Ideas for improving lichess

First some general observations based on gamer psychology. Why was/is World of Warcraft so hugely popular? Because it is addictive and fun to build your character, chase the next thing, improve and reach the next level. Listen to this. In online chess on lichess this general observation is no less true, but players don't have a gazillion things to improve, only their rating.

In order to exploit this weakness in human psychology -- people's vanity; and search for status -- I propose we introduce additional "status items". Off the top of my head:

1. For starters, revamp the tournament system so as to allow the creation of true tournaments, based on actual tournament rules (taken from real chess), in particular allow tournaments with traditional pairing where you play each participant once or twice.

2. One status item which you have already implemented (apart from rating) is Tournament points. I don't know what those "do", but just having a feature of accumulation of such points seems not optimal. You could introduce some sort of Rank system (like in the military) for having reached certain levels of TPs (Tournament points). Also see (1) since the current tournament system isn't fair, these TPs and respective Ranks should only apply to real tournaments.

Possible Ranks could be:
Tournament Novice
Tournament Intermediate
Tournament Expert
Tournament Master
...
etc.

Or something fancier. Imagination is the limit.

3. Connected with TPs, but not applying exclusively to Ranks (see below), should be some way to showcase your "status items", like a "badge system". All achievements should obviously be shown on your personal page, but I propose that you fix so that next to your name, various "badges" will be shown, which display information about the achievement or status item on mouseover. (similar to the cheating (!) mark)

In addition to tournament ranks, you could have merit badges for: (a) games played (not too many levels as it is not as an important achievement) (b) time you've been active (maybe not*) (c) Title-holders for various Reputable Tournaments, which will be played regularly. Perhaps the more reputable the longer between. For example: "Lichess Olympiad" Played every 4 months, badges for Gold-medalist, Silver-medalist, Bronze-medalist etc., or "Kasparov Memorial Blitz" played every 2 months. Maybe these tourneys could be huge...

4. Additional Rating. Like other chess sites and servers, you could introduce a Blitz rating too.

Concluding remarks.

Remember this is psychological nature. Something Blizzard has paid attention to. People are basically nuts about status items and being able to show off. This isn't a bad thing, it's fun! The more "badges", "ranks", "points", you introduce the better.

Think about it.
ratman out

Very interresting thoughts. I only disagree about tournaments not being "fair". There rules are the same for everybody, therefore they are fair.

You make good points with the status items. I'll go in that direction.

These sound fun. I would definetely start playing rated games too just to get those badges and play in tournaments for status.

Also there is something which bothers me. Sometimes when I play I like to check how many points has my opponent and I have token.
I mean the value of pieces (Pawn=1, Bishop,Knight=3, Rook=5 and Queen=9). It's just to check if we're even.
I know a professional doesn't need something like that but for amateurs like me it would be helpful.

i was serious about my last comment thibault. the chess community is a bit different from WOW, and probably more mature (though its hard to say with the majority of immature teenagers like me). I think the idea has some merit. But it's going to take a lot of work.

Not sure about tournament points.

I'd instead suggest either:

(a) retain the Elo rating system as it is, where tournaments do not affect your rating beyond individual games
or
(b) introduce a separate rating system for tournaments, again Elo-based.

I'm not sure about achievements (taken from the Xbox Live terminology) of this type, because they're not really achievements. They're more like loyalty cards. Tarn Adams calls these games 'unethical' quite rightly so, because it's just a technique to hook people without adding any depth.

Instead, how about showing Elo next to a player's name *just* on the tournament page?

Yea, nice ideas, and what i would like to see soon - the more higher player ranked, the more fancy status tab in the profile he gets. That motivates, especially younger players.

How about closed tournaments? In this way a group could run a tournament for its own members.

As an example, regulars at www.http://tcec-chess.net/ held a tournament recently, with all games played on lichess.org (as far as I know) and the results being tracked on the TCEC forum and "challenge".

It would be convenient to have had all the tournament infrastructure available at lichess.org

You could run your own 'closed' tournament by getting your members to enter the event and 'fill the quota', faster than outsiders could.

You might not even need to 'synchronize' watches (as, most peoples' PCs display current time accurately).

Just agree to set up a group tournament open for joining at say, 3:59:55 pm and so long as your group fills the quota within 5 seconds I'm very confident that would leave no likely opportunity for outsiders to join.

@babasaheb, yes, that is one way to approach the problem, which I have suggested on the TCEC site.

However, a further elaboration which I did not suggest was a very lengthy active-time for the tournament, together with a round-robin or swiss format. For instance, I would appreciate the potential to run a 10-man round-robin over a two week period - any games not completed to be double-forfeited. Or a Swiss with one round per day and again with double-forfeits for pairings not consummated.

(from your link) "The goal of nTCEC is to provide the viewers with a live broadcast of quality chess, played strictly between computer chess engines created by different programmers."

I believe lichess is for people playing chess (hence users of machines & software are branded as such and effectively 'cast out'). You've got me wondering about those 'regulars' from that machine/software chess site playing here.