I don't see myself participating in a chess website, where Nazi-oriented, offensive commentary is allowed to soil the forums or any part of them.
This is very easy to achieve: Don't connect to the internet.
Else, chances are that you will have frequent encounters with Nazis and morons (cannot tell the difference most of the times).
Regards.
Dear <IM Pfren>
Thanks of answering in this thread.
I would actually like to see you in my other, chess-related threads - but also here, you're more than welcome.
I, personally, do run into morons in my day to day living, and on the internet. Boatloads of them, of course.
Blatant Nazi posting, on the other hand, is quite another matter. Also Greeks knew very well what living under the Nazi regime of horrors, used to mean.
I don't generally go to websites with Nazi content. I know chess.com for like 5 years, and this is the first time I saw anything of the kind - and I'm happy that they have handled the matter quickly.
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The Nazi regime, itself, came into being and collected its undeserved power exclusively through many years of stupid tolerance, on the part of Weimar Germany until 1933, on the part of the rest of Europe until 1939, and on the part of the US until 1941. This is documented and very well known.
These scumbags can only thrive if the rest of us stay quiet. Chess.com admins don't stay quiet. nazism in any form (including very stupid 'jokes', imagery or whatever) won't pass here.
I am afraid that the internet is, at least morally speaking, let alone tolerance, much worse than the Weimar Republic.
Oh, and we have heard much worse than those things said. By adults, not kids, and not on the net, but rather in the Greek parliament...
Just ignore the comments and trust me, I don't think the real nazis would ever visit a chess forum. The people who post stupid comments are just immature kids that need to grow up and maybe are just trolling. And don't worry, I will kill all the nazis in the next wolfenstein game, provided I buy a new computeer otherwise I have to let somebody else finish it :)!
<IM Pfren> I totally identify with your sentiments, sir.
However, speak up we must - for this is the only road to change. One is reminded of the story of the two frogs and the bowl of sour cream (one in apathy, drowning, the other fighting, swimming - until the cream hardened and it could simply jump outside. I think it's by Aesop). That's our duty as human beings - and this comes before being chess players.
<TheRocketKing> I'm sure that by now you understand that I'm not a man to ignore outrageous stuff! Humanity stands by where people are being slaughtered.
If you knew me personally, you would know that also here, in the streets of Brussels, and although I have never been trained in martial arts - I can always be counted on to interfere in scenes of street violence - even when 100 other people are blandly, stupidly watching, doing nothing.
Real Nazis are people just like me and you. They have no special 'aura'. They can visit chess forums. If unchecked, they will grow - just like any other tumor. This won't happen in chess.com.
Also the Nazis, in and around 1923, were a bunch of silly, immature kids. You know how it went on from there.
Trolling can be ignored in some cases. This wasn't one of them. You can trust me on that.
I extend my gratitude and appreciation to chess.com for removing the Nazi comments on that thread (indeed, the entire thread...)
The problem with saying that those offended by offensive remarks shouldn't use a particular website, or even connect to the internet, is that the accountability is shifted away from the people making those remarks and onto the targets of that rhetoric to not get upset, or feel unsafe -- or at least to not make it known if they do, lest they risk being suggested to "get off the internet".
When someone is spewing violent, racist rhetoric on a public forum, it makes the forum feel unsafe for the targets of that racism, and it also is just upsetting to see. If you belong to a group that is privileged to not be routinely situated on the wrong end of racist rhetoric, you don't appreciate that such language is very, very personal and can totally kill your mood, especially if you know you're going to get shamed for expressing such.
Right, <Photon552>.
Every sensitive person is bound to shout "outrage" and act to the elimination of such garbage.
In the absence of acting sensitive people, you do get such scenes as the Holocaust.
But when acting, sensitive people are present, you get rapid and stable growth and expansion, such as we see in chess.com. This isn't happening by accident.
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It took silence, and lots of it, from way too many people, for way too long, to produce the Holocaust!
More silence will produce another one - and it may well prove to be worse - technology has advanced considerably since the 1940s.
It doesn't matter if you "belong to a targeted group" or not. In any case you must act. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee.
Living in an atmosphere where human rights are denied, is horrible for one and all, targeted or not
"When they came for the Jews, I was silent - as I'm not Jewish...
"When they came for the blacks, I was silent - as I'm not black...
"When they came for the homosexuals, I was silent - as I'm not homosexual...
"Finally, when they came for me - there was nobody left to speak up! Everybody else has already been taken"
Such horrors... but the vigilance of you and I will keep them limited to other periods, and to other places, far away from the here and now. Cheers!
<Chessflight8439> later turned out to be quite the abuser. He left a negative note on my profile, without permission, without messaging me privately beforehand and without being my friend.
When I saw it, I decided to block him - and I don't suppose that this is a great loss for me. He won't be missed.
Glancing through this thread I stumbled upon makes me really glad I have a life.
IN OTHER BREAKING HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORALLY IMPERATIVE NEWS, a small black spider is walking across my ceiling.
Oh, and I just farted.
It's true, <IM Pfren> - once you do start writing about stuff, the amount of morons who jump at you is really staggering... and can really remove any will to speak at all :-)
Even this present thread provides ample proof of it... :-)
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However, there's still a difference between a horde of jumping morons, and the one real, sworn A-hole who instigated the fire in the first place.
You can do nothing against the former... ignoring them or posting the occasional polite answer is just fine - but you must do something about the latter.
<Chessflight8439> check out comment #9 and comment #62 on the thread I reference in my OP. Then you'll see it.
