I think it’s about time to update this forum. With only 3 subjects, Tournament Organization, Tournament Direction, and Chess Club Organization, this forum can’t compare with, say, chesscorner.com. We need more sections covering a variety of chess-related topics.
That’s what I think, what do you think?
When it was created, the forums were intended only to address a specific range of tournament-specific issues, not any chess-related issue.
As you have noted, there are other (and better) places for that.
If we’re going to open it up to a wider range of categories, we will need more moderators, I don’t have time to read all the threads going on as it is.
I’ll pass the idea along to the policymakers, though I suspect most of them don’t know or remember that we have this forum.
BTW, we do not need identical threads in more than one forum, so I’ve deleted the other one.
<hand up, hand up> add me to the list of moderator candidates!!
Terry would make a good moderator, but I don’t think we need any more forums – not many, anyway.
What is really needed is a semi-annual clean-up. Somebody should go through the old posts, deciding which are no longer interesting or relevant, and get rid of them.
Some posts concern problems that have long since been solved. Others, like those by Doug Forsythe, have a useful life of at most 30 days. A few are timeless (like most of mine) and could afford to stick around for a while.
Bill Smythe
Terry would be good. I also think useless posts should be deleted, along with rambling on that doesn’t pertain to the subject (I bet 90% of Doug’s posts would be removed).
This forum would be a great for new TD’s to ask questions, but not to post on here posts like “The Purpose of the Greater Grand Rapids Chess Club”.
Instead of getting rid of them archiving them would be better. Being able to search through all the past messages is a great feature.
What other categories should we have?
Well this forum isn’t all things to everyone but the limited # of categories does make it a lot easier to navigate from my perspective. I think it is satisfactory
I say, leave this forum as is, with 3 categories. It is the USCF forum, after all, so USCF has a reasonable right to expect that the posts will concern USCF-rated tournaments, or the activities of USCF affiliates.
I tried that Chess Corner forum. (I even left a post there.) It has a lot of potential, but seems under-used.
Bill Smythe
You really do have a better, cleaner, easier forum here that does a pretty good job of staying on track.
I prefer leaving things as they are. If someone needs more subjects, they should go to the Chessville forums, where topics cover everything and it’s very well-moderated.
Radishes
I kind of disagree. Unless it takes up bandwidth and money, I don’t see why you shouldn’t add a couple of “general chess” sections and broaden it out to chess players.
What’s the harm?
Yes, add me to the moderators list as well. I have a lot of experience in phpBB and would be happy to moderate 
Besides I am online a whole lot.
Well, a category for discussing theory would be nice, opening, middlegame, and endgame.
A category for posting games and problems for analysis.
A category for posting general chat about chess.
How about discussion of good chess books?
That’s some good starting ideas. Just a little more breadth to the forum than just discussion of Tournament direction and chess clubs.
I couldn’t agree more.
There are plenty of places to discuss general chess issues, and most of them are so bogged down with flame wars that they aren’t worth reading. I would not want to see that sort of thing spilling over into these boards. Let’s keep this area focused on issues that matter to TDs and affiliates.
I kinda like the cleaner 3-topic format myself. If there really is interest in more topics, then I would prefer they stay on a separate board. Clone this forum format, put non-TD issues into it, and put links going from board to board. That way, Mike Nolan can more easily delegate the moderator duties to that separate board. We don’t want him spreading himself too thin.
Once again, I have to stump for the Chessville forum.
No flame wars there, and they cover a variety of topics, including allowing you to post games for others to analyze.
Try it out, I think you'll like it!
Radishes
No one is disputing that chessville may have more forums or even more participants, but this forum is for members of USCF (specifically TD’s and organizers). Therefore we have a limited scope in discussion.