Thanks for posting this.
A reasonable compromise between blogger freedom and protecting users who don't want to see ads might be some kind of iconography to allow readers to see that a blog post may invite them to make a purchase. A little dollar sign, shopping bag, whatever. Bloggers who want to promote would self-label their post, and it would be marked as such wherever it appears. Mods could make corrections and issue warnings if blogs with ads go unlabeled, and intransigent, unrepentant serial offenders could be banned from posting blogs.
Personally, I've given up on reading blogs posts because 90% of them are selling something, and I paid to help keep lichess ad-free. I only clicked this one because I correctly guessed the topic based on the title.
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@CSKA_Moscou The OP has no problem with coaches earning a living. He just wants them to use a blog to demonstrate that they have something of value to offer. There is a section for coaches to advertise their services, and we don't want the blog hijacked for that purpose.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that showing a great insight, even in a short post, would do more to attract top paying students. If I read a great article and were in the market for a coach, all I'd need would be a short sentence at the end stating that they offer lessons. On the other hand, excessive self promotion would make me a lot less willing to try their services.
yes, but you probably didn't understand right away that my message was 90% irony, I did it on purpose to annoy him (
@mrpushwood) because it will undoubtedly motivate him to do better! honestly I prefer when there are coaches who advertise, I don't need them...but only their free method!
Good points, you made.
Blogs or some ladders and lichess feature advertisement (tournaments) in the lobby, but blogs with big icons, also made lichess decide, to lose a more neutral peek in the forum.
We only have the personal one, which narrows our peek to previously attended things.
So I approve of what you said, that having only some 3 out of how many makes even more important to keep in mind for those who commit blogs.
What rotation is there? This is in support of your call for this new comer lobby surface area, to be as content-ful, as lichess community itself could be enjoying. And not diverted elsewhere (the content). Some blogs can strike a good balance though.. but your call, can help maintain a certain quality.. Or lichess can reduce the icon space and allow its random (per reload) sampler to have more rotation, proportion. or all of the above.
I understand the concern expressed here entirely. The Lichess team has talked about this issue quite a bit, and I'm still not sure what the solution is.
First of all, saying Lichess is "anti commercial" may be an exxageration. Lichess as an organization is itself non-commerical, but the website is used for commerical activities all the time. Streamers, coaches, blog writers and others use Lichess to make money and we don't neccesarrily have a problem with it.
Personally, I think more about if something benefits lichess users or not, and not if it qualifies as "commercial." If a blogger writes a great blog that thousands of users enjoy and puts a single link to their substack or patreon at the bottom, does that benefit Lichess users? I think so, but tell me if I'm wrong.
We don't want blogs full of ads and clickbait, but implementing that idea is difficult. What is the line between a good blog and an ad pretending to be a blog?
In summary: We know, its complicated, we're working on it...
I agree that a lot of blogs aren't high quality ones, but what lichess certainly shouldn't do, is disallow advertising in blogs or ban things. Only straight spam blogs should be removed. "Misleading/Manipulating" is too subjective to remove, I mean we see clickbait everywhere these days, so it's not a big deal. If someone thinks that there aren't much good content, he should create more good blogs himself, that's it. Generally speaking, I see some blogs that I don't find very informative or good, but they get likes, so I think if blog find its readers then why remove it, even from user's point of view.
What lichess can do, is make "Stuff-Picks" (we already have similar with studies) page with high quality blogs, that Lichess team recommends.
the irony of seeing this blog in the same place where I saw an endorsement for Tony Robbins self-help books just a week or two ago lol
instead of all this forum ooga booga just go back to playing cheese bruh this is a wendys
I'm really happy to see that people have been thinking about this issue.
A while ago, after I saw how much ads there were, and how little useful information there was in a big number of blog posts, just like described here, I kinda gave up on even taking a look at them.
