Should I report this?

@Arutaretil said in #12:
> They made a first move, I made my countermove and then... nothing. For 30 minutes. [...] once I got what they were doing, I just, played a nice game with another person

Sure, just beware that some folks will wait until the last second and make a move then, hoping you won't notice. One needs to be ready to play two games simultaneously, which can be challenging especially in shorter time controls.

You can either embrace it as a form of training or if you want to avoid additional stress, you can choose a different time control for your second game. If your first game is rapid, play blitz, if your first game is blitz, play rapid. Worst-case scenario, you can finish an entire blitz game off of the time you have for your rapid game and still have a reasonable amount of time left.

But that's just a worst-case scenario, you'll usually be able to finish the first game easily, because the opponent simply has no time to find decent moves.

Per Lichess rules, you're also not allowed to get external assistance that could boost your performance, so not only shoudln't you snort cocaine or receive sexual stimulation from your opponent's mom, but you also shouldn't reach the same position on the second board with a different color and then transfer your opponent's moves to the first board. This is why Derren Brown never plays on Lichess.

@cormacobear said in #81:
> In 4 or 5 years working for Lichess you're the first I've seen ask it be linked there.
>
> We will discuss and consider your suggestion. It seems likely we can put a link there to the report page. We can't fix what google decides to show people when they search things.
>
> The homepage is already very busy. Most users click on a comment, use the report on profile button, or just hover over the username to see a report button to open a report.

It's fine. I withdraw my request. It is becoming clear that Lichess is not interested in my concerns and is summarily dismissing them without even trying to understand where I am coming from.

In my original post on this topic, post 70, I raised two concerns (even though they were in the same paragraph): 1. that the Report FAQ page does not link to the Report Page; and 2. that I have never received communications from Lichess about any of my complaints about cheating in 2 years.

Concern 1. I was initially told that "[t]he devs don't like adding anything," and that it could possibly drain system resources. Then I was told that my experience was "very far-fetched." Then someone posted a long explanation of all of the other places where a person could find the report button, all while ignoring whether a link should be placed on the Report FAQ page. Finally, only after I explained that I had trouble finding the report page many times, which I thought was implicit in my previous posts on this subject, I was told that no one ever suggested it before and "[w]e will discuss and consider your suggestion." I am not even sure who this "we" is. None of the people who have responded to me so far have any indicia of being affiliated with Lichess. Then I have no idea who is going to consider this idea.

This concern was dismissed by several people without even considering it. My suggestion was to improve the user experience in finding the Report page. I assumed that this would be welcome feedback considering it was in response to a blog post explaining how and why to report things. Instead, I received responses that defended Lichess without even considering the merits of my suggestion.

Concern 2. I have probably reported 10 people I have suspected of cheating over the two years I have been on Lichess, after playing approximately 6,500 games. I raised a concern that I haven't received any communication on any of the people I reported or a communication about anyone I had played that had been reported by someone else. The only response I received was some template response that did not even look into my specific situation.

Each of these responses I received, from people who I assume are affiliated with Lichess because there is no indicia that I can find that they are affiliated with Lichess, were defensive and dismissive without even considering the individual merits of my proposal.

I feel like my concerns were reasonable. I tried to provide examples to each, where possible. I have come away from the situation feeling like there is an insular group who makes the decisions, I don't know who they are, and that group is very resistant to any suggestions on how to improve this site. That is very sad.

sorry I rarely remember to hit the post as mod button. the mod eye is also on my profile

@yojoey as a neutral observer who has been following this thread, it didn't occur to me what you are saying.

Firstly, let me be clear that I don't find your concerns unreasonable. Regarding linking the report FAQ to the page and receiving feedback I mean.

You requested Lichess to address some of the concerns in #70. @cormacobear , who is a public moderator, replied in #71. You can see the moderator badge in their profile, and they also disclosed in #81 that they have been working for Lichess for 4-5 years.

You said your concerns were not addressed in #73. Frankly speaking, it did not occur to me that you wanted a response to your post in #70 after reading it for the first time. It felt more like a general statement to address some open concerns in this thread. The second paragraph feels more like your personal commentary and not something you are expecting to be answered. I think @cormacobear also felt that in #71, as they mentioned they tried to respond to every concern and requested to point out anything they may have missed. Anyhow, you clear that up in #73 and get a response from @cormacobear in #74. So far so good.

Then you respond in #77 and in #83. I'll quote from it:

@yojoey said in #77:
> It doesn't appear that Lichess is concerned about abusive behavior or cheating when the Report FAQ does not even link to the Report page.

> Lichess can say that takes abuse and cheating seriously, but as long as they continue to hide the Report page, the blog posts and other things are just performative and virtue signaling.

> Also, I had hoped for a most substantive response to my concern that I have not been contacted by Lichess. It feels like my comments were dismissed without even addressing the substance of it.

@yojoey said in #83:
> Each of these responses I received, from people who I assume are affiliated with Lichess because there is no indicia that I can find that they are affiliated with Lichess, were defensive and dismissive without even considering the individual merits of my proposal.

