If would be very nice to have a Scholastic forum to discuss relevant issues with sponsors, promoters, coaches, and USCF Scholastic committee members.
It’s not like we’re overburdened with scholastic-oriented posts, what makes you think having a separate forum would increase them?
It’s always nice to have yer own clubhouse.
If I were a new person to USCF I would not know which forum would be the appropriate one to discuss scholastic issues. I might just give up and try some other place.
Is it that hard to set up a forum for a few months and see if it goes anywhere? If it looks pretty inactive, heck, in half a year you could roll it up into another forum and shut the thing down.
What ‘scholastic issues’ do you want to discuss?
If they involve running tournaments, there’s a forum for that.
If they involve clubs, there’s a forum for that.
If they involve how scholastics is part of the overall USCF picture, there’s a forum for that.
I’ve run and participated in a variety of Internet forums for nearly 20 years, setting up sub-areas seldom increases participation unless there’s already a significant pool of people discussing those issues.
It’s also worth noting that scholastic members are too young to have privileges here.
Also parents, teachers, and perhaps some coaches wouldn’t be USCF members and couldn’t register to post here.
Well, we want to encourage reasons to be a member, right?
Encouragement is already there: become a member and read the Issues forum 
I think that this could be the root of many of our problems. Folks with an agenda want the divide and conquer like what happened in Oklahoma. I for one am opposed to this.
I say that parents and teachers that want a separate forum for scholastic issues should just start a relevant thread. We need a way to convert scholastic members to regular members so they can continue in our chess community.
I think that many of the issues in scholastic chess is that many bad traits and habits are not curbed early, and that results in friction when the small number of unruly players attend state and national events. We have never had a problem, as many of our scholastic play in both scholastic and adult events.
I think scholastic chess is one area we need to support, both with learning material and equipment, and regional events to get them exposure and experience.
I think it’s a good idea. I don’t peruse each forum every day but I recently answered two questions – one about a 5-year-old starting tournaments and another about which books (and software) are good for young kids. It’s pure luck that I happened to be perusing the All Things Chess (or whatever forum) it was on that day. Why not have a forum where parents and coaches involved in scholastic chess can talk about issues specific to that community (which include when it might be appropriate to have your kid start playing in adult tournaments).
There are plenty of scholastic-oriented posts, at least indirectly. The threads involving scorekeeping, handshake-as-draw-offer, etc are just two examples.
It may not increase them, but it would tend to get them out of the way for those of us would rather discuss open chess.
Let scholastic-oriented posts have their own forum!
Bill Smythe
A scholastic sub-forum can be divisive, i.e., our forum and “their forum”.
Very few organizers and tournament directors are limited to either
only regular or only scholastic tournaments. At least not in North
Texas. Thus, for me anyway, it would be a hassle to flip back and
forth.
Also, it is important to offer a single forum in which everyone feels
comfortable to comment on all issues. A scholastic vs “adult”
tournament mentality is not good for chess organization growth.
Rob Jones
Denton
I agree, and when we can hold both events at the same time and place we all win.
In tennis, soccer, softball, swimming, fencing, skating and other activities, the elders/governing bodies recognize that young players are the future of the sport and encourage parents to get involved in the organizations and frequently provide their own sections of web sites or forums for parents and coaches to gather and share information. To me, having a separate scholastic forum would be the most efficient way for such information to be exchanged. Here there are concerns that this would be too divisive, etc. I would want to make it easier for parents of young players to get information, not force them to wade through posts in 5 separate forums.
But your above examples actually apply to Adult issues also. If they had been segregated to a scholastic only forum a lot of people probably would never have seen them.
I don’t see why having a scholastic forum would be divisive. I think topics such as the discussion regarding age to start is very constructive. Sometimes these topics end out in chess tournaments, sometimes issues, and sometimes all things chess. Why not have a central place for them? There are things that apply to regular tournaments, but kid specific things sometimes get buried within a thread.
Personally I’d like to see a sub forum for any facet of chess that has a committee devoted to it. That way members of the committee could address concerns that relate to the work they do.
