For organizers · 7 min read
How to keep your club night safe: reports, removals and blocks
The rare night that goes wrong, and the quiet setup that keeps it rare: who reads a report, how to remove someone, and what a block does (and doesn’t).
By Castle Gambit · Updated
On this page
On this page
The short answer
Keeping a club night safe on Castle Gambit starts with you in the room, backed by a few tools: reports about how someone behaved at your night come to your Reports page, Remove for tonight and Remove from the Castle take someone out, and anything bigger goes to Castle Gambit’s staff. Players can also block each other, which keeps two people apart at club nights; organizers never see blocks.
Key takeaways
- Everyone on Castle Gambit is 18 or over; roster players are adults on your word, so run any junior section off the app.
- Conduct reports from your nights land on your Reports page; reports about you or your helpers go to Castle Gambit’s staff.
- The person reported never learns who sent it, and the sender isn’t told what you decided.
- Remove for tonight shuts tonight’s code to someone; Remove from the Castle ends their membership.
- Blocks keep two players apart at club nights. Organizers never see them, and tournaments pair by their rules.
Nearly every club night is uneventful in the best way: a few good games, one dreadful blunder, someone leaves their scarf. This guide is for the rare night that isn’t, and for the quiet setup that keeps those nights rare.
The short version: you’re the person in the room, and that beats any form. Castle Gambit gives you a few tools to back you up, and is careful about what it shows to whom, so people can relax and play.
Adults only, and roster players
Castle Gambit is for adults. Everyone who plays, organizes or joins a Castle on it is 18 or over. Players answer an age question before their first game; nobody under 18 gets an account or plays as a guest, and the app keeps only whether someone is 18 or over, never their birth date.
Roster players (the regulars without a phone) are adults on your word: when you add someone, the app notes that you vouched for them. So never put a younger player on the roster. If your club welcomes juniors, run that section off the app, on paper, with the safeguarding basics in how to start a chess club.
Worried someone in the room is under 18? Report them with May be under 18, which goes straight to Castle Gambit’s staff, or write to us at castlegambit.support@avevue.com.
What people see, and what they don’t
Some safety is simply not showing things. Worth knowing, so you can tell a nervous newcomer:
- Nobody can message anyone in the app, and nobody’s contact details are shown.
- Ratings never appear in the lobby, on the club TV, in your pairing preview or on tournament sheets.
- Only your Castle’s members see who’s in it. Roster players have a name and nothing else: no account, no page.
- Signed out, nobody sees who is going to a gambit, or the names in a tournament.
Two links are worth guarding. The TV link shows who’s in the room tonight, so keep it on the TV and out of the group chat. And tonight’s code lets people in; if a photo of it travels, press New code and reprint the poster. Everyone already here stays checked in.
Reports, and who reads them
Members can report a profile (its photo or its name too), a gambit or an organization from its own page. A Castle, or one of its events, is reported from the Castle’s page: Report this Castle, then pick the Castle itself or the event. (Its own organizers don’t get that button.) At a club night, there’s Report someone from tonight under Who’s here in the lobby, and on the card after a game. Guests can’t file reports (a report needs a saved account, so someone can follow up); the app tells them to find the organizer in the room.
| It’s about | Who reads it |
|---|---|
| How someone behaved at your club night | Your Castle’s owners and organizers, on the Reports page |
| One of the people running the night (you, a co-organizer, a helper) | Castle Gambit’s staff, never you |
| Someone who may be under 18 | Castle Gambit’s staff, straight away |
| A profile, photo, name, Castle, gambit, event or organization | Castle Gambit’s staff |
Whoever files a report is named to whoever reads it, so you can follow up. The person reported never learns who sent it, and the person who sent it isn’t told what you decided.
Your Reports page
Conduct reports from your nights land on Reports, under People in your panel, newest first. Each shows who it’s about, the reason, when it was filed, who sent it and their note. Most need a quiet word; some need nothing at all.
Read it, and talk to people. The one who reported, the one reported, anyone who saw. On the night if you can.
Close it, with an outcome: I dealt with it (you had a word, asked them to leave for the night, or changed something) or No action needed (it was sorted already, or nothing needed doing).
Leave a note for your organizers, up to 500 characters. Your fellow organizers see it on the Reports page; the person who filed it and the person reported don’t.
Closed reports move to Dealt with or No action, with your note, and you can change the outcome later. Anything beyond a quiet word: write to us at castlegambit.support@avevue.com.
Removing someone
Three levels, from lightest to heaviest:
- Remove for tonight: from their More menu in Who’s here. They stop seeing who’s here, and tonight’s code won’t let them back in until you press Let back in under “Removed tonight”. Next time you open a lobby they can join as usual.
- Remove from the Castle: under People, Members, Manage. They stop seeing the members and members-only gambits, are taken out of tonight’s lobby (unless they’re mid-game), and any gambits they host from your Castle are called off. They can ask to join again; you don’t have to say yes.
- A report to us, for anything that needs more than your club can do. Castle Gambit’s staff can act on an account across every Castle.
For a roster player, Archive on the Roster page takes them off your list and keeps their name on past games. To take a name off for good, write to us; their past games then say “Former player”.
What blocks do, and don’t
Any member can block another from their profile page. It’s for keeping a distance without making a scene:
- The two of them are never paired with each other at a club night.
- They don’t see each other’s pages or the gambits each of them posts, and they drop out of each other’s lists.
- The person blocked isn’t told. Nobody leaves a Castle, and a game already on the board is played out.
Organizers never see blocks. Only the person who made one knows about it. Your Who’s here list and the club TV still show everyone in the room, and you don’t need to do anything.
A calm room, most of the time
The tools are a backstop. What keeps a room safe is mostly you, on an ordinary Tuesday:
- Greet newcomers by name and pair them first. A watched room is a well-behaved one.
- Say once, out loud, what your club expects: shake hands, quiet near games, be kind to the new people.
- Have a second organizer, so nobody settles a dispute or a complaint about themselves.
- Write things down. Your panel’s Activity page keeps who changed what, and your report notes keep what you decided.
- Close the lobby when the night ends. Tonight’s code stops working, so a photo of last week’s poster lets nobody in.
The etiquette side of a calm room is in chess club etiquette. The privacy details behind everything above, in full, are on the privacy page.
