Site policy

I can't help feeling frustrated about the site's policy (or lack thereof) regarding players who "don't play nice".

When someone disconnects or just stops playing when he's about to lose, I usually look at his profile.

I see then that he has received many messages complaining about this same behaviour. Obviously, the automatic way that Chess.com uses to discourage this is failing.

I usually report this member, but all I get is a canned response telling me to block this specific member or only play with friends!

Chess.com in my view is missing a trick in not seriously going after blatant time wasters or misers.

What is so difficult about barring a member when there is overwhelming evidence he is a sore loser?

There is also sometimes very bad connection, when there are 10´000-15´000 players online. It has happened to me too couple of times that in the middle of the game the connection just failes and it only gives me this "Reconnecting..." -text. And that´s very annoying =/ I would like to be a polite chess player.

Personally, I think that's the issue. The site isn't quick to get rid of players for disconnecting when it's not the player's fault.

So I make 3 accounts, post messages, and get you banned?  This would be a very bad system, because it's not evidence.

Also they can block people from posting notes (or just delete the notes).

To catch people in the act they'd need to employ a few thousand people full time (at least)... which isn't practical.

If you have a practical solution for this problem (which plagues all chess sites) then I'm sure chess.com would love to hear it... because as I said their competition hasn't solved it yet either.

Yesterday live chess maxed at around 16k members so people have a "huge" amount of different opponents to play.

If you search the forums for 'why was I restricted' or 'fair play policy' you'll see quite a large amount of posts from those who have been restricted for stalling, aborting or disconnecting.

Also a little patience may help .. some play from their mobiles and if they haven't updated their apps may disconnect and not realise they have. Others look on the game as ' its just a game', so if the door bell rings will leave the game running to go answer the door .. its human nature that many don't stop to consider the person on the other end of the game who is sat there waiting impatiently for them to move.

I'm not defending either side - but if you look through the forums you'll see just as many 'why weren't they banned for stalling' in comparison to 'why am i restricted just because i have a crappy connection'..