CCO finds the forums listed below exceptionally pro-free-speech and we welcome and encourage their practice of allowing and supporting Free Speech.

http://s6.invisionfree.com/Free_FICS_Forum/ - The Free FICS Forum

This place was initially founded in March 2004 to fight censorship on ficsforum.net and to provide a medium for FICS users to speak freely about whatever interests them as opposed to the anti-free-speech ficsforum.net (hence the name Free FICS Forum). It has pretty much succeeded in its goals, even though they admit they haven't yet attracted as many FICS members as they want to. Everyone can speak freely on the Free FICS Forum, be it a registered or unregistered user. The forum rules say that everyone can post whatever they please, except Nazi, fascist, racist or ultra-nationalistic content, threats of violence or another individual's private data. This doesn't mean that the forum is a mess though, as the rules say that flaming, trolling, personal attacks and trash talk are moved to the "Trash Talk" subforum, and off-topic posts are moved to the "Off Topic" subforum - and it's not just empty words - these people are very diligent in enforcing their forum rules. This way, both Freedom of Speech and serious on-topic discussions are protected - Freedom of Speech by moving (not deleting!) inappropriate posts to a special place, and serious on-topic discussions by moderating serious subforums accordingly. CCO finds such a forum structure commendable, and encourages everyone to use this model for their own forum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/ - Wikipedia discussion groups

The largest encyclopedia on the Internet, though not a chess-related site, is a very pro-free-speech place. When we say Wikipedia discussion groups, we refer to the discussion pages of articles, as well as any other non-article content - we feel that Freedom of Speech is highly respected there. It was to be expected though, as the whole Wikipedia is a liberal and pro-free-speech site and promotes additional freedoms, such as freedom to share knowledge and thoughts without artificial barriers. The only regulation mechanism they use is the so called NPOV (neutral point of view) requirement, and surprisingly it works better than any artificially imposed mechanism, such as eligibility requirements, sanctioning or censorship. There are not enough words to praise Wikipedia, so we simply invite you to give it a visit had you never done so (you will find it the best encyclopedic reference on the Internet and an inexhaustible source of knowledge), and to contribute there. We feel sometimes, however, that Wikipedia exaggerates in supporting certain freedoms, such as freedom to edit - for example, one is even allowed to edit another user's profile, making it look like the latter said what he actually did not, and although this only happens on extremely rare occasions, we still feel it should not be allowed to happen at all.

If you know of an online forum, message board or other sort of discussion group, preferably chess-related, that you think should be on one of our lists, please write us and provide your justification and evidence for your claims, and we may examine the pertinent forum closely for possible addition to our lists.

Back to our Free Speech page

Back to our Home Page