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I'm confused what Lichess wanted here. One woman complained. USCF assigned her an escort. More women complained. USCF banned the guy. This sounds completely r

I'm confused what Lichess wanted here. One woman complained. USCF assigned her an escort. More women complained. USCF banned the guy. This sounds completely reasonable, unless the first woman provided proof, you can't just ban someone because of an allegation. But they took steps to ensure her safety at future events. What does Lichess want here? They say it's insufficient, but they never really say what should have been done. Edit: to clarify, I'm talking about the incident with Timur

altairprime 3y ago
They want each organization to publicly state (“acknowledge”) that they acted and communicated inappropriately in the past regarding these events. In their exact words from the post: > However, in our opinion, both US Chess and STLCC have failed to demonstrate an important aspect of accountability – a willingness to acknowledge and address past shortcomings. We do not think that reconciliation will be possible without this acknowledgement.
- thereddaikon 3y ago
  Not happening. The sad fact is, people and organizations rarely admit to wrongdoing. You usually only see it happen in court and even then they may deny it even when judged to have done wrong.
hgsgm 3y ago
Lichess wants women and girls to feel safe. When women and girls feel safe, Lichess can once again endorse USCF. It's not lichess/Thibault's job to fix USCF.
ajkjk 3y ago
What are you talking about? There are like... a thousand things that could have done better here, and which were still being done long after the complaints. Ban the people. Completely totally remove the people who are assaulting underage girls from any event and any association. Don't "provide an escort", wtf. Ban them.
- DetroitThrow 3y ago
  Yes, it's shocking the lack of empathy towards the victims being shown by the organization and the lack of long term prevention for this kind of behavior. There's much talk in media and on social media about accusations of pedophilia, but when there are multiple real predators being outed there is a surprising amount of people who come out to support treating them with white gloves. The fact it's taking lichess to disassociate with these organizations to attract attention to their lack of urgency and care for victims is deplorable.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Yep. Why should underage girls — or of-age women, or men, or anyone — have to be escorted around to keep them safe? The victims here aren’t wanting to walk around Mogadishu at night. They’re at a chess tournament. Kick the harassers out.
  - wak90 3y ago
    Yeah I was typing up a response the inherent disconnect between taking the allegations seriously enough to provide an escort while still allowing the abuser free to assault other women is galling.
- bluGill 3y ago
  We know from painful experience that some accusations are baseless. there are people who will allege harm just to get rid of an opponent they do not want to play against. As such it is really hard to figure out what of the thousands of things they can do are really the right thing to do.
  - ajkjk 3y ago
    "Some accusations have at some point been baseless" is utterly irrelevant. Are these accusations baseless? Multiple ones, from multiple people, about the same person, over years? No, they're not. Done. End of story. That would be like arguing: some logical statements are false, therefore the truth of logical statements is unknowable. Lol, no, it just depends on the statement. (Nowhere in this article, by the way, did anyone allege harm to "get rid of an opponent they do not want to play against".)
sshine 3y ago
> What does Lichess want here? For women to be able to enjoy chess without fear of assault, and for chess clubs to raise the bar on protecting the physical integrity of their members. > they never really say what should have been done It’s for the individual club to decide, but I think the answer is uncontroversial and obvious: find out if their member assaulted another member and kick them out of the club permanently.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
You absolutely can ban someone because of an allegation. It's a chess club. The worst punishment they can levy is banishment. That doesn't need the kind of "beyond reasonable doubt" certainty that a court throwing you in prison needs.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Everything is fine till it happens to you. Im sure you've watched House M.D
  - moshun 3y ago
    If this kind of ban was happening all over the place for similar reasons I’d argue that you have a point. After digging a bit, however, I wasn’t able to find many males banned for harassment or assault on another member. So it seems you’re protesting on the basis of an unlikely hypothetical scenario.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      I don't know about Chess but I've seen cases elsewhere of both men and women. Nothing hypothetical here. Like I said it all makes sense till it happens to you
notreallyauser 3y ago
They seem to want confidence that US Chess and STLCC leadership are able to handle these complaints appropriately going forward: a change of leadership would be one way. Per the intro, they're looking for scrutiny and accountability of the handling: with that the current leadership might be able to regain confidence, I guess. Your characterisation ignores the other case, of course, but on the one you're referring to note that there were two complaints prior to the multiple ones and the ban was a secret, partial ban. It's very likely there would be no proof, but a competent investigation can talk to those involved and come to a conclusion. Patterns of behavior can be established over time. And there may have been say CCTV that an investigation could obtain that the woman herself couldn't immediately provide. Both of the offenders here have multiple allegations against them -- escorting one woman doesn't protect other women (and presumably ends at the edge of the venue), and escorting all women isn't a scalable solution. Timely, competent investigations of allegations and the removal of predators is the only way. But orgs are learning this stuff, and are staffed and run by humans. Where mistakes are made they should be owned up to.

