Political Bias by the Admins? Profile Pic Removed

It was removed by them so if I put it back myself without clearing this up, I risk having my account deleted.

Or Che Guevera.

You say the admins are politically biased, but to be fair, disliking Trump isn't really a political thing. People all around, who don't even know what a republican or democrat are, think he's a joke or a terrible person.

Anyway, in before the lock.

Sadly there are ignorant people on all sides, and in between

And by the way, if I were a mod, I wouldn't remove it.

My check goes like this:

Would I be unwilling to "explain" the image to an innocent 6 year old kid if they asked me about it?

Would the sight of the image cause a reasonable person to become very upset?

If the answer is no to both I'd leave it alone.

And even though I don't like Trump, it's not as if seeing his image would cause me to be upset.

You seem to be a reasonable human being. I've never reported someone's avatar because I didn't like it. In fact, I've only ever reported one avatar here and it was because it contained explicit nudity and there are children that play on this site.

And post in forums too!

Until a mod posts otherwise, I'm going to assume there's more to this story. 

If your avatar was really removed for no reason and no other action was taken, just the avatar removed, and you were not notified that it was done or why, then you do have a legit complaint.  That's between you and the moderators.  No need to air your laundry here.

No, there's no more to the story that I'm aware of. I come here to play chess. I engage in some friendly chit-chat during games but I never get combative (here). A few people have made nasty comments about my avatar then let a game time out and that's the end of it. The fact that I get this email about 'abuse' and then my avatar disappears right at that moment? Obviously connected. I'm just waiting for SOMEONE from chess.com to answer me. So far, nothing.

Yes, you posted in your OP that you want an admin to answer you.  That is not a support ticket, though, and this is not the venue for staff or a mod to talk about the private transaction that took place on your account. 

What if they came back with "well, we removed your avatar because you kept harassing your opponent by saying 'who's your daddy?  Trump's your daddy...' over and over again..."?  That would be something you might not want to become public.  That's a silly example, but demanding a public answer is not the way to go about things.

nah, bro, it was obviously deleted by martians and flat earthers

I have said absolutely nothing in chat that I would be the least bit ashamed of to see posted on an open, public forum. I also responded to the message that I got in my account inbox but I've heard nothing back. I also think the fact that what looks like blatant bias is something others should be aware of. It's a way to find out if it's happened to others as well. Establishing patterns and all that.

So yes, I want an admin to provide an explanation, either here or through the private messaging system.

same

I understand your reasoning, but personally I would not go the public forum route for calling this out unless I had:

- Replied to the Email I got from support (which you've done)

- Waited to see if there was a reply in a reasonable timeframe

- Opened a ticket

- Waited to see if there was a reply in a reasonable timeframe

- Opened a second ticket and asked for an escalation

- Waited... (you see where this is going)

- Emailed or messaged staff or a mod directly with documentation of all of the above steps

- Waited...

- Emailed or messaged Erik directly with documentation of all of the above steps

- Waited...

Okay, now if all of those fail, *then* I post something public, because clearly there's no other legitimate remedy at that point.

Komodo is also a suspect, being a reptilian 

Stockfish is pretty fishy if you ask me..

I know what I have and haven't done. I haven't violated the Community Standards. I get a message threatening to mute me or delete my account over future occurrences and my avatar of Trump, which isn't breaking any rules disappears. I've seen this pattern play out on quite a few other platforms. There are people that have nothing better to do than attempt to punish #BadThink and attempt to deplatorm people that don't think like them. So, I went public with it.

It's one of two things.
1) An automated system that needs quite a bit of improvement to weed out false reports or
2) An admin or mod has a political bias and decided that a couple of reports of "harassment" or "abuse" over an avatar was enough to justify it.