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 How to Get the Most out of Your Team
Now that you got a team, what do you do with it? Share with us your tips on how to get the most out of your team, best practices, etc.
Thanx
Dave Babbitt
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Excellent question and I look forward to hearing from more experienced captains. What does it take to keep good team members and give them something to be part of.
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Communication, I guess
As long as all remains 'natural' in regards of communication and interest in each other, I think everybody is happy and the team will 'flourish'.
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and .......
I think an active web site really helps. Our team was at its most connected
and effective when there was a website (that almost all the players visited)
that had game analysis, historical info (especially on Alekhine), chess puzzles,
chess cartoons ..... well, you get the idea. The more things there are to
interest team members, the more active they will be.
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Team Stress
I notice that some people won't even join a team, because being on a team stresses them out too much. What is that all about?
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team stress
Some people love the added pressure of playing for and with others in team sports - I'm sure one of them, and always have been - some don't want the pressure of others relying on them. And some join teams - of all kinds - for the cameraderie and don't feel the pressure either way.
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I would like to give some suggestions. I'll start with 3
Helping your members be more active - Suggestion 1
People have the ability to grasp visual images and process them quickly. The more segregated the information is the harder it is for the mind to process it and the less time the member wants to spend on the matter.
I used to work as a facilities designer and my job was to draw a set of prints (using Auto Cad) to explain to the tradesmen on the floor what the project was, how and where to install it and to find detailed information easily. I was good at what I did and was selected to train other designers on the techniques I had developed. Those techniques can be applied anywhere and especially to your private team forum.
Example 1:
If you have 35 people creating 35 new threads every time they want to say something pretty soon your forum starts looking like spaghetti, especially when there are replies to the posts, some of which don't have anything to do with the original subject.
Solution:
Create several threads that will encompass a wide variety of conversations and encourage your members to use the posts available, if possible, before creating a new post.
Since I assume many of you already have spaghetti threads then you have to do some maintenance work. Create your threads as mentioned above (such as 'General discussion' or 'Chat') and copy the stray posts into those threads. Then delete the originals. Pretty soon (if you stay on top of this) your members will start posting in structured threads when possible.
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Helping your members be more active - Suggestion 2
Members who are not active in team forums often lose interest and move on to other teams. As I posted above in Lesson 1, clarity helps a person decide if they want to pursue a post of move on. I'd like to mention two other things that are very important as a followup to the first lesson:
1) DELETE all old threads and posts which are no longer significant. Having a bunch of garbage in your forum makes it more difficult for your members to find the good stuff. In fact, they may even miss some of the good stuff because of all the garbage. Don't forget after deleting the useless posts to ORGANIZE your threads as mentioned in lesson 1.
2) Please tell your members to discuss the subject posted instead of attacking the person who posted it personally. I myself have been guilty of falling into that situation, but I try not to - and once I've realized I made a mistake I apologize to the person I offended. Posts that attack the member's character instead of the topic should be deleted or ignored. We aren't here to fight amongst ourselves, we're here to exchange ideas.
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Helping your members be more active - Suggestion 3
Getting members to be more active in your team forum makes a better team. People get to know one another and develop a comrade friendship. Therefore you need to draw these people in. For example, what do you do as a captain (or co-captain) when you start a new team match? Nothing? Wrong answer. If you are serious about improving participation in your forum then you need to do a little work to make it happen. Here's an example of what I do every time there's a new team challenge:
We've been challenged to a match!
Created: 03-May-09, 20:07
"Chess Players of the World" vs "DUNE"
Board 1 carp-a-tex (1782) vs caissad4 (1795)
Board 2 ginger63 (1729) vs apeja (1756)
Board 3 raquas (1623) vs altluci (1621)
Board 4 triptsis (1585) vs bluenoser (1588)
Board 5 lpg1963 (1510) vs schachwhiz (1582)
Let's show them we can take them out!
:-)
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Make it a 'sticky thread' so that it stays on top with your other important threads (such as your team wins).
