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We finally have a scope! (Poll closed: Programming questions)
After five years, it is kind of odd not to have a unique scope delineated in our help center. A user recently presented me with a very reasonable complaint along these lines, and this prompted me to write one up. Here is the text I added to the standard catch-all lines:

Questions that have to do primarily with chess in its standard form are on-topic here. This includes questions about theory, rules, specific positions/games (including puzzles), chess-specific events, chess players, hard facts such as statistics and other historical data, and physical items such as chessboards, pieces, and clocks.
Other, less specifically chess-related subjects may also be on-topic, depending on how chess-related the specific Q&A is. These gray-area questions include topics of etiquette, psychology, software, books/articles/media. In general, questions which can be answered without significantly referencing any chess-specific data (other than whatever data was presented by the question) are off-topic.
Questions about variants may or may not be accepted, depending how far removed from the standard game it is. In general, a variant which uses the same board and pieces as standard chess is an on-topic subject.

I welcome your feedback, and will be glad to make changes that increase clarity and coverage.
Edit: Bad_Bishop commented that it would be helpful to resolve the gray area surrounding programming questions. Toward this end I posted two answers - one for programming Qs and one against programming Qs. Vote on these to help us determine whether inclusion or exclusion of programming topics would be best for our site.
Edit 2: The poll shows that our community is favorable toward programming questions, and I have added a sentence to that effect in the scope writeup.

I would say that actual programming at its basic level, no matter the topic of the program, is off-topic here on Chess.SE. Asking for specific insights into theory etc, to improve your knowledge base when creating such a program could easily be on-topic though. Just my thoughts. I'll take a vote here in the answers.

The actual programming at its basic level should be off-topic, but the kinks and twists of coding for the specific purposes of chess (or its relatives and variants), engines/GUIs, and different notations/protocols might beg some leeway on occasion. There are many coding sites, but how many of them overlap with a large and interested population of chess players?

Yes
Programming questions specifically related to chess, such as this one, are on-topic.
Upvote this post if you think that the site would benefit from including questions regarding chess software programming. For the purposes of this poll, questions regarding existing chess software are not considered. (No downvotes please. If you disagree, upvote the No answer.)

No
Programming questions specifically related to chess, such as this one, are off-topic.
Upvote this post if you think that the site should not include questions regarding chess software programming. For the purposes of this poll, questions regarding existing chess software are not considered. (No downvotes please. If you disagree, upvote the Yes answer.)


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Do we want to use `this formatting` for reproducing chess moves?
Do we want to universally use (and encourage the use of) this formatting for reproducing chess moves?
I use this formatting in my posts, because I think it's clearer, and quickly draws the eye to the moves under discussion, but I'd like to know whether I should edit 1... d5 to 1... d5 where I see it, for example.  I did it here, when the original post looked like this:

I'd concentrate on chasing Black's queen. Nc3 is a normal developing move, and threatens Nd5.
Another move is Pd3, which threatens Bg5. Black's most threatening countermove is 3.... Bc5, which can be met by 4. Be3. If Black exchanges bishops, it opens the f file of the (castled) rook to chase the queen.
No need to sweat this one because Greco is an inferior opening. Just make good developing moves and Black will fall behind in development.

Is this a good idea, or should I not worry about reformatting chess moves?  The work load involved is not an issue for me - it's the community's opinion I want to know.

Related: Is it necessary to put backticks for moves?

I agree with your edit for the notation style Daniel. The regular font for the site is great for words where the characters should nicely flow together. Chess notations however I think benefit from the font you used where each character has the same amount of spacing.
So I think it's a good rule of thumb, although it will mean plenty of updating for questions put forth by new members.

Thanks for the input; I think I'll start editing a little.  In this stage of the site, it's not too gargantuan a task, spread out over several days.

I agree, good summary - after seeing a bunch of the edits by Daniel (good thing you have 1000 rep, BTW...) I do like the way that the moves are set off now.  The only exception I can think of would be cases where main lines as well as variations are given, it might be nice to separate the two, but in this case the variations can probably be italicized.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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Possibly synonymous tags: [wcc], [world-champions], [championship]
The tags wcc, world-champions, and championship have such major overlap in scope that I think we should merge them down to one or two tags.
Obviously championship can be merged into world-champions, but my question to the community is: should we merge wcc as well, or simply leave that one as it is?

My preference would be to replace all of wcc, world-champions and championship with a single tag named world-championship. I think that a tag so named should be able to comfortably subsume the slightly different purviews intended by those other tags.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Asking Questions Regarding Fundamentals
This is a somewhat related question:

Constructive topics and question-asking practice

I have been going back over some basic studies that I did a few years ago before I drifted away from chess. Is it acceptable to ask questions that can be found via Google?
For example I remember a few years ago studying King and Pawn endings via the works of Karsten Müller. He would use the terms key squares and critical squares in a way that it was not clear to me if the two terms were interchangeable. Would it be acceptable to ask for both a definition of the term key square and a clarification regarding critical square even though I know the answer and the question could likely be resolved via a brief Google search? Of course this is applicable to other fundamental ideas that could be found via a search engine as well. It seems like a question that should be on the SE Chess site...
Even though I already know the answers to the example question, I would not be answering it myself unless it sat unanswered for a few days.

Is it acceptable to ask questions that can be found via Google?

See this post by Robert Cartaino, one of the Stack Exchange team:

General Reference is intended to dissuade questions that can be easily looked up in a source that is specifically designed to answer that question: "What is the definition of [X]?", "What is the melting point of lead?", "What year did Maryland become a state?" These are not not problems that needs to be solved; They're just a lazily-asked question that can just as easily be looked up. And General Reference is not saying "that question is easily Googleable." Let's not go there.
Should questions that can be googled be disallowed? <-- will be public shortly

As well as the post last linked to:

You should completely remove "This answer is Googleable" from your vocabulary because it is a gross mischaracterization of the issue.
We've experimented with a close reason called "general reference" to rid some sites of ultra-basic questions — questions that are asked in such a lazy fashion as to be easily findable in references designed to quickly and effortlessly find that information.
Question: What is the Qur'an?
Answer: "Grrr... Why don't you just look it up?!"

Googling per se is not a good enough reason to close a question.
To answer a hypothetical question you raised:

Would it be acceptable to ask for both a definition of the term key square and a clarification regarding critical square even though I know the answer and the question could likely be resolved via a brief Google search?

Yes, it would be acceptable.  The ideas and experience of the members of this community will likely be able to clarify and define chess theory in a better, more concise, and more compact way than random (though in some cases worthy) sources found by Google.
It's different from questions such as What is a Rook?, since the answer to that question is readily available and has been universally and exhaustively answered to the point at which it cannot appreciably be improved upon.
As long as the existing sources are not necessarily available, consistent or exhaustive, your question should be fine.

To address the last line of your post:

Even though I already know the answers to the example question, I would not be answering it myself unless it sat unanswered for a few days.

See Jeff Atwood's blog post on answering your own question - It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions.  An excerpt:

To be crystal clear, it is not merely OK to ask and answer your own question, it is explicitly encouraged.
I do it all the time! For example, when I ran into a nasty issue with Java exploits in Google Chrome when browsing for images, I documented that on Super User by asking and answering my own question. Now, others can benefit from my misfortune — and best of all, I got new even better answers beyond what I offered! Overall, a huge win all around.
... Bottom line — never hesitate to ask and answer your own question on any Stack Exchange site.

In fact, there's even an option to answer your own question before you post it, so when the question is posted, the answer is posted at the same time.  See https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/ask:

I would not recommend immediately accepting your own answer, though there's nothing wrong with doing so after others have had a chance to answer, and yours is still (to you) the best.  If no one else answers, feel free to accept your answer.

Thanks, Daniel. I had already seen his post regarding answering your own questions. I was just hoping to get someone's rep up as according to the Area 51 site we still need some more people ranked over 200. I was hoping someone with rep < 200 might respond... We'll see.


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Suggestions for Attracting New Users

Possible Duplicate:
What avenues of site promotion do we have available?