If you need help after that, let me know - I will send you the precise quote in private, as I don't care to litter my own pages with such filth.
Your sarcasm is understood, but misplaced.
I read #9 earlier today, and picked it as irony. Maybe I'm wrong, but us jews know that it's perfectly possible to hold multiple opinions on any subject simultaneously.
Doncha know Tragedy + Time= Comedy
Having read #62, which quoted from #9, I still think that.
But you are German, I think, which, like being American, almost certainly means no subtleties in your sense of humour
Sorry, Belgian, which is pretty much the same thing. Worse actually, for inventing deep fried potatoes, which makes people fat and increases my health insurance premiums. At least the Germans like doing a bit of exercise
I'm Israeli, my friend - just happen to live in Belgium for the last 4 years.
About the rest, I'm afraid you're right. I really have no sense of humor, and I totally fail to see what is funny in situations - what can I do? Blame it on my defective personality.
It turns out that chess.com admin had a similar view to mine, as the offensive posts (indeed, the entire thread they were in...) were duly removed.
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As you are a Jew, of course, you have a right to tolerate such posts as were deleted - but other people may, and do, see things differently.
About your learned equation above - I don't feel that enough time has passed to qualify that particular tragedy (the Holocaust) as comedy just yet. Ask me again in year 3450 or so - maybe I'll change opinion by then.
Oh... these Nazis again...
And I thought this was about Nazi Paikidze
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=114150
My mistake. I'm out of here.
PS: Censorship and limiting freedom of speech whenever someone says anything that might or might not be slightly offensive seems very much like something the Nazis would have done. That is one of the reasons why I don't like them.
<Alpenschach> also taking measures against the Nazis in 1923 to 1933, would have been "undemocratic" - and this was actually being used widely as an argument back then, in favor of doing nothing. We know what was the result of that.
Does legislation against Nazism and Nazi expression, makes the country which instated that law, no better than a Nazi country?
When war was waged against the Nazis, did this make the Allies no better than the Nazis? Or did the Allies save whatever freedom the world still had in 1945 and thereafter?
Probably the contrary is rather true, that staying silent in front of violent breach of human rights, makes one an actual accessory to the crimes.
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I know that we're "only" talking about a "harmless" comment in a chess forum - but Nazi comments are like cancer. Leave them alone, they'll spread like wildfire.
I can't control "all" of the internet - but in chess.com I still have some kind of a word. It turns out that when I talk sense (which does happen sometimes, I hope) I'm also listened to - as the offending content was promptly removed.
And of course, FM Nazi Paikidze, is just my kind of Nazi! Same as Colonel Hans Landa (especially as he got his well-deserved "Cain's Mark" at the end).
Poor old nazis put their faith in a nutter. Now look where its ended up!
Freedom of speech should be regarded as precious, which is why I personally disagree with repressive legislation such as Holocaust denial prohibition. (The evidence is there for all to see) However, quite another thing is introducing highly provocative statements into discussions, which bear no relevance whatsoever to the subject at hand and are only designed to stir up spiteful slanging matches and upset others. I refer to my querying of irrelevant stirring up of trouble in another thread.
I know that we're "only" talking about a "harmless" comment in a chess forum - but Nazi comments are like cancer. Leave them alone, they'll spread like wildfire.
I can understand why you find the comment in question offensive. But if we delete/censor/forbid all that is offensive to anybody anywhere, then what will remain?
This is offensive to you.
Eating meat and hunting and killing animals for fun or profit is highly offensive to me as a vegetarian. Still I can not go around asking that people be censored for posting recipes for food with meat in it or photos of themselves posing proudly with the deer they just "heroically" killed. To me the life of an animal is as valuable as that of a human. Some people may take offense in me saying that, I take offense in people saying that it's not.
Another person might take offense from something else entirely that does not mean anything to you or me or from something we even value as something good.
I am not pro-Nazi. Not at all. The opposite is true.
But one thing I think is also true; the more you censor and forbid them the more interest in them you will generate. "Reiz des Verbotenen" we call it in german. Forbidden fruit is always twice as sweet.
So no offense to you or anybody else! It's a topic that really holds not much personal interest for me. It's just that I feel very strongly about protecting freedom of speech and believe that it is always better to be able to talk things out and be able to argument about things, than just banning that which goes against our sense of right and wrong.
Making light of the Holocaust is a criminal offense in the U.S.
This website has positive ideas in mind - it is shown again and again. The offensive contents have been very quickly removed.
"If you remove all offensive content, what will remain?" Positive content, of course :-) I'll take that any day for my diet. This is why I come here, rather than to places where nasty content is prevalent.
As to me, I'm not a paid member of chess.com. These comments drew my attention as I was sitting in front of my computer, finally annotating my second round game against Stephane Tannemaat - which is now fully and successfully posted (although, as yet, without the necessary Houdini analysis and confirmation) in my "Closed tourney" thread.
You are all invited to that thread, to look at my game and comment on my annotations, moves and ideas.
This thread was created because an extremely nasty comment (two of them, actually) featured and was allowed to stay for a day and a half, in another thread, which was thereafter deleted by staff.
Sometimes it's necessary to insist that some especially sour and damaging stuff gets removed. Remove the bad apple before it spoils the whole basket.
Now that it's all in the past, this thread may well be locked, or deleted, as the case might be. I would also change its name if I could help it, into something such as "Hate speech is dealt with swiftly and effectively in chess.com".