Congratulations to Chess.com

Well, that's what it looks like when a forum is unmoderated - the Admins in that group should still action the nastier things, and any reports will still get checked, but the ordinary moderators aren't looking in there at all.

If you'd like a slightly more moderated forum but aren't happy with the strictures of the public forums, there are other private clubs that might be worth checking out - Debate+ I think is one of the biggest, but there may be others.

I should be able to go into any group I choose on this site and feel safe and supported.  This is freedom of choice and surely it should be a fundamental part of your job. 

But, this group appears to be free to be able to attack and bully and express whatever evil opinion at will.  Nay matter the consequence.

Yet, YOU, staff of Chess.com, signpost to this group as 'Open Discussion' that we should go to, if we want to be able to talk about 'politics or religion'.  The subjects of which you disallow in open forum.  And it is YOU that are the Admins of the group.

What you do not say, when signposting your members in this direction, is that within this group... you can say the most disgusting, degrading, hateful things.. and have them said at you:  YOU HAVE TO PUT UP WITH IT.

Because you wash your hands about what is said in there.  It seems to me that you treat it as a place where you send all the subscribers who you don't want to 'deal with'... your 'troublesome' posters or your opinionated posters... that you don't want to have to 'deal with'. 

It's like the dark basement that you choose to ignore.

And, David, I did get the 'automated' response.  But no subsequent humanised response... so whoever I was assigned to... obviously thought I was of no consequence.  And.. tbh... I can't be arsed to 'If you got the automated email but no follow up from the Support team, you should be able to reply to that initial email or log another ticket, and it will definitely be followed up.'

my response to that is... if they can't ... neither can I.

Go see for yourself peeps! https://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/the-creator-christ-jesus?lc=1#last_comment

And... I have just rechecked my email.  I've received no response from anyone from chess.com regarding my complaint about bullying of an aged gentleman with alzheimer's in the Open Discussion group forums.  NOTHING.  RIEN.  ZILCH.  My last 'automated' response from you was on 17th October.

I see your point re not getting a response from staff, that's really not good and it shouldn't even happen; but is light-touch moderation of ODG necessarily a bad thing? I mean, why not offer a sink forum where all the scumbags can bark at eachother to their little hearts' content? That said, I also don't think mods should be sign-posting it.

Just to apply a little perspective here though, one of my friends on this site (I won't say who) is a keen poker player and he insists that on the poker forums you see everything you see here and more besides, with death-threats thrown in for good measure. 

By comparison, inviting someone to meet up for fisticuffs seems rather tame. Aww, bless!

     "   That instance you've pointed out is not acceptable, and seems to have been part of a slanging match between the two of them in a thread belonging to someone who has since closed their account: since that thread owner is no longer around to police the content of their own thread and it's way too much work to redact the bad stuff, I have deleted the whole thing.                                                                                                                             This is why Nikprit has started this;                                   https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/update-of-the-threads-wards?page=1

@ Ron re: post 122.

Why I started that thread was nothing at all to do with any issues with anyone on here at all. For me I am more interested in the creative process or initial seed idea of a thread.

I don't really care about the numbers of posts or how popular a thread might be, if I did, why would I request my threads to be closed when they are still active?  

The thread is not something which was meant to be a 'bolt on' to any type of affiliation to staff/mods or to report on bad behaviour or things to look out for in any moral or rule sense whatsoever. But I can understand how you may be caught in your own agenda.

I am interested in the collective unconscious & humour as a means to point towards the absurd. Or the appreciation of people's creative works or dialogue.

I don't have a problem with people on here on an individual level that I cannot sort myself, there is always the blocking option.

In a collective enviroment such as the forums right now, there seems to be a lot of issues centered around 'rules/regulations/ethos' of what is acceptable & what is not.

So between Chess.com policies, staff/mod interpretation & enforcement of those policies & members/individuals own ideas of what is ethically viable & what is not; people seem to be clashing all over the place on here lately.

Moral dilemmas?  What is percieved to be acceptable according to Chess.com policy & what is percieved to be acceptable by individual members?

The irony is in quite a few cases, that there are members on here who are OP's of some of the most popular threads & arguably the best run threads too, who have no issues in implementing their own ethos or policies within their own threads for other people to adhere to.

If people do not adhere to certain policies/ethos which the OP has put down, people are sometimes warned, sometimes blocked.

So we have a replica sub system i.e. the threads/forums of a much larger system i.e. Chess.com in regards to 'built in morality/ethos or boundary issues' of what is acceptable & what is not.

To further complicate the matter, what may be an issue for you is not an issue for me & visa versa.

So the moral/ethical cyber ground that we are all trying to agree to stand upon is a subjective one.

Chess.com can expect to be challenged by natural leader types such as Firstplay, RJC, Babytigrr, Ghostliner & others on here over certain issues. I don't see that as being a bad thing whatsoever, it is good feedback from the same people who are also very good at running their own forums.

The onset of V3 has shaken things up, not only are we in a technically transitional period, but it seems we are in an ethical/boundaries transitional period too.

On top of Chess.com's own policies, you have a minefield of projected 'right & wrongs' according to individuals on here. There are way too many variations for that, unless people are willing to go into self betrayal mode in order to fit in to someone else's ideas of morality and be willing to shift like the wind, blowing this way, then that way; people cannot be expected to get blown about like a leaf in the breeze.

