Change to donations system

Any player above 2000 could have a fake account below 1600 and make 1000 dollars per week, how do you control that?

Cheating is an issue to manage for sure. Lichess is already tightening up its anti-cheating measures. Only Thibault and lichess team know how good they are. I am assuming there are automated scripts in place already which check for engine co-relation and patterns of play which fall outside the game history norm for a particular player. There would need to be more rigourous checks in place but its a new process to manage. Its about assessing the benefits vs the costs.

If the tournament model is successful, then lichess gains new players and stronger players. It has also more money to invest into creating an even better product. It also doesn't have to rely on donations which have downsides. The cost is putting in stronger anti-cheating measures which need to worked on anyhow regardless of whether you do tournaments or not.

#30 not only will it attract more cheaters, it will also create more accusations of cheating against non-cheaters :)

Thanks for your suggestion, but we will never make people pay for joining tournaments.

Let's not make this forum thread toggle to the cheating topic, please.

#32 - the code is open source. Anybody with some free time can read the anti-cheat code.

I will not donate, the only reason is: no paypal, no credit card, so please add some alternative payment options. I would prefer to send money in a letter to a post office box (no joke),
or if possible, add a donation lichess app, so the app is of course still free, but if someone would like to donate he/she/it can buy this donation app at the apple/google app-store.

^ forgotten the most usual one: bank transfer

What is the preferred donation method? (i.e. least amount of fees).
Paypal, Visa credit, MasterCard, Amex ??

Thanks for a great site,
LA

Credit card is slightly prefered.

I think there's a cool simple idea here.

What if when you donated at least $5 per month you were entered into a drawing for a one on one lesson with a GM/IM? Now there's a catch here that makes it beneficial for everybody, including Lichess. Record the lesson and make it publicly accessible for everybody. Now you have an extrinsic incentive for donating, you're improving the site for everybody, and helping fill out the video library with Lichess original content.