Lichess account closed

Both my lichess accounts got closed.

So Basically I created an account 6 years ago to play casually, And then I Created another account so its anonymous and i can play blitz games. Also, My old account has a little bit of rapid games and studies so thats why i created another account, (my old ones was for opening). In 4 hours, Lichess Deleted Both accounts. I have already appealed and am waiting for a response. What further action can I take?

Thanks

Joel

You should not worry

You should just wait

but navyan, I cant play on lichess anymore

And @Joelethan is 6 years old and has 2,000 games and 200 studies

Confused why you would complain about this on chess.com?

Unlike chess.com, lichess has no element of democracy. In practice, all known political systems void of democracy allow for those in power to prey on the innocent. This means that lichess can get away with breaking at least certain parts of their own TOS without tangible legal consequences, especially if they are preying on somebody outside of France. The lichess TOS explicitly allows for you to have three accounts, although only if with different purposes for each account. I am not sure whether or not self-closed accounts count towards the number 3 figure.

Judging by your description, you are perfectly innocent and lichess is preying on you. It is likely that they are doing it for SOME OTHER REASON, although not guaranteed. Maybe they think you are part of the alt-right? They love to witchhunt alt-righters regardless of their level of innocence. They can get away with doing so, because they figured out that it is their word against yours and the masses will never question their word.

I am not sure what course of action to suggest, because I see myself as unwise. For now, I would do nothing but wait 48 hours for lichess to reply to your appeal. They could act reasonable with you, or not.

It is certain that the deprivation of the right to pay for their site's services is not just undemocratic, but also antiamerican. Shame on them.

Oh- and their TOS says that a second account is NOT allowed "barring specific circumstances". Which means that you should first contact them and get an OK to open a second account.

But chesscom could never get away with banning whoever they want and lying about their ban reason. Lichess can. Democracy can coexist with both capitalism and anti-capitalism, so you are not really saying anything.

Your interpretation of the lichess TOS is well...both right and wrong because on one hand it is not lichess' own interpretation of the TOS (it is not a part of lichess culture to ask for an account before creating one, let alone) and on the other hand they can tangibly bend or even break their own TOS without legal consequences or public unrest.

"Creating an excessive number of accounts (typically any more than three) will generally not be allowed, regardless of reasons. Creating and closing multiple accounts will also be treated as contributing to this maximum number. As with all other rules, the specific circumstances where multiple accounts are allowed remain at Lichess' discretion."

This is written in the lichess TOS. But nowhere is it written that you need to ask for permission to make your second or third account. Then again, lichess could decide on a whim that some specific individual is required to do this (ask for permission) before making their second or third account.

This is too good not to throw in my 2 cents, then more 2 cents.

Since I am not debating anyone specifically here, and it doesn't have to do with chess.com, I will just quote the parts people have stated. I am not arguing anyone's position here, please note that.

"I am not sure what course of action to suggest, because I see myself as unwise. For now, I would do nothing but wait 48 hours for lichess to reply to your appeal. They could act reasonable with you, or not."

What you get is general references of things you could have done. You could have cheated. You could have sandbagged. You could have aborted. Since you have to wait 2 days to comment in their forums, if your account is quickly closed you can rule this one out (community posting) as the specific reason. The point to this quoted comment is that they don't actually tell you what you did wrong. It is not a warning or informative to the point where the user of the site could simply stop. The user will not know in 24 hours (I don't think it is 48) what they did to warrant closure. Also, if you ask for clarification, they won't reply. This leads to only two choices, read on to see.

"Creating and closing multiple accounts will also be treated as contributing to this maximum number."

This is the only way to get a discussion as to what may have happened. In my case, I was NOT accused of cheating. I was NOT accused of sandbagging. I was NOT accused of any community posting. I was just told users are not allowed to abort. This leads me to believe they thought my account or a previous account I opened aborted games. I don't abort games though, and there is no way to see this because once your account is closed on their site, the game history is not available. Even on chess.com, I don't think aborted games are recorded. The moderators (not singling out chess.com mods) can make up whatever they want. If they don't have evidence of cheating and sandbagging, they can fulfill their policing quota by making up aborting accusations. Again, I am not singling out chess.com mods, and so far since 2017, I haven't had any "aborting" accusations by chess.com mods. Here, I am ONLY referring to the other site.

As an end result, the user has created and closed an account with no real reason other than to find out why their first account was closed. Should those be counted toward the maximum number? My understanding was that you can't make two simultaneous accounts, where you would play yourself and one would lose while raising the rating on the other. This to me seems like the most reasonable moderator rationale for closing accounts, and might be why the OP got their two accounts closed. I always make sure I close one account before I create a new one. This doesn't seem to bother them. They just don't want freedom of speech of people discussing it.

I have had similar things happen on other sites, most recent was with the presidential elections in the USA. A moderator didn't like my position on both the two major parties. I will call out one program, Paltalk, which did allow people to debate from all sides. This was decades ago, but IRC (internet relay chat) moderators also behaved with kicking out and banning people without giving reason. It seems to me that, if you aren't talking on a mic like Paltalk, or you aren't showing yourself on cam like Paltalk and Zoom/Facebook/Youtube, then you are more likely to abuse your authority over people because they can't say that you did it. There is no accountability where moderators can close accounts and they don't have to answer to anyone. There is a term, keyboard warriors, and this is a similar thing going on. The moderators can end up being "banning warriors" making it seem like they are some hero saving the day. It's a major ego control boost.

First of all,why did they even delete your accounts?

I don't know if you were asking me or the OP, but the answer would be the same. They don't tell you why. I know my previous post was long, but the main point is that they only list possible things you could have done. This opens the door to moderators making up anything and not being held accountable. Read my previous post for more detail. One possibility is that the OP had 2 simultaneous accounts open. I always close an account (or make sure it is closed) before creating a new one. This way I only have one account active. The moderators in this case don't have to be present. The server can auto-detect and close. But it is the moderators that could re-open one and explain that. They don't.

It would be so much easier for them to work with its users than against them.

I have no clue, I tried logging in and it said "Your Account has been closed"

I cant on lichess, I have no account

ok thank you

so lichess mods just close accounts because they want to?, The accounts i made on lichess were for specific reasons. I dont see any reason why they would close it.

Its already been 16 hours since they closed both accounts. When do they usually respond?

They take 24-48 hours to respond. I told you that I would wait 48 hours.

I never knew that chesscom mods have unjustifiably banned people before by lying about them aborting too many games!

Speed0flight0, forget about it. Why do you need that website anyway? Their moderation is toxic. Do not expect any response or unban.

Read

https://www.reddit.com/r/lichess/comments/iuzdev/lichess_mods_unethically_ban_and_close_accounts/

Have some self-respect, just avoid that hole.

If they dont respond ill just leave it