Do you guys have any suggestions for attracting new users? We seem to have a total of 47 avid users at this point and all our metrics are pretty low except for "answers". I have seen the thread for advertising on the other SE sites, but I think it might be wise to talk about some ways that we might advertise on other sites. Suggestions?

Good question, already asked: http://meta.chess.stackexchange.com/q/106/167

I'm going to close this one so we can keep all discussion concentrated at the earlier question (which I've now "featured", so thanks to Robert for bumping this in my mind).


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how about having a way to add and show a board in the questions?

Possible Duplicate:
PGN input field and software to depict this input as board position

There are a times when one tries to ask about best move at a point in the game. And I think it would be best to have a way to attach a board to a question. how about it?

I think this is a duplicate, see here and here. We certainly do need this feature.

ohhh! they didn't turn up in my related questions


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Why was this questions closed, "Crowdsourcing game play advice, is it flawed?"
The question, crowdsourcing-game-play-advice-is-it-flawed was "closed as not a real question", any thoughts on why it is not a real question?
Meaning to me it seems if it was not a real question, a real answer would not be possible, and there is a real answer.

I was not involved in the closing, but here's how I see it...
I think Daniel summed it up well in his comment:

Basically, your question is very broad. It's like asking "what value does playing chess have?" Do you want to know why people like it? What the difference between "crowdsourced" games and OTB games tends to be? What do you want to know about it? You do ask "is it flawed?", but that seems like asking "are chess players flawed?"

To me, your question reads like a great discussion starter, but I'm not sure that it's an answerable question in our Q&A format.

+1 @Anna Lear: I'm not a chess player either, which might explain the gap in my understanding. Guess at this point if it's a bad question, I'd request it be delete; which I'm unable to do, since there's an answer. Again, thanks!

@blunders I can remove it for you, if you like.

Yes, thanks, sorry for the trouble!

@AnnaLear Nudge


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Do we want winter hats?

UPDATE: Based on feedback, we have told Stack Exchange that we want hats.  Stay tuned for more information on how this will work...

Last year, Stack Exchange had an event called Hat Dash for gaming.stackexchange.com.  Users could earn "hats" for their gravatar by completing various tasks - very similar to the current badge system.

This year, Stack Exchange is expanding the event to include all sites that wish to participate.
Here's the run down:

The event will run from 19 December 2012 to 4 January 2013.
Users will be able to see their entire hat collection on http://winterba.sh. That site will also have a landing page, explaining the rules and other details of the event.
Individual users who don’t want to participate, don’t want to see hats, and/or are generally anti-hat will have an "I hate hats" option available..
The only visual change to the site itself will be the presence of the hats and the "I hate hats" button in the footer.
We need to let Stack Exchange know by 28 November 2012, so vote away on if you want hats.

how long will this event last?, my vote strongly depends on this

@ajax333221 The event is Dec 19 - Jan 4, and the hats go away after that.

Yes, we want hats!  Hats are fun!

No, we don't want hats, the site is fine without them.


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How do we grow the community of Chess.SE?
How do we grow the site?
For example, for one question I emailed John Donaldson (USA Zone President in FIDE) a link to the question, "Which is the World's largest chess club?" -- but he decided to reply via email, than post an answer himself; which is fine, it's awesome he replied so fast to a random email.
Other option might be creating social media accounts that are under the communities control, since for example this Twitter account for Chess.SE appears to just auto-post question based on factors that are unknown; though honestly doesn't matter how they're posted since no human is actively engaging users via the account.
Any suggestions?
UPDATE: Not sure what to make of the lack of comments. Anyone have any comments on the topic?
UPDATE 2: If you have an idea/suggestion, please post one idea/suggestion per answer, not a group of them within one answer. Doing so will allow the community to better express their support of a given idea.

I wish I knew...

@Daniel δ: Thanks for the comment! So, not "knowing is half the battle". ;)  I'm not really able to think of anything either, or at least that I know would likely make a difference. For now, I don't believe it is an big issue, but longer term it will be an issue. Also, if it matters, I've previously made an attempt to get another SE community to work together to grow the site, and nothing to my knowledge ever happen; which is to say most users have no solid idea of what to do.

Finding other chess related questions/answers/comments (and the related users) -- and engage the users in a meaningful way, possibly pointing them to the new Chess.SE site.
Here's one way to find chess related SE content on other SE sites.

+1: In fact, I just posted a comment referring the OP of a chess question on BCG to this site.  tttppp seemed a likely candidate, since s/he has no small amount of rep on BCG and this chess question was asked only three months ago.

+1 @Daniel δ: Great, and agree tttppp would likely value getting a ping about Chess.SE, though I would be careful about just posting comments that might just appear to be advertisements; meaning it's best to combine it with a meaningful answers and/or comment. Other thing, with might not be obvious, but it's always a good idea to confirm the user being engaged does not already have an account on Chess.SE via their network profile; for examples, here's ttppp. Cheers!

Yep, checked that before I commented.  But I take your point about "advertising".  One reason I wouldn't be too worried about it in cases like this is that tttppp seems already interested in chess.  If I wasn't so sure about that aspect, I would probably be more careful to give the invite some greater intrinsic appeal.

@Daniel δ: Yes, I know, and agree -- just basing this off of responses I've gotten researching the topic on SO-Meta in the past, though that's SO. Really in the end depends on the user and the SE posted to I believe. I've used a similar approach to engage existing dormant users with great success; also note that oddly the community thought this was a bad idea too.

Never drive a newcomer away by punitive dogpile downvoting.
It’s not just the newcomers who are offended by this. It turns my stomach, and is the main reason I myself rarely participate in stackexchange.
Everyone was a newcomer once.

Unfortunately, I don't think Chess Stack Exchange has potential for much further growth.
Stack Exchange sites are about objective takes on answerable questions. Most questions that have a definite answer can be answered with an engine, a tablebase and other resources... Those are not features of Chess Stack Exchange (and probably can't be). Since opinion-based questions are not acceptable, we're left with questions about records, statistics, history..., about the rules, about trying to explain an engine's output in human terms and not much more...
Furthermore, there's a very high focus on chess computers (probably due to our proximity to Stack Overflow) which is itself a very niche topic inside chess. Most of the chess community couldn't be bothered and may not be interested in participating in a site where more than half the questions in the front page are about engines.
In short, chess forums are great and the Stack Exchange format is also great but they do a poor match.


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How civil should one be in critiquing someone after down voting a post?
I'll begin with a mea culpa. In the original version of my answer to the following question How do I get a well-rounded understanding of chess openings? I gave the wrong variation. Someone pointed it out with a down vote, and gave the correct variation. I even sent him a post admitting my error, and thanked him for the heads up.
The issue was, in downvoting me the first time, he said, "This answer is horrible...I wish I could down-mod this down into negative territory." Am I (the OP) wrong is thinking that this seems a bit harsh?
After my correction (and reply) he replied,
"Your utter mis-understanding of the positional considerations after 5...Na5 warrant that you entirely delete this answer -- it's a travesty and will only pass on your severely flawed understanding to others with even less knowledge, thereby hindering their chess progress rather than enhancing it."
It's certainly ok to say, "This is wrong, and here's the correct line," or I disagree with your interpretation, here's mine "(with or without a down vote).
But it seems to me that the above criticism goes a bit beyond this. Are my critic's comments within the bounds of civil discourse on this site?

I think the criticism was indeed extreme.  I found your answer useful, and I hope that you didn't take the attack personally.  I'm definitely interested to hear what other people have to say on the subject.  For future reference, if a comment is ever solely a personal attack (this flirts with the line between attack and actual feedback on the answer), you can flag it as offensive.  If enough users flag it as offensive, it will be deleted.

@GeorgeJempty Even the grossest error does not warrant extreme force, especially if inadvertent.  Point it out, certainly. Downvote if it's incorrect.  If you're afraid that's too off-in-the-corner, by all means, ask your own question (as you did), even link it in a comment to the original answer.  Anyone who would have been inclined to take the incorrect information seriously will almost certainly be redirected. In short, everything you did would have been perfectly fine, if only you had eschewed the "extreme" and "forceful" terms included.

