Live Chess Rudeness

I've had it with the rudeness & offensive & idiotic chat going on in the live chess section. The problem is that this is a free chess site, so the idiots who rant & rave, make racist remarks, curse, dont care if they get banned, cause they just come back on in different names. If this was a torally paying site then maybe this would stop, as they wouldnt want to risk losing their money if they get banned. These people are ruining this site, & I will not be renewing my membership. It's a shame. I'm switching to the Internet Chess Club, where even though the dues are higher, I've found the people much more polite there. Too bad for Chess.com -it was a good idea ruined by many bad people.

Did you at least try to report this?

Where I agree with you in a way. I completely disagree that these people are "ruining" chess.com. You should exercise one advantage of text conversations, that you can easily not read what you don't want to hear.

Idiots are best ignored.

Chess.com is fine. Live chess is its weakest feature, and not a primary reason to join except by those that need a place to play online without installing software on their computers. As Live chess here is leagues ahead of Yahoo and its kin, it continues to serve well.

Chess.com is first and formost a turn-based site, albeit one that has so many additional features as to attract many that have no interest in this aspect of online chess.

Of course ICC is better for blitz. Playchess is better still.

I have reported people, but it shouldn't be up to us to have to report people. They need moderators all the time so these people will get banned immediately. One strike is enough for stupid or racist or offensive remarks. The live chess is the bad point about this site.

I stay away from Live Chess, stick to CC where the jerks are fewer.

While I agree that the maturity level and general tone of the Live Chess chat is nothing short of disgraceful, there are many, many other great things that this site has to offer.

One of those great things, perhaps the greatest, is the incredibly intelligent and engaged community.  It may not be obvious from the sub-community that is live chess' chat room, but those members are not representative of the community as a whole.

It's for this reason that I have to state my disagreement with your statement that it should not be up to us to have to report people.  Take some ownership in this community and get engaged.  Reporting abusive users is actually a great first step, and one that none of us should feel reluctant to do.  With no consequences, this rudeness will continue to go unchecked -- moderation is only part of the solution.

From there, how about trying to steer the conversation in the chat towards more civil discourse?  I'm sure there are many more in the silent majority who would jump into a conversation that was started with the stated intent of drowning out the idiots.

If we all stand idly by and let this riff-raff ruin our collective experience, and as a result this site, aren't we just as culpable as them?

I was on live chess a few months ago and I had noticed that the chat forum is dominated by adolescent "kiddy" talk.  If I were you painterroy, I would just disable chat when you play live.  Too many kids talking trash and trying to create conversations in time limiting games.  But, if you are looking for a flawless site, I'm not sure you'll find one.

You can exit out of the chat window so you don't have to see it.

Jerks are everywhere, don't worry. You have the block feature for them. I encountered a couple of guys on ICC who, after losing a game against me, were kind enough to throw in some "nice" words about me and my family. 

You should report them. Chess.com does not afford to have so many moderators guarding all the time the live chess zoo.

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You have all the right to be offended, but it really impresses me that people should get shocked for what they read in the live chat. I usually go out on the street or to a party and hear worse things (certainly with a cruder vocabulary).

It's hard for me to imagine what kind of secluded place you live in that's sheltered from that kind of garbage.

Try playing OTB at a club and see the kind of "interesting" people that chess tends to attract.

Grow thicker skin.

If you're really here for chess than the chat feature should be the last thing you look at anyway.  

Unless the remark(s) were directed towards you personally then what do you care what some of these morons think or say?

It's not so much that I get offended (except of course racist remarks, there's no place anywhere for bigotry). It's the idea that this a site for chess & not for the rants 7 raves & cursong of people. Sure you can turn off the chat feature so you dont see it. But when you log on to the live feature it is automatically there & I would not want kids to some some idiot talking the praise of Hitler (which I did see-& the site did ban him), or people cursing right off the bat, then it is bad. The chat room should be an optional feature to click into, not right in front where kids can see it automatically. I personally come here to play and discuss chess. There are places I expect language like that. If you go to a bar or party sure you will here cursing & such, but that's the places conducive to that. If your in a classroom you expect to hear educational discussions. If you go to a an action movie, you will see violence & kiling. But you know & expect that. A chess club whether online or in real, is a place for Chess. The chess clubs i've been involved with in my life have always been a great place for chess, with mostly good sportmanship. Is it too much too ask that this chess site be that way too? I know I've was real annoyed at first, but yes besides the live chat, this site is a great place for chess, & I wish to see it continue to grow. Unfortunately I think the real answer to this problem is that it really should be a paying site. Even maybe just $20 a year. This would force the idiots to realize that if they did get banned for saying something bad, they could come back under a different name, but they would lose $20 each time. Other than that does anyone ese have ideas for the people who run this place. I realize from these forums that there are people who want this site to suceed & grow too.

amen! i couldn't agree more. in the next version of live chess 2.0 we will have different chat rooms that are restricted by membership level. so you will be able to find a chat room that doesn't have jerks in it (or if there are, at least more meaningful consequences).

i hope you won't through out the baby with the bathwater. live chess is the least interesting part of chess.com (i think). stay for the turn-based games, the tournaments, the groups, the friends, the forums, the tactics trainer, and much more :)

Looking forward to the improvements. 

What i'd really like is to be able to auto-block anyone who's been blocked by more than N people. With N a number I can choose.

Probably a great idea because the few times I've truly been insulted in live chess, it was not by a paying member of chess.com. But I do like the Wild West nature of live chess chat as it stands (racist and other viciously ugly comments notwithstanding). Interesting to read that live chess is not considered one of this site's greatest features. I think it is.

I would add that I agree with the observations that it's everyone's responsibility to serve as the voluntary moderators on this site. If you get a rude chat line, copy, paste it, report it.

There is much room for the improvement, but live chess is an important part of this website. I hope it will never lose it's priority in development.