Assigning board numbers to each member gives them a feeling of comradity and signifies a personal connection with the team. You do the same type of post for all your team wins like this:
Team Victory
"DUNE" winners vs. "Arab Stars"
valnuz (1965) ← ← chuitine (1862)
arrakis08 (1794) ← ½ adelzaki (1846)
bergsteiger (1713) ← ← lamjed (1588)
bluenoser (1578) → → ahmadhamdy (1625)
Points: 5 ½ 2 ½
Congrats guys!
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Notice that when you congratulate your team members on a victory you do not type the board number. While typing the board number at the beginning of the challenge has some special merits you don't want to put the emphasis on who played which board when you are handing out the congratulations. That's because the post shows that your members worked together as a team and won! It gives the members a closer bond.
[Special note: I mistakenly posted these suggestions in the wrong thread (thus called hijacking the thread) and had to undo the damage. Sorry for the inconvenience and I'll suggest some other cool ideas next week.]
Don
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sounds good
arrakis08 ive just read ur thoughts on ur lessons. i agree with alot of wot u have 2 say. maybe its something our club can take on board in the near future. im also interested in ur read on lesson 3. ive often wondered how to get more involvement from my team. i have an team forum which no1 uses. i am going 2 incorporate ur way of thinking when we set up team matches and match results. thanx 4 abit of insight..... jas
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Special Settings to help your members avoid timeouts
Yes! There is a "bug" in G/K's system and many members can get timed out because they don't know about it. To minimize the problem please give this message to your members and ask them to print these instructions out and follow them:
*Instuctions to help reduce timeouts*
Make sure you do these steps in the exact order they are shown.
1) Click on "My Games" from the menu at the left.
2) Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select the max number of games to be shown per page, which in my case is 50
3) Scroll up to the top of the screen and click on "customize this list"
4) You'll see a chart with this information. Put the dots where I've put an "X" in this chart.
Column: none .........................#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 width
Game title: .............................. X
Opponent's user name: .......................... X
Color (black/white): ................
Game status: ............................... X
Time left: .......................................... X
Personal notes: ......................
Game type: ...........................
Last move (and number): .........
Score (material value of pieces):
In case the table here doesn't show up well, it's
Under # 1 : Game Title
Under # 2 : Game status
Under # 3 : Time left
Under # 4 : Opponent's user name
If there are two dots in one column make sure you move the other one after position 4
It was hard to show in the chart, but you need to do some stuff in the "none" column. By putting dots in this column you turn the option OFF. I turned off:
Color (black/white
Personal notes
Game type
Score
5) Scroll down to the bottom and click on "Update columns"
6) Click on "My Games" at the left side of the screen
7) Now move your mouse to the top box where it says "Time(you/opp.)" and click on it until it sorts the order where it shows the least amount of time first.
8) Move your mouse to the top box where it says "Status" and click on it until it sorts the order where it shows your move first.
Now we are almost done, but not quite and this is important:
9) Click on "More Options"
10) Scroll down to the "Extra Options" area and click on "Update your profile and preferences"
11) Under 'Email Notifications' make sure all 4 boxes are checked.
12) This area is where you can make some other nice changes too, like what the pieces look like. But before you leave don't forget to scroll down and click on "Update Profile"!
You're done!
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Creating a PGN file from scratch
Many people don't understand that a ".pgn" file and a ".txt" file are basically the same. The only difference is that a pgn file expects to see a header at the top before the game moves.
Notepad is easier to use than Microsoft Word to create a pgn file. Here's how to use it:
Pick a point that's blank on your screen and right-click the mouse button.
A menu will come up. Select NEW and then TEXT DOCUMENT.
That will create a new text document on your screen.
Left click on it to open it and type your game in. Be careful to not just make everything one long line. If it goes past the right side of the screen hit the enter key to drop down to the next line.
When you are done typing click on "File" above at the left top and select Save-As. Then enter a file name with a pgn extension, like this: mygame1.pgn
Save the file under a folder you have for chess games. Or save it anywhere, just make sure you remember where you saved it.