Trolls abound on the internet.  Let it roll off like water off the back of a duck.

Those two comments were outside the boundary of appropriate criticism.  I deleted them since the only redeeming value they had was the correction to the move order and suggestion to change a mistake, which was promptly followed up on.   Any further merit (in the realm of the 5... Na5 remarks) was not sufficiently developed or free from censorious effect.  It's important to note that critical comments are completely fine and are allowed, as long as they do not degenerate into attacking.  It's not acceptable even to encroach on a personal attack, and your goal should not be to "attack" a post, but rather to correct/enhance it.
It's true that some posts are completely wrong and the answerer doesn't know a thing about what he's talking about, but it will never help matters to call it a "horrible" post, and go on about how it will damage all innocent readers who pass by.  Simply state why it is wrong and downvote it.  Flag it if it's not an answer to the question.
The comments in question should have been in objective terms (e.g. "your move order is incorrect", "you probably meant 5... so-and-so", "such-and-such is why your assertions about 5... Na5 are not grounded in reality", etc), and not attacking ones.  Forceful language, if ever used, should be reserved for hard-core abusers of the site, such as trolls and spammers, and are definitely not in place when directed toward a genuine mistake.

I agree with all this. I have made posts were I made mistakes and others pointed out things like "Did you mean..." for example.  If it resulted in personal attacks or humiliation, I probably would never post answers or questions which is the purpose of the site.

". . . not to attack, but to correct and enhance." This. A thousand times. I cannot remember the last time a regular on the Stack Exchange websites I frequent has deliberately written something wrong and misleading. It just doesn't happen. Mistakes happen, but the notion of genuine malice on the part of regular contributors toward unsuspecting readers is ludicrous.

If you don't agree with an answer, simply a downvote and a comment stating that the answer is wrong is sufficient. There is no scope for personal attack on stack exchange.
In fact even if some one is deliberately presenting incorrect answers, down vote from more experienced people will push that answer into oblivion.

No.  Only on meta do you downvote to disagree.  Downvotes on the main sites are for offensive, wrong or very low quality posts, whether answers or questions.  You don't downvote because "I disagree".

Ok what i meant by disagree - was to say that you don't think it is the correct answer. on a query related to chess it is not always straight forward to say that the answer is clearly wrong.

@Seth Actually, Novice is right. Offensive and very low quality posts should be flagged (and downvoted). But downvotes are for a) unhelpfulness, e.g. not addressing the question (hence "this answer is not useful" - hover over a downvote answer button) and b) disagreement (since a wrong answer is also not useful). "I disagree" is the polite way to say "you're wrong", mainly because it's possible that they're right and you're wrong. We are all fallible humans; it's unrealistic to expect that everyone knows what's right and what's wrong. SE.com is all about crowdsourcing rightness.


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Anyone going to the World Open?
Along the lines of site promotion, probably not a bad place to hang up posters, talk, etc.
And it would be fun to meet people!

I'm not going (never been), but you should definitely try to spread the word there.

I know I'm a year late, but I'm going down to DC today for the 2013 World Open :)


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Questions about algorithms/AI
What algorithms and heuristics are popular in computer chess?
What is an accurate way to evaluate chess positions?
These questions were asked right around the time the site opened.  The first one currently has 3 close votes, all for off-topic.  Any thoughts on whether it is on topic or off topic?  Per the comment link, this is off topic for the site: https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5056/can-i-ask-questions-related-to-chess-ai-and-algorithms.
While I think there is a fairly large population of programmers on the site currently, I think  that the Area 51 discussion is still on target and questions like this are off topic.  I'm not convinced that the questions would get good responses on a site like Computer Science, but those answers will almost certainly be better than what chess experts can come up with.

In light of votes to close on a recent question (http://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6178/167), I have featured this now two-year-old thread so that newer users can weigh in on whether such questions should be, as a matter of policy, considered on-topic or off-topic.

I believe informed questions pertaining to specific topics of chess programming (e.g. piece values, contempt, atrophy) have a place here as opposed to more generic AI/CS questions that are not relevant to chess experts.

I disagree with the Area 51 comments in the link above. As it is stated in the about section of this site, "This is a free, community driven Q&A for serious players and enthusiasts of chess." The linked comment chose to highlight the "serious players" aspect and therefore made the statement that this is not a technical forum. While the site might not be designed to be a technical forum first-and-foremost, if technical questions arise that are relevant to "serious players and enthusiasts" then they should be welcome in this community. Just because something might ALSO be appropriate on a different stack exchange site it doesn't mean it doesn't belong here too.
In short, is a question about a chess heuristic relevant to serious players and enthusiasts? If so, it belongs.

If I sought information on a chess algorithm or heuristic, Chess.stackexchange.com is one of the first places I would look, rather than a non-chess-specific programmer's site.  (Of course, were the site overrun with such questions, it might be another matter, but this does not seem to be the case.)  That's just me, of course; others might differ.

I believe most AI-for-chess questions do not fall into the scope of this site.
“Serious players and enthusiasts of chess” can well be programmers, computer scientists, or AI researchers, but that's not intrinsically unrelated with their chess interest. Them being way over-represented on this site is just a temporary SE feature, I hope.
Also, Chess questions are well answered on, say, SO. Maybe part of them should be migrated, or are already cross-network duplicates, but that's just a matter of community sizes…


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Let's get critical: May 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!


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Let's get critical: Aug 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

What is the average length of a game of chess?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)
With only a king left, how many moves remaining until a draw?
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)
Looking for an aggressive opening for black vs 1. d4
Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)
How to work out advantage?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)
What are the best scoring openings in chess 960
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)
What's the average Elo rating? What's the average USCF rating?
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)
Minimum moves to checkmate?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)
Endgame KNN-k chess puzzle checkmate
Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)
Closed Game effect for White
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)
Existence Flanking against Center Control
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

I like the site very much, but I think it inevitably get to a point where it will be hard to find new interesting questions as many will be already covered, and for the ones that are hard to exhaust, these will be very hard to google (yes, google is a verb).
I will post my analysis here, covering some of the most common types of questions:

questions about rules: very little questions can exists about this category, I believe no more than 40 (bad), and they are unlikely interesting, the only ones I think are worthy of existence are castling, en passant, and tournament related questions.
questions about a specific game/position/puzzle: we might learn from them, some can be very cool and instructive (good), but near impossible to search via search engines, so the only way to find them will be pure luck or by browsing inside the site (bad).
questions about historic events or people: very few people are interested in the history (bad), and the ones who care, they already read the whole bio on Wikipedia (bad), so we should not expect these kind of questions to generate much traffic (bad).
questions about openings: these might be hard to cover all (good), everybody has problems with couple of openings (good, for the healthy of site), our memory isn't very reliable (good, for the healthy of site), engines will likely give poor best-moves on openings without using opening books so people need to actually research this kind of questions to get reliable answers (good).
questions about XY vs X endings: I think that many sites cover this one very well, but they often don't show you how the trick is done (good, for this site), so having it shown in a PGN viewer is very neat (good), however the number of this kind of question is very limited (bad)

Also, if you are:

new to chess: (bad) you might read or ask about chess rules, but without the intention of becoming a future visitor or user of the site
average at chess: (good) these kind of people will be the majority, they will get stronger though (bad, for the site), but will hopefully get hooked to the site and the badge/reputation system enough to keep visiting and help newcomers in their path of getting stronger.
awesome at chess: (mmm?) you will hardly find anything useful here, maybe some historic questions and the fun of helping people. (hope these are enough incentives to keep returning to the site).

The more I analyze the information, the more fear I have of this site not surviving the beta, I know chess is infinite and impossible to be fully understood, but the questions can quickly get repetitive and covered, with exception of specific cases (which are anyways impossible to google)

Don't mean to be harsh on beginners, but a good number of beginner questions tend to show up and getting more attention than they deserve. Either the site tends to attract beginners or is not attractive enough for more serious players.
For example, this question indicates a lack of knowledge in what constitutes sufficient mating material, which is only a wikipedia page away even for casual players.


