Every day I am confronted with bigotry, misogyny, antisemitism, political and religious propaganda, and general trolling to invite division and anger in these forums. 

It is simple to see who these trolls are, yet they continue posting unimpeded.

It seems that the so called free speech rights of hate mongers is given priority over the rights of paying members who should expect civil discourse about chess without the hate and ugliness.  Moderators are doing very little to curb this problem.  It almost seems like chess.com is allowing it.  Maybe Putin is a partner or large donator  in this site?

Need an example? Look at any article about women chess and you will see the scum of the Earth posting disgusting posts unimpeded by the forum moderators.  Go look at recent articles on Polgar and Yifan.  I have been a member and a moderator in other forums and it is easy to keep that kind of ugliness off your forum.  You recognize it and you ban that scum.  Chess.com does nothing.  Over and over.  I'm seriously thinking about leaving.  I love chess and taking about chess, but this place is a dark dark cloud.  It doesn't have to be that way. 

Moderation is done based on what is seen. Not all posts and comments get seen by a moderator or staff. There are a lot of comments made across the site and there aren't a ton of moderators.

That is one of the reasons there are filters in place to catch some things. I know I rarely get to the Articles, but if I see something there I'll handle it when I do make it to one. I also don't get to read every forum. Other moderators may be different, in the way they peruse the site, but other than paid staff that might be on the forums and reading other comments, most, if not all of the moderators are volunteers and don't cover everything.

If there are not enough moderators to see the toxic crap in this site then get more moderators.  Like you said they are volunteers, they don't cost anything.  I know I, as one person, can see lots of obvious trolls that post day after day with unacceptable content.  And I'm only looking at the small number of threads that catch my interest.  I really don't think that moderators dont see this stuff.  I think they see it, and allow it.

In the Judit Polgar article, people, not just me, predicted it would turn into a troll fest.  Not a hard prediction, since every single article about women in chess turns into some disgusting debate about how women are not as smart, genetically inferior, etc, and then further devolves into insults about political beliefs of those who get sucked in to the debate.  Of course that is exactly what has happened, and now it has even further devolved into genetic supreriority of certain races.  Pure KKK propaganda,  And it continues.  Why?  Chess.com lets it continue.  

> Moderation is done based on what is seen. Not all posts and comments get seen by a moderator or staff. There are a lot of comments made across the site and there aren't a ton of moderators.

Most forum software (Discourse and Flarum for example) supports the ability to report comments. Currently Chess.com only allows reporting users and then linking to their specific comments (and I doubt most people even link them). It'd probably ease moderation (even if only slightly) if such a feature existed.

Implementing a Reddit-like shadowban might also help.

If moderation becomes more difficult due to a lack of moderators, the only solution is to make moderation easier with better tooling and reporting.

Think about it you could report and send the web address (if you look you will see it) or just melt

That of course is not true.  The only real solution is to have more moderators.  Its very simple.  In the last forum I moderated, I was just a member, then one day I got message that told me I was a moderator.  Existing moderators become familiar with the good members who seem rational and have the best interest of the forum at heart, and make them moderators.  They have a hidden moderator forum to discuss issues with members and the forums.  If a moderator doesn't work out, his superpowers are taken away.  This place needs more moderators, meaning moderators who actually moderate, badly.  

Do not feed this troll he specks and post with forked tongue 

He will melt soon

Moderation is also controlled by a set of guidelines. What you see as unacceptable might be allowable. Hard to say for certain, without seeing what you find unacceptable.

Then look at my example.  Hijacking a thread all by itself is against the guidelines.  Hijacking a thread with political, racist, insulting, extremist, contentious posts is against the guidelines for many reasons.  I'm not talking about borderline situations.  

I cleaned up a few things in that article's comments and it looks like staff or a moderator had previously handled some content.

Thank you!

Another good example.  A troll just joined.  Posts diisgusting crap.  Multiple people reported him.  Several hours go by and he is still here.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/after-losing-a-game-my-opponent-abused-me-n-said-terrorist?page=1

The story that moderators just can't see everything in such a large forum is getting harder and harder to believe.  When nothings happens after the troll is reported multiple times?  It looks like there is a policy of allowing this type of crap.    

Russia isn't out to decide our elections, they want to divide us and damage our country

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/04/russians-social-media-divide-meddling-laws-election-2016-column/2463253002/

So I wonder, are they using social media, or or they working with some social media?

  The thread in question....in post 16 has a pattern. Today it was THIS troll                                                                                                                                                                                                                       he also is probably THIS person.....                                                                                                                  Not all moderators have the tool to check an IP address.....hence the hit & run tactic. They don't want to stay around long enough for admin to find the IP match.

  While I applaud Forked's response, let me mention, over 5 yrs ago the moderation was a little heavy and it caused some angst. Admin usually wants to see support tickets from the OP requesting assistance.......or........a sign from him/her that they ARE trying to police their threads with blocking and warnings.

coupla things. if the topic in question is the one where polgar said she had to work harder than men, i'd likely tell her to f**k off with that. i hate seeing those at the top *complain* about how they got there. 

to the op, you have the ability to ignore those, just as i ignored polgar's article. 

Hey, calm down, dude. Pour a whiskey on your glass, lye on your couch, light a cigar, and relax.

The problem is when someone logs off they get a new IP address from there service provider the computer number is what they look for and thanks to git-hub that can be hidden. RJC was Muted once maybe he can tell how he got muted and what he had to do to get back. He does have the biggest "youre blocked list"