I suggest you create a directory (folder) called 'Chess' and save all your pgn files in that folder.
Tip: Once you create a pgn file with the proper header you can open that file and edit the information in the header, then copy & paste the new game information in. Then use SAVE-AS and save the game with a new name. Be sure to use the ".pgn" extension.
I hope this helps everyone who has been having problems creating pgn files.
Don
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This post was deleted by gmdz on 01-Jun-09, 04:37.
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Creating Diagrams for your messages
You probably have a good question or a position to show. By entering a diagram in your text you will get more responses and your message will stand out.
You can create diagrams for your messages and here's how:
1) Go to your personal account
2) Select "Past game history"
3) Select the game you want
4) Below the diagram of the game you will see a menu
For a Diagram
* Select FEN
The program will give you the code for a fen file. Copy it by holding down your left mouse button and highlight the code. Then press the right mouse button and a menu will pop up. Click on "Copy". The code is copied to your computer's 'clipboard' and will stay there until you do another copy command or reboot the computer.
Go to the file where you want to insert the diagram and type fen="FEN/ and then click on your right mouse button and click on 'paste' to paste the code in. Do not put any spaces in-between and put an end quote at the end.
Now then... to create a diagram from a game that is still in progress just go to that game.
* Click on 'Game database'
If your game opening is in the GameDB then you can select the FEN option to get a diagram. If your game is not in the database then you still have the FEN option available near the bottom of the screen. Click on FEN and you will be given the code for the diagram. Highlight the code and right-click on it then select 'Copy'. This will copy the code to your memory buffer. Either save that code or go directly to your post and type in fen=" and paste the code after the fen=" statement. Put an apostrophes at the end. Your message will contain a diagram of the position you are talking about. Everyone responds better when they can SEE the actual position in your message.
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Bad Players List
It is the responsibility to check every person's rating when challenged to a match. This only takes a few extra seconds.
So many challenges include players who's top rating is 200 points above their current rating!
As a captain you owe it to your members not to be set up like that.
At DUNE we established a "DO NOT PLAY" list and not only give the player's name but the reason why we refuse to play them. I encourage every captain to not only check the challenging player's rating but to also create such a list for future reference. While it's illegal to call a person a cheater, you never have to play them in a team match!
I don't want to overload you with information that is very important, so I'll refrain from posting for a while.
Cheers,
Don
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*Help your team members enjoy chess more*
(Ok, I couldn't help myself - this one is VERY important!)
How much pressure do you put on your teammates to win? To play a lot of games?
A good captain realizes that his team is never going to hold the # 1 position at this site. That's NOT what you want to push your team members to do. You want your team members to be:
* active and
* having FUN!
It's not about winning or who is the highest rated team - it's about people who WANT to belong to your team because they're having fun!
How do you help your members to have fun?
Ah, I have a great secret for you... please consider adopting my plan for your members. Here's the explanation:
We all like doing things that we are good at. We enjoy winning and it makes us feel good about ourselves. So think about this... Do you ever have a lost position at Gameknot and think about it when you aren't even on the computer? Maybe it even pops up in your head when you are trying to go to sleep? MAYBE it even makes you feel like not logging in and playing the next day because you are going to have to make a move in a lost game! 8-(
There's no need to cause yourself discomfort. I recommend to all team members to RESIGN ALL lost positions! A "lost position" is one in which you have no active play and are material down. I've seen players talk about "keep trying", "Never give up" and so on and so forth - NOPE! Not in my team and certainly not my philosophy.
Feeling good about yourself and enjoying what you do is much more important than the results of a game. When you are winning a game you can't wait to get back on to see if your opponent has moved yet. You look forward to crushing him/her. But if you are losing a game it starts working on your subconscious mind. You don't want to go to that game and you don't feel like playing chess. In fact, you don't feel good at all. Many GM's actually become physically ill after losing a game. They are human - why wouldn't the casual player be affected? There's a saying, "Show me a person who doesn't mind losing and I'll show you a loser!" But negative thoughts and negative energy will cause your team members to stop playing! Or maybe just try another team.