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Let's get critical: Nov 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

How to improve my blitz skills?
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

What is the reason for using gambits on defence?
Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Are two knights generally worth less than two bishops?
Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Multi-threat situation
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 0)

Well-annotated books for average players
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to convert PGN moves to long algebraic notation (in python)?
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Why is the king powerless and the queen powerful?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)

Software for opening repertoire practice
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)

Humans against computers
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 3)

Strategy on castle (short or long)
Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 4)


text:
Let's get critical: Feb 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

Caro-Kann variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

Why is castling through and out of check prohibited?

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 0)

Software To Create Chess Videos

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Is it possible to checkmate with rook and knight against just king?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to install stockfish on ubuntu?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

Interactive chess coaching software

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

It is important to play e4 or d4 to 'control the center'. Myth or reality?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

Guidelines for preparation for a Blitz tournament

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Longest path for knight

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

Where can I download (or buy) a database of Chess960 games?

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)


text:
Let's get critical: Aug 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

(How) should I avoid bishop exchange in Sicilian (Dragon) style setups?

Net Score: 7 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

How to handle the standard Bb4 (or Bg4 / Bg5 / Bb5) pin?

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

If I like both the Caro-Kann and the Slav, is it a good idea to answer 1. d4 with 1... c6?

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

When is it possible to carry out the "En Passant" manoeuvre?

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

What is the worst possible first move for White: 1.f3 or 1.g4?

Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 1)

Best Continuation for this Counter to Queen's Gambit Accepted

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Is this rook endgame won for white?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 2)

Fastest way to beat Gnu-Chess Easy as black?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 4)

Is there a software to measure a player's strength based on a game?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 3)

Chess tactics training

Net Score: -6 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 7)

When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.

It all depends from the attitude of the person viewing the site.
If they are beginners, they will see a lot of useful content and will learn indeed a lot. We have done good job covering some tricky endgames ( B vs R or N vs R, many pawn/rook endings etc ), popular typical pawn structures ( Carlsbad / Isolated Queen's pawn etc ) and we have very good general coverage of the openings. This is all good to point the beginner in the right direction by giving him/her the basic principles and then providing literature and other sources to further improve. Beginners will also highly appreciate friendly and highly educational quality of our answers, regarding analyzing their positions. We did not ridicule anyone here, and have upvoted basically everything which serves well to "break the ice" with the newcomer. As far as 1400 u to 2100 ELO, this site is probably the best they can get.
If the viewer is a professional, then things get grim for him/her. First of all, we completely lack in standard. We do not have clear definition of what questions are allowed here and what are not ( this was mentioned on Meta before ). This is the consequence of not having highly skilled players in our team. Our highest reputation users are mere amateurs or FM at best. Because we are in danger not surviving Beta status, we get extra pressure and allow a lot of bad questions, like "What are some chess songs?". This question is not regarded to chess and should have been heavily downvoted and closed. The reason is that it asks about a song, which is not what this SE site is about. We massively upvoted it, which degrades the seriousnes of this site in my opinion ( what is next? "What are some chess snickers?" / "What are some chess cars?" / "What are some chess..." well, you get the point ). The lack of consistent review and standard will deter serious players from this site. PGN viewer is riddled with bugs and has limited capabilities. For a site that is a part of the best programming site online this is a joke! StackOverflow is packed with professionals who work for famous companies or are in the very top of the computer industry ( e.g. they own their own companies ). You can't tell me that you can't implement quality PGN viewer, that is bullcrap! This degrades the value of this site even more, and deters possible new user to join because nobody will "suffer" with comments for free which must be kept in mind -> we are free of charge Q&A site. Eventhough we have no clue what we are doing ( chess songs will not kill anyone I guess... ) and eventhough we experience technical difficulties ( crappy PGN viewer is still very useful ), the worst problem we have is lack of questions that should attract highly skilled players ( IM onward ). Without GMs in our pool of high reputation users, we have no ability to answer such questions and new users become quickly aware of this. Some "high quality" questions were asked in the past but the answers to those were ridiculous if we objectively look at it. We just can't cope with this and it is a painfull fact.
In short, if you are new and you're a beginner, this is the place for you. If you are FM, there is a slight chance you to find something useful, but if you are IM or GM just skip this site, it is a waste of time. Sadly, this is the truth at the moment.

Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well?

I have asked here on Meta a question regarding getting GMs to join and in return got the Tumbleweed badge ( for those of you who don't know, this means in short that nobody cared about my question ). Since nobody here gives a damn about raising the quality of this site to the highest possible height, I came to the following conclusion:
Chess SE team only cares for this site to pass Beta and will do anything to achieve this.
Tolerating questions that don't belong to this site, not having clearly defined reviewing standards and being overtly lenient towards crappy questions ( those questions where OP didn't show any research effort and similar ) might "save the day" in the short terms but will destroy the site in the long run.
I can already point out few crappy questions that got polluted with this type of approach, but what's the point? It seems to me that everybody already "agreed" that this should be site for players between 1400-2100 ELO and I honestly doubt that anything will change. I am very very sad because of this approach and feel like powerless "black sheep". I just don't know what to do to make people realize that we need GMs in our pool of top ranked users.
I said it once and I will say it again: without questions that cover problems of the master skilled player we can't seriously hope for healthy, respected, strong site.
Some people are willing to come here and "give a try" but they believe that they will not get quality response they expect. Many friends of mine who are masters did me a favor and "checked out" this site but ultimately said that "it can't help them." This is the second thing I have said before: we need highly skilled chess players as top users. The last thing is good PGN viewer. If we manage to fulfill these tasks the Internet is ours, there will be no chess force to compete with us because we offer free advice. The only thing missing is high quality. Helping FM /IM users would attract GMs and they could come to the same conclusion as I did: that this place has a great potential to become central place for the online chess world. It could unite chess fans all over the world thus raising overal chess quality in the world just as ChessInformant did in the 1960s when it first came out. this is my "ace in the sleeve", this is the potential I see for this site that might attract GMs.
CONCLUSION:

Get high skilled users;
Ask questions that address problems of high skilled players;
For the God's sake make a good PGN viewer and stop embarassing yourselves ( StackExchange has StackOverflow, they should "eat" this task "for breakfast" IMHO );

Just my two cents... Hopefully it will help in changing things towards better...

Your contrast between the lack of GMs here on the one hand, and the presence of world-class programmers at SO on the other, is of course accurate, but I think there is a very good reason why one simply shouldn't expect this site to come in line with SO in that regard. Top-flight programmers can answer questions for free at SO and not eat into their earning potential one iota. But with very few exceptions, those who manage to make a living at chess face a much starker financial situation than software developers, and a free lesson given here is one they will never get paid for.

@ETD: +1. But if we can make this place central point for chess discussion we could attract GMs. At the moment I am doing a research for the Scandinavian defense. The same line I am looking at is analyzed by GMs. They publish their analysis on different places but I believe that they would welcome the thought of having one place where the analysis would be published. Especially if it can be corrected or if they could get help in their analysis. Top-flight programmers can answer questions for free at SO and not eat into their earning potential one iota. True, I will reply in separate comment.

@ETD: The questions I had in mind regard typical problems FMs or IMs face that could be solved through experience. If one plays frequently enough then they will eventually solve the problem because they would reach the required level of strength at some point. Example would be to draw technical rook endgame -> at the moment OP wouldn't have required skill to do that, but through time would gain it. GM could help OP to learn faster. Why would this jeopardize GMs income? This would turn Chess SE into gold mine of instructive positions which will attract many book writers.

As I have suggested before, the very nature of the subject is ill-suited for SE. Let's suppose a GM did contribute content (not trivia-related) that is of "GM calibre", only those whose playing strength is within a certain threshold can appreciate and benefit, and such content is likely to be "localized" - a concrete line that a weaker player could not reproduce on his own. The playing strength of GMs and analysis skill that sets them apart from other players cannot be imparted through Q&A. Thus, there is no need for even stronger players to exist here as it would not make any real difference.

@prusswan, so what if only a certain segment of users could appreciate and benefit from GM content? That sort of thing happens in any subject. For instance, there are plenty of arguments produced by the Fields medalists participating at MathOverflow, where a user like myself who may not even be familiar with the exact subject at hand can't begin to appreciate or make use of what has been produced. But some users will find great value in it, even if the Q&A format can't magically turn them into Fields medalists themselves. I don't follow how our setting is so different.

