I agree with Teja here, this rule is terribly inconvenient and a bit silly.  Given how easy it is to cheat individually, the entire ethic of online chess requires trust.  So why would this not apply to a simple team match, that is just for fun anyway?  Oh, the silliness.

You can play TVC even if you belong to both teams. I know from personal experience. Unless we play a Team Match vs Killer Derivatives or World Chess Players I won't be able to try playing in a TEAM MATCH (not Team Vote Chess) where I belong to both teams.

Yes, Roy, I understand this ... but doesn't mean I agree!  :)

Tell it to City Hall...preferably the CIty Hall in Timbuktu Mali! :=)                  

where's the faith? :)

The Law written into the program was to stop players from infiltrating a group just to throw games. The Law cannot be enforced. I have group members who resign or timeout as soon as they get a winning position. It also happens in tournaments. Players will throw games for whatever reason and there is nothing Chess.com can ever do about it except banning like they do Cheaters, and we all know what a mountain of a job that is! However, what can Chess.com do? They can neither prevent players throwing games nor condone it. Their half-hearted attempt at making things a little more difficult and tedious is the most they can do. We are not supposed to resign one team to play for the other and then rejoin, that is a mildly unethical form of conflict of interest, but the world is not perfect and cyberspace less so.

Nimzo wrote that no one would drop their rating just to help their team. Not true! Members drop their ratings for all sorts of reasons, one of them to qualify in lower rated tournaments. Add to that there are lots of cheaters with multiple accounts. They could use one account to infiltrate and throw crucial games in matches and win in those matches whose outcome is already decided. In other words, matches can be fixed easier than boxing matches. Best not to take it all seriously.

I like how Cheryl - Lady Misil - explains the whys and wherefores and then rounds out the therefores. Creative imagination is limitless when it comes to online chess hanky panky, it seems.

I just wish there is a way for chess.com to punish the culprits in real life. Send out their goons to these reprehensible members' homes after hacking their IPs and finding out their real address, and beat them to within an inch of their life. Alas, chess.com can't do anything in the unreal world; no chance they can do anything in the real. 

Teja calm down, take a pill and remember: CHEATERS SUCK ASS!!!

Lady Misil is right, I made a really bad ASSumption here instead of realizing there's always a rationale for cheating - no matter how lame or bizarre to anyone with even half a brain or the slightest iota of decency and fair play

Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.
Jesse Ventura

 
No, we don't cheat. And even if we did, I'd never tell you.   Tommy Lasorda 

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself.
Gamaliel Bailey