altairprime 3y ago

They want each organization to publicly state (“acknowledge”) that they acted and communicated inappropriately in the past regarding these events. In their exact words from the post: > However, in our opinion, both US Chess and STLCC have failed to demonstrate an important aspect of accountability – a willingness to acknowledge and address past shortcomings. We do not think that reconciliation will be possible without this acknowledgement.

thereddaikon 3y ago
Not happening. The sad fact is, people and organizations rarely admit to wrongdoing. You usually only see it happen in court and even then they may deny it even when judged to have done wrong.

hgsgm 3y ago

Lichess wants women and girls to feel safe. When women and girls feel safe, Lichess can once again endorse USCF. It's not lichess/Thibault's job to fix USCF.

ajkjk 3y ago

What are you talking about? There are like... a thousand things that could have done better here, and which were still being done long after the complaints. Ban the people. Completely totally remove the people who are assaulting underage girls from any event and any association. Don't "provide an escort", wtf. Ban them.

DetroitThrow 3y ago
Yes, it's shocking the lack of empathy towards the victims being shown by the organization and the lack of long term prevention for this kind of behavior. There's much talk in media and on social media about accusations of pedophilia, but when there are multiple real predators being outed there is a surprising amount of people who come out to support treating them with white gloves. The fact it's taking lichess to disassociate with these organizations to attract attention to their lack of urgency and care for victims is deplorable.
kstrauser 3y ago
Yep. Why should underage girls — or of-age women, or men, or anyone — have to be escorted around to keep them safe? The victims here aren’t wanting to walk around Mogadishu at night. They’re at a chess tournament. Kick the harassers out.
- wak90 3y ago
  Yeah I was typing up a response the inherent disconnect between taking the allegations seriously enough to provide an escort while still allowing the abuser free to assault other women is galling.
bluGill 3y ago
We know from painful experience that some accusations are baseless. there are people who will allege harm just to get rid of an opponent they do not want to play against. As such it is really hard to figure out what of the thousands of things they can do are really the right thing to do.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  "Some accusations have at some point been baseless" is utterly irrelevant. Are these accusations baseless? Multiple ones, from multiple people, about the same person, over years? No, they're not. Done. End of story. That would be like arguing: some logical statements are false, therefore the truth of logical statements is unknowable. Lol, no, it just depends on the statement. (Nowhere in this article, by the way, did anyone allege harm to "get rid of an opponent they do not want to play against".)

sshine 3y ago

> What does Lichess want here? For women to be able to enjoy chess without fear of assault, and for chess clubs to raise the bar on protecting the physical integrity of their members. > they never really say what should have been done It’s for the individual club to decide, but I think the answer is uncontroversial and obvious: find out if their member assaulted another member and kick them out of the club permanently.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

You absolutely can ban someone because of an allegation. It's a chess club. The worst punishment they can levy is banishment. That doesn't need the kind of "beyond reasonable doubt" certainty that a court throwing you in prison needs.

inemesitaffia 3y ago
Everything is fine till it happens to you. Im sure you've watched House M.D
- moshun 3y ago
  If this kind of ban was happening all over the place for similar reasons I’d argue that you have a point. After digging a bit, however, I wasn’t able to find many males banned for harassment or assault on another member. So it seems you’re protesting on the basis of an unlikely hypothetical scenario.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    I don't know about Chess but I've seen cases elsewhere of both men and women. Nothing hypothetical here. Like I said it all makes sense till it happens to you

notreallyauser 3y ago

They seem to want confidence that US Chess and STLCC leadership are able to handle these complaints appropriately going forward: a change of leadership would be one way. Per the intro, they're looking for scrutiny and accountability of the handling: with that the current leadership might be able to regain confidence, I guess. Your characterisation ignores the other case, of course, but on the one you're referring to note that there were two complaints prior to the multiple ones and the ban was a secret, partial ban. It's very likely there would be no proof, but a competent investigation can talk to those involved and come to a conclusion. Patterns of behavior can be established over time. And there may have been say CCTV that an investigation could obtain that the woman herself couldn't immediately provide. Both of the offenders here have multiple allegations against them -- escorting one woman doesn't protect other women (and presumably ends at the edge of the venue), and escorting all women isn't a scalable solution. Timely, competent investigations of allegations and the removal of predators is the only way. But orgs are learning this stuff, and are staffed and run by humans. Where mistakes are made they should be owned up to.