@ETD: +1 for the comment. SE should serve all its users, not majority ones. That is my official point of view.

Well, you don't need to be a fields medalist to be an expert in math. But chess expertise at the highest levels has more to with raw ability than logic or arguments that can be laid out. Even if there are a pool of really strong players, I don't believe their participation will lead to a significant higher standard of Q&A than what has already been seen. Tactics-related questions don't require GM/IM input (their playing strength only means they should get them mostly right consistently). Then it is the same old for career/training/practice questions.

You perceive there is a lack of more expert participation (particularly from GMs), but in reality this site already has its fair share of experts, just that it will continue to be dominated by non-experts. With stricter policing, there might be a slight improvement but I won't be expecting Chess Informant-styled content.
"Do strong players ask better chess questions? No, they just stop asking dumb ones"

I agree with @AlwaysLearningNewStuff, higher rated users mean higher quality questions and answers. Chess is a logical game, and cannot be categorized as an "ability game" excluding logic. Every move has its reason, and if GMs make better moves than the rest, it's because they have better reasons. And these can be explained.

@pablo: +1! Every move has its reason, and if GMs make better moves than the rest, it's because they have better reasons. And these can be explained. -> this!

GMs see things that most people don't. If these can be "explained" then everyone would be a GM by now, isn't it? The kind of stuff that needs explaining (don't hang your pieces, but this is hyperbole of course) to the unwashed masses, do not warrant the presence of a GM.

@prusswan: As someone who has strength of an IM, I can tell you that everything can be explained. The difference is that you need to be in shape and in good physical fitness in order to play constantly at GM level. I haven't played actively for more than 10 years and my tactical skill nearly perished, not to mention that I have harder time to play blindfold now. Still, plan is a plan, it can be explained. Concrete calculation is what "separates men from the boys". For skilled players it would be enough for GM to tell them "to combine minority attack with typical f5 push"...

@AlwaysLearningNewStuff That is precisely my point, in that you don't need a GM to explain "plans" or "ideas". They can't "explain" concrete calculation any more than you do. If expert participation is what this site is lacking, GMs are not a silver bullet to this problem.

@prusswan: you don't need a GM to explain "plans" or "ideas" -> yes you do, because my evaluation of position differs from theirs and that is the only thing at the moment that is different. You should try sometimes to observe their live post-game analysis and see just how easily you could understand their moves after you know their plans. Once at FM level of skill or higher, the "only" thing that differs from a GM is the evaluation of the position. As for calculation you are right, it depends on physical fitness and practice and is irrelevant as this can be improved on your own.

Isn't the evaluation a direct result of calculation? I don't believe plans are unique to having a specific title. Any player is certainly capable of coming up with the same plan as a GM, but will likely opt for a weaker one because it is the calculation that sets them apart. In fact GMs can make a wrong "plan" too when they lose to other GMs.

Isn't the evaluation a direct result of calculation? -> not always, some positions can't be calculated and one must rely on own experience and evaluation. An example can be typical middlegame position in QGD Exchange variation. It is very hard to play it as Black, but objectively speaking it is equal. This is the place where GM's experience can be very helpful. He can recommend correct path and thus saving OP's time. Not all of us have enough spare time to play so many games in order to get enough experience to play the position correct.

They stopped with the site-evaluations, but the questions are still relevant.
As an intermediate player I still see an over-representation of trivial questions (for my level) like #4 and #5. The second problem is that the site population is not able to differientiate content like #2 or #3 from trivia (perceived as noise for expert players), resulting in a semi-broken reputation system.


text:
Let's get critical: Feb 2015 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Is this evaluation process and discussion only meant for comparing this site with other sites found on Google, or also discussing the quality of this site not in terms of other sites?

+1 @JiK: Agree, it's a bit unclear, thanks for asking! Here's what appears to be an example of the report that's generated by this process.

@Jik, please feel free to discuss the quality site in any absolute or relative way you'd like below. I know such has taken place during some of the previous site self-evaluations.

Final Results

How can black exploit this lead in development?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Can Black save this Knight vs Bishop endgame with a pawn down?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

FIDE rules regarding use of foreign languages in algebraic notation

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Accidental moves in online chess

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Chess GUI with Time Handicap for Engine vs Engine matches

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

How should an arbiter handle copying moves from another game?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 3)

What are some good books on the Caro-Kann which propose a Black repertoire based on positional, strategic, solid, boring and quiet variations?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 2)

Guidelines for chess tournament prize distribution

Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 2)

In a ChessBase opening tree how can we put a column that displays the percent of time each move is played or a column that displays "Perf" minus "Av"?

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 3)

In the Classical Variation of the Caro-Kann, what is the most positional, strategic, quiet, slow, closed, boring, dry and solid variation for Black?

Net Score: -4 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 5)

We all love Chess Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people
  out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that
  this site exists.

http://chess-links.org/index500.html doesn't seem to know about us. Or are we just outside the top 500?
This is how chess-links describes itself -

Top chess websites sorted by popularity (rating by alexa.com). Last
  update 2015.02.19.  To suggest a new website that is not in the list
  e-mail us at webchesslinks@gmail.com

I think the reason that chess-links.org doesn't list chess.stackexchange.com is because chess.stackexchange.com doesn't have an Alexa rank (since Alexa just considers it part of stackexchange.com).


text:
2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
To that end, here is how the moderation done here on Chess breaks down by activity over the past 12 months:
                 Action                  Moderators Community¹
---------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  0          8
Users destroyed                                   1          0
Tasks reviewed³: Suggested Edit queue             0        417
Tasks reviewed³: Reopen Vote queue                0         84
Tasks reviewed³: Low Quality Posts queue          1        565
Tasks reviewed³: Late Answer queue                0        178
Tasks reviewed³: First Post queue                 0        609
Tasks reviewed³: Close Votes queue                0        901
Tag synonyms proposed                             0          3
Questions reopened                                1          2
Questions protected                               0         71
Questions flagged⁴                                0        124
Questions closed                                  1        202
Question flags handled⁴                          38         86
Posts undeleted                                   1         22
Posts locked                                      0         12
Posts deleted⁵                                   48        231
Posts bumped                                      0        120
Comments undeleted                                1          0
Comments flagged                                  0        307
Comments deleted⁶                                66        529
Comment flags handled                            95        212
Answers flagged                                   3        362
Answer flags handled                             79        286

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Chess without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁴ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁵ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁶ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Wishing you all a happy new year...

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
2019: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
  -- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
And what could be more festive than a big pile of numbers?
So here is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Chess over the past 12 months:
                  Action                  Moderators Community¹
----------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                   1         12
Users destroyed³                                   3          0
Users contacted                                    5          0
Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue            115        520
Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue                35        179
Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue          62        281
Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue                53        109
Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue                192        415
Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue               148        681
Tags merged                                        1          0
Tag synonyms proposed                              1          1
Tag synonyms created                               5          0
Tag highlight language set                         2          0
Questions unprotected                              1          1
Questions reopened                                 7          9
Questions protected                                9        118
Questions migrated                                 4          0
Questions flagged⁵                                 2         85
Questions closed                                  76        129
Question flags handled⁵                           61         31
Posts unlocked                                     2          2
Posts undeleted                                    5         14
Posts locked                                       4         12
Posts deleted⁶                                   145        304
Posts bumped                                       0         32
Escalations to the Community Manager team          1          0
Comments undeleted                                 3          0
Comments flagged                                 154        355
Comments deleted⁷                                410      1,023
Comment flags handled                            313        200
Answers flagged                                   37        335
Answer flags handled                             273        101
All comments on a post moved to chat               2          0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Chess without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? I posted a similar report here last year: 2018: a year in moderation...
You can also check out this report on other sites
Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing you all a happy new year...


text:
Serial Down-voting
I have had some odd behavior with down-voting. I have noticed that just today, in a short span of time, around 6 questions that I have posted have suddenly been down-voted.  Some of these questions have been around for a while, so this doesn't seem right. Also, when someone down-votes, there is no explanation why and I know it is not obligatory, but it would be nice to know at least for improvement.  If someone is down-voting out of spite, then it is plain wrong.

