A Letter To Chess.com

Dear Chess.com,

I'm writing to express my deep frustration with your recent moderation decisions. The increasing number of unnecessary bans and mutes is alarming and, frankly, unacceptable.

Let's talk about @BasixWhiteBoy. This 14-year-old, popular on the Off Topic Forums here, was muted on Thursday, July 18. Why? Apparently for an argument with another well-known member of the Off Topic Forums, @breezehappysquirrel. If that's the case, where's Breeze's punishment? They were both out of line, but only Basix got muted? That's both unfair and hypocritical.

Today, Basix (who I've been talking to on Discord) had his mute extended to August 19th without any explanation, leading me to think it was for no reason. Are you freaking kidding me? A whole month for an innocent member while actual problematic users (e.g. Baby, Viroh) roam free, sexually harassing users or making racist threads? Laughable.

Let's not forget how you deleted my forum thread about this issue earlier. What happened to free speech? I wasn't breaking any of your Community Guidelines, so why should my forum topic be deleted? It's starting to feel like certain staff members have it out for Basix. I've made many threads of this type before regarding different users and nothing happened. It's unfair if your staff team is biased against certain users, and if that's really the case, maybe you should reconsider some of the members of your staff.

Your moderation is inconsistent at best and biased at worst. You're consistently muting kind members while ignoring the real troublemakers. If this is the way you plan to run things, you might as well say goodbye to your user base.

Here's a wake-up call for you: If you don't start addressing these issues and treating your community fairly, you're seriously going to lose members. I, for one, am seriously considering switching to Lichess.

It's time to clean up your act, Chess.com. Start being transparent, fair, and consistent with your moderation. Otherwise, you're just another power-tripping website that doesn't care about its users.

Fix this mess, or watch your community crumble.

If I get muted or even banned for writing this, then fine. It's just proving my point more. My advice for you? Stop running away from your problems before it's too late.

Sincerely,

@IfYouCouldSeeTheSun

BYE

#FREEBASIX