Option to block countries

    Everybody should relax. Chess.com is creating a list of blocked countries as we speak. It will be released for publication to the New York Times this Sunday. The countries will be listed alphabetically. Some countries may be listed more than once because of the time zone. Also, if its a Sunday,....and its raining.....all countries will be listed. You must apply for a Chess.com waiver to play a "blocked country". If you haven't been vaccinated,...your waiver will not be processed. If you lose a game from a "blocked country",..Chess.com will have no liability. If you are claiming dual-citizenship,....you will qualify for bonus points. If you are a dual citizen who plays chess on rainy Sundays, and you happen to be a left-handed black man,....you account will be closed after the game. The reason for this is because Chess.com cannot be on the side of right, without enforcing the rights of left-handed people.                                                    

Then that option wouldn't be for you.  It would be for other people, who have experiences different than yours. We aren't all the same. 

Yes, the connection is not influenced by the opponent. I don't think anyone suggested otherwise. But the connection can be influenced by location. Some places have better internet than others. 

Excellent point. For what possible reason would 70% of users block a particular location? My guess is because there is a problem with that location, and the solution is basically what the OP suggested. 

btw, people keep bringing up where someone is born. Since you did it also, can you explain what that has to do with the original suggestion? I can't find any connection or relevance. 

70% was an example, could have been 10% and would've been the same issue. You're asking for a reason? That's the problem, there's no reason to block a country, since the "connectivity problem" that you made up is something so rare that sounds more of an attempt to prove a point than a valid argument.

But i bet if a filter like the OP suggested would have been created many countries would be blocked by 15% and up. For the most disparate reasons: political, racial, economic, religious... a total mess. Nothing to do with chess anyway ( you can't find one valid reason yourself related to chess, that says a lot).

"btw, people keep bringing up where someone is born. Since you did it also, can you explain what that has to do with the original suggestion? I can't find any connection or relevance." 

 Again, where someone is born was just an example, I could have said where someone is living and it would have been the same thing, since the OP suggested to block specific countries ( to the point of even accepting a loss if a user of a blocked country is selected as his opponent in a tournament), I don't particularly see what's so difficult to understand.

Seems like an attempt to create a discussion at any cost. Are you gonna correct my punctuation next?

There doesn't have to be a reason. That's the point. It's personal preference. No reason required. 

I also have an example. Lets say you prefer vanilla ice cream. But you have to have a valid reason (that I agree with). Personal preference isn't an acceptable answer. 

So you see whatever reason someone has (internet connection, bad experience, personal beliefs, etc) don't matter. You and I don't get to judge how someone else should feel nor do we get to decide what other peoples reasons are. Projecting what might be YOUR reasons on to other people doesn't mean it's their reason. 

And ty for clarifying why some people keep bringing up where someone was born. I just wasn't seeing any connection to what the OP suggested. 

Your idea of freedom is deeply wrong. Your personal preferences are not just preferences anymore if they affect other people ( in this specific case, something that can't be even decided or controlled).

read again the part where i said "your freedom ends where mine begins", or "your libery to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins" if you prefer. That's where your understanding is lacking. You keep repeating to yourself that the reason doesn't matter while IT DOES: blocking someone because of personal beliefs ( a generalization) is a discrimination that affects a human being, saying you prefer vanilla ice cream it's irrelevant, you're just talking about your preference for an inanimated thing. 

I just don't understand how can you bring me this 2 examples as related, and also be convinced to bring me a relevant and intelligent topic to discuss... you're trying to be smart but sadly the result is the opposite: is a severe lacking of comprehension of reality, no offense...

However I think i'm gonna unfollow this thread right now. Honestly I don't want to run into a meaningless and endless conversation, I'm tired of this.

I'm just gonna say that this conversation is really baffling.

Hope to see you all in a more relevant topic. Bye.

You are stating that I am incorrect while paraphrasing what I gave you in the definition I posted.

Either you are now agreeing with me (and RJC) since you are now saying topics are forums, not that posts are forums as you originally stated...and ergo need to apologize to RJC for misunderstanding him in the first place, or your understanding of the words you are writing could use some work .

Please reconcile your original statement with your new stance:  "each post within the topic is called a thread".  I would have guessed you meant "each new post within the forum becomes a thread once it is responded to", but that can't be, unless you misunderstood RJC from the get-go and took him to task for nothing, because he never implied anything different.

    Thank you tickler, but no apology needed on my part. I'm just wondering how far this thread is gonna go. Patriot Games brings up personal freedom in playing chess but I see the same correlation with the vaccine thread. One man's freedom is another man's religion. 

