Don't Criticize the chess.com Columnists... or else.

1. I'm pretty sure Silman is payed to write the articles.

2. We're paying for the articles by watching ads.

I would say I offered some constructive advice.

"... a simple explanation of how Mybadid was wrong would have sufficed."

What is this other than saying to Silman: "Hey, did your response to Mybadid need to be so harsh and rhetorical? Do I as a reader of your articles get any added value form it being so? Couldn't you have just pointed out the errors in his thinking and left it at that?"

I also don't think I insulted him. I did point out where I felt Silman was wrong, and even how I felt he was being a bit hypocritical, but I don't think I did so in a derisive manner.

As far as the content being free, well, I assume Silman does get some compensation for the articles he writes. He also certainly gets free publicity for himself and his books -  books which he manages to get in a plug for about every other article. He's not doing charity work here.

Wow, a lot of heated discussion here.  I agree with many sides on many points.  My point is more peaceful - maybe I will leave it alone.  I felt that selfmate's post was fine, and in good taste.  I pay for this site, so the free argument doesn't work with me.  However, I enjoy Silman's articles.  They are entertaining.  I don't think selfmate's post was derogatory towards Silman - it was a personal expression.  If we are to keep personal expression sealed shut, please someone set the boundaries for universal discussion on the internet.  

I hope Silman in the end doesn't think it is funny to delete people's posts, and I don't agree with posts solely for the sake of deriding someone.  I don't think selfmate was doing it in malicious intent.  Yes, Silman is free to delete posts.  But the customers are free to go to another site too, if they feel they cannot voice their opinions.  I do pay $100/year here, but I don't use that to play some kind of trump card.  Even the free players help chess.com, with numbers, and with ads viewed.  So it is important for selfmate to discuss his feelings on this.  He isn't being hateful at all, not in my opinion.  

I love chess.com - the freedom to post about chess, and basically anything else under the sun.  

Well, for Silman to delete any post he doesn't like really shows his innability and perhaps immaturity to deal with criticism. Selfmate's comment was perhaps not the most essential thing in the world, but I thought it was perfectly valid for him to express his concern. It's a little pathetic just to delete something like that for purely arbitrary reasons, as there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, even if it's not one the author is excited to see. He needs to understand that not everyone can like or agree with him, and he should respect that.

Now, for the most part, I think Silman is a decent chess writer, and his books helped me a lot in my earlier years, but I think he is getting much too caught up in his emotions, which is why sometimes his columns contain as much trivial, protruding, and, worst, esoteric, arguing as instructive content. That kind of stuff would be better left to an individual email.

I think selfmate was perfectly justified in pointing out the hypocrisy of Silman's response, and his clear refusal to try to understand that. I dunno, I think hypocrisy is pretty bad, personally, and gets nowhere.

It should be remembered that blog & article authors can delete the comments under their posts, and judging from Silman's response in this thread, it was Silman who deleted the comment, it wasn't site moderation. So this is about Silman's criticism threshold, not a general site policy about columnists.

I agree with Elubas above, for someone who gets more than enough applause, some negative criticism should be tolerable.

hi folks, a message from one of your friendly moderators.

there *is* censorship on chess.com, and nobody's trying to hide it. it's also not a bad thing (this and many other statements can be intelligently interpreted as my judgement rather than facts).

in the case of articles, the writers of those articles have the ability to delete comments. Mr. Silman has written in the comments section, when deleting comments, that he was deleting those comments, and the reason for that. He did not attempt to keep it a secret.

one little story you should know-- before Mr. Silman, the Q+A column was handled by an International Master named Andrew Martin. He did a good job, but some few people made really rude comments in the comment section until he became so pained by it that he decided to give up.

yes, chess.com's columnists get payed for writing their articles; however, from my personal knowledge of them, I'd say that every one of them also writes because they want to share something with other people. therefore, when disagreeing with their works, it would be reasonable to respond from a point of charity, as you are addressing someone who is trying to share something valuable with a community. a lot of people appreciate and gain from what our columnists write here; please do not chase another one off, because you are personally offended by something. please look at the bigger picture.

