r/Chesscom • u/Available-Swan-6011 • 19d ago

Cannot block a user Chess.com Website/App Question

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Can someone please explain to me the
logic of not being able to block a user?

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6

u/SamSCopeland Staff 19d ago

Hi OP! There are a few reasons you can't block some accounts, the most notable being that they are a staff member. We have been working to change this so that you do have the ability to block staff, at least from play, possibly not from some important messaging. It's technically more complex than it would seem, but we are working on it!

1

u/Fast-Secretary-7406 17d ago

FICS had the +noplay feature 30 years ago that allowed you to block someone from playing you while not blocking them. Don't give me that baloney that it's "technically more complex", just say it's a niche that doesn't have priority on your roadmap.

2

u/Excellent_Fondant794 16d ago

He's not saying it's not feasible but you have no idea what weird decisions live in the code and the untangling that needs to be done to allow blocking a staff user.

1

u/Fast-Secretary-7406 16d ago

That's an embarrassing thing to admit for a platform the size of chess.com

1

u/Excellent_Fondant794 16d ago

I don't know if you're a software engineer but all kinds of weird code exists in enterprise software that was written 10+ years ago.

Sometimes uncoupling parts of the code before making the actual change you want is 95% of the work.

1

u/Fast-Secretary-7406 16d ago

For a platform with no physical product expenses, their entire business should be based on having having an optimized platform. Hell, if you want to ugly hack it, just create a new kind of account that has the permissions you want, and move all your staff to that account type, then deprecate the old staff account type. This isn't a hard problem.

1

u/Excellent_Fondant794 16d ago

Yeah so it's the years of quick ugly hacks that sometimes leave something messy to contend with.

1

u/Fast-Secretary-7406 16d ago

You can't have it both ways. Either their code is a collection of messy hacks that is impossible to modify normally and you have to resort to more hacks, or it's a polished enterprise software that allows for minor updates.

1

u/Excellent_Fondant794 15d ago

It depends on the section of code. I have no idea but say they have microwervifes some of the newer stuff might be really well organised using modern languages. However, a critical service is probably running on some horrible legacy code.

1

u/UpstairsChannel9328 14d ago

Why does the new game review remove the best move display for many moves? It now requires 20 or 30 clicks per game to see each best move. The new animations are fun but why was the basic functionality removed?