How to use Master Games database and Analysis board without cheating ? Somebody knows ...

I think I figured out how to ask this somewhat clearly now.  

Are the following uses of chess.com features cheating, for a Daily Game or Vote Chess Game ?

Also, are these bugs in the interface? the interface is trying to tempt me into cheating ... and it won't let me play with the chess pieces sometimes ...

I have a position in a game where it is my turn to move, (say I am playing Black and I never seen this before: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 ...)

 1) I find it in Master Games database, and study the page?  (i think this is surely not cheating but can often be an aid to me winning) 

 2) Then I click a link to one of the games containing the position, like here

   https://www.chess.com/games/view/14486257

 (from 2020, with players rated far above me) . (So far I think I am not cheating)

 3) Then I click Analysis. Before I do this, I try to avoid cheating, I go to the analysis settings widget, off the board (near the rook on a8), and set Analysis Engine to Engine Off, and in the interface disable all the slider options.  Then I click Analysis (or Computer Analysis)

  Now I think I am definitely cheating, because a computer did the analysis, and it will help me understand the Master Database game I am looking at.    Also I think it is a bug

4) What I would like to do is get to a position like this and then try to manually investigate the tactics.  If I move the piece during the Master Game then it automatically jumps to the end of the game instead of letting me modify it.   Is this a bug ? Would it be cheating if I could succeed in playing with the Chess Pieces at this point?

5) Assuming 4 is not cheating, and that it is a bug, then to get around the bug I can use the Download widget to copy the FEN or PGN, and open up the Learn - Analysis board (making sure the Analysis Engine setting is set to Engine Off), and load that FEN or PGN into it, and move around the pieces as I wish.

  Is it a bug that this is not simpler to do from the Master Game that is in the database ?

  (I suspect they are trying to strengthen my powers of chess visualization, against my will)

  Is it cheating if I do that?

Then there is the question I have been trying to ask and probably only 2 people in the world know the answer:

  who decided the chess site should work this way, and why

Thanks

Cavatine

Well, thats an interesting question... Personally I came to the conclusion that I would already be cheating at number "1" (I mean, having the recommended/more played moves in a given position handed to you is a BIG help), but I understand what you mean at number "5"... Once in a while, when a daily game is very intricated, I set up a physical board at home and try some moves. It could be interesting to be able to do this safely (without cheating) online...

It would be good to have this query answered by a chess.com staff!

I have had one completed exchange via Help & email with a very good Chess.com specialist (customer service) mainly focused on the above questions, but it wasn't really resolved completely.  Which would be beyond reasonable expectations for a help specialist, i believe.

If I just read the simple Help article, and by now I've forgotten if it was about Vote chess or Daily chess or both, then it just tells me two kind of general guidelines, as far as I can recall:

 - No outside help is allowed.

 - Except the Master database and what's in it.

I realize it's not the 70s anymore but I sort of think that books written before computer generated opening books became relevant (maybe two years before Deep Blue beat Kasparov would be safe?) are safely written by humans only (not aliens or computers) and therefore they should be safe.  Also i guess in the Master Database then games before that time should be considered important.  To a newbie or someone who's seen chess in the 70s it might like a Throwback mode or Retro mode.

I had a kind of separate question about whether it's ok to read a Wikipedia article about an opening if i'm still in the early stages and i don't go clicking every link, and i guess that would have to be a retro Wikipedia article or chess content from the ancient past like a Byrne column in the NY Times

Retro mode for postal chess would mean that it's fine to look up openings in books during a game that were never influenced by any computer analysis.

It might be called Humanitarian mode?  or pre-cyborg mode or Back to the Past or Time Machine or Dr. Who mode   We just have to be careful we don't step on a butterfly when we are there! (that story is called Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury.)

Use of games databases in Daily is allowed. You just can't use and engine to analyze positions from your game or in positions that may appear in your game. You also can't use tablebases.

https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com

Thanks for the link! it's pretty clear & it seems pretty reasonable to classify wikipedia as a reference: even if it's a crowdsourced reference, I wouldn't be asking for specific help.