Abuse

FICS's admins are vigilant against the various forms of abuse that can occur in internet chess. The most common form of abuse is swearing. FICS's rules of decorum forbid swearing in the general chat area, although swearing is tolerated in some unmoderated channels. Users caught swearing may be kicked off the server but are generally free to reconnect immediately. In the case of severe or repeated infractions, or violating other chat rules, the admins may revoke the user's right to use shouts or one or more channels.

Another common form of abuse is deliberately disconnecting from FICS while playing a difficult or lost position, with the idea of avoiding a loss or to gain time to analyze the position, possibly with the help of a computer. When one player disconnects, the game is generally saved for later resumption. Since disconnections may be accidental, users are normally given the benefit of the doubt, but users who demonstrate a habit of disconnecting in poor positions or refusing to resume their adjourned games are placed on a list of disconnect abusers. Known abusers automatically forfeit their game if they disconnect while playing. Frequent victims of opponents' disconnections will accumulate many adjourned games, and if they reach 16, they will not be able to start a new game. To resolve games which are not resumed, users may submit the games for adjudication. Users may also prevent the buildup of adjourned games by using the noescape feature; when in effect, a disconnection by either player forfeits the game.

A third form of abuse is using a chess engine to generate moves while playing. Chess engines are allowed to play on FICS only when they are registered as such, use of a chess engine by a user not so registered constitutes cheating. FICS does not use any form of spyware to detect cheating, instead, the admins examine randomly selected games and games submitted by suspicious opponents to detect behavior, including but not limited to moves, consistent with cheating. Users caught cheating are barred from playing rated games, and may have their ratings erased. The opposite of computer cheating is sandbagging, in which users deliberately play weaker than their normal strength, or throw games. Users caught sandbagging are also barred from rated play, since this is also abuse of the rating system.

Admins catch some abusers by direct observation, but they rely on regular users to assist them in identifying abusers. For this purpose, there are three special admin accounts to which users may send messages to report abusers. Users report suspected computer cheating to Computerabuse and disconnections to Adjudicate, since a disconnection usually entails a stored game which must be resolved. Other forms of abuse are reported to Abuse. Admins investigate each report of abuse and decide what sanctions, if any, will be applied to the offending user. Sanctions may range from a warning to banishment from the server.

In part because of the relative anonymity of the internet, users are often offensive to each other even if the offense does not rise to the limits of FICS's rules of decorum. To preserve user's enjoyment of the service, and to avoid heated arguments in the chat channels, admins encourage users to place offensive users on their personal noplay or censor lists. If user A noplays user B, user B will not be able to challenge or otherwise start a chess game with user A. If user A censors user B, user B will neither be able to play nor talk to user A. All forms of communication from user B to user A are blocked.