Most important thing to do:
* RESIGN ALL LOST POSITIONS!
Guess what? The next time you log in you know that you will be playing only games that you are winning or have a chance at winning! 8-) Boy, does that ever feel good!
Now then, the 2nd most important thing to do is:
* ONLY PLAY CHESS WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT!
Sound crazy? Not for our team. Many people feel obligated to log in and make their moves simply because it is their move. NOPE, you shouldn't do that. You should only play chess when YOU feel like playing. A good example of this is the serious player who moves every day because it's his/her move. Watch the time bank. If you have 2 days to move then you can put off making any move. Leave and come back WHEN YOU FEEL like playing chess.
The reason we use the time controls is for everyone to feel relaxed about their games and not feel that they have to move. When you HAVE to do something that "thing" becomes a burden to you... a chore. I want people to enjoy their time in our Dune Team as much as possible. It's good to win, but it's even better to feel good about playing.
I really don't care if my members win or lose - I care that they are enjoying themselves.
Unlike other sites that put the emphasis on winning, you can make a very unique team where the emphasis is on 'Have a good time! At the Dune team we're here to have FUN!
What that means is that I'm never going to put pressure on people to win and I don't put pressure on them to play a lot of games. In our team people play whatever games they want, when they want; and they try to win, but if they find they've blundered and the game is lost they follow my instructions: Resign the game and move on!
Cheers,
Don
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Don,
This is so true, I always send a msg to every new member that applies to our team to say that the mean reason is to have fun, that I don't care if he or she wins or loses, that, if there is something troubling, they can always contact me and that I help where I can.
The only thing I make a fuzz about are regular time-outs, because it hurts other members and it becomes difficult to set up a fair challenge.
I believe it creates a environment of relax playing and that a player who is motivated to play in a team is much better than a player who has to play under pressure, even if the result is not so good, but then again, every GK team has it ups and downs....
JO
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Jo
Good point!
I have had my share of people timing out games and I have removed at least 4 members in the past year for excessive timeouts.
Here's what I've done to help alleviate that problem:
I posted the above message about "Special Settings to help your members avoid timeouts" for my own team members. But that wasn't enough...
So I started watching the team matches and when one of my players timed out I sent him a message like this:
"You have timed out in your two games in an important team match. The problem I have is not whether you win or lose, but that by timing out you showed no respect for the other 4 members on your team in the challenge. Let me make this very clear: If you run into a problem and don't have time to make moves in your games then PUT YOURSELF ON VACATION! That's why the vacation option is there! If you continue to time out I will have to ask you to leave the team. Of course if you don't leave on your own (saving face) I'll kick you out.
There are times when people's personal lives don't allow them to play on a regular vacation. But unless you are in a hospital somewheres I don't see any excuse to take a couple of minutes to postpone your games."
You can't please everyone Jo, but you can get rid of the losers.
Let's keep in touch.
Don
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This post was deleted by arrakis08 on 01-Jun-09, 01:02.
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Getting the most out of your team
I've given some ideas to help team captains get the most out of their team, but I need to say something that's very important!
When a member wants to join your team look at his/her record. How many timeouts is on their record!?
Believe me, if they have over 40 timeouts you don't want this person on your team!
I say this from experience... people who have no respect for their team members do whatever they want. They don't give a hoot about your team or it's members - they simply are in the game to play when they want and do what they want with no responsibility.
I've learned my lesson the hard way because before allowing a couple of members with high timeouts I asked them why they had so many and if that was going to be a problem? Of course each player assured me that something had come up and that they WOULD NOT TIMEOUT in any team matches!
Yeah, right. Believe the statistics for every player because it IS an accurate record of their play! They will screw you over just like they have all their other teams. My suggestion - DON'T LET THEM JOIN YOUR TEAM!!!
