Lichess Code of Conduct

Last updated: 2024-09-25

If you have experienced or witnessed a violation of this code, please report it to hr@lichess.org. All reports will be handled with strict confidentiality.

Our Pledge

We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, chess opening preferences, personal appearance, race, caste, skin colour, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

Our Standards

Examples of behaviour that contributes to a positive environment for our community include:

• Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
• Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
• Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
• Accepting responsibility and apologising to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience
• Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community
• Always assuming good intentions from interlocutors

Examples of unacceptable behavior include:

• The use of sexualised language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind
• Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
• Public or private harassment
• Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission
• Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

Enforcement Responsibilities

Community leaders are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

Community leaders have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject messages, comments and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation decisions when appropriate.

Enforcement

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at hr@lichess.org.

All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.

All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident.

Enforcement Guidelines

Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct:

1. Correction

Community Impact: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.

Consequence: A private, written warning from community leaders, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested.

2. Warning

Community Impact: A violation through a single incident or series of actions.

Consequence: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.

3. Ban

Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior.

Consequence: A permanent ban from one or several community spaces.

Attribution

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct.html.

Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by Mozilla's code of conduct enforcement ladder.

For answers to common questions about this code of conduct, see the FAQ at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq. Translations are available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/translations.