Why I Deleted My Blog Post on Cheating in Chess

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to leave a brief note for those who had been following or contributing to the blog post I recently published about cheating in chess. I’ve made the decision to delete both the article and the discussion thread.

It wasn’t an easy decision. There were many thoughtful comments and even a few people who messaged me privately saying they found the blog useful or refreshing. I really appreciated that. But ultimately, I decided that the amount of backlash, misrepresentation, and harassment I received simply outweighed the benefits of keeping it up.

That said — I haven’t changed my core views. The arguments brought up against the blog didn’t shift my thinking significantly, though they did make me reflect more on how I present ideas.

Specifically: I now see that the title and thumbnail, while intended to provoke deeper reading, could easily be misinterpreted by people who never got past them. I tried to be very clear in the post itself that I do not support cheating or excuse it. But the fact that some readers still came away with that impression tells me I should be more mindful in how I frame sensitive content in the future.

What saddens me most isn’t the disagreement, but how difficult it seems to be to have layered, honest conversations about complicated topics like this. That was the whole point of writing the blog in the first place — to think a few steps deeper than “cheating = bad” and ask: why do people do it? What does that say about the chess world, or about us?

Anyway, thank you to those who engaged in good faith. I hope we can keep having nuanced discussions in other forms and topics going forward.

Best,
doughnut42

sorry ment i thought your blog was great

sooo u will still keep makin blogs tho right cuz i love ur blogs

@richniftyrabbit said in #4:

sooo u will still keep makin blogs tho right cuz i love ur blogs

100% the blogs will continue!
This was just one bump in the road, not the end of the journey. If anything, the response made me reflect even more deeply on how to structure and present future posts. But I’m not planning on going silent anytime soon, there’s way too much left to explore.

Thanks for asking

thank you so much imma read everythin now

You did not delete it yourself. It was deleted by mods due to your repeated recusancy, you were explicitly warned about it.

@Cedur216 said in #7:

You did not delete it yourself. It was deleted by mods due to your repeated recusancy, you were explicitly warned about it.

Just to clarify: the blog and discussion were deleted entirely by me. I weighed the pros and cons of keeping it up, and decided that the ongoing harassment (including from people who’ve now blocked me but still choose to comment about me) simply wasn’t worth the stress, despite the many thoughtful and supportive replies I did receive.

I can’t speak for whether mods deleted individual comments along the way — that’s possible. But the blog itself and the full thread were removed by my own choice, not after ‘repeated refusals’ or mod warnings, as claimed.

I also find it quite ironic that someone who emphasized how precious their time is still seems fixated on misrepresenting my motives and actions, long after choosing to block me.

In any case, I’ve moved on and hope others can too, and I think you're smart enough to move on too.

I think you're wasting more time than me over being hypocritical with what happened with the mods.

A mod closed your blog because it contained an incitement to accuse people of cheating. You had nothing better to do than delete his message and reopen it. (Hopefully the devs will fix this eventually)
Later he closed it again, at a stage where nothing constructive was happening anyway, just people ganging up on me (it wasn't even worth reacting). In his second message, the mod explicitly warned you that overriding this decision would lead to harsher action, and that you could only contest this decision through appeal. Well, you obviously weren't impressed by that yellow card, now congratulations on getting the red card.

By the way I'm not even sure if what you said is technically possible.

@doughnut42 said in #5:

100% the blogs will continue!
This was just one bump in the road, not the end of the journey. If anything, the response made me reflect even more deeply on how to structure and present future posts. But I’m not planning on going silent anytime soon, there’s way too much left to explore.

Thanks for asking
lezz go
Your blogs are always interesting

@doughnut42 see lichess.org/appeal