May I ask you what's the rationale for all of these claims? You raise some concerns, someone from Lichess responds and then you go on to assume how you believe Lichess does not take abusing and reporting seriously. You claim that your comments were dismissed and accuse Lichess of "hiding" the report page and virtue signaling. Because someone does not agree with you 100% and it is not addressed immediately? Is that logical or reasonable?

Upon assuming such a stance without any basis, how do you expect community members and Lichess to respond? You get another long explanation from a community member in #79 to clear up your misconceptions. But don't think that helped much. I doubt Lichess or community members dismissed your initial concerns, it had more to do with how you assumed negative intent needlessly over a trivial thing and argued. You reinforce this again in #80 and #83, which honestly feels like victim mentality at this point. Even though @cormacobear replied in #81 and specifically said the following.

@cormacobear said in #81:
> We will discuss and consider your suggestion. It seems likely we can put a link there to the report page

I fail to see what more you expected from Lichess. I don't see how they were defensive, dismissive, or resistant to any suggestions. From your very own conversations which I tried to summarize above, I fail to find anything that can lead me to that sort of conclusion.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

@sgtlaugh said in #85:
> You requested Lichess to address some of the concerns in #70. @cormacobear , who is a public moderator, replied in #71. You can see the moderator badge in their profile, and they also disclosed in #81 that they have been working for Lichess for 4-5 years.

I have been on Lichess for two years, and as you can see from my profile I just started using the forum in the last couple of months. I do not know who the moderators are. For example, on sites like Reddit, there is a list of moderators so that users know who is a moderator who and who is not. I have not seen anything like that on Lichess. I honestly did not know what that badge meant. I cannot find an explanation of what that badge means on Lichess. Furthermore, if I hover over the badge in @cormacobear profile, it does not provide a description. If I click on the badge it takes me to the Report page. So how am I supposed to know to look for that badge when I have limited experience on the forums? This is especially true when the badge isn't identified on the blog post, and only inside of the profile.

As I said, I have not seen any documentation from Lichess explaining who a moderator is or something that identifies the moderator badge. It is not on the forum page, lichess.org/forum. It is not on the general frequently asked questions page, lichess.org/faq. It is important to note that the general frequently asked questions page, lichess.org/faq, has a section for how to become a moderator, but does not identify the moderators or what a moderator badge is. The Lichess About page does not identify the moderators either, lichess.org/about.

Perhaps that information is out there, but it isn't in any of the places that I would normally look. And it isn't identifiable by just looking at the badge.

> May I ask you what's the rationale for all of these claims? You raise some concerns, someone from Lichess responds and then you go on to assume how you believe Lichess does not take abusing and reporting seriously. You claim that your comments were dismissed and accuse Lichess of "hiding" the report page and virtue signaling. Because someone does not agree with you 100% and it is not addressed immediately? Is that logical or reasonable?

If I do not know who the moderators are then how do I know if someone from Lichess responded? You presume that everyone knows what the moderator badge means. I did not even know what to look for regarding a moderator badge. As I explained above, I cannot find any documentation for who is a moderator and who is not, let alone what a moderator badge looks like.

Moreover, reasonable people can disagree on the merits. However, the moderator who responded to me did not even consider the merits of my suggestions and dismissed concerns. When I raised the concern about the Report page, lichess.org/report, not being linked to by the Report FAQ page, lichess.org/page/report-faq, which I provided links to illustrate my point, I was told that developers would be hesitant and it could use system resources. This is when this blog post, lichess.org/@/Lichess/blog/should-i-report-this/3ER2w6e4, linked to it. This was dismissive. The moderator did not take the time to understand my concern or even look at the links that I provided. When this sort of response is received in context to a blog post about how any why to report things, it shows that Lichess is not concerned about improving the user experience for reporting incidents, and therefore it's blog post was performative and virtue signaling.

The same is true for my concern about reports of cheating. I was given a template response. Again, this concern was on topic of the blog post. The moderator did not even care to investigate my claims. The moderator did not refer me to someone who may better respond to my concern. Again, my concern was dismissed without even looking at the merits of it. When I address that my reports are not being responded to, in the context of a blog post about how any why to report things, it shows the blog post is performative and virtue signaling.

> I fail to see what more you expected from Lichess. I don't see how they were defensive, dismissive, or resistant to any suggestions. From your very own conversations which I tried to summarize above, I fail to find anything that can lead me to that sort of conclusion.

I wanted to be heard by Lichess since I posted about concerns on the subject of the blog post. As I have stated before, in previous replies on this topic, I feel like my concerns were dismissed summarily without even addressing the merits of them. That is not how moderation should work. At the very least I should have been referred to someone who could have better addressed my concerns.

Also, it would be nice to know who the moderators are.