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Don
You are right (I use however a time-out record of less than 10 percent). I made this mistake too, but I thought then to give every one a chance, but it just turned out that the chances of caring team members was going down due to time-outs (this was in a previous team I played).
When I search for new members, they have to match the following criteria:
1. Time-outs less than 10 percent (or resigning games that should not be resigned)
2. Last time on line within 24 hours
3. And of course, not already playing in another team
Jo
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Jo
I like your criteria, but I don't think anyone at G/K can play for more than one team. I've had people who wanted to join my team but couldn't apply because they were already on a team. I told them to exit the other team if they wanted to join ours.
I don't see anything wrong with a person switching teams. Heck, where I live the kids are constantly switching partners,
Don
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Problems annotating games
Hello Captains!
An incident just came up which took hours to figure out what was wrong.
I annotated a game (several times) and the person could not see it. Also it didn't show up in my annotated game stats.
The problem turned out to be that the member had sent me a url of his game AFTER he had entered 'analyze mode'. Nobody can annotate a game that has been put in analyze mode, but I didn't know that's where the URL came from.
So when your members send games to you if they don't know how to send the original address for the game just tell you who they played, if they won or lost, and what color they had. We can find the information like that and get the correct URL to annotate the game.
Don
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Tip for captains accepting challenges
When you get a challenge from another team and you have members who want to play in a team match then always click on 'accept'. Then you are able to run your mouse over the challenger's names from the opposing team and a pop-up will show what their top ratings have been over the past 90 days. You'll be surprised how many people are playing 200 points below their regular strength! Just hit your back button to decline the challenge and, if you want to, give the opposing captain the reason why.
Cheers,
Don
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Bug reported to G/K administrators
This could be harmful to your private forums!!!
I recently gave a fellow captain the URL of one of our threads posted in our private team forum. He's a sci-fi buff like myself so I thought he'd enjoy reading the many posts. But guess what happens when you do that!???
He start posting in our private team forum and even asked me, "How is it that I can post messages in your private team forum? Since I'm a captain I wonder if I can even delete all these messages?"
Of course he wouldn't do that cause he's a friend. But be careful about giving out the url to any private post in your team forum until G/K figures out a fix for this problem
Cheers,
Don
Captain of the DUNE Team
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maca
07-Nov-09, 04:05
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That is certainly a major bug. Even though I don't utilize the Team forum, I can see that causing major issues. That said, I'd expect GK to limit the access to given team forum to members of that team only, so that would be no 'read-only', I'm afraid.
Regards,
MaCa.
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Message from GameKnot customer support:
Hello, arrakis08,
Thank you for reporting this issue. The problem with team captains being able to
access other teams' forums has been corrected now.
Thank you for choosing GameKnot as your premier chess battlefield!
Best regards,
GameKnot.com
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Rewarding your team
As a team captain you have to figure out a way to reward the members of your team who most support it, via team posting or playing team challenges.
When I was the clan leader of DUNE at RHP I made a contest - whoever won the most team games within a 3 month period would win a free t-shirt from the RHP store. That worked out good and I actually bought two t-shirts because there was a tie.
But here at G/K I decided to do something else...
I am sending ALL my team members a Christmas present for rewarding them in team game participation and forum posts. I don't have any "bad members" because as soon as somebody pulls a stunt like resigning their team match game in 5 moves and/or refuses to move and lets their team down by timing out - THOSE people are instantly removed and will NEVER be eligible to rejoin the team.
You may not be able to afford what I am doing for my team by sending everyone a nice present, and I am not recomending that you need to that. But you should consider doing something for your members who give so much to your team.
In my case I am sending a chess figure - a knight, which plugs into the wall and serves as a night light. It changes through multiple colors as it does so.
Now before I get accused of trying to buy members I should clarify my post.
Nobody on my team suspected that they were going to receive a reward - and any new members who join the Dune team after this post will not receive the present. I don't want to attract members who think they will get a reward just because they joined our team.
Cheers,
Don
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