There's a script that runs every day that'll check for unusual voting activity and invalidate it automatically. So generally, when you see something odd, give it a day and see if it clears up.
If it doesn't, you can always flag one of your posts and ask a moderator to look into it. Keep in mind though, on a site this small it's easy for folks to end up voting for each other a lot without actually trying - you've asked something like 18% of all questions on the site, so there's a pretty decent chance of someone running across your work.

+1 Cool, Chess Exchange gets a big time mod :D


text:
Anyone want to meet in chat and play some online blitz?
Are there any players around who would like to meet in chat and play some online blitz?
At some point we can potentially arrange a tournament with site users.
It will help new users see our site live, and it will be an interesting opportunity for users to play and improve.
Hope to see you in the chat room!


text:
Tags "replayer" and "pgn-viewer"
Should these two tags from the meta site: replayer and pgn-viewer be synonimized?

Which one should be the parent tag? I'll synonymize them once we (as a community) pick a parent.

I synonymized the tags so now replayer is a synonym for pgn-viewer.

I find the term "replayer" to be rather confusing, so I think replayer should be synonimized to  pgn-viewer.


text:
List of Chess Informant symbols that can be used in our PGN viewer?
Can someone post a list of Chess Informant ( and other symbols if any ) that can be used in our PGN viewer?
It is very useful to use them instead of commentary to preserve space. There were few bugs I encountered when using them, so I use this opportunity to point that out so it can be fixed in the near future, hopefully.
Posting an example game with all of the symbols in it is OK as well.
Thank you. Best regards.

Almost all of the informant symbols are supported, but you have to use the NAG format for them (a dollar sign and then a number corresponding to the symbol).
Here's a list of all of the symbols that are included:
$1   !
$2   ?
$3   !!
$4   ??
$5   !?
$6   ?!
$7   □ (only move)
$10  =
$13  ∞ (unclear)
$14  +/= (white slightly better)
$15  =/+ (black slightly better)
$16  +/- (white moderately better)
$17  -/+ (black moderately better)
$18  +- (white is winning)
$19  -+ (black is winning)
$22  white is in zugzwang
$23  black is in zugzwang
$32  white has a development advantage
$33  black has a development advantage
$36  → (white has the initiative)
$37  → (black has the initiative)
$40  ↑ (white has an attack)
$41  ↑ (black has an attack)
$132  ⇆ (white has counterplay)
$133  ⇆ (black has counterplay)
$140  ∆ (with the idea)
$146  N (novelty)

I included symbols for all of the ones that are supported by my browser (chrome).  Hopefully someday the missing ones get added too...
The most common symbols are definitely the first handful, but the last four are also commonly used.

I don't think that $14-$17 are currently supported, when I tried those out they ended up as an empty square instead of the correct unicode symbol.

+1, Thank you for this answer. I was able to figure out a lot of them by trial and error. I will try to remember some bugs with the PGN viewer when using those symbols and will make a new post on Meta. Best regards.


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How can we use The World Chess Championships to increase the interest in this site?
There was a huge jump in the number of visits to Sports.SE during the World Cup; could we discuss any ideas to attract visitors and enthusiasts to this site during the week leading up to this great rematch of East vs West, youth vs age, here.

Good question. I recall quite a bump in visits to chess.SE during last year's world championship (and these days the typical number of daily visits has already grown to be significantly greater than that increased traffic we got during Anand-Carlsen I). The upcoming match will likely see chess.SE's greatest traffic to date.

Thorough analysis of every game could do a lot for us. It doesn't have to be original, even quoting other sources ( and giving credit ) can do. People want to see detailed coverage of the game, so they can see all the nuances. If we can do that then things can get much better for Chess SE...


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What is the health of Chess.SE's beta from SE's point of view?
Has there been any comment from SE on their view of the health of Chess.SE's beta, and what is required to exit beta?

Related current stats:

As far as I am aware, the most recent and most direct comment on the site's health from someone at SE has been Grace Note's answer to an earlier meta question about whether the site could pass beta or should potentially merge with Board and Card Games. In short, her comments largely reflected the information from your graphic above: she indicated that the site overall was in her eyes quite healthy (to the point of recommending against a merger), but that indeed it would need to have significantly greater question volume in order to have a chance to graduate.
In response to that, there has also been some recent meta discussion about how question volume might be increased.

+1 Thanks, reviewed Grace's answer, and did a quick review of the recent meta discussion too. Possible that I am missing something, though the issue I see is that it appears neither Grace, nor the meta discussion address how to get people to ask more questions (or why they might not be asking questions); meaning all that appears to have resulted was an awareness of SE's opinion, and users talking about how they can post more questions; neither of which in my opinion long-term will fix the issue. If SE is supposed to be the expert, they need to provide more info on how to fix the issue.


text:
I'm concerned the format of StackExchange does not lend itself well to chess
We all understand SE is supposed to be a Q/A site, where questions are specific and answers are precise.  However, in chess, there aren't many firm answers.
These questions are not appropriate:

What's the best book? (opinion)
What's a good opening to learn? (opinion)
What should I have done differently on move 37? (too narrow, or "plug it into Crafty/Fritz and find out")
If Fischer had had a "laser" on his frikken' head could he have defeated Kasparov? (opinion)

Also, rules questions have been deemed inappropriate since they are easy enough to look up on official sites.
I'm not sure what's left to discuss on this site.

"Subjective" is not the same as "too subjective" or "purely subjective".  If you can support a move recommendation with a logical argument — angles of attack it prevents, pitfalls it avoids, was played by so-and-so and recommended by so-and-so, etc. — then it's a good answer.

What should I have done differently on move 37?

Personally I don't think that's too localized.  As above, answers should be supported, and that should allow the reader to learn something applicable to more than the specific game or board position in question.  I would think that an inability to learn from a specific game would mean that you're not going to be a very good chess player.
There are also more general techniques that can be asked about and real analysis that doesn't devolve into book recommendations or speculation.  I think your fears warrant active community participation in shaping site policies and closing bad questions, but I don't think it means there's nothing left besides crap.

Yes... Subjective != "too subjective" or better known as "Bad Subjective" - Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

I share the same concerns. To my understanding SE is not only a strangely organized forum site, but all about collecting questions and storing answers with the goal of building a knowledgebase. Those questions can be searched by keywords and even years later someone might benefit from the answer given years ago, because he ran into the same problem. At least this is how I use the other SE sites.
Discussing concrete positions about improvements at move 37 do not lend itself for being searched. In regard to searchability or building up a knowledge base they are useless, or "too narrow" in the language of SE.
Open questions like "what is the best defense against opening XY" are useless, too, because the answer will vary depending on the meaning of "best", the playing strength of the reader etc. Many books are filled with Sicilian Theory or "Anti-Sicilian-Repertoires", so how useful might a three-paragraph answer to the question about the best defense against the Sicilian be? It will not exceed the quality of mere pub talk. A quality standard which is far below that of the answers of the other SE sites I know.
The opinions will have a place ("how should I train for a tournament", "how can I teach children",...), because we are dealing with soft facts here, not with mathematical theorems. There is no better answer than an opinionate one.
I was irritated that I do not see any effort yet to close questions that are too narrow or not answerable, although this is a necessary part of shaping the site, too. I must admit  currently I am somewhat disappointed with chess SE and the questions being asked here.

I'm curious - have your feeling changes in teh past 9 years?

I agree with Tony.  Chess can be a very subjective subject in many areas.  Yes, there are concrete answers to some of the questions, but many of the questions have multiple answers.  Also some of the best questions regarding chess are opinionated questions such as what is a good opening for white to learn? or what do you recommend as a beginner repertoire?  Questions that maybe too narrow are exactly what this site needs.  If someone asks what should I have done on move 37, you might get several answers and if you get some analytical input with those answers, it will make the question/answer more valuable to the community, basically, when someone asks what should I have done on move 37, they usually want to know the what and the why as well.
The mere fact that I have not seen a question in 2 days, the last one I see is the one I posted about the Scotch Game is not pleasing to me.  This makes me agree even more with Tony.  I believe the StackExchange is somewhat too strict for Chess.  There needs to be an exception to the rule and questions that would normally not be allowed on other sackexchange sites need to be allowed on here.  We are going to run into a lot of opinionated questions with Chess, but that is just life.

