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	Part 1: General Introduction
	Part 2: What should I do if I believe memberX abused me, cheated in games vs me?
	Part 3: How serious is the (C)heating problem on ICSes?
	Part 4: Naivete and silence are the worst threats to all ICSes.
	Part 5: (C)heaters don't care about you !
	Part 6: Truth, fairness and server justice on Internet Chess Servers.
	Part 7: Six Internet Chess Servers officially respond to 8 questions on their internal policies.
	Part 8: The pilot's perspective: a trip inside the cheater's mind.
Part 9: Cheaters counter-attack ! Their beliefs, their claims and their rights.	Part 10: Who? Cheaters or honest playing members?
Part 11: Personal testimonials	Part 12: (C)-Elliot-Ness versus Sexeebabi
Part 13: Turnovers and fumbles in the game of cheating	Part 14: Back to the future

CHEATING on Internet Chess Servers:
A MATTER YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF .

Part 7: Chess.Net, FICS, ICC, USCL, VOG and WCN officially respond to 8 questions on their sanction and internal policies.

First edited on May 14th 1999

Update February 18th 2001

On January 11th, I emailed Chess Informant Play Site and InterChess.com the very same email I used for Chess.Net, FICS, ICC and VOG 2 years ago. I gave Chess Informant Play Site and InterChess.com until January 25th to answer these 8 questions. USCL and WCN had the same email, the same delay and deadline.

I didn't get a reply from Chess Informant Play Site nor from InterChess.com.

So on january 26th, I emailed Chess Informant and InterChess.com asking if they got my email, if they "will at least notify me of something (confirmation of receipt, if you'll answer these questions or not, whatever...)(...)".

---

Then on january 27th, Eugene Guenkine, InterChess.com's Top Administrator, Averbakh Chess Club replied this:

"there are too many questions in your letter, so it will take time to answer all of them."

Sat Jan 27 09:54:59 2001
Message-ID: <10880.010127@mail.ru>

I followed with another email, extending the delay and never got a reply.

Let it be known that InterChess.com charges $24US/year and has been into cash prize tournaments for several months (http://www.interchess.com/NewsDescription.asp?NewsID=20):

"Enjoy playing in online tournaments here and winning cash prizes!"
Start obtaining money with your own brain !

---

On February 2nd, I emailed again Chess Informant Play Site: "Today, 22 days after the initial email, still no email nor answers. The 8 questions are rather straightforward ones and, IMHO, easy questions to answer: 2 of them can be answered by a blunt 'yes' or 'no'. Frankly, either Chess Informant Play Site has a policy on cheating or it doesn't. Either Chess Informant Play Site can answer simple questions about cheating issues or it can't."

Then on February 6th, I finally got this very first email from Chess Informant:

"We have not thought about the problems you have raised in your letter up to now, since we do not have much time for that. However, we will find some time to consider yous issues."

from sales@sahovski.co.yu
Tue Feb 06 04:41:59 2001
Message-ID: <004801c09037$18a45dc0$4400000a@eunet>.

I followed with a 4th email extending the deadline for a reply until February 12th and again, no email, no answer.

Let it be known that Chess Informant has polled chess players on a web site regarding prize tournaments for several months.
Chess Informant has committed itself to prize tournaments:
"We will soon start organizing the tournaments with attractive prizes as well." found at http://www.sahovski.co.yu/fplay.htm

Each ICS claims that their ICS, whether commercial or non-profit, claims that they are a private organization. Each ICS is not legally (or otherwise) obliged in any way to report to its members about what they do, why, how and when they do or don't do things. They don't have to report to their members: they don't have to be transparent regarding their own policies, internal ones, secret ones, protocols, methods, procedures, etc...

Shouting "Danger, danger" is one thing: forwarding relevant questions, opening a fruitful public debate on critical but circumspectly limited questions and issues, interrogating approaches and perspectives with broadmindedness can be a sane, welcomed (if not, mandatory) process. That's what my homepage is about. The issues and topics involved in my homepage are definitively complex, delicate and sensitive: nothing (or almost) is obvious per se in the whole (C)heating on ICSes issue. In this whole issue, truth is often in a battle against lies coming from all directions. Deliberate silence on several aspects of this whole issue from important actors becomes part of the problem and doesn't help; it just makes things even worse. Silence over things that are really wrong means acceptance: on the other hand, it is so easy and so unethical to gamble with someone else's money, someone else's property. These contradictions gave birth to this homepage.