One way that could make it a lot easier to notice things that are posted, and which can get a lot more attention for these not very controversial publicly readable forums is to run the first lines of recent posts below the login panel on the left side of the home page - something the design was made to accomodate, when and if USCF ever says “OK”.
There are many things that can be done to further make the web site lively and encourage member involvement. This is but one example of how things can work in the internet era.
What page of the design specs for the website is that on?
This seems like a quite reasonable proposition. In fact it seems like one of the best purposes of the forums to raise and discuss such things. That it is also about the forums does not take away from that.
First things first
Would it be at all possible for the first response to any such proposal to not be negative in tone or substance? Frequent posters are especially guilty if this. Is that really necessary? You guys are here all the time, there will be plenty of opportunity to give the pros AND cons. How about taking a breath and letting someone more positive have the first crack at a response. Even better, how about a welcoming committee that jumps on every proposal with a line like –
Interesting idea! Let’s discuss that! By the way, I see that this is your first NEWTOPIC post, welcome to the forums!
Maybe corny, but it could set a very positive tone for discussing that particular issue, as well as make the new poster likely to continue with the forums. Once someone is a frequent poster, then they could get the normal treatment.
Now to actual discussion of the issue
Sounds like a chicken and egg situation. Anyway, the word “seldom” implies that it sometimes works, so might be worth trying here.
ohiochess.org has a scholastic forum. I have to admit that I rarely look at it. Like it or not, scholastic chess is a different world. Since I no longer do any coaching there is not much for me in that scholastic forum. I suppose that a chess parent might feel the same way about 95% of the other forums. Just because the 5% exists doesn’t mean they should be forced to wade through all the “irrelevant” subjects just to find it.
Infrequent visitors have a very different experience from those who are here all the time. Also there are different levels of technical savvy. We should be careful to make the forums appealing to those who are NOT using them, as well as the ones who are.
My only serious reservation has already been touched on, but I want to give it a different spin. I think the appropriate word is not “divisive”, but “fragmenting”. Similar to pull media, which reinforces already held beliefs, sub-forums will channel energy in the same direction it is already headed. Broad forum headings would be more like push media, exposing USCF members to other facets they may not have considered before. Disagreeable ideas are challenging and can lead to deeper understanding even if the fundamental position doesn’t change.
(Edit: corrected a verb tense)
The scholastic forum at ohiochess.org doesn’t look very active, the last post in it was on March 13th. It looks like most of the topics have dealt with scheduling of upcoming scholastic events.
Fragmentation is a valid concern, online forums tend to need ‘critical mass’ in order to be viable. Moreover, if someone asks, say, a rules question regarding a scholastic event in a scholastic forum, the rules experts might not see it there unless they take the time to check out that other forum from time to time.
Just keeping track of the various active topics (45 in the last week just in USCF Issues, with 873 posts) can take quite a bit of time.
Mike - USCF never commissioned a study of everything (which would typically cost many tens of thousands of dollars) to comprehensively to consider all such possibilities, and there is no design spec detailing out such specific uses in all their myriad possibilities.
However, the designers have broad experience with internet processes and the constantly evolving world of possibilities that exist. I specifically held discussions and wrote about various ideas and directions, and above, I point out one of many that were discussed - in this case, with Bill Hall directly. We have a raft of ideas on the drawing board, but operating in crisis mode as USCF generally does, these things only get addressed in fits and starts - usually when USCF faces some pressing need - such as the problems that led to us doing the web project in 2007.
adb makes several excellent points in his post about how we hear and respond to suggestions, and you did a great job looking into the Ohio message board and putting your finger on several issues related to the suggestions in this thread.
USCF lacks resources to address most suggestions, because staffers and full-time equivalents such as yourself are massively overburdened with current responsibilities. Outside consultants such as myself, and experienced and thoughtful members of all kinds, are less stressed by USCF’s daily operational needs. I can well understand you issuing a deep sigh whenever you see a new suggestion that is not yet thought out well enough to be implementable. 