Allowed comments in team matches

There's a match ongoing between ASIA and Team Europe:
http://www.chess.com/groups/team_match.html?id=71997

Some guys have during the match added comments where they inform about other teams than ASIA and Team Europe, including links to these teams.

I've responded upon this and just said that it's not ok to invite members from this game to other teams and that it could be counted as spam, with references to:
1/ How do I invite members to my team or group: 
http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/116/0/how-do-i-invite-members-to-my-group-or-team

2/ Terms of services: http://www.chess.com/legal.html#termsofservice

From my point of view, it seem clear that it's not ok to directly or indirectly submitting messages in public areas where - directly or indirectly - inviting members to teams. It could be classicied as spaming, and result that the guys who sent the message get their accounts closed. Furthermore, I mentioning that the teams are content regulated by copyright-laws, which in practise means that I (and other admins of the teams) have the legal rights to disallow unauthorized content that are submitted through our teams or team events (such as the team matches).

However, some guys mentioning that it is ok to submitt informative and gentle comments in any case.

The question now to chess.com is what the rules actually says? Is it ok - or not - submitting content into public areas - like in team match comments - where directly or indirectly inviting members to other teams, even if this is not authorized by the copyright owners (i.e. the team admins or/and the teams)?

BR  Johan Palmaer
 

What copyright laws are you referring to - the ones on Mars or Venus?

HAW!  

The copyright laws that the terms of services referring to.

Let's see-- Someone else created and submitted the content, the content is hosted on servers owned by chess.com, and somehow you think copyright laws give you some sort of legal control or veto over the content.

I still reach the same conclusion.

HAW! 

Content normally - at least as to begin - belongs to the content creator. This guy is the original content owner. He or she can share this ownership with others, or wholly or partly left over it or a right to use it of fully or partly to others, by agreements.

However, if you are employed, the copyright normally belongs to your employer, due to what has been agreed between you and your employer. And, if you are creating something for a customer, the resulting content and the copyright normally belongs to the customer, due to what has been agreed between you and your customer. The same could be the case in many other cases as well, i.e. you creating something that will belong to someone else due to agreements.

If you for example sending an email to someone else, that is content that belongs to you, and not to the receiver (or the transporter).

And accordingly, if you create a website that you're the owner of, then you own this website and all its content and nobody else (for example the hoster).

And accordingly, if you create team site on chess.com, using chess.com as the hoster, then you own the team and all it's content and nobody else.

This is the same discussions that are ongoing on many other communities, like Facebook. Currently the community owners normally not want to own the content that others have publish on their sites, since they doesn't want to be responsible for all this content. Chess.com clearly limit their responsibility for any content that are published on chess.com by anyone in their terms of service.

So basically, the teams are content created by content creators and owned by content owners, and thereby regulated by copyright laws that gives the copyright owners to decide on what conditions they offering others access to this content and any services that these content can supporting. However, such services can be depending upon services that a third party offering (in this case chess.com's services) and thereby respected.

It means that chess.com can offering and limit the usage of its services and by that also restrict the possibilty for the content owners to using and offering its content towards others (for example the team's members). 

So basically, the teams are private content owned by content owners (individuals or groups) hosted on the privately held hosting provider chess.com. Chess.com offering a service that make it possible for people creating content and publish it that towards the community, in its public or private areas. The teams are certainly such content, as well as the messages and other content that are published by all members on the site.

Ah, well, this part right here is where you're full of crap.

The instructions on this page are for your own benefit:

http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/116/0/how-do-i-invite-members-to-my-group-or-team

"Please do not use site messages to invite people to your group or team. If you do, your account could be flagged as a spam account."

 If you are sending out multiple invitations by personal message, more than likely your account will be auto-disabled by the spam filter.  We can re-open it in support but you may be unable to play for some time.  Using the Group or Team invite method is the best way to avoid that      

You are also allowed to invite members to groups or teams using the forums. You can use the Chess Community or Tournaments forum.

Are there somebody here at chess.com that really think so?

All chess.com members are independant peoples, who by agreement have agreed to following the terms of services that Chess.com offering. Everybody are responsible for content they publishing on the site. If I creating or managing a team team, then am I responsible for that team and what belongs to it, for at example their team matches and vote chess games. As an admin of a team am I responsible ensuring that we keep the team on track in a gentle and open-minded manner and approach, but with respect to all of thus the team are serving, namely its members! Every team has its own goals and targets, official or unofficial ones, which mainly (but not only) are represented and communicated through their admins or their approach or spirit.

However, the admins mainly are responsible for the teams and to serve their members. 

I'm loving open source. I'm actually running or promoting several open source projects ourside chess.com.The most content in such projects are open to all.
I love that idea. But the open source project itself must defend itself from threatenings. What would happen if someone stold the content or used it for other purposes than reasonable expected? I believe the most of the core members of the open source project would be pretty angry and upset, by good reasons.

So open source doesn't necissarily meaning totally free and openwide usage of it.
The intentions behind (if there are any) the project has to be respected.

