Muted: What It's Like

This will be the first extant report on chess.com with accurate detail about the experience of being muted; being told firsthand by yours truly, Barney-Boondoggle, Chess Reporter.  After an agonizing 20 days, this is my story:

First of all, forget about warnings.  You can be typing away, breaking an important scoop, and Boom!  The "laughing clown head" appears on your screen.  A mechanical voice with hurdy-gurdy background music cackles and croaks out hideously, "You muted now, fool!" 

Incidentally, they apparently tailor the Mute experience to each member's probable phobias with an algorithm, to maximize compliance.  I hate clowns, but if you're scared of rabbits, it would be a rabbit, if its bats you'd get a bat, and so on and so forth.

Day one seems difficult only because you don't yet know what they have in store for you.  You try to message your friends, no dice.  You put the 'good sport' thumbs up at the end of a game, and try to post the pre-written "Good game", and nothing... except "you are currently unable to comment with this account".  Harsh!!

You write to Help and Support.  They send you a "Mute Appeal Form", it's all in legalese:

"Chess.com (herein referred to as The Mutor) shall, in the interim of Muting, shall act as the sole interlocutor for Barney-Boondoggle (herein referred to as the mutee), until said appeal is adjudicated"... etc.

On day three there's a required "Be Nice: Nice Words and How to Use Them" course in order for your appeal to even be considered.

It's day four you get the message:  "It Has Been Determined That You Must Attend The Community Guidelines Reeducation Program In Order To Have Your Posting Privileges Reinstated".

I'll try to continue soon... need to rest before I can go on...  

Lol

One piece of advice I can give to someone who's  muted:  when you try to appeal to Staff, don't mention the First Amendment; it's guaranteed to get you another five days in the clink.  

Lol

Dang, 20 days - That's huge... I got a 24-hour mute a while back; My first and only one so far. (Automute bot). I didn't try to contact anyone, I just waited a day. :-)

I been never muted...cuz I am good baby and pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster... when ever I sew som1 I thik do they have Flying Spaghetti Monster in their brawns???

Once the initial shock wears off, one begins to settle into a routine.

Usually it was Guidelines Reeducation for two hours in the morning, mandatory calisthenics  at 1:00, and then "Ludoviko After Lunch™" sessions until 5.

 Surprisingly, the food wasn't as bad as you'd expect.  Good gruel.  Because I had recently developed an interest in Rudolph Steiner, I was able to demand Biodynamic gruel, as stipulated in my Diamond Membership.

And sure enough, I got Biodynamic gruel.  At least they said it was Biodynamic ... I had no way of checking.

It's good you kept your head down, that's probably why you got off easy.  I, on the other hand, decided it would be a great opportunity to pen a lengthly screed to Staff explaining to them the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution and all the Rights, including Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of the Press, granted to me by the Sacred Document.

Needless to say, it didn't go well.  

You're allowed to play chess, but you can't communicate in the chat.  Of course, your opponent can still trash talk you all day long.  And you can't respond when someone says something nice, so they probably think you're a jerk.

At first, they only give you a "thumbs up/good sport" option at the end of the games, to "promote a positive attitude towards the community".  Eventually you are incrementally allowed to access the "thumbs down/bad sport" button, as long as you "remember to stay positive" when you use it.

I ended up just disabling chat altogether. 

Lol

I gotten 2 community violation cuz I didn't censor hom*o twice bruh... watch me get muted

bruh

Dude, whatever you've got going on is waaaaay above my pay grade.  I think you should try another Department.  Blocked.

I sent in a script about being muted, with a dystopian mind-control plot by a popular gaming site as the premise, called "A Quiet Place".  To my chagrin, the title's already been used in a popular Speculative Fiction movie franchise about aliens who really don't like human sound.

I proposed an alternative, "A Quieter Place".

No dice.

Any new posts?

alright so i was once muted for 24 hrs this is either just false or trolling.  pretty sure trolling.  you just can't do anything

It’s a joke. Barney likes to make stories like this.

It's not uncommon that the Experience is so traumatic that you simply forget what actually happened.

My mailbox is brimming with fan letters saying stuff like "But Barney, I'm terrified of lizards, I didn't get no laughing lizard, no nothing –– what gives?"

By design, the Mute Experience is custom made for each individual to induce memory loss, aversion to recollection, etc. 

The recall is spotty for me, but due to an anomaly, and exceptional mental fortitude, I am here to tell my story.

And Aun, this, and my other articles, are no joke.  Think about it.  Who would actually take time to make up this kind of stuff?  Besides, the glamour, the globe trotting, the intrigue and adventure (not to mention the haut couture) in a career as a Chess Reporter is hard to top!

"That Barney, always making up tall tales..."  Ha!  You'll see, you'll all see!!!  

And when I have the Pulitzer and the Oscar, and everything, you will all be dining on crow crumpets!

I think it was day 9, not sure, when one of the "Mutaurs" (that's what they call the guards, who are a sadistic, Stamford Prison Experiment lot) decided it would be fun to hypnotize us through the computer, and convince us we could fly.  Many of us met a tragic end, launching themselves from windows, plummeting to a grisly demise.

Through sheer luck, I tried to take off from the ground ...  only sprained an ankle, thank goodness.