A person can challenge whichever cross-section of players they want. The random game-finder, though, is different. There are many people who would prefer to only play with players with certain skin colors. That's their personal preference. Would it make sense for Chess.com to add that feature? No? But I thought all that mattered was preference. The options that Chess.com provides for filtering random games impacts (1) the values the site displays to the world, (2) the behavior of the players toward other players, and (3) the systemically equitable treatment of all players on the site. Those factors go beyond simple personal preference and are important for site administrators to consider as top priorities.

For me this thread is confusing.  To me, the whole country restriction alleged issue here is fake. This is because anyone should be able to, instead of posting a game request, see which of the pending "open challenges" at https://www.chess.com/play/online they like the most.  Before selecting a person's challenge, one should be able to see the username, country, and any other thing you like to filter by.  Since you can do this, the thread is strange.

To me, personally, I would like the feature, but because there are far more important issues in the selection department for me it's offensive to have an 8-page thread about this.  For example, my own game requests take about 5-10 minutes before anyone accepts them.  This is a long time to wait!  More importantly, it contradicts the time the green or grey dots exist on the open challenges screen, which, for me, is about 7 seconds, or about 10 seconds for 15 minute games for the newer challenges page, which is different from the older challenges page deprecated to not display country flags.   

This suggests my public game challenges are soft-censored by being held into holding area for a random amount of time.  This is normal for me that my account is restricted so I am used to it and there's nothing I can do except when I do complain to the help support they pretend to apologize, and it starts to work for about a week before something else on my account is restricted like clockwork. 

As long as people like me are restricted without logical explanation in such a fashion that it is not possible to avoid getting restrictions, "problems" like not being able to filter on a public game challenge even though you can filter to your heart's delight by being a respondent to public challenges is a curious thing.

Right now I want to learn a trap called the elephant trap.  So I want to be able to select black. (Otherwise it will take twice as long to learn the moves for the trap.) So I cannot pick from the challenges board and have to wait ~10  minutes to play on this site.  So to me people are complaining about the temperature of their cake when others like me didn't even get any cake to begin with.

No that option wouldn't make any sense because it has nothing to do with where the player is. There is no way for chess.com to verify anyones skin color, even if that were someone's preference. But they can verify location, or at least to the extent the player wants it verified. 

So that's a totally different issue, that has nothing to do with what the original suggestion was. The requested preference was filtering games from certain locations. And the reason why really doesn't matter although I assume it's because of some repeated problems with connection or something else that affects the quality of the games. 

I don't see the point...

If the IP address is from there then I assume so, yes. 

Think of it this way. 7 out of 10 times when you go to the Kwiki Mart on 3rd Street your car gets vandalized. You don't know why, but it just does. There could be a hundred different reasons. You don't know who is doing it, or why. All you know is someone from a neighboring alley is doing it.  So you decide to avoid that location. And by doing so your shopping experience is now much better. 

But the Kwiki Mart owner doesn't think that's fair. He's not doing any vandalizing, so he can't understand why you are discriminating against him, for something he has nothing to do with. 

So it's not up to you, me, or anyone else to pass judgement on the Kwiki Mart owner, or his neighbors. We just want a reasonable shopping experience, and by having the option of avoiding certain locations, that's now possible. It in no way affects those that want to continue shopping that particular store. It doesn't affect them, at all, in any way. 

Everything you wrote was based on the argument that everything is fine because it is your personal preference, that you prefer to play people who are similar to you etc... And now you say there is a difference when it comes to skin colour? Come on, some coherency please.

It's about bad experiences from certain particular locations. And the option to avoid those locations. 

Of course they are different things, but it's an example, based on the same principle. Would you prefer a different analogy?

Yes. That is exactly right. Because the problem (no matter what it might be) is a pattern from that certain location. You are exactly right, you do not know who it is, but from the receiving end of the problem, does it matter?

Sticking with the shopping analogy. Does it matter who is vandalizing your car? I would say no, by avoiding that location the problem is solved, and your not shopping there affects nobody else that wishes to continue shopping there. 

Everyone wants the freedom to choose,well you can choose not to play tournaments.

You can answer challenges so you can choose not this person he/she isn't like me.

Wrong color wrong sex etc

You are getting way off track here. The OP never suggested anything of the sort. Some other people brought up race also, for no reason. Lets keep it civil. 

The issue is problems with certain locations. His suggestion was based on where the IP address is (or flag presuming it's also where the IP address is). I would recommend sticking with the original subject matter and not interject things that have no relevance of any kind. 

But you are right about one thing, assumptions. If you experience a problem, over and over, is it not fair for you to make assumptions about future interactions based on past problems?