Sigh... one fire at a time until it's done.
I'm committed to ensuring that this occasion is properly framed. I'm sorry you're interpreting it so extremely. Let me remind you we're talking about an internet forum and an account designed solely for the purpose of crafting drama. Understand that the only appreciation that is appropriate is more of an abstracted, sublime, somewhat whimsical recognition of the social experiment aspect to it all, in my opinion.
Nothing untoward happened whatsoever. Any genuine sense of wrongdoing being projected Erik's way is juvenile. If you cannot see that cheater_1's departure was both willful and inevitable (as if he took the opportunity to take his leave when given even the slightest cause), then you misunderstand the nature of the character in the first place.
Framing this appropriately is paramount - to both, on the one hand, pay whatever sentiment one feels to a performance that did entertain some while it lasted, and on the other to see it for what it was and return to rationality -
I need to stress that it is nonsense to hold anything against Erik in all of this. Cheater_1 used him as a target mainly for his visibility and convenience, from where I stand, and intended no true animosity.
I implore us to get over this as adults - we needn't talk the issue to death.
Perhaps it will be time to mention it with the sanity of retrospect sometime in 2009. For not, we ought to give it a rest, or be made sick of seeing the thread's incessant recurrence on the hot topics.
In other news, I'm going to an awesome long-john new years party involving a hot tub and attractive humans, and in comparison, trying to put out cheater_1's after-fire seems trivial.
Oh, though I ought to mention - these limited edition cheater_1 chess sets are going like hotcakes - order yours today!
I have only heard cheater_1's side of the whole story, and I am sure that he played it up as much as humanly possible. But my question is, is erik setting a double standard with the cheater-1 situation? What rules of chess.com did cheater_1 actually break? If anyone has any answers or opinions, please post them below.