Today’s Pet Peeve
FIDE’s Big Imagination

One of the most annoying things about federations is how they are always thinking BIG but rarely ever come close to achieving it. Case in point today is FIDE’s mangling of its official ‘improved‘ website.
As a long time blogger I can only cringe at how the new webmasters have made the ‘new look’ appear almost exactly as the ugly templates of many of the South American chess federation websites.
The front page is way too cluttered. The images used are way too big. Too much scrolling thru unnecessary photos, items and news is required to find what you are looking for.
FIDE’s webpage should not be a news site for browsing. There are hundreds of better and dedicated news sites for that. When people go to FIDE’s webpage it is because they are looking for something. Ratings. Regulations. FIDE tournaments and the like. They are not looking for entertainment.
When a webmaster clutters up his homepage with lots of irrelevant material, he often ‘forgets’ to update and remove old items. Because there is just so much to keep track of…and it is a LOT of work.
Today is October 3rd, 2019
Below is the homepage of FIDE today. Notice that the ‘Person of the Day’ is Sam Shankland. Happy birthday, Sam! Sam was born on the 1st of October 1991.
But of course, FIDE knows this. They put this item on the FIDE homepage on October 1st, but have ‘forgotten’ to update.
