What should I do if another member is rude or abusive?

Chess.com is a global community of chess players. And while 99% of our members are wonderful, you may occasionally encounter somebody who is rude or offensive. Unfortunately, we cannot police every word said between every member on the site - nor can we save every word of every chat in our database. Therefore, we have created some tools for you to manage your relationships with other users so that you do not have to tolerate abuse.

If someone makes a comment to you that you don't like, here are some things you can do:

Daily Chess

Right above the chat window is a small icon that says "Disable Chat" when you hover over it. Clicking this icon will ensure that there is no more chat allowed in the game, and will remove the previous chat from the screen. There is no way to undo this. The icon looks like this:

Live Chess

For Live Chess, there is also a small "x" in the chat window. Clicking this will disable chat for that game. Once again, there is no way to reverse this action. 

Blocking Members

Finally, we also give you the option to block individual members entirely. Blocking someone means that you will not be paired with them in open challenges. They will not be able to send you messages, leave notes on your profile, or chat with you in Live Chess. Basically, they will have no way of contacting you on the site.

Blocking people is easy - just click their name, and select 'block' from the menu: 

You may have to first click 'more' in order to see the 'block' option.

We hope these tools will help you simply ignore the occasional bad apple.  However, if you would like to report a repeat offender or somebody that we should watch carefully, then please submit an Abuse Report.

If the information in this article is out of date, incorrect, or unclear, please let us know!

keywords: abuse, abusive, rude, rudeness, polite, impolite, offensive, offend, swearing, swears, profanity, cursing