Hi..
Just a few minutes ago I am banned by a probably racist admin of KGS.
I will not say much here, just check my logs, I said nothing, just having some little fun like ALL WESTERN USERS DO, but our admin probably checked where I came from (TURKEY) and banned me. Oh, the ban notice was this: ignoring admin warning..he wrote me 5 seconds ago about something like that "take my warning serious" and banned me after 5 seconds.
I insist to check WMS or other KGS owners the logs, I am sure he or she banned me because of my origins. He or she is probably one of the americans dude who can not distinguish between Chechens and Czech people...
seriously..get a grip.

one admin was GFPSPENDER or smth like that.

KGS was a much better place before..those admins were probably 13-14 years old that time.

I want this admin here to talk with me face to face..And he should convince me that he would ban another user because of the same reason, even this is a user from a western country.
I am soooo bloody hundert percent sure that he did find the strength to ban just because of my origin.
Seriously, dont imagine all people from "east" as terrorists...

Hi manastin,

I have absolutely no idea what happened in your case and I haven't reviewed your logs, but I am virtually certain you were not banned because you use a Turkish client.

That's not to say your banning was justified, I just think you are extrapolating to an extreme conclusion.

Of course..you are always right..You are rational westerners and we are stupit irrational eastern people..
Anyway.. I am absolutely sure that the admin had in mind something like this: " OMG another primitive eastern or muslim, we have to punish them"..
Anyway, have fun in your little box. But you have think yourselves that where is this all going on.

I hate to burst your bubble, but America is not exactly seething with resentment against the Turkish menace. Mexicans maybe, possibly the French, but Turkey makes us think of happy things, like belly dancing and Jupiter missiles. Sorry! I know it hurts to be overlooked by xenophobes.

Sorry, but we Americans are too ignorant of geography to discriminate with such precision. We have to see millions of you, up close, in our country, before we are even aware that you exist. Even then our first reaction is to consider you to be exotic.
Turks are not even on the radar of American bigotry.

EDIT: There are exceptions. Nobody here ever considered Canadians to be exotic.

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I have no idea what happened in your case but usually when a KGS admin has issued a warning to people in the room to stop certain behavior such as behavior interpreted by participants as "having some little fun like ALL WESTERN USERS DO", then it means people should stop "having some little fun". If it continues, often times the admin will instantly ban anyone who ignores the previous warning EVEN if that participant had just logged on and didn't know about the previous warning. It had happened to me before when I popped into the English chat room and mistakenly chatted jokingly after a warning had been issued prior to my entrance. But that was a while ago.

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

It's possible that there was something racist that happened - I've experienced unfair banning in the past. Still, it's difficult to make much of the complaint here, because only the KGS admins are able to tell what really happened, and nobody can really verify what really happened even if one of them spoke up.

So... I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

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be immersed

It amuses me that you two *appear* to think Westerners = Americans.

I am sorry you had such an experience, but this is not the place to discuss such matters. If you feel you have been booted unfairly from KGS, please write to the admin box ( admin@gokgs.com ) with full details such as your username so we can check further. We take allegations of racism very seriously.

Merhaba! I know how to write this, because I have a list on my profile of how to say "hi" and "thanks" in the languages of the people I most often play. There are plenty of Turkish players on KGS, and they don't all get banned for being Turkish. Maybe it was an honest misunderstanding about something you said.

Calling someone racist is a serious accusation, that can damage their reputation. You do so without telling anything whatsoever about what was said. All that you say is that he "probably" checked where you come from. You are jumping to conclusions, and asking others to jump with you. This is irresponsible. It would be better to try to clear up the misunderstanding.

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Patience, grasshopper.

That's not fair! We know the difference. Non-American Westerners are the ones who know the difference between Chechens and Czechs.

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So, so many responses that violate multiple rules on here...

This is what I was responding to. I was considering naming a few names with respect to which countries do hate Turks, but I decided that was uncalled for.

Btw, I am so using "I was just having some little fun!"

I was only poking some fun, the *'s around appear were meant to indicate that. I agree, listing said countries isn't great but I doubt it'd come as any surprise to a Turk and their reaction hopefully would be the same as most Irish people's reaction to anti-Irish sentiment in some elements of the UK. A rolling of the eyes and a getting on with life.

Considering the topic "owner" called cdybeijing (from China) a Westerner, I am afraid it will be even harder to find a accurate definition of a Westerner.

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Formerly Gorim

Hi, I am CGBSpender.
Admins take racist allegations (and any feedback) pretty seriously as nyanjilla mentionned, and you're indeed invited to write to admin@gokgs.com to get the full explanations about your ban. But I will answer your thread right away as you are attacking me personally. To make things clear, I did NOT ban you.
It might happen that sometimes a french admin would ban a turkish player, or that an english admin might ban a french player. But this is usually based on mishebaviour on KGS. It's nothing about racism or "client language". As far as I'm concerned, I don't even bother having a look at one's client language, or the player's country. When this is not the case and an admin abused his power, we investigate, make suggestions on the admin forum to avoid repeating the mistake in the future, and we apologize to the user when we went too far. When a player is banned, there is rarely anything personal. I like to think we do not ban for personal reasons. Nor do we ban because of origins, strength, or whatever reason. We ban so as to keep serenity on kgs, to prevent the other users from having to cope with one player's misbehaviour.
Sometimes it's not well understood, one thing you find non-offensive can be thought of by admins to be "harmful or disrupting" to other players. We do try to react objectively, but we are no robots. Mistakes happen. And as said, they are being treated seriously.

CGBSpender

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Staying true to myself.

@cgbspender - Just out of curiosity, would a comment that began with "ALL WESTERN USERS DO..." be something considered as potentially offensive? Obviously we're not given the full story here, as is almost always the case in these type of complaints, but assuming nothing offensive completed that sentence I find it difficult to believe such would raise any red flags whatsoever. At least I hope it wouldn't.

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

It depends on a few factors, which could be (but non-exhaustively) :

- if the player who says so has an history about creating troubles, racist trolls, putting oil on fire and such.
- The admin himself. Yes there is a little part of subjectivity. We don't all have the same background, religious, social, background of any sort. We don't all have the same expectations or the same ways to deal with the same issue.
All this, despite the fact admins try a lot to remain objective the most they can.

So there are many possibilities, according to those factors, which can be, warn the user in room, warn in private message (some users feel belittled when we warn them in rooms). Depending on current, or past circumstances, it can also lead to a short ban.

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Staying true to myself.

Just to clarify, as I read his story he was just saying that he was having fun (as all western users do), not necessarily implying that this was the text of his comment.