Let's consider what purpose is chess.SE fulfilling as compared to the other major sites.

It does not carry the latest news and happenings.
It does not relay live games of major events.
It does not track the live ratings.
It does not provide lookup of games, openings and other relevant statistical data.
It does not sell chess products.
It does not encourage banter.

For what that is remaining, it might be good for questions that pertaining to specific openings and endgames, but I tend to see it as limiting to fit the type of content that may exist in chesspub and other opening/engine sites into the boundaries of SE, and do not believe expert users on those sites would find it attractive.
Also, the Q&A format reminds me of the Evans on Chess column in Chess Life (US chess magazine) and the content is entertaining primarily for the amount of anecdotes available to the late writer, who had been part of the scene for many decades. I would seriously doubt it would be successfully had the content been limited to "objective content" with Informator-styled symbols.
This is my initial response about the feasibility of chess.SE, and it does look like the users have already given the answer, so the problem now is accepting the reality.
Update:
The main problem is that it has no real niche except for "free" training tips and trivia (you can consider that either as a specialty or degeneration). The problem about training is that:
1) Professional trainers are either too busy or understandably reluctant to participate since the profession pays rather poorly.
2) To become experts (in the sense of playing strength), you would literally have to put in hours of work to play, study and calculate, and that has very little to do with going through Q&As.
The format is also not helping because existing chess sites provide more relevant content and function and do not limit themselves to merely Q&As of a certain nature. Having a site like this only looks like an attempt to fit an existing solution onto a non-existing problem instead of solving any real one.

What is the answer that the users have already given, and what is the reality that needs to be accepted?

@EdDean The site is filling the holes left behind by the major sites, but otherwise it isn't really a strong competitor as a source of expert information.

I agree with you that this site isn't a competitor as a source of expert information at this point in time. And if you are right (and you may well be) that this site is ultimately unable to attract strong players that frequent places like chesspub as users here, then indeed the future here is bleak. I suppose where I disagree with you is that I don't consider any final verdict to have been given, as the site as yet is flying under the radar and has generated little traffic. So as of now, I think there's too little data to conclude (1) People just don't like the format enough, ...

... as opposed to (2) Not enough people have been exposed to the site yet. If we start getting a lot more visitors (as a mod I have access to such stats) and yet no one sticks around, I'd start agreeing with you more and more. But so far, we're just not getting many "first looks" to begin with, and that's something that needs attention.

(Re: the update) I personally think the SE format has great potential, and actually has an edge over typical forums (e.g. chesspub). Whereas at a place like chesspub you can end up with pages and pages of posts on a single topic, some of which might have interesting/useful content, but many of which are just noise that need to be sifted through in order to find good content, here the community has a built-in way to make cream rise to the top, and precisely because of that I like chess.SE far more than any chess forum I've ever seen (that's why I stuck around here when I found it). ...

... That's just my personal preference, of course, and many others will certainly agree with you that the SE format is offputting, preferring the more free-flowing discussion found elsewhere. But I think it's just as likely that many folks could come to appreciate it. Again, only time will tell, and it seems way too early to know whether most everyone will feel the way that you do about it, or whether a big enough slice of the pie will actually enjoy the format the way that, say, I do.

I do not know how well Chess.stackexchange.com fits the original conception of a classic Stackexchange site, but I do know that I like this chess site better than any other I have visited.  Ideally, one might adapt Stackexchange's standard software to this particular site's needs, but of course that almost certainly is not realistic.  In the meantime, if this is a nice site with interesting questions and even more interesting answers, a site run by interested people, then is there any reason it should not continue as long as it has moderators willing to continue it?  I mean, is there a critical need to kill it off, just because it fails quite to fit the preconceived Stackexchange profile?
If Chess.stackexchange.com seems to work, more or less -- even if its volume is a little low -- then cannot we just keep it?  I like this site.

Interest does not necessarily lend itself to generating expert information

thb, my understanding is that so long as questions are generally receiving quality answers, and it's not an absolute ghost town, the site will continue to exist. Now if it were to go untended at all, that could of course get the site the ax.

Questions like these are best for chat - while I've never seen this done before, and maybe there's a reason why... maybe the solution is to have a single meta-community wiki question where each answer is a discussion that's linked to and up/down voted based on popularity. Again, not sure how chat works, or opinion on how systems "should" be used, but seems like a solution to me.

CW questions are for extremely narrow cases, see http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/. Meta is for discussing the site, not as a dumping ground for off topic questions. Chat is the best place, discussing opinions on chat leads to some community bonding as well :)

+1 @Manishearth: Agree.


text:
Critical information should not be stored solely in the title
Some questions are appearing with moves in the title, or other critical information, that is not repeated again in the main question, which makes reading the post a little bit confusing.  I propose the reviewers to actively move critical parts of the question (specially moves), to the main post.

Based on upvotes for the question, the community agrees with you.
(Answer posted to remove question from unanswered list.)


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Endgame and Middlegame tags
Both endgame and middlegame are one word each in chess literature, but the tag for endgame is currently end-game.  Is there an easy way to fix this, or do we have to un-tag everything that has endgame right now and then re-tag it?.
The reason that tag synonyms don't work is that "endgame" is considered to be an alternate spelling of "end-game" so nothing can be tagged "endgame" and the tag synonym cannot be created until the "endgame" tag exists.
N.B. I created a middlegame tag in order to avoid this problem with that tag.

Funny, I also tried yesterday to change the tag on all the "end-game" questions, and failed of course.

Exercising the new mod tools, I fixed the endgame tag.


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Can we start a competition for chess.se?
I have seen several beta and other se sites were launching competitions and I wondered why can't we start an competition for chess.se too?
I think it may attract visitors and enthusiasts to keep us alive.

Interesting idea. Do you have a particular competition in mind?

@EdDean usually in other se sites they can conduct competitions based on votes but chess.se,my suggestions was to have a discussion in special chatroom for the competition,we can call all of the users whom were intrested and they can come with great ideas

I love the idea of playing postal chess with other users. The site could even have its own ranking system haha


text:
Who should our beta moderators be?
I just saw a post from the stackoverflow blog with the following suggestion: "If your meta site does not have a post to nominate Moderators, start one now!" I searched to see if there was such a post here, and didn't find one. So here we go.
That same blog post lists desirable qualities for moderators to have:

Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

And bonus points for:

Members with participation in both meta and the parent site (i.e. interest in both community building and expertise in the field).
Area 51 participation, social network referrals, or blogging about the site.
Members who have already shown an interest or ability to promote their community.

If there's someone you would like to nominate as a moderator pro tem for chess.SE, please post an answer below giving the nominee's name (linked to his or her user profile on main and meta). Each nominee should appear in a separate answer. Self-nomination is okay, even encouraged (since a young site means relatively limited knowledge of other users). If you do nominate a 3rd party, he or she will need to accept the nomination by editing the answer to reflect that fact.

