Lichess is a place for chess friends all over the world. If you ever saw people timed out in chats for “public shaming”, “spamming in the chat”, “disrespecting other players”, or “inappropriate behavior”, you might wonder yourself, what they or you have done that Lichess took action to timeout people from chat. Treat the chat always like you would treat a good friend, with politeness, respect and kindness. Please also avoid sensitive topics such as religion and politics.

Most tournaments and every simul and game have a public chat room on the left side. We only timeout people for public chats like tournaments or simul chats.

Public shaming

Do not publicly shame other users on Lichess. We will not discuss actions taken because of reports. All reports are processed as soon as possible. If it has been over 48 hours and nothing has happened, it is likely that your report was incorrect and no issues were found.

✅ Fill out https://lichess.org/report if you think someone might have cheated or anything else reportable

❌ “is ... a cheater?”, “...is an idiot”, “...is a noob, "...is a loser”

Spamming in the chat

✅ “Hello”, “Good evening”, “How are you...?”, “how does ... work?”

❌ “Heeeeeelllllllooooooo”, “asdasdlaisdjalsdjasdljö”, “hahahahahahahahahahhaha”, “???????????????????”
❌ Links to tournaments or teams unrelated to the event
❌ Links to your stream or someone else’s stream
❌ “Join my team...” (you can advertise your team or other links in your own profile https://lichess.org/account/profile or in your own team)
❌ A lot of emojis like “😀😃😄😁😆😅”
❌ Begging for followers, subscribers etc

Disrespecting other players

✅ “Good game...” , “Well played...”, “Congrats...”

❌ Do not use swear words directed at players like “f*** you”, or general insults like “you are an idiot”, “looooser” or “run noob”

Inappropriate behavior

✅ Always be kind, polite and friendly to other users, just like you would be to your friends, or to someone you just met

❌ Do not threaten anybody with with phrases such as “kill yourself”
❌ Do not send racist messages to anybody
❌ Do not post sensitive material to shock people

Messages like those will result in a timeout, and potentially a chat ban if this happens multiple times.

If you are unsure whether you are allowed to post something, better ask a moderator on Lichess or in the official Discord #support channel: https://discord.gg/hy5jqSs

Also, if you see an inappropriate chat as posted above, please click on the ⚠️ next to the chat or go to https://lichess.org/report . You may also consider to block someone who annoys you in your inbox by clicking on the 🚫 or report a user in your inbox via the ⚠️ b