On-line Chess - Part 1.5 - Social meetings

Usually when you play chess you don’t speak with your opponent…or you don’t speak at all. But on-line it is different, people like chatting, like knows something more about the opponent person rather then its name and nationality (and optionally an avatar). A chat feature is always provided by every on-line gaming web site. You can find different kinds of chat:

• during the game: it is a private chat only between the two players; 
• public or general chat: every user can post a message and usually is for wave a challenge; 
• in rooms or thematic chat rooms: nothing to do with playing chess, it is just chatting; 
• among team members: a team is a group of player that competes against other teams; 
• in clubs: a club is the place where you can meet new friends, discuss things and play games. It can be found by anybody and club founder and club moderators are responsible for everything that happens in the club.

Chats are usually controlled in order to filter offensive words. The abuse of the chat service is mentioned into the terms and conditions of the service and it is punished by banning the bad user. In some cases the chat is forbidden for users under 13.

Figure 4 – www.instantchess.com private chat

Figure 5 – www.chesshere.com private chat and chat room

Almost all web sites allow their users to have a list of their friends in order to connect with them easily by chat or for playing. When you meet a new player in a game and find out he/she is a good player or simply it is nice to chat with, having him/her in your list help you looking for him/her when you connect next time.

So, on-line chess gaming web sites are, as a matter of facts, a sort of social networks and in most case is possible to find connections with popular social networks websites like facebook.