This site

some, maybe. i've known two fine players that were here for discussion, dialogue, and to have fun. 

neither played any games here. 

Two players? Ok.

My impression is that the national leagues are quite serious - everyone seems very focused all the way down the order, there's very little chat between players while the games are in progress and no banter at all in the match notes. What exchanges do occur happen only when the game in question is over and are purely chess-related - Great game! Who says draws are boring? I'm sure we both missed a win at some point, what do you think? - that sort of thing. Personally, I really like the fact that I can play serious, competitive (tough!) team chess in this kind of environment, against like-minded opponents and if I was Erik I'd view that block of membership as my 'core' customer base. I've no idea how many members compete in these leagues but it must be many thousands and I'd bet that most of them simply aren't interested in the forums.

That's not to say I don't agree with people like you and Firsty, I do. I think applying a blanket ban on certain topics in the main forums is a complete joke but let's keep some perspective - this is a chess website after all and much of what CC do they do well. Cheating's another story again of course but that's a serious problem for the game as a whole now, not just chess.com.

I doubt most staff reads this topic anymore, they have bigger fish to fry

The only reason I still read it is that I read all the topics I have posted in when there are updates (or a day or two after when I miss something).

I thought Hughes was a Welsh name Kay? :-)  Ok Martin, so if we suddenly start talking politics here then are you saying the thread won't get closed?  I tend to think that Staff would quickly find the time to read it if a discussion on Brexit was to reappear, and with the same results as last time, despite it's almost 60000 views. 

I'm sure that most people who have been following this thread, and there's a lot of them the last time I looked, will definitely have noted the openly biased position taken by the 'Staff Kommander'(Riker).  He didn't even acknowledge his contradictory stance of making pro Trump remarks while forbidding a response.

However, the most glaring part of his post was what was missing.  He added that he was just making a personal comment, but bans others from doing the same and failed completely to recognise the racist rant; it didn't even seem to register with him and that's the whole point of this thread.  That's the issue I thought may have been taken up by other members of Staff Martin, and it hasn't been.  It's ok to make offensive racist remarks on the forums, but not to politely discuss current affairs. 

No, that's not what I'm saying. While staff may not be reading I'm guessing there are still some mods that keep an eye out.

And mods are not staff but a lot of people keep mixing the two up (I guess they are using v2?). And in that topic that has you concerned, the Trump mention was incidental to the conversation and when I last looked at it, I don't think it went too far at that time. There is such a thing as being too draconian and normally a casual reference (and if I'm recalling correctly the initial references were non-political in nature) isn't something that is deemed political or worth enforcement.

And it is also not OK for overt racism. I also don't recall what you saw as a racist rant being as bad as you are implying. Unless it was gone by the time I read through or had been edited. Or maybe I just read too quickly and didn't register it as such.

I saw it Martin. It wasn't as bad as some other stuff I've seen people vent in here but it was still pretty bad.

Ok, fair enough Martin if you didn't see it, but the Kommander must have done, and he failed to comment.  The fact that it was removed proves that it was offensive. 

I'm glad a little leeway is given as a draconian attitude would completely kill off the forums.  However, the point that I've been consistently making is that the site has a history of allowing offensive remarks of a racial nature, and against minorities.  It would appear that the owner and Staff have a blind spot to these remarks, but have 20/20 vision when it comes to polite political discussion.

While the Kommanders remarks about Trump may have been viewed as not overtly political, the fact that he instantly denied others a reply on his views also says a lot.

Yeah I saw that too and laughed like a drain. I was like, wtf?

OK, I think we've let the original poster repeat his opinions on this often enough - as JD said way back in post #5, please direct your complaints about the policies and the moderation of this site to @jdcannon. I am now locking this thread.

Thanks,

David, moderator