It is the goal of the administrators on GICS to maintain an environment in which people can have fun playing chess and conversing with friends. This is a very unique and exciting opportunity to play chess and talk to people from all over the world!
Many features have been provided to have fun communicating with fellow chess players: shout, sshout, tell, kibitz, whisper, channels, and messages.
We will NOT tolerate any obscenities, verbal harrassment, or remarks that would prove offensive based on race, religion, or sexual orientation of members. If you cannot agree to this, then please go elsewhere for your chess playing!
Judgements as to whether behavior is "offensive" are made by the admins, and are final. Offenders may or may not be given warnings before they are banned from GICS.
The SHOUT command is especially important, because it sends what you say to all people who have their shout turned on. It is very useful and fun, for doing things like greeting friends, giving information on chess events, asking for a certain type of match, or asking for help when you are not sure who to ask. CSHOUT is provided for serious chess-related shouts. Do "help cshout" for more information.
Sometimes there is inappropriate use of shouting, which causes many people to turn their shout off. This is unfortunate because those people then cannot participate in the club-like atmosphere. Please do your part to avoid unecessary or inappropriate use of the shout feature:
- Please don't shout things that are better communicated using other means. For example, something directed at only one person does not need to be shouted, you can use "tell". Long political discussions should be held in the Politics Channel (97). There are also channels for many other topics unrelated to chess, and for conversing in several languages other than English. Please check "help channel" for a list, and join the ones that interest you.
- Shouting a few silly remarks or jokes is fine, but constant shouting of silly things just bothers people who are trying to play chess or talk to friends.
We are happy that most people on GICS are very friendly and never have any problem contributing to the fun and exciting atmosphere on GICS!
See also: atmosphere