I believe in straightforward talks which address people's intelligence and will to cooperate constructively. I believe in approaches that are founded on multi-dimensional analysis which are factually documented/evidenced with compiled events over a period of time. I believe moderation, tolerance, patience, proactive prevention, dissuasion (and the most possible caring, understanding attitude in the world in one-on-one talks) have limits too: they must be reasonable! When tolerance, legitimate cautious benefit of doubt, patience, prevention, proactive dissuasion measures, 2^nd chance-probations, polite auto-redundant login warning notifications, diplomatic warnings, edited public helpfiles, nicely worded convincing tells, etc, etc, etc,... have all failed miserably, then control mechanisms (sanctions, social humiliation, compensation-to-do-for-damage-done, etc...) have to follow. That's not fascism: that's plain common sense. Thus this part # 7 is about ICSes authorities and their sanction policies.

I believe the following 8 thesis are unavoidable in any rational discussions over the cheating situation.

1. (C)heating is present, "alive" and resistant on all ICSes at all rating levels. It is bound to become even more prevalent than it is right now.
   
   
2. Cheating is really unfair, unethical, intolerable and extremely damaging. The overall sociological sabotage it creates on ICSes is extraordinarily deep, has insidious influence, manifests itself in various forms.
   
   
3. The (C)heating situation won't be solved by 1 ICS alone. (C)heating is an ICS/Internet chess community problem.
   
   
4. OTB chess will one day be integrated to Internet chess: that's not an hypothesis but an unavoidable forced merge integration that will happen. Marshall McLuhan's theories and writings on technology evolution have verified this trend countless of times.
   
   
5. Cheating is an assault, a charge on the game itself, on the spirit of the game per se, it's not even a personal attack onto the abused, fooled, honest playing victims, aware or not, suspecting or not. Chess, the game itself, cannot be corrupted by name-calling, by channel tells, shouts, by disconnecting in lost positions, etc... but it can be corrupted by (C)heating. (C)heating in chess is like using scissors to do a jigsaw puzzle. (C)heating is a methodical, cold-blooded, intentional, deliberate, premeditated corruption of the game conditions themselves: saying anything else is a lie.
   
   
6. A diving board lying over a deep and empty pool. Even chess software businesses, in the mid term (say a few years from now), will run into a major contradiction if they believe the better their chess product is for the customer, the more money/profit they'll make. In the long run, if really nothing is done or happens, if things keep going on as they are, we'll just slowly and gradually witness a progressive decline of chess popularity (I'm including the OTB chess world here) as a legitimate leisure and sport trying to gain Olympic (IOC) status recognition. Its reputation of sportsmanship and ethics will simply go down into the depths of disrespect, lies and hypocrisy. What we witness here today more or less happened to postal chess when it tackled the (C)heating problem. What we witness here today in the ICS community might transpose to the OTB world within a few years from now. That's not as far fetched as some might think: at least there is room for concern when we consider several world known "incidents" that happened in big prize tournaments in the last 10 years. The less thinking/foreseeing about damaging ICS implications there is when making chess playing softwares, dedicated chess computers, chess database software (with ICS connectivity feature), the less water there is in the pool.
   
   
7. We (even all the ICSes members who don't care about it, don't suspect foul play, don't bother about cheating/cheaters, etc...) are more or less all victims of cheating and at the same time we're more or less all tacit unwilling/helpless accomplices of it too. On-line chess teachers, chess playing software programmers, chess database software (with ICS connectivity feature) programmers, ICSes admins, ICSes owners, ordinary members, titled members, ICSes interface programmers, etc... all have a share of responsibility into this ICS community problem, whether they like it or not. The level of responsibility differs though from one person to another; some people can have a huge leadership, a huge influence, impact in this underneath "cat-vs-mouse game". Their decisions (and absence of decisions) have often heavy implications. ICSes authorities might not have to report to their members but I'm sure they have an irreducible moral obligation to chess, to its respectability, to its survival in the future. If they have no moral obligation of transparency or imputability to their members, then they must owe something to chess.
   
   
8. The goal (the end) is always contained in the chosen means that lead to it. The means chosen are always the path leading to a goal; the means chosen are the walk-over steps leading to a destination. The analysis of a situation (and the actions that proceed from it) is always limited to the perceived extent of the situation. The deeper and broader the analysis of a situation is, the better the actions regarding it have chances to adjust the reality of such situation. Reality (and decision making) never forgives analysis mistakes. Ignorance, naivete, blind faith, superficial analysis, unidimensional determinism, pragmatic efficiency, repressing fears and feelings of helplessness into the silence of taboos will all lead to an assured ICS/Internet chess decrepitude.

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