Gambitking, i'm a long-time gambiteer. i've played even your beloved latvian many times. i think that for many years i was the top-rated champion of the king's gambit in the u.s. i once read a post of yours about an opening which i believe progressed e4 nc6 d4 f5. i played it two dozen times on live chess in response. i don't have a vendetta against gambits. neither does Silman. you are not seeing reality when you imagine that he does. he gives very frank heartfelt feedback about fringe openings when people ask him about them. i don't feel insulted if he calls an opening i play "something that you wouldn't see at top GM level." typically that's a pretty factual claim. same with when he says that e.g. the Latvian is worse than the Ruy Lopez at the level of objective evaluation (e.g. -.7 verse -.2).

i believe you have a thing against him bc you think he has a thing against gambits, and so you declare war in response. he really doesn't disrespect gambits and thereby you. so i'm hoping you'll see that light and cancel your antagonism.

another thing about our site, chess.com, for which i'm speaking as staff: if you want to create another site, and pay for the hosting, and use that site to post negative things about us, well obviously it pains me, but go ahead. however, you can't use our site to destroy our site. you can't use our forums and messaging system to tell people to join your site instead of ours. it seems immoral to use our resources to attack us.

especially since we are going to be using our time and resources to try to improve the site, rather than engage in long arguments with you in the forums. it's just not fair.

getting back to censorship: the chess.com forums are payed for by chess.com. therefore, there is no "right of freedom of expression" analogous to the one refered to in the u.s. constitution. for example, i don't have a right to come into your house and write on your walls "gambitking is a graffiti artist." similarly, chess.com members don't have an intrinsic right to come on chess.com and post whatever they want to.

chess.com has set out guidelines for posting, and it is up to individual users to decide if they like posting here and if they think there is a good community to communicate with, etc. if people don't like the standards they can 1) communicate to staff members, who will take their opinions into account while crafting site policy 2) leave the site if they can't stand it, and/or don't think the site will ever be changing to match their preferences.

there are a variety of people responsible for moderating comments on chess.com. people make mistakes. if you think that some particular deletion was erroneous, it's much appreciated if you could send a private message to me, with either a copy of the comment, or if you don't have a copy, the gist of it. we will try to correct errors. but please, do make some judgement in advance of whether you would rather have me adjudicating the value of that particular comment, or doing work to improve the site. if someone is moderating really badly, it would be important for me to know. if one close call doesn't go your way, probably not.

sincerely, david

also, Gambitking, people have called my style of chess "cave-man" "barbaric" "brutal" "blunt" etc. etc. a thousand times, and it has never offended or enraged me.

+1 for David. This is a private site, the proprietors decide what is/isn't appropriate.

[Edit: as pointed out by FirebrandX, "commercial" instead of "private" is more appropriate.]

+2 for David - I agree with him as well.  David, also thanks for the discussion of your style.  I saw your King's Gambit videos, and I loved them.  Especially the Ke2 stuff - that truly rocks, to discuss "anti-positional" ideas such as that 

Also, thanks for taking the time to understand someone's frustration and being willing to be a big help, rather than tell someone off.  I really appreciate that - another reason why I support this site first of all chess sites.  chess.com is #1 site on my google chrome for a reason.

I think censorship has its purpose, but I also think this particular comment definitely had reason behind it (in fact it was argued that Silman was the one out of line in his response to Mybadid) and its deletion was purely arbitrary and doesn't really reflect the point of censorship; instead it just reflected bigotry.

He was hiding from the flaw in his reasoning that was pointed out, yet the very  thing he so publically did was critisize mybadid's reasoning! A little hypocritical?

