can we ban all anti-female topics

Sure. I'm just saying there can be a subjectivity problem. Let's say there is an idea I really like, and it gets totally beaten down by everyone when I post it in the forums. I might label that as "harassment" because I was hurt by it, but someone else might just say, they were expressing their opinion, and I can't objectively call it harassment just because I didn't like what I heard.

So yeah, for whatever cases you're talking about, I want those gone. But you have to try to do that in an unbiased manner. It's not enough to just feel like something is harassment, because anyone who doesn't like you will say you harass them -- someone might call not saying "good game" harassment, even. You should at least recognize that some subjectivity has to come into play.

ok.  good answer.

I don't see any anti-female trollish forums anywhere? I guess they got banned.

there is clearly lots of room for self expression at chess.com, Mike.  my only point, is that all this talk of "free speech", shouldn't be thought of as a blank check for trolls to harass people.

there Are limits. yes. there are.  but in typical way.  some in this forum don't think there are strict enough and other think they are far too strict.

"not extending to people's alleged "right" to be rude on the internet."

Well, this can be ambiguous sometimes. For example, I would say that opposition (which seems to be related to rudeness a little bit) is the only thing that keeps me posting on these forums. If my ideas were never challenged, there would be nothing for me to learn or talk about, here. Whereas someone else might call such challenges harassment, because of their bias towards something different from their own (even if it's astronomically different, the point is the same).

By necessity, you are not going to hear things you want to hear when you learn something new. When you learn, you are taking something away from your current understanding and changing it.

And of course you don't always learn from everybody. But I guess my point is, it's not always about whether you or someone else wants to hear something. Their right should go beyond what you want to hear. We want to hear a world where everyone respects every race and so on. But if we want to not impose ourselves on others, in some sense we need to tolerate what we don't want to hear. (Though we don't have to endorse it in any way whatsoever)

Like I said though, that doesn't mean we should never be pragmatic, either. I'm just proposing my own perspective on this issue.

So, I would like for people to feel good, without taking away the freedoms of others. And in a sense we are free to feel good, because we can decide (perhaps rationally) to attach little weight to troll topics. If a troll says women are stupid, well he or she is, in all likelihood, wrong, so it need not interfere with your own beliefs. You're free to reject it, without having to restrict his or her freedom to post.

TOS is the "constitution" of the site.  and people should consider it the defining document of a person's right to express stuff.

what you saying cephaloMan, seems obvious.  but the broader point made by RY, stands- what thread do you think is unacceptable?  if you feel this way- have you reported it?

if your feel that someone has posted something that is clearly against TOS, and you don't report- shame on you.  you should stand up for your conviction.

chess.com has a big job.   about a week ago someone posted real p0rrn.  it took two days to be removed- how do I know?  I reported it. 

how wrong would it be- to let it be, and then complain later about how chess.com allows this type of content (when it really doesn't)??

I find posts 103/104, fuzzy- elubas.

some things ARE black and white.  if the OP feels a thread is against the TOS he should appeal to management. 

not, endlessly debate about it. it will , oc, be a chess.com moderator/staff that will make the call on whether something is acceptable anyway.

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in short, there's no use in making a enormous debate about what chess.com should do.  they've already set policy, wrote up the TOS, and have a group of guys that WILL make the a judgement on whether something IS or ISN'T against TOS....

Liberty vs order is an old debate (that I don't know much about).

But practically speaking, you need to set rules and consistently enforce them.

And of course you can err either way (too much or too little). Either way and people will complain. Whether or not there are enough dissatisfied people to warrant change is up to the site... but being dissatisfied and wanting change are legitimate reactions.

On the other hand, if the website bans hate speech vs women, that is their full right. You can't come into a website and expect the mods to obey your rules.

The best censorship is self-censorship.  If you want to stop troll behavior, then you should adopt a policy to require all accounts to use their real name when posting to the forum.  Anonymous names are at the root of such behavior - not free speech.

Right, you can say sexist things or rant about "third world countries". But don't you dare say something nice about ICC.

How is this black and whiteness achieved, exactly? It seems like all it takes is for you to feel strongly enough about something. Something like, "ok, I'll tolerate posts I find fairly sexist because of free speech, but these ones I think are really sexist and I don't feel like tolerating them."

But even feeling really strongly about something is just your own personal feeling.

It's not hard to see how someone could do something inappropriate and claim they were just being a good moderator. Let's suppose that there is a moderator who personally dislikes men vs women chess threads. It might well be that there is some rational discussion going on in such a thread, but because of the moderator's bias, they will claim it's harassment and delete it, perhaps without even reading it.

"it will , oc, be a chess.com moderator/staff that will make the call on whether something is acceptable anyway."

You do recognize that this is flawed, though, since the moderator might be biased, and label things as harassment that shouldn't be. People very, very easily look for excuses to censor an opinion that's highly opposed to theirs, so I'm just saying it's something to be careful about.

Or trysts.

I'm in bzillions of threads, elubas, but you're just mostly in the threads about women

No no, he also posts about chess, and is quite knowledgeable in it. A dangerous player, and has a positive record against me (I'm scared!!)

That is incredibly false.