@yojoey said in #86:
> Thank you for the thoughtful response.
>
>
>
> I have been on Lichess for two years, and as you can see from my profile I just started using the forum in the last couple of months. I do not know who the moderators are. For example, on sites like Reddit, there is a list of moderators so that users know who is a moderator who and who is not. I have not seen anything like that on Lichess. I honestly did not know what that badge meant. I cannot find an explanation of what that badge means on Lichess. Furthermore, if I hover over the badge in @cormacobear profile, it does not provide a description. If I click on the badge it takes me to the Report page. So how am I supposed to know to look for that badge when I have limited experience on the forums? This is especially true when the badge isn't identified on the blog post, and only inside of the profile.
>

Some moderators are public on Lichess and some are not, you will not find a list of all of them.

> As I said, I have not seen any documentation from Lichess explaining who a moderator is or something that identifies the moderator badge. It is not on the forum page, lichess.org/forum. It is not on the general frequently asked questions page, lichess.org/faq. It is important to note that the general frequently asked questions page, lichess.org/faq, has a section for how to become a moderator, but does not identify the moderators or what a moderator badge is. The Lichess About page does not identify the moderators either, lichess.org/about.
>
> Perhaps that information is out there, but it isn't in any of the places that I would normally look. And it isn't identifiable by just looking at the badge.
>
>

Hovering over the badge (for example on cormacobear's profile) with your mouse should produce the description "Lichess Moderator"

>
> If I do not know who the moderators are then how do I know if someone from Lichess responded? You presume that everyone knows what the moderator badge means. I did not even know what to look for regarding a moderator badge. As I explained above, I cannot find any documentation for who is a moderator and who is not, let alone what a moderator badge looks like.
>

Now you know what it looks like.

> Moreover, reasonable people can disagree on the merits. However, the moderator who responded to me did not even consider the merits of my suggestions and dismissed concerns. When I raised the concern about the Report page, lichess.org/report, not being linked to by the Report FAQ page, lichess.org/page/report-faq, which I provided links to illustrate my point, I was told that developers would be hesitant and it could use system resources. This is when this blog post, lichess.org/@/Lichess/blog/should-i-report-this/3ER2w6e4, linked to it. This was dismissive. The moderator did not take the time to understand my concern or even look at the links that I provided. When this sort of response is received in context to a blog post about how any why to report things, it shows that Lichess is not concerned about improving the user experience for reporting incidents, and therefore it's blog post was performative and virtue signaling.
>
> The same is true for my concern about reports of cheating. I was given a template response. Again, this concern was on topic of the blog post. The moderator did not even care to investigate my claims. The moderator did not refer me to someone who may better respond to my concern. Again, my concern was dismissed without even looking at the merits of it. When I address that my reports are not being responded to, in the context of a blog post about how any why to report things, it shows the blog post is performative and virtue signaling.
>
>
It is possible, even likely that your reports of cheating did not yield any results because the anti-cheat team did not agree with your accusations of cheating, based on their training, experience, and cheat detection tools. This may seem like a standard answer but it's a common question.

>
> I wanted to be heard by Lichess since I posted about concerns on the subject of the blog post. As I have stated before, in previous replies on this topic, I feel like my concerns were dismissed summarily without even addressing the merits of them. That is not how moderation should work. At the very least I should have been referred to someone who could have better addressed my concerns.
>
> Also, it would be nice to know who the moderators are.

As I said before, not all moderators are public, and not everyone who works for Lichess is a moderator. There are also broadcasters and content team members, developers etc. Not all of these people have public badges either.

@QueenRosieMary said in #87:
> Some moderators are public on Lichess and some are not, you will not find a list of all of them.
>
>
> Hovering over the badge (for example on cormacobear's profile) with your mouse should produce the description "Lichess Moderator"
>
>
> Now you know what it looks like.

I went back and hovered my house over the moderator badge and after about 4-5 seconds I did see the "Lichess Moderator" description.

So there are public and non-public moderators, but not even a list of the public moderators anywhere? What is the rationale behind this?

While the public moderators are identified by a "Lichess Moderator" badge, that a person would only know what it means if they hover their mouse over it for 4-5 seconds. But there isn't anywhere that explains the purpose and meaning behind the badge and alters users what to look for.

This seems like important information to have when Lichess writes an official blog post about reporting things on this website.

So how was I supposed to know this? Again, this is really insular. It seems like those who know, know, and those that do not are left out. I was left out.

> It is possible, even likely that your reports of cheating did not yield any results because the anti-cheat team did not agree with your accusations of cheating, based on their training, experience, and cheat detection tools. This may seem like a standard answer but it's a common question.

Again, another boilerplate response, when I raised a concern on topic.

Good post @Lichess :) thank you$$!!))

I did apologize for not using the reply as mod button. You are correct there is no list of public mods another suggestion we can discuss and consider doing if the others don't mind.
Many of our current and past volunteers are listed on the Thank you page

It wasn't a copy pasted answer. I carefully chose each word. It just happens to be the true answer to the concern you raised about not getting any notifications about cheat reports. It would be wrong of me to make things up just placate you. ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄

@cormacobear said in #90:

I appreciate your response. I genuinely apologize if I came across harsh to you. That was not my intention. Again, I am sorry.

Lichess is incredibly opaque for an open source non-profit. It is ironic how untransparent Lichess is in many regards.