I agree - automated censorship is horribly flawed. I always feel sorry for supporters of Scunthorpe on the BBC 606 boards...

I'll be honest, the automated moderator isn't likely to go anywhere... BUT, we will be adding private chat rooms back into Live Chess, which will be unmoderated, just like they were before.

the problem is that we can't differentiate between you saying that your position is s***ty to a friend, and saying "you're a sack of s**t" to your opponent. we can't do context. but yes, private chat will soon be back and you can say what you like. we'll likely also deregulate the game chat between friends.

 yes but why cant they make it so when your playing your friend you can swear? i always say stuff to my friend like

 F**k my life, my f**king position is so s**t, but your playing great!

But i wonder.. why not say my position is bad? Instead of s**tty

Its not hard. In fact, you WANT people to be ABLE to swear at their opponents. Then when they do, screen shot and you catch them red handed. Makes things a lot easier then censoring things between 2 people having a chat and a laugh during a game. It loses the feel of somewhere I can go to relax if I have to watch everything. I want to relax and have a good time, not have to watch every step I make.

Or is that just me?

I can see the benefit of the automated pre-emptive censor in the common chat room, but for games the impact of someone being abusive is only to one other person and frankly, a creative abuser can also do so just as effectively without swearing.  I think I'd personally prefer to see deregulation of in-game chat between any two players -- freinds or otherwise with more focus on moderating the chat that everone can see.

No, it's not just you and this is a good point. Why are those of us not abusing anyone and simply cursing our "sh*t" chess to our friends having to self-censor ourselves as we type? Let the sore losers who get abusive have to think up innovative spellings and curses!

I don't understand why a Report Abuse function isn't sufficient - a button that sends a transcript of the conversation to a moderator. If Chess.com wanted to continue to be proactive about preventing abuse the current automated system could even be put to better use with a bit of a tweak - instead of giving the person that swore a pop up informing them to be careful and then taking more drastic measures (like muting or banning them!), why not send the OTHER person - the person that just received the message with the curse word - a pop up asking them if they are being abused?

 brilliant!!!

It likely comes down to manpower, although I like the suggestion.

WHO CARES.

 I second that!

yo kupov, a few people care cause there's been about 10 responses.

i think having a pop-up button is too much work for the good people here at chess.com, so people should be ready to use the 'disable chat' button. if you really get rattled by people's comments then turn off chat at the start. pretty simple to me. fools are everywhere on the internet and in the world, deal with it. there's no justice.

if someone is swearing at me i'm happy cause it means i'm probably beating their a**!!

anyway, the main thing that will arise from having a censorship is that it will lead to a decline in SPELLING when people have to come up with phrases such as "F** YOU BUDDY" to avoid getting muted or banned. then as overall literacy declines, chessplayers are no longer seen as intelligent, cannot attract a mate, and we are weeded out of the gene pool, and chess ceases to exist.

UPDATE: A friend of mine has just apparently been banned (his account has been closed, but he hasn't received an email notifying him that he has been banned) for casually swearing in a non-abusive way in Live Chess. Even if he just opens a new account, he has lost all of his games, messages, ratings, friends etc etc.... He doesn't even recall receiving a warning!

  Could a member of staff let us all know if an alternate system to the one in place at the moment is even being considered?

"your friend" needs to contact support.

I wasn't asking for a public inquiry into my friend's apparent banning, I was asking if any of the suggestions for changing the present system of automated warnings, muting and banning people for swearing are being considered for implementation.

*Tense, nervous, headache*

12 seconds left

*Tick, tock*

8 seconds left

"Eureka! Mate in 2!"

6 Seconds left

...    ....

"Chess.com has detected some profanity in your opponents messages to you, click here if you would like to report abuse"

*Tick, tock*

"No! Godammit!"

*Hits cancel button*

"You have lost on time"

AAAaarrrggghhh!

Good point -- any such solution would have to be a link in the chat box, not a modal window that demanded a response.

 Good idea. That way you have the option to ignore it until the game is over. This might help reduce what Cobblepot is talking about, but at the end of the day I don't see that it really matters if someone abusive knows who "told on them" - what are they going to do, abuse them again and get banned?

 EDIT: Turns out my friend's account was closed due to chess.com mistakenly thinking he had two accounts (he and I live on the same property and share a wireless network). Glad that this discussion has been reactivated, anyway.