Disturbing

Sorry, if you "don't want to hear any crap". But being in the army may bring you a pretty high "body count", for reasons just as idiotic as the people you mentioned. I could care less what avatar is used, since you were assuming how people in this country would feel.

Lets say your running this site and you're responsible for promoting it. Would you want a 9 year old kid saying "Mommy, who's Pol Pot?" Would you want one of the children of a firefighter who's father died on 911 being challenged to a game by some chucklehead who thinks its cool to use bin Laden as an avatar? Seriously, do you think I'm over reacting?

you COULD care less?  or couldn't?  dude(-ette), you obviously have no idea how people in eastern block countries feel about stalin and what he did to them.  that kinda makes you ignorant to the situation but it's not the end of the world.

and trysts, i'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but comparing someone in the estonian military to stalin is pretty stupid.  do you feel stupid?

Is it a GM?

Agreed, and we should also ban anybody from wearing crosses on necklaces, due to the immense scope of the historical crimes of the Catholic Church.

Because kids are never going to know about murder, as long as this site doesn't let people use certain avatars.

Sorry, if you "don't want to hear any crap". But being in the army may bring you a pretty high "body count", for reasons just as idiotic as the people you mentioned. I could care less what avatar is used, since you were assuming how people in this country would feel.

Defending your country is hardly the same as genocide. Soldiers have a responsibility not to follow illegal orders, so you don't have to participate in idiotic behavior of the sort your talking about. Of course the consequences of disobeying orders can be extreme or even fatal, but you don't necesarily have  choice about serving in the military either.

Let's also eradicate all traces of Latin from consciousness, for the Romans were certainly no choirboys, however nice their roads!

If we are going to impose  avatar censorship based on the magnitude of evil of the represented then we should strive for accurate evaluation of evil.

To limit the discussion to manageable size, here evil is equated with causing death, ( otherwise we would have to evaluate Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, Michael Jackson, and Lawrence Welk).  In terms of the absolute number of deatchs caused we have   #1 with a bullet  (sic)  Mao, #2 Stalin, and a distant #3 Hitler  following these are a gaggle of WWI generals of both sides, and several U.S. Civil War leaders.

But like price inflation,   population growth has given an unfair advantage to 19th and 20th century contestants.   If we look at deaths as a percentage of the candidate population then we can more fairly assess the attainments of our illustrious forebearers.     Although one could argue all day about exact comparisons, the following are certainly candidates for the "most evil" in history

1.  Tamerlane (a.k.a. Timur the lame) who, according to some antiquarians completely depopulated what was then Afghanistan, and made a fare attempt to repeat in  upper Mesopotamia and Georgia.

2.  DeSoto, whose trip of exploration from Florida into the great Plains  introduced smallpox, measles, and diphtheria , among other benefits of European culture,  to the indigenous population.  By some estimates this caused a 10-year death rate approaching 90% in the Lower Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, and the elimination of the Cahokia culture.

3.  Pol Pot,  (no explanation needed)

There are many other candidates.  But I hope this begins the process of establishing more accurate standards for censorship.

Denny

my reasoning has nothing to do with the kids, my kids know about stalin and hitler etc.  my reasoning has to do with estimations of something like 13,000,000 people suffering death at the hands of stalin and his cronies.  and as far as crosses and other catholic symbols, my understanding is that chess.com is supposed to be religion free.  all that being said, i say "shit" here sometimes so people think i'm the devil.

dude, you're being pretty stupid now, but i guess that's your point right.

it's pretty telling how so many of us are reacting to this estonian guy.  he simply feels like images of stalin hit home.  and for most of us, that's a source for humor.

 My point, if you read the entire post, was protecting the image of the site from the point of view of management. Lets forget about the kids, although I'm sure many access the site, is it a good idea to allow these types of avatars to represent your company to people who are new to the site?

You've always struck me as a rather boring sort of fool, you know.  Perhaps you ought to spice up your routine with a little jig or two?

And for you it is a source for calling people stupid.

your wit is on fire.  time to turn your alanis morissette tape over.

people are being stupid

Does that even mean anything?

haha  exactly

See, all you care about in this thread is trolling.