So no Ron, I did not start that thread because of any argument I had with someone on here. And neither, was it to help staff in any way, I am not here to help staff or mods, I pay each year for them to provide a service to me.

I have been on the recieving end of 'requiring' staff help in regard to issues with tourneys that I set up lately. And I sadly got a taste of the 'lack' of good customer service.

Which again is perhaps another moral issue, which I mentioned in a previous post in this thread.

Don't take my money, tell me what to do, impose confines of what I am entitled to say or not (like as if I do not have the capacity to self govern or have no sense of percieved norms in a moral sense) and then provide a sloppy, complicated, careless & bureaucratic customer service.

Morality cuts both ways.

I am not here to be liked by everyone, that is unrealistic & a pipe dream, particularly in cyber world.

If you have problems or issues with me, avoid me, block me, no worries. I do not hesitate to block some people on here myself.

If you notice on a collective level in the forums, people love to argue & fight on here, which is different from debating something entirely.

Clashes occur in life & on here as well, it is to be expected.

Having read some of the recent forum posts & reading between the lines of suggested threads which you can discuss things like politics & religion; it sounds like a 'speicial needs group' that Chess.com are trying to shuffle people into.

Someone made a comment on here, which I will paraphrase from memory 'it is not that people want to talk about politics so much, but want to be seen talking politics'.

And then directed to speicial needs groups. Yeah right!!

Which reminds me of the importance of peer groups. Like the form/class you were in at school. It was a massive culture shock if you had been a naughty boy or girl in our class for some minor infringement, as you were sent to the speicial needs class for half a day.

Where the people were firing on 2 brain cells & thought it okay to jump into the fish tank on occassion. Then, you had half a day of classes to catch up on, on top of the shock of  'I have just arrived in the Bronx' type of feeling. A reality shift that was definately a downgrade in many different ways.

Firstplay ran a very good & popular thread about Brexit some months ago which contained many elements that were condusive to a culturally collective exchange of ideas, ideals, with a built in ethos, as well as security.

After months of being open, of civilised debate, there was a Chess.com hardline policy that came in, which cut across that thread and across the board. 

The forums have become dumbed down since. As adults tend to be very interested in world affairs.

If one of Chess.com policies is to shuffle off people into areas with unrestricted mayhem going on, to sit in fishtanks by the score.

Why not open a 'speicial privileges’ entitlement option for those who can actually hold a group discussion down in a diplomatic manner regardless of the topic?

Cheers anyway Ron, though I feel it was a wrong call by you, it sent me on a long mumbling & droning write up like this.

No worries buddy & no issues with you because of it.

I often get things wrong myself.

Thanks for the plug attempt too, but we don’t really need it

  Ahahahahahahahahaha --that was 4 Kaynight.   As for Nikprit's responce--Holy Crap!!  Let me make another pot of coffee and read that again. I hope more people read that and adjust the're moral compass.

Yeah, I need a coffee too Ron - as soon as I get out of this fish tank  

Jeez Nick, how do you neck a beer in there?  Excellent contribution btw which I suspect many other will agree with, especially your suggestion to Staff to make some allowances to address this imbalance.

  David, your comments are positive but as others have pointed out, complaints through official channels have resulted in zilch. I'd ask you to put yourselves in the opposite camp for a mo, try and understand why many are frustrated by slack attitude to offensive remarks, but zero tolerance for politics, no matter how polite and fraternal the discussions.

I accept that it would be a difficult task to monitor every post but it seems that potentially political threads receive strict observation, some being closed, we're told, due to complaints.  I'd ask why complaints against offensive remarks aren't even acknowledged, let alone actioned. 

It's easy.  Site rules say no abuse.  If rules aren't used fairly and consistently then they're useless.  Sanctions are used in a discriminatory fashion which is why people are annoyed.

Excellent response Nikprit. 

And still no response from chess.com.  *sighs*

go for ten minutes mail, excellent, no hope to get a response, ever, but no spam either

     Can I just say in defense of Staff;  You have daytime staff. Nightime staff, Weekend staff. Maybe some are out sick, or on vacation. Nobody likes to double up. The're gonna do their own work before they do somebody else's. We only see what's been descrided as "a small chess site". I believe the site employs 100 people, maybe more. Like an iceberg there's a lot of behind the scenes. 

open discussion is ccs answer to the no politics no religion ,

so how many have gone there and found trolls , rabid christians , islamaphobes and general cyber bullying ?

small chess site? cc likes to brag of millions of members.

can't have it both ways.

in threads i have started or participated in, it has been either easy to ignore idiot posters or make fun of them. Either way, if there is a serious discussion at hand, it continues, and the idiots have been drowned out. 

in regards to regulation, most here know i would prefer a liberal approach due to my previous statement.

as far as staff, there needs to be a consensus. rules have changed over the years but many things are still vague and subjective. 

on joining open discussion i was verbally abused as a child murderer (pro womans right to choose ),a terrorist , (spoke out against islamaphobia)my mother who is dead was urged to burn in hell

David i contacted OD admins asking them to stop those participating in cyber bullying there ,

nothings been done in the time ive been there

youre staff said go OD if you want to discuss politics etc , David , clean up the reactionary fundamentalist christian bullying thats going on there

Thanks

otherwise stop advising folk to use this group as it is very toxic