Chess.com Policy

I'm not starting this to cause any trouble. I just want to hear what people think, especially the staff. I've tried to get some comments from them before about this on other threads, but to no avail.

So, I'm sure quite a few of us remember that guy who earlier today was quite rude and patronizing to staff, chess.com members, and Erik in particular over what was most likely a fault with his computer (he couldn't type in any chat to a game). He obviously crossed the line in the end with his language, so I presume he was banned. However, before this bad language Erik had warned him not to be so rude again or he'd be banned. Which came as a bit of a surprise to me as every day on the forums I see basically the equivalent level of rudeness which goes unpunished or at most a forum lock after several pages or a deleted topic or comment. I'm actually all for banning guys like this, but surely there should be a level of consistency. Is insulting the staff considered a banning offense, but insulting ordinary members not?

what you didn't see behind the scenes were the private messages from him to me as well as the multiple accounts he created to harrass another member. i'm quite tolerant of abuse against me, but when i spot a bad egg who doesn't respond to warnings, we try to quickly get them off the site.

I might be the only one brave enough to speak up with you but consider the flip-side of the coin as well...unless a staff member sees it, or it goes unreported, then we can't assume them omniscient. So if I had a bit of advice to give, it'd be politely confront the disrespectful person, and they won't desist, report them. If a persons is disrespectful by nature, it won't take long for them to establish a pattern and get banned.

DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting we go around reporting any and every small thing!

Nice work fighting the good fight Erik.  This site seems to attract a younger crowd than say, ICC, and thus behavior monitoring will be necessary, while I also believ in the long run it should help set a respectful tone that will help the community thrive.

Please do "speak up", I won't bite!  But I'm guessing you are new here. Take a guy called saidh as an example of someone who is extremely disrespectful to everyone again and again, and who the staff are fully aware of, yet is tolerated.

Edit: It's my opinion that these type of people should be banned, but the staff are being consistent at least. I would still like to know though why exactly the threshold for getting actually banned or a warning is so high..

Ah, OK. Sorry, about that.