I never liked the idea of deleting the comments, if it's so bad, argue against it.  If it's excessive SPAM, sure delete it, but someone expressing their opinions, even if you don't agree with them - those posts shouldn't be deleted.

Is it a big deal, nope, but just don't delete comments unless necessary

so..I agree with what the moderator had to say, but that's my two cents.

p.s,

I'd also like to see someone write perfect chess books that teach well. 

     I thought IM Pruett offered a very thoughtful, well-paced response to a potentially incendiary topic.  I'm on the side of the least censorship, but I also know sometimes it's necessary especially on an essentially anonymous forum.  Like most things, the wisdom is in knowing when to apply it.  Mr. Silman isn't anonymous and has a very high-profile reputation to maintain as opposed to the posters in question, so, while I may or may not agree with his actions, I'm also not in his shoes nor in a position to judge. . . and few of us are.
     Whatever one may think of his writing, or interactive manners, Mr. Silman is eminently qualified to write on chess matters and has a well deserved large following.  Like most situations that deteriorate so rapidly, there are probably things from both sides that could have been handled better.  So, hopefully this becomes a learning experience for all involved.  I know I've learned a few things.

El_senior: I agree, but I think care should be taken not to delete posts unless it's necessary.  For example, SPAM, abuse. etc.  Basically the post has been made, and there has to be a _very_ good reason to delete it; otherwise deal with it.

once again i'm reminded that it is impossible to make everyone happy all of the time. it's the curse of running a site with millions of members (and therefore millions of opinions).

maybe in the future i'll invent a forum system where people can selectively view/not-view the different kinds of posts they personally do/don't like. until then, we strike a balance, and those on edges of the bell curve will be unhappy about it. too loose for some, too tight for others. 

i'd only encourage everyone to consider all of the things that you DO agree with and DO appreciate, not the one or two (or three or more) things you DON'T like.

you know, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater...

"i'd only encourage everyone to consider all of the things that you DO agree with and DO appreciate, not the one or two (or three or more) things you DON'T like."

But isn't the criticism what helps you improve the site?

it's an interesting point el_senor. as you can see in this forum, i deleted the link to the "destroy chess.com" site, but i made it very clear that it was i who had stepped in to moderate; and i also explained why. in theory this is definitely preferable. however, it also takes more time. in many cases someone posts something really awful (as in, i'm not going to give an example), and a moderator/staff will delete the post and send them a private message explaining why. i often ask them to message me back that they understand, or if they have a problem with it. very often there's no response, and repeat offending.

so sometimes that extra time taken is a lost cause. and there's an awful lot out there to moderate. and many moderators are volunteers. but this is again something where we need to balance it. when you think there's a good chance that someone will understand what's wrong with their post AND care, then it can be very helpful to invest an explanation in them.

*other point*

at whatever point we decide to draw the line of what is "too spammy" or "too offensive" or "too nasty," there will be some people who say we are deleting too many comments, and other people who will say that we are letting the forums be ruined by garbage. so we are doing a balancing job, trying to provide a fun and useful set of forums for chessfolk.

well, we are trying to get there! i'm looking forward to them too. :-)

Wow.  Just wow.

It looks a lot like the same 3-4 trolls have whipped themselves into a feeding frenzy. It seems to be 2-3 of the same people that are always trying to start crap.

Whoever made the post (post #53, not going to bother to quote) about censorship being illegal because its in the US blah blah, please - read a civics book.

I think the 'destroy chess.com' thing was a joke link, but either way - on a Site that I mod, that would have been a 24 hour time out, the second offense would have been an IP ban.  dpreuss took it easy on you.

Post No. 40 was my personal favourite. 

A number of users referred to the US Constitution as a guarantee of free speech which presumably should be extended to web sites such as chess.com. An interesting video regarding the censorship on youtube.com was posted some years ago by the user ZenArcher. Most of his arguments apply to chess.com as well. The video is well worth watching, but if you can't spare 9 minutes, just listen to the segment between 6:54 and 8:23.