actually wrongfully closed
Perhaps close and cancel accounts that were caught violating the fairness standards but there has been some arbitrary account closings on chess.com
That is why some of the more popular members on the site no longer post here. They made it fun and were silenced by some overly conservative type that was given the ability to silence them unfairly
Delete all of the closed accounts that were not closed to fairplay and so forth. If those accounts posted posts in the forums then mark the usernames as "system account" or something indicating that the accounts have been deleted.
Also, you're correct that non-paying users being only allowed to play will have them leave chesscom for sites like lichessorg and such.
Feb 6, 2023
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#12
When this all started I was also suspicious that Chesscom could be under attack from an automated account creation bot.
But I've been occasionally looking at the Newest Members List and haven't seen anything that looked suspicious:
https://www.chess.com/members/newest
Feb 6, 2023
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#13
The_Krieg wrote:
When Elon purchased Twitter, he realized that there was an underlying issue with automated accounts that were plaguing the system. Those automated accounts cost money to maintain and take up system capacity and exhaust site resources due to the need to constantly police those violators.
That is why twitter began cracking down on automated accounts & weeded out rule breaking automation
On chess.com, there are literally 10s of thousands of accounts created daily by automation. It's fine if its actual people playing chess. Limit them to say 10 accounts thats fair. Those accounts are fine. The problem are the automated accounts that sync with computers and play literally thousands of games per second per minute per hour. That causes resource drain & also forces constant resource drain because you have to hunt down the violators and waste time and systems on checking games over and over suspending accounts and closing those accounts. Solution: temporarily halt all new accounts & start cracking down on the automated accounts sync to the system.
If you see 10,000 games being played by a single account in a month or close to that, then you know that's not normal. flag it. algorithm it and begin the purging process
Please provide a list of some of those accounts playing 10,000 games in a month...
I have only seen several that could have been capable of that:
https://www.chess.com/member/pokerbloke99 was up to 450,000 games before account was closed in February 2022.
https://www.chess.com/member/peacemyfriend was up to 394,000 games but stopped playing in November 2022.
Feb 6, 2023
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#14
The_Krieg wrote:
Your logic is flawed here
Stopping new accounts temporarily doesn't permanently exclude anyone
site integrity is necessary in order to have a site at all
If your site does not work, then no one will want to play here so the issue of system overload and server capacity diminishment has to be addressed immediately.
Both can be done now without much cost
If someone comes to the site and can't create an account, they'll most like go elsewhere. If they have no issues creating an account elsewhere and they find the site useful, they may never come back.
With the exception of peak times, the site is pretty stable and staff have been continuously making changes to help solve the overall problem, so even peak times will get better as well
Hey Guys 👋….you’ve earned it , it’s time to take a break, coffee and doughnuts 🍩 are now being served ! ✌️😎
Feb 8, 2023
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#16
The_Krieg wrote:
Actively impose a more stringent system of limiting & removing unfair play on the site.
Servers are crashing because traffic more than doubled... so this only works if you believe more than half of users need to be banned.
Essentially your idea to "fix" the problem is to go back to before the problem existed i.e. ban or block everyone that wasn't already playing a few months ago... this is a non-idea and is very silly for multiple reasons.
Feb 9, 2023
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#17
Yet you have provided nothing to back up your claim about automation. The only thing you can say is "look at Twitter". Well here's a piece of news : this is not Twitter. You don't have millions of people making up their mind about important geopolitical issues on chess.com. Except for chess players, you don't have personalities on chess.com who share their opinion and influence people on politics.
This idea that China is flooding chess.com with bots, exactly for what... ? Do you think they have nothing else to do ? What's their goal exactly, have Xi Jinping get a 3000 rating ?
All this chess bot thing seems to stem from your imagination. Why anyone would flood a chess site with bots, you have not even explained to us. So far, except for the precedent of one website that did have many bots, we have no reason to think it is what's happening here. The proposition of stopping new users signing up seems too far a stretch considering such lack of evidence.
Eat carrots not vegetables
Then today you post this: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/automation-is-destroying-chess-online
ok.
Chess.com has no problems at all
System capacity is not an issue
Site is stable
Everything is fine
Automation is a positive
-Klaatu