Guidelines for Personal Interactions

Below guide is from another admin club (ACTC) and I am the original author, though many helped me with feedback. I post it here and gives this club's admins the permission to update and maintain this post #1 (if they wish), based on feedback in this club.

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Personal Interactions Guidelines

We all know the rules: no cheating, no obscene language, etc. But what about common courtesy and always doing the right thing in terms of online personal interactions?

These are things that you do not get banned for if you do not follow, but you may hurt people’s feeling and overall look like less than a decent person if you do not.

The following is meant as a guidelinne for all SA/Admins to accept and adhere to.  Always try to do the right thing to the best of your abilities and willingly apologize and make amends when you have errored.

1. Do not block a user unnecessarily.  Blocking users should be a last resort and never in retaliation for a misunderstanding or confrontation.  Blocking a user is justified when the individual has violated the chess.com TOS. Example: for posting obscene or offensive material and you have documented their actions and reported them to chess.com. 
2. If you block someone, try as a rule to do so for a short time period and inform user why he/she is blocked and when you will lift the block. (For extremly rude behaviour a permanent block may be warranted). Do not carry petty grievances forever. 
3. Never accept hearsay or rumors as fact. Always, wait for chess.com to make a determination or at least confront the person and ask.
4. When a SA or admin is being considered for demotion a temporary club is created and all admins except the one in question is invited to discuss the issues and decide the best course of action. The team may or may not decide to invite the admin in question to join the temporary club and tell his/her side of the story. Once the admin team makes a decision this temporary club is deleted.
   
5. If you need to demote an admin, always explain to the person the reasons and whether he/she could expect a 2nd chance at a later time.
6. Use warning first before demotions or expulsion.
7. Ask users to delete bad posts in a private message (PM), wait a moment and then do it yourself if they have not done. This creates a much better dynamic than if you immediately delete which often escalate the situation.
8. When you feel you are insulted or under a personal attack, take a deep breath and wait at least 10 min before posting anything. Or ask another admin or friend who is not emotionally involved in the situation to handle it.
9. When someone asks what you think about another user for an admin position, and you have a low opinion of the person,  just say you do not think they would be suitable for admin position. Avoid making accusations.
10. When you write a PM, always consider that it may be forwarded to others and try to write it that way. If confidential, include that in title and state in the beginning that it is not meant to be shared, but that is no guarantee.
11. When you receive a PM, treat it as confidential and if you wish to share with others ask sender if it is OK to do so.
12. Apologize if you make a mistake.
13. Accept apologies from others if offered after a mistake.
14. Never make personal attacks. 
15. Recognize the work and efforts of fellow admins and members. Tell then in a PM, on group notes and/or give them a fun trophy. 

Related Topics:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chess-com-community-policies-5

https://www.chess.com/agreement

ok. sounds fine. got my settings changed

Nice

Are the two buttons really that close to each other?

That's a lot of rules, but aren't most of them just common sense anyway?

One would think so, unfortunately, it seems some feel that normal rules and etiquette does not apply online.

Some people think the same IRL

I disagree with some of the things and find others very obvious. So what's the point? The person choose to be polite or not depends on situation, no guidebook can provide any help if he choose not to. It looks like guideline made for somebody from the stone age that wants to be nice to people but doesn't know how.
*This me choosing to be not polite 😉

The intention with this guide is to create and increase awareness. To help admin slow down and reflect before they post. You might be surprised about how often sensible people loses sense. This can, for example, happen if you feel you are under attack. 

I might not. People often loses sense in general. Because they are... well, people. 

So, my point being that slow down and reflect before post IS obvious. We just don't want it sometimes, don't understand how some guide can make us to. Unless we are the cave people (which we are in a sense)

We still have our reptilian brain responsible for body functions and "flight or fight" reflexes and instincts. On top of that we have the limbic brain responsible for emotions and memories and finally the neocortex responsible for speech and higher level thinking.
https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_05/d_05_cr/d_05_cr_her/d_05_cr_her.html 

The point is under stress, we can get lead by reptilian brain and be left with an instinctual "flight or fight" response.

There is a great book, "Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" by Kerry Patterson. It describes among other things how you can ask your self questions to get out of the "fight or flight" mode when you are under a verbal attack or feel threaten (or upset) in a conversation. You can ask intellectual questions to yourself to get the front cortex re-engaged, say, "Can we both be right?", "Is a synthesis or higher order thinking possible so we can build on the ideas from both sides?"

Before posting, you can also ask yourself below questions: 

Thats a good one THINK

When I have a situation where there is a conflict, taking a deep breath, and wait a while before posting which gives me time to collect my thoughts and find the right words.  I'm not saying that I do everything right.  And when I make a mistake I apologize right away.

  These guidelines are right on target!

I think I was not very clear. Sorry about that. My point about the cave men was that they don't know what is the polite conversation, so if we want to teach them what is it (bite me why) this guideline make sense. 

We know what is it. Well, most of us are. So when we are not being polite, it's by choise. Either we choose to let our emotions to take over or just don't want to be polite in the current situation doesn't matter. In either case some guideline is of little help. 
But I got it that one could be very pleased by himself to post such a thing and to show off as a very civilized human being. No offense at all here, this is emotion too and we are very driven by them, no matter what we want to think. 

Good guidelines.  Obviously, most sets of rules can't cover every situation, and there are situations where it might make sense to do something different.  But as a general guideline, there's a lot of value in this.

See also:

Chess.com Community Policies
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chess-com-community-policies-5

I agree, MGleason

Good commonsense advice... thanks for reposting here.

I think there is a slight contradiction between paragraph 10 and 11. If a PM should always be regarded as confidential (11), there should be no need to mark it as such explicitely (10). But I think this is just a tribute to the difference between an idealistic approach and reality, so I am fine with that ... Maybe I would just reorder 10 and 11 - 11, which contains the rule (expectation), should be first, 10, which contains the realistic warning, should follow ...