On the gleeful subversion of lichess ToS in the Off-Topic section (or: the clousems annual mod rant)

There is a group of accounts in these parts that has been quite visible and unapologetic in their spamming, aggravating a large number of other users. There has been very little mod activity to, well, moderate this situation, although the fact that a couple of the accounts have been chatbanned following reports suggests that the mods do still oppose the off-topic section turning into spamageddeon.

I get it. The mods have a lot on their plates. Off-topic has always been, and always will be, the lichess dumpster-fire and a bottom priority. Spam, while annoying and aggravating, isn't as dangerous to the site as, say, cheating, ban-evading, etc.

But it seems that the "Wild West" state of the off-topic section is now encouraging kids to normalize rulebreaking, including in ways that have actual impacts on the site. Take, for instance, https://lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/animal-chat?page=1. I have no problem with a thread to talk about "animals", even if that topic isn't particularly interesting to me. What I do have a problem with is the fact that this thread (and many others like it) is being used as a group chat for a small group of kids who think its hilarious to make multiple accounts for no reason. Most of these kids have been ignoring calls to use teams or DMs for personal communication for over a month now, arguing that because the subforum says "off-topic", they can spam to their hearts content. The apparent reason for these alts is to make it more fun to spam, which I have to assume is against lichess ToS. Making it worse is that one of those accounts is apparently the alt of an account that was flagged for fair play violations about a week ago (https://lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/pandas-rule?page=2#ns5oNNAl).

I get that the off-topic section is meant as the "fun" part of the forum, but when mods don't respond to behavior that is clearly violating site rules, it makes the environment much less fun, as users will take advantage. At some point, one of two things needs to happen:

1. Mods need to enforce, or at least encourage the following of the site rules as outlined in various rule documents
2. Mods need to update the rules documents to permit certain behavior

It's not fair to the lichess users to discourage cheating and multiaccounting, yet not take action when users share that they are making alts after a ban in a public forum on the site. It calls into question the integrity of all lichess accounts when this sort of thing happens, especially new ones, and I don't think this site wants to give merit to those guys who abandon games against provisional players. It's also not fair to new users of the site-- when they see this sort of nonsense, it convinces them to look elsewhere (because who wants to deal with a bunch of immature kids who think its funny to break rules on a website?) or to repeat the behavior (because everyone else is getting away with it). And it's not fair to the rare users who do get punished, when others are doing the exact same thing in the exact same place at the exact same time and not running into any resistance.

To the mods: again, I get you guys are stretched thin. But we've been told for years that lichess has more than enough moderators, to the point where if you even ask about volunteering to help out, you get blackballed. I don't know if you need a recruitment drive, to clarify your rules, or even to shut down the off-topic section until it can be properly moderated (as I said much more forcefully in https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/off-topic-section-is-becoming-a-liability, an unmoderated open forum with both children and adults is dangerous), but I can't imagine you guys really want a subforum that serves as a training ground for lichess terrorists. It's your job to make sure that we don't end up in massive arguments about "what is spam" and to prevent widespread rulebreaking.

To anyone (other than the mods) reading this who feels targeted by what I'm saying, please just follow the site rules.

Ah yes, the seasonal "Off-Topic is doomed" speech right on schedule. You’re acting like the whole section is collapsing when it’s mostly just ppl chatting not everything needs to be treated like a crisis bruh.

you guyz can downvote me, idc

I just always thought that the ToS should be a lot more prominently visible and "in your face" and you should at least be required to confirm that you've read and, um, supposedly "understood" them. Terms of service, that's usually some boring legal blabla that no one bothers to read on most sites but here, a lot of very essential stuff is in there, real fundamentals of how Lichess is supposed to work and it's just too easy to overlook and/or ignore.

Wow, I can't read that much, unless it's Scizor :3

Obviously mods will ignore this and continue their crap. If you need lemme share my incident with one of the mods

@LeSereinColosse said ^

Ah yes, the seasonal "Off-Topic is doomed" speech right on schedule. You’re acting like the whole section is collapsing when it’s mostly just ppl chatting not everything needs to be treated like a crisis bruh.

you guyz can downvote me, idc

Given that you’re apparently the alt of a marked account, you're not exactly disproving the points I made about normalizing intentional rule breaking.

@TheMagnusAura said ^

Obviously mods will ignore this and continue their crap. If you need lemme share my incident with one of the mods

Which incident? |:0

(@)Clousems: If you seek more intelligent discussion, then check out BlackHatWorld.

Game Analysis: ...I was going to make a long rant about it, but you can just look at it yourself...for twenty seconds.

Off-Topic Discussion: 'King_Panda X,' 'Post Some X,' the user who keeps evading their ban (why do you keep coming back? What is so special about Lichess' forums?), and all of this: https://lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/guys-off-topic-has-gon-down-hill#BXhKbq7C

Lichess Feedback: Pretty decent (at least for Lichess' forum standards). There are some great suggestions and some awful ones.

General Chess Discussion: I am not sure how to define this one.

@clousems said ^

Off topic:
when I grew up, I will surely contact you for my projects and thesis... You sure have a skill Folks...

(P.S: My respect regarding all your concerns...)