More moderation needed

Why?

It's an open invitation for abuse 

Like bashing someone by giving them downvotes?

yes 

I don't think so. If someone is bashed by downvotes it could be a useful tool for the community moderators to be alert of such kind of issues. They also could step in and protect the guy who's being bashed. 

It all depends on how the staff will be using those tools. 

what the forums need is more good people with guns.

that's just a long way of saying, 'staff will do what they do', which i have experienced by the head of mods you mention. 

you write that the voting is an improvement? only for teens hooked on facebook. it is a race to the bottom, the lowest common denominator, if you will. using 'votes' usurps the quote function. you know, those times when people actually discuss things, even disagreements. 

stating there is work being done is a joke. to me, anyway. the bots have been automuting people for a few years now. the 'voting' is newer than that. the bots have been discussed in these forums much too often for resources to be moved to installation of the votes while nothing seems to be done about those red banners telling us we have done something wrong-when we have not. 

one member wrote about being automuted for writing h o m o sapien, without the spaces. i was muted recently for writing that a public figure was a b 0 0 b. 

cc is acting like children in a classroom, laughing hysterically when a 'bad' word is uttered. context is not recognized. correct use of language is not recognized. a friend here that is fluent in other languages has done a short experiment, noticing the bots do not recognize the translations that will result in a red banner or mute for the synonymous words. 

martin, i have seen you on top of things, giving good advice to many, and, often. too many times, though, you are a mouthpiece for staff. 

would you have understood me better if i just gave a thumbs down to your post?

There have been moderation team changes in the past year, including as recently as this week, so whoever you are mentioning, may not be directly involved with the mod team anymore.

Regarding the auto-mod and filter, it's basically a string match engine (possibly with some reg-ex) and isn't context sensitive. So, yes, it can catch some innocent bystanders, but it's certainly better than not having anything. Probably a more context sensitive process could be created, but likely is pretty low priority, if it's wanted.

As to the last statement, I pass along information when I'm aware of it. Most of the time I do that to be helpful, and I try to mention if if it's something I think vs something I know. That doesn't make me a mouthpiece. Sometimes I am asked to pass something along, usually about big issues that are widespread, I'll do that, but still doesn't make me such either.

I don't agree with everything the site does either, and will post my thoughts on issues and questions, as well as passing along factual information.

Agreed. I can’t  even believe it has to be said.

because of this...

"I think Bobby Fischer is the GOAT."

Response: "You're an idiot..  <down vote>

Thats just a minor and inevitable byproduct.  First seriously consider the nature of forums- actually the nature of any discourse. Nothing could be less supportive of discourse than the potential capability of stifling an opinion because individuals or possible a given group don't agree with the opinion or simply don't like another individual.   For a forum to have any value whatsoever, it can't even entertain that possibility.   
Up/down voting isn't something good; it's completely contrary to the nature of discourse but it makes chess.com spin the illusion that it's doing something -- just as with half their implementations --- when, in fact, the forums (to chess.com) are little more than a marketing tool.  

Your post doesn't make any sense to me.  Maybe you should downvote me. 

My assumption of you asking "why"? was based on you asking batgirl why the down vote thing isnt a good idea.  If im wrong i apologize.

In the end the down vote/up vote thing will be another tool to be abused.

This upvote/downvote system could be used as an indicator for community managers to be aware of forum threads which have an unusual amount of up- or downvotes. Of course it adds exactly nothing to the quality of the threads or posts being hosted.  But still, it could be used as a kind of warning system. 

I don't like such kind of approach via quantity instead of quality, but I can see how it could be a helpful tool on the other hand.  

No apologise needed, you understood me quite right. But your example doesn't make sense to me. If someone insults another guy in the forums and their posts gets downvoted, that's fine with me. I don't see any problem with your example.

Fair enough

You're giving credit for something that really doesn't exist.  Chess.com proved a long time ago -in its refusal to use real, tangible and practical solutions because they interfered with the numbers- that it doesn't really care about the forums, just those said numbers.  Instead, it implemented things like idiotic autobots under the pretense the forums were too much work (they really aren't) and the average member couldn't deal with society and the inability to post more than 5 times, supposedly to reduce spam (which it doesn't).  I guess one more illusion isn't going to make much difference to this sinking ship. 

the 5 post limit is adversley affecting match notes at The Kingdom of the Picts , the team is proud of its theme and uses match notes to provide background for matches and congratulate players on wins , 

I try to get round this , but sometimes it really restricts and i would like cc to reconsider this limit as it does detract from what can add towards all who play in matches for and against us 

ask any of our foes how good our match notes are , im sure they will say they enjoy them 

@batgirl, yes, you're probably right that I give them to much credit. How they dealt or better to say, how they didn't deal with this notification bug last month was kind of an eye-opener.

The forums.  Its not about quality, its about quantity.