Bug: Unable to Spectate Tournament games when blocked by a user

@mkubecek said in #5:

I really can't help seeing that way too often user A blocking user B indicates a problem on the side of A rather than B. And I really feel that giving users the power of deliberately restricting other people's activities on the site is not a good idea.

Victims have rights even if the law does not yet require websites to enforce this. If you're arguing that someone is unfairly pretending to be a victim, let alone that "way too often" this happens, perhaps some self-reflection is in order.

@Toadofsky said in #11:

If you're arguing that someone is unfairly pretending to be a victim, let alone that "way too often" this happens, perhaps some self-reflection is in order.
Not sure what are you trying to imply here. Yes, I'm pretty sure vast majority of blocks on lichess do not mean the blocking user is a victim of a serious misbehaviour of the type it was discussed here to advocate for the feature.

The truth is that just a few days ago, a user wrote in the forum that he/she blocks every opponent he/she loses against because he/she "doesn't want to play against a computer more than once". You can find it yourself easily, just as plenty of others who complain about the 500 blocks limit being way too low, blocking everyone with "suspiciously high" accuracy, provisional rating, new account or any other deemed "sure sign of cheating". Big part of the blocks are simply a side effect of someone being reported for whatever reason (e.g. a comment promoting a team in the forum, other form of spam, etc.). Or simply they didn't like a controversial opinion. Users shooting "I'm reporting/blocking you!" to deal with their frustration how the game went are also a frequent sight. No, I simply cannot agree with the "he/she blocked someone, therefore he/she is likely a victim and the blocked user is an offender" attitude.

Actually, all users I ever blocked on lichess were either side effect of a comment report or to stop pestering me over DM with some topic I no longer wanted to continue discussing with them (after I told them that). And it was an unpleasant surprise for me that this also meant preventing them from being paired with me because I had no reason not to play against them (or even forbid them spectating my games). Which is why I still think "communication block" and "playing block" should be separated because reasons for one in most cases do not justify the other.

As I said, if someone is found guilty of a serious offense, I'm all for restricting their tournament access as applying blocks to tournament pairings would have serious drawbacks. Hiding blocked user's comment and their name in spectator list from blocking user? Sure, makes perfect sense to me. But giving every single user of the site the power to restrict anyone else's rights for whatever dubious reaon or just on a whim? No, sorry, that's something I strongly disagree with. The act of blocking does no way automatically mean the blocking user is a "victim" and blocked user is an "offender".

Once I saw this sentence by one of book's characters: "In these cases, the accusation itself often serves as a proof." He was talking about... medieval witch hunts. Do we want to follow this example? I don't.

@WildWizard said in #10:

Just log out and view their game.
You are the real OG

@WildWizard said in #10:

Just log out and view their game.
Using a feature like "Open Link in New Private Window" in Firefox (I'm quite sure Chrome/Chromium has something similar, it might just use a different term) is probably more convenient. I'm sometimes using it e.g. to try few easy puzzles for a warm up or to check that my study is really accessible for others and works the expected way. The only nuisance is that it switches to dark style and resets few other settings I changed (e.g. showing piece icons instead of letters in move list or only one engine line). Using a different browser profile would also be an option.

@PatzerNoblechuks said in #13:

You are the real OG
Why thank you :)

@mkubecek said in #14:

Using a feature like "Open Link in New Private Window" in Firefox (I'm quite sure Chrome/Chromium has something similar, it might just use a different term) is probably more convenient. I'm sometimes using it e.g. to try few easy puzzles for a warm up or to check that my study is really accessible for others and works the expected way. The only nuisance is that it switches to dark style and resets few other settings I changed (e.g. showing piece icons instead of letters in move list or only one engine line). Using a different browser profile would also be an option.

Yes That also works as well. I use private mode a lot when using my alt.

@mkubecek said in #12:

I'm pretty sure vast majority of blocks on lichess do not mean the blocking user is a victim of a serious misbehaviour of the type it was discussed here to advocate for the feature.

A user wrote in the forum that he/she blocks every opponent he/she loses against because he/she "doesn't want to play against a computer more than once".

Big part of the blocks are simply a side effect of someone being reported for whatever reason (e.g. a comment promoting a team in the forum, other form of spam, etc.). Or simply they didn't like a controversial opinion. Users shooting "I'm reporting/blocking you!" to deal with their frustration how the game went are also a frequent sight. No, I simply cannot agree with the "he/she blocked someone, therefore he/she is likely a victim and the blocked user is an offender" attitude.

I'm accustomed to seeing this sort of moving of discussion framework goal posts as part of USA election debate/discussion. One could just as easily contend that in a server with millions of players and thousands of active players, and as you noted with a block list limit of 500, getting blocked is quite rare whatever the reason. Further, on social media sites it can be difficult to assess how much danger a person being stalked is in. Students at a school (or a college, or an airport, etc.) being able to stalk another player could know when the to-be decadent is in a library/computer room/terminal, and from a distance home in on their target. The risk of something terrible happening is incalculable, and the benefit of allowing stalking to continue is so marginal, that it's absurd to entertain your suggestion of relying on written law (guilt or innocence) for guidance.

Chess players are especially notorious for being dangerous, and chess organizations are slow to react even after terrible things occur...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/alejandro-ramirez-jennifer-shahade-chess-allegations-622263b8
https://lichess.org/@/Lichess/blog/breaking-the-silence/ZNTniBEA
https://www.chess.com/news/view/christopher-yoo-temporary-fide-ban-new-harassment-allegation

@Toadofsky said in #16:

I'm accustomed to seeing this sort of moving of discussion framework goal posts as part of USA election debate/discussion.
It's no "goal posts moving", we just see things differently and put different weights to different aspects of the problem. That's normal and it does not mean someone is "moving the goal posts".

I inadvertently discovered this when trying to watch a friend's game and finding myself unable to. It turns out that I had played their opponent over a year ago and beaten them with a rook sacrifice for mate. They must have assumed I had cheated, reported me, and presumably this blocked me as well.

Annoying, but I personally can affirm that it can be unsettling, even tilting, to have the same person following you around the site and watching all your games, so fair enough. Maybe an even better solution would be to provide an option other than Zen mode to hide who is watching one's game. (I'm sure this is possible to personally achieve with API magic already.)

There's a near-infinite space of negative outcomes from allowing players to stalk/track other players, and one positive outcome from allowing it. This is first a safety issue and only second a comfort issue.

I guess arguably a "cheat" block could maybe function different from other blocks, but this too would have safety risks. Maybe while blocking a player could opt into "allow rule-breaker to stalk me" but this seems unhelpful, esp. in cases where there is an argument between the players and the "victim" retaliates.

Lichess is free software; feel free to (abiding by the software license) host your own Lichess-like site and let all hell break loose with your modified code. It's difficult to find a volunteer organization where everyone agrees on a particular issue, but I think the entire Lichess team is in agreement on this policy.

@WildWizard said in #10:

Just [...].

@mkubecek said in #14:

Using a feature like "[...] is probably more convenient. I'm sometimes using it e.g. to try few easy puzzles for a warm up or to check that my study is really accessible for others and works the expected way. The only nuisance is that it switches to dark style and resets few other settings I changed (e.g. showing piece icons instead of letters in move list or only one engine line). Using [...] would also be an option.

@WildWizard said in #15:

Why thank you :)
Yes That also works as well. I use [...]

I'm not a fan of people explaining how to circumvent an anti-stalking safety measure.