Paul Jordan wrote:
In my experience, FICS provides an unpleasant, abusive environment for
those seeking an online chess experience, and its administrators
seriously aggravate the problem. A copy of correspondence follows:

I've played over 100 games on FICS and encountered only one abusive
player and one cheater. In both cases, the admins took action within a
week.

I then sent my own brief queries to channels 4 and 53, Guest_Help and
Guest_Chat, noting that I was playing an abusive opponent and asking

Use channel 1 for help.

The few replies I received were not only nonresponsive, but also
provocative. For example, I was told that if I "read all of the help
files" that "most" of the answers to these questions would be found. I
replied that, while true, reading all of the help files was an

On Channel 1 they would almost certainly have told you to type "help
abuse", which explains what's abuse and how to report abusive users.

I also pointed out that FICS did not want to gain a reputation as a service
that refused to police its community of registered users, simply because
the victim of abuse was a guest rather than registered, as this would
discourage new users surveying the system as guests.

That is like walking around McDonalds and telling random customers that
your coffee is too hot. Use channel 1 to speak to administrators or
service representatives.

You being the victim of abuse does not mean you have to be abusive
in public channels. Have a look at "help abuse".

abuse(*)

(3) I cannot read the "help abuse" file

It's hard to judge. As you've never read "help abuse", you may even be
violating the rules without realizing it. They're posted here on the
web:

http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/abuse.html

I was, of course, prepared to give them considerably more time than one
day to respond. However, after receiving the following perverse reply

because as I have already pointed out, your abusive administrators have

the sole one received to date) does NOT impress me.

the service is merely pretentious in advancing claims of being an improvement

The admins are unpaid volunteers.

If you want to have a good time on FICS, how about something simple.
Read the abuse pages, then send a diplomatic note to the admins:

"Now I've read over your abuse pages and I realize **making public
accusations against another player** violates the rules. If you restore
my access, I'll be careful about that in the future. However, users
xxxx was using profanity which upset me and is definitely considered
abuse per your own pages. Imagine if a child was watching. Could you
please do something about this? User yyyy also found user xxxx to be
abusive."

Be sure to add him to your noplay and ignore lists. Use !abuse in your
formula, going forward. Good luck, and sorry you had a rough
experience.