Farewell

@JoannaTries said in #1:
> With the decision to unfairly close Pepellou's account being upheld by moderation - I'm bouncing. It's been a great few years, but this is outrageous and unacceptable.
>
> This is how a dedicated player/streamer/patron who has been promoting and streaming lichess for over a decade to 200,000 viewers is dealt with?
>
> Yes, lichess moderators are unpaid volunteers with "lives of their own" - that's fine, mistakes happen. But to not rectify this error after being asked to multiple times...? It's time for me move to a site that has their moderation under control.
>
> Best of luck and take care all.
>
> Especially my beloved Crazyhouse warriors. <3
>
> I'll miss most of you!! ;)
>
> *taking bets on how long it takes for mods to close this forum in my disc*
lichess is ridiculous, true.

@JoannaTries said in #10:
> @Hitsugaya - Nope. They won't provide any evidence or explanation of any kind for it either.

So he was banned and there is no explanation why?

@ShineOnMeCrazyD said in #5:
> This thing that since we are unpaid moderators it kinda means that we are not experts in our fields or that we are less good than paid colleagues working in other sites is wrong. Mistakes can be made by people with a stipend like by people without, that's not the reason why a mistake happens.
>
> We do moderation (or content or social managing or developing) in our free time but it does not mean we don't take it seriously and responsibly or that we don't use all the professional knowledge we have in our respective fields.
>
> We know Pepellou and you have been patrons all this time and we certainly thank you for this and for the countless hours you've dedicated to Lichess.

Bringing up the volunteer bit because it keeps being used as an excuse to me. I agree there should be no difference for a paid position or not.

But if this "professional knowledge" leads to people wrongfully losing their accounts - while; giving them no way to defend them self, providing them with no evidence to support the decision... doing all this without a legitimate reason and still refusing to correct it through the appeal process... then there is a huge problem with the site.

Pepe doesn't cheat. I'm sure many would agree, but I can personally attest to it. If he's not streaming his chess live, he's been playing it next to me, literally every single day for the last few years. He absolutely did not use an engine. Not only is he the last person ever I would suspect of cheating, he's way too smart to be flagged for engine use - come on.

I'm curious why lichess won't explain why they think this? Or provide the game or any evidence at all for this decision. I'd really love to see that.

@JoannaTries said in #13:
> I'm curious why lichess won't explain why they think this? Or provide the game or any evidence at all for this decision. I'd really love to see that.

+1 on this. Transparency will only make the site stronger. Plus i don't see Pepe as a cheater in any regard.

what happened tho???

@LoLLLLLLLLLLL said in #15:
> what happened tho???

They closed his account "for using an engine" but he did not.

They won't fix it. It's bizarre and very sad.

> I'm curious why lichess won't explain why they think this?

I have explained my personal opinion on this before elsewhere a while ago, but cannot find it right now. So I will try again, not with respect to this specific case, but generally. Before I start though, again: This is my personal opinion on why it does not make sense to present evidence – other moderators might have a different view.

There are very few users who have even the faintest idea how cheat detection on lichess works. There is a lot of evidence of this right here, on the forums. Because of this, training a new moderator for cheat detection takes quite some time – and these are usually people who already have higher than average understanding when we start training. It still takes weeks until we do not check every single one of their decisions, months until we stop doing random checks and start relying on the appeals process bringing up incorrect decisions.

Considering this long process and how very little understanding the average lichess user has about cheat detection – how would simply presenting the evidence help the accused? We would additionally have to train them in cheat detection for them to even be able to understand the evidence. This would not be practical.

The only time I ever remember any online chess platform putting forward evidence of cheating was chesscom in the Niemann case. And there they compiled several pages, which lacked a lot of actual explanations. You still had to trust them on the metrics and the fact that these metrics actually are reliable and useful. They pinky promised.

I can't believe this happened to Pepellou, Joanna. This is crazy and I hope it gets fixed! W T F

@JoannaTries said in #1:
> This is how a dedicated player/streamer/patron who has been promoting and streaming lichess for over a decade to 200,000 viewers is dealt with?

Should streamers get special treatment?

@anonmod said in #17:
> The only time I ever remember any online chess platform putting forward evidence of cheating was chesscom in the Niemann case.

Pepe's more important to the chess community than Nieman, by far...better style too (but only just ; )