Clearly understands SE
Votes the most of any user on Chess.SE
Edits the most of any user on Chess.SE
And per Daniel δ - "I would very much like being a moderator here"

Edit from Daniel δ - further info:
I have but one year of experience in SE to boast of - I am still a learner, but aspire to be an experienced learner.
I have been active in the SE network long enough to amass some credentials: as of now, at English.SE: 27K rep, 129 questions, 434 answers, 6530 votes, 1807 edits, 303 helpful flags. Among my hard-earned badges there: Fanatic, Convention, Proofreader, Reviewer, Archaeologist, Research Assistant, Deputy, Pundit, Epic, and Sportsmanship (and now Yearling!), not to mention Electorate and Copy Editor. And though I have, as @Ed pointed out, slowed down at English.SE, I still have 2nd place in voting.
I believe I will be able to spend the time necessary to moderate here during this site's beta. It's not as time-consuming as English.SE was, even when I wasn't a mod. Also, I think I'll be pretty safe with Ed Dean. I have the idea that he'll be a pillar to this site in terms of moderation. And with a third moderator (Andrew?), we'll be ready to roll!
After all that, I think it's only fair to let everyone know I'm only 16. Be that as it may, I'll try my very best not to let that fact give anyone cause to look down on me. I believe I can do the job and do it well, especially given the example of this moderator at English.SE, whose decisions and activity I have grown to respect, though he's just about my age.
My chess ability is not very extensive (rated about 1300 by online play, mostly 5-10 min blitz games), due in large part to the fact that my only chess education has come from playing with friends and reading the dozen or so books on chess that I own.  At this point I'm not sure whether I want to make chess anything more than a hobby, but whatever the case may be, I will always find enjoyment in it, and I will always welcome fresh knowledge of it.
Anything else you want to know about me will probably be found if you click around a bit in my profile.

@blunders I think you can make the post community wiki so that Daniel can edit it directly too.
+1 for Daniel!

+1 for Daniel :)

Ed Dean - I see a lot of high quality, well-thought-out answers from you, and based on your proactive meta participation and level-headed, consistent input (not to mention your in-depth understanding of chess), I think it would be a benefit to the site for you to be a moderator.
Ed's Edit: I'm a regular visitor to mathoverflow, though I go mostly to read, and contribute infrequently. A little while ago I was on that site, and found myself thinking that a stackexchange for chess should be created. I was even about to get geared up for an Area 51 proposal, but I went looking and, lo and behold, this place had just come out of private beta. So I definitely think chess.SE is a great idea, and I'd like to see it thrive. I'd be happy to do some moderating to help that along.

Seriously, Ed, you're the only one I'd like to venture to nominate currently, since your interest in the future of this site is pretty plain.  @Andrew, maybe others, could be an excellent moderator too, but I don't know what he thinks about the matter.  If you see this, Andrew, could you give your thoughts?  Nominate yourself if you want the position/title/responsibility/privilege of being a moderator; I'd back you up, and so would many others, I'm sure.

thanks for the kind thoughts.  I'd obviously be happy to, and I'd love to see the site succeed, but I'm not sure I've participated in SE enough to do a good job.  I've mainly only lurked on StackOverflow and listened to the podcasts.
+1 to Ed Dean too!

Ed and Andrew will both make great moderators.  I hope to help grow the site in anyway I can.

@xaisoft The same goes for you - I don't know if you are interested in being a moderator, and also I haven't yet seen evidence of much behind-the-scenes participation from you - but I haven't seen much of anything yet!  I see you've been a steady contributor to the site, but I don't know much else about you.  If you'd like to nominate yourself, please do so!

Thanks for the votes of confidence; I'll throw my hat in the ring. Daniel has prodigious experience over at English.SE, but his profile mentions a sort of "retirement" from SE, so I won't nominate him. And I can't tell from the comment of xaisoft whether he's interested in moderating or not. So I just nominated @Andrew in another answer.

@EdDean That "retirement" is kind of spotty - I had originally intended it to be a retirement from English, since I was spending way too much time there (4 hrs a day sometimes).  I just don't know, for myself, whether I could conscientiously take up the responsibility.  I realize that being a pro tem mod here won't be anywhere near as time-consuming as being a regular mod at English.SE.  I'll consider it; for now, we'll just see if anyone else steps up.  If not, you may be seeing my name in one of these posts.

@EdDean I would very much like being a moderator here, though - that's not an issue :)

@Daniel δ: Awesome, since I believe you'd make a great mod. Just posted you as a nominee, cheers!

@EdDean - I wouldn't mind being a moderator, but the one thing against me is time.  I don't believe I will have the time even though Daniel said it shouldn't be too time consuming.

@xaisoft  I don't have my heart set on it, as you can probably tell from some of my comments.  If you think you can do it, I don't want you to hesitate nominating yourself.  I see that you've contributed more than I have to the site.  I'm mostly stepping in here because 1) no one else has so far spoken up (till now) and 2) I know I could do it.  But if you think you could, I wouldn't mind remaining a "power user", so you could be the third mod. :)  (I think only three pro tem mods are ever chosen.  I'll ask on Meta.SO.)

Apparently there can be four, if we request it.  If @xaisoft and I are both kinda part-time, we could both be mods.  Just a thought.

I can do part time if it is allowed.

Since Andrew expressed interest, though hesitance to nominate himself, in a comment to Daniel's answer, I am putting his name forth. When I found the site shortly after the private beta had ended, Andrew had already distinguished himself with many fine contributions, and his reputation reflected that other users agreed. He's also raised (and responded to) various issues on the meta side of things, so he seems like a very natural choice.

After giving this some thought, I would like to accept the nomination.  I'm very excited about the site, and I really want it to succeed and grow.  My only concern is that I'm not very familiar with the Stack Exchange platform beyond listening to the podcasts.  I am more than willing to learn and take constructive criticism, however.
In terms of chess, I'm a 2100 player from Massachusetts.  I play in quite a few OTB tournaments, and play blitz/bullet online from time to time as well.  My careers page has some information about me although nothing about my chess background.  I started playing competitive chess freshman year of high school on my school's chess team.  My senior year I started playing serious OTB tournaments, and my USCF rating rose to roughly 1500.  In college, I again found time to play slow tournaments, and my rating has improved to its current level (http://main.uschess.org/datapage/ratings_graph.php?memid=12846607).
In terms of moderation, I've visited the site every day, and it's usually open in a tab on whatever computer I'm using.  (As is the chat room!)  My personal opinion is that questions should be of a high quality, and so far I've tried to edit or close questions that might not be good enough for the site (in terms of too localized, too easy, etc).
Ultimately I'd like to see more advanced chess questions as well as some of the more complicated questions that TD's face.  I've been mentioning the site everywhere I can, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens down the road!

"Daily vote limit reached; vote again in 42 minutes."

+1. Good Luck Andrew


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Clear anand-carlsen-2014 up
I think that the final form should be carlsen-vs-anand-2014, for three reasons.

Carlsen is the champion, he should stay first
Carlsen-Anand-2014 isn't really clear
Anand-vs-Carlsen-2014-wc is really long

I think (2) is fine, and would be clear to anyone who is familiar with the WC cycle or the fact that those two players at some point played for the title.
I agree that (3) is too long, but that doesn't really bother me because it's not as though you often have to type the whole thing in. Another option would be to go for something along the lines of 'World Championship 2014', which then provides the format for any future matches as well.
EDIT: Actually, on reflection any format that is used can be reused for future cycles, and I suggest that whatever is chosen that we do so.

I've just changed the tag to carlsen-anand-2014. The vs is unnecessary, as it is common in chess shorthand to refer to a game or a match as "White-Black" (insert player's names).


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Ask Questions, even if you already know the answer
Requesting all members to ask more questions, encourage people to ask questions, vote for questions, because the status on area51 shows dismal question asking rate (8.1 questions per day, required is 15), answer rate is above the required level.
I am already asking questions that I already have answers for, ask logical questions that chess enthusiasts may ask. We need to do this to generate more interest and making site go live.
[Edit]
It is 0.9 Questions per day, now we definitely need to start doing this.

Are you saying questions per a day is the only reason the site is not in public-beta now?

no, but I am trying to make sure this does not become a reason when that time comes.

RELATED-QUESTION: how-and-when-does-the-public-beta-begin

The stats ought to be abysmal when the site starts out, there are so few users.  The stats are for evaluating mature beta sites.  Faking the numbers is not a good idea.

Posting questions and answering them is in fact okay, but in my opinion is not sustainable long-term, and may lead to problems. Effort should be on asking real questions, and getting real answers.
My suggestion would be to focus on getting more users to the site, not posting content.

I agree, don't post just for the sake of posting.  If you are going to ask a question, try to ask a real question, possibly with some analysis. Those questions will drive people to the site in my opinion.

+1 @xaisoft: Yes, I agree, showing existing effort via research/analysis within the question itself is a huge part of asking good questions.