If we now go back to chess.com, and look at the teams as a kind of open source projects, where teams could been seen as shared projects by its team members, and managed by appointed and committed team admins. If the team now have some certain intensions, for example keep focusing on their team matches and their vote chess games, improving their winning ratios, extend and get new members onboard, and suddenly there occur objectives besides that not are aligned to or supporting these, or even could badly affect these.

How should we properly handle that?

Chess.com have published some simple guidelines and some terms of services how to avoid that this happen and also what to do if it happens.

But it seem like more guys need to get better aware of these, and perhaps some clarifications or changes are needed.

The main issue and question right now is, if it is ok to add any comment whatsoever (for example invitations to other teams) in the team comments in the team matches, or if there are some reasonable limitations that all of us should be aware of.

The chess.com guidelines advice us to use the built-in facilities for inviting new members to our groups, and not do it by submitting site messages.

What is a site messages?

From my point of view that seem to be when you adding messages in the public areas or when you personally sending individual messages to other members.

What is public areas?

Are places on chess.com that either are public for all, or places that are shared by members from two teams (mainly the team match comments and the vote chess comments).

The teams are also public areas, but governed by the teams and their team admins due to their own policies, which might restricting what is allowed or not to publish on the team site. Different teams could have different - official or unofficial - policies or approaches for this.

So; its not seem ok inviting members through messages in public areas, and there might also, due to team policies, could be limitations for members and others do it on the team sites.

What is an invitation?

From my point of view is that every case where you insert a message that recommend a team to someone else, with or without any link to that team (or event).

The invitations could be directly ones, where you "warmly inviting and welcome new members", or indirectly ones, where you may simple hint the readers about a team or event (with or without any link to the team). 

It must of course be ok to express team names in many situations, when discussing and organizing events. It must also be ok creating lists of teams and collect data, analysing the teams etc etc and sharing all this with others in a proper manner.
But you should then consider do it at the right place, at the right moment, and with a reasonable approach.

If two teams are playing against each other, is that really the very right time to mentioning and recommend all the players of these both teams and whole the audience to cover other teams besides?

Let me give an example: let's say that two chess clubs have organized an event between them, for example a a chess match and then invited its members to this event, and then at this event suddenly representants from other chess clubs join the audience and begin to invite all members from the two organizing teams to their own teams without agreed about this in forehand with the two organizing teams. Don't you believe this two organizing chess club then may would have been pretty upset and disappointed towards these other chess clubs that coming to their event and trying to recruite their members to other clubs. I for sure - believe they most probably would have been pretty upset.

I mean that it sometimes could be reasonable use shared events to introduce new teams or events that have certain purposes through public areas.

So from my viewpoint I would be willing to accept certain invitations by messages towards public areas like the team matches, but preferrably only such ones that has been agreed in forhand.

But as earlier mentioned, Chess.com have set up some guidelines that not seem to promoting that, and even guides us to not do it through such site messages at all.

However, it seem reasonable that some clarifications of or changes of these guidelines or maybe even the terms of services are made by chess.com, and thereafter communicated towards the community.

But what about the team sites/pages, the team comment and the vote chess comments and on the team sites? Is it really allowed for anyone to add any comment on this places, even if the teams do not want that.

In practise is it ok that a guy adding an invitation to other teams or events than the team is promoting through the team pages or the team match comments or the vote chess comments?

Isn't it up to the teams or their team admins to allow or not allow such kind of invitations through their pages (or which they sharing with other teams in the matches) ?

"You are also allowed to invite members to groups or teams using the forums. You can use the Chess Community or Tournaments forum."

= GREAT!  I didn't know it was allowed do invitations through Chess.com's forums.
I thought that was counted as site messages as well, and didn't could include any invitations to the teams or any events. 

I have mixed feelings about this.  I don't like real mis-matches, but I also don't like when match sign-ups can go on and on and on while one or both managers wait for the perfect line-up before they'll lock and start.  I try to keep some sort of balance of how many games I've got going and to keep a current mix of different game-stages active, and matches that wait forever to start up make it more difficult to manage my game load.  If it's been several days of no changes in either team line-up (or even worse, one or both teams has started to lose people who were previously signed up) and the match still hasn't started, I usually withdraw and look elsewhere for a game.

Also, if I end up ceding 300 ratings points to an opponent (which doesn't bother me unless it's against someone in a tiered tournament who turns out to be a sandbagger that should have been in a higher tier), I knew ahead of time what the line-ups were looking like before the match started.  If I didn't like the looks of it, I could have withdrawn, or not signed up for the match in the first place.  A team manager might be justifed in canceling a match because he doesn't think his team has a change of winning, but he doesn't need to do it to protect me from a specific mismatch.  That should be my own business to keep track of and decide.

Sometime people forget that as Super Admin/Admin are volunteerly spent their time to do their best both for themself and for other, basicly want to make people happy & have a good time together. I would say Super Admin/Admin are just  servents to the online chess community here in chess com, spent lots of their time making other people happy, sometime get a little grattitude from people & sometime neglected,,,,or even hated. 

Peace, be postived and show our love to each other as friends, have fun and respect each other. :)

Warm regards to evryone xxx :)