Frequently asked questions
A community (previously called 'group') in Chessity can be used as an online social environment. As a user, you can start a community and invite friends or students to join. As community manager, you can indicate whether the community is public or members only.
Members only community
A members only community is a closed environment on Chessity. All messages, blogs and other notifications are invisible to non-members. As such,community are an ideal meeting place for your class, school or chess club.
Group forum
All groups have their own forum. Users outside the group have no access to that forum, so you can use the forum for intergroup communication.
Group blogs
When you publish a blog, you can indicate that you only want members of your group to be able to read it.
Yes. Go to thecommunity (previously calles 'group') in question and click on more at the top right, to see all the blogs that have been published in your community.
If you want to find a blog about a certain subject, use the search option by entering a keyword.
Go the ‘Friends’ block on the right side of your screen.
Click on the Add button. Use the search field to look up the username of the person you want to befriend. Once you have found them, click on the + button.
The other person will receive an e-mail informing them that you are now their friend.
Go to the ‘Friends’ block on the right side of your screen.
Then click on the view button to see a list with all of your friends.
Go to the ‘Friends’ block on the right of your screen. Then click on the view button to see a list with all your friends. Click on the recyble bin icon next to the name of the person you wish to remove from the list.
Yes, you can. Go to the ‘Friends’ block on the right side of your screen. Then click on the view button to see a list with all your friends. Click on the icon with the business card to see your friend’s profile.
You can only send a message to users who are on your Friends list. Go to the ‘Friends’ block on the right of your screen. Then click on the view button to see a list with all your friends. Click on the envelope icon next to the name of person you want to send a message to.
After you have completed a lesson or set or tactic puzzles, you are automatically taken to the Café. Here, you can see what you did wrong in the each of the chess puzzles. You can play the solution in its entirety or click through it move by move. You also have the options of coming up with alternatives. Use the ‘hint’ button to get a chess computer to help you think about what comes next.
The Café also has a chat function, where you can ask questions about the assignments or the solution, and get answers from other users or Chessity staff members.
If you want to revisit a chess puzzle at a later time, you can save it by clicking on the star.
The Café page
The Café can also be accessed via the Café icon in the menu bar. On the Café page, there are various tabs:
Latest game: here you see the latest set of chess assignments you have made. You can see which ones you got right or wrong, and see and play the correct solutions.
Your reactions: here you see which reactions you have posted with chess puzzles.
Help others: here you can respond to comments from other players.
Saved: here you find the chess puzzles you have saved.
Student comments: this tab is only visible to coaches. It contains all of the reactions from your students in the Café.
The Café is meant to be a friendly meeting place where chess players come together to analyse tactical assignments, discuss alternative solutions and help each other.
So Chessity's café is a nice virtual meeting place, just as a real life café.
Blogs are an important element of Chessity’s community function. Anyone can publish blogs about chess or the use of Chessity. Share your own personal experieces with other Chessity community members, so that we can all benefit from them.
To publish a blog,
Next, you can choose one of two options: Write
Choose the first option if you want to create a blog with mostly text and possibly some pictures. Choose the second option if you want to use a
After publication, you can always modify published blogs, via the menu option My blogs.
After you have published your blog, it is visible to your friends and members of the community of which you yourself are a member. Chessity can put blogs ‘in the spotlight’, making them accessible to all users.
By clicking on the Stats tab at the top of the screen, the Statistics page is opened. This page shows a leaderboard (top 20-rankings) of the performances of all Chessity users, as well as your own ranking position. You can compare your own performance with that of the other players.
Check Show only friends to see a ranking list containing only your friends. Click on Weekly, Monthly or Best ever to select the desired period.
There are eight different leaderboards:
Elo: this ranking looks at rating.
Most games: this ranking indicates who has played the highest number of games on Chessity.
Games won: this ranking shows who has won the highest number of games on Chessity.
Puzzles solved: this ranking shows who has solved the highest number of chess puzzles on Chessity.
Activity: this ranking shows who is the most active on Chessity. The percentage indicates your daily activity, which is also shown on the opening page after you log in.
Blind routes: this ranking shows who has the highest rating for the Route Planners.
Champion: this ranking uses different variables. It is a mix of activity, rating, level of difficulty and solution speed. Players with a high rating who aren’t very active will not appear high on this ranking.
Studies: this ranking shows who has done the highest number of Endgame studies (by Yochanan Afek).
We would welcome that! We truly believe that people connected are stronger than organizations. Chessity is a chess community where users help each other and by doing so strenghen the community.The bigger the network and the more knowledge is being shared the better the community operates. You can help in different ways:
- Help other users by providing explanations in the Café.
- Answer questions from others in the Forum.
- Write blogs to share your knowledge and inspire and motivate other chess player and coaches.
- Recommend Chessity to chess players and coaches you know (or tell us if you have good reasons for not recommending Chessity!).
- Let us know if you have ideas to make Chessity even better.
We thank you for your help and engagement, we think it’s really cool!
Chessity has two types of communities: public communities where anyone can join and private communities, where you can only join with the administrator's permission. (See also: What are communities on Chessity?).
You can find communities via the menu bar at the top of your screen:
When you click there, you will see all the communities that exist. Private communities are recognized by the padlock in the top right corner of the image:
Join a public community:
- Click on the community you want to join
- Click on Join this community at the top right. You have now joined the community.
Join a private community:
Click on the community you want to join
Click on Request community membership at the top right
You must now wait for the community owner to approve your request.
Once this has happened, you are a member of the community. You will receive a notification of this.
A user with a student account at a school or chess club is often not shown when you want to add him/her as a friend. This is due to the settings chosen by his/her teacher or chess trainer. The coach can have their students work in a protected environment, making it impossible to contact or become friends with someone outside the school or club.
