Stopping the Hyattian-Triumvirate

[Chris Whittington]

There never was a poll. CCC has been hi-jacked by Hyatt, as he wants to control everything! We need democratically elected individuals, not self-anointed Bob!

Bob Hyatt wasn't a moderator when the decision was made to run teams. If I recall, the decision was made by the TCAdmin after some on-board discussion. Whether there was a poll or not, I don't remember. If you have a problem, take it up with Sam Hull. But your insistence that Bob Hyatt is out to take over CCC is a) unbelievably misinformed and b) paranoid.

Jeremy

I think that's the correct story. The decision to change the voting system, which ought to be subject to a democratic consultation of the membership, was made by a few who have effective control of the board software buttons (ie the political TCAdmin). The argument used for not consulting the members is that

"voting for moderators is restricted to members signed up for N months and having made Y posts"

"a poll to discover member wishes can't be held because members who were not entitled to vote, ie those without X and Y criteria, would be voting too"

which appears to be an argument to deny membership approval for anything dreamed up by those who have access to the software switches.

CCC is just another commercial forum, operating for the benefit of the shop, it's entirely under the control of the Hulls (TCAdmin) and various dysfunctionals who think they get some status/power by going along with that.

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

[Sean Evans]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

[orgfert]

If I recall, the decision was made by the TCAdmin after some on-board discussion. Whether there was a poll or not, I don't remember.

Every election with teams is also a poll for or against teams, since they always include "none of the above".

[Chris Whittington]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

yes, that's a good point. however, from what I've seen so far, JB currently lacks the characteristic that permeates the dysfunctional ones in cc, he does not appear to be an eliminationist, or, in other words, his reaction does not appear to be ban/delete/eliminate - which is very much the ideology of, say, Banks, Conkie, Skinner, Hull and to some extent, if they feel provoked enough, of a great many in comp chess, BH included. Eliminationist ideology is immature and uneducated.

Someone will always have control of the software switches, and we all know what happens when one person, or triumvirate even, gets total executive power - read your Stalin and the History of the Soviet Union. Now, of course, JB has the power of the software switches and I think the defense against that is simply that the internet is bigger than he is and alternative forums can be created. Users can vote with their feet, as they've already done and are doing with talkchess.

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves. Moderators almost always turn into arrogant idiots who think they know best, and then use "because I can".

Alternatively, get a life. CC is a fairly irrelevent backwater, no?

[Uly]

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves.

This was experimented on Rybka Forum's The Edge Board, where moderation is non-existent and members are allowed to moderate their own threads. The result? Members that disagree about what was posted on their threads just delete or edit your posts.

The consequence is that I can't post there on threads created by members that I know would disagree with me and just delete/censor my posts. The workaround would be to create my own thread there to reply to them (it happened recently), but that just fractures the discussion (instead of having a thread where discussion happens, one would potentially have one thread per reply so it's not moderated by the creator of the thread).

There are users that just shouldn't be allowed to moderate for themselves, and that's a problem with the bottom-up scenario.

And I don't think it really matters who is moderator, what matters is what is the forum policy, and that whoever is moderator enforces it fairly.

[hyatt]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

yes, that's a good point. however, from what I've seen so far, JB currently lacks the characteristic that permeates the dysfunctional ones in cc, he does not appear to be an eliminationist, or, in other words, his reaction does not appear to be ban/delete/eliminate - which is very much the ideology of, say, Banks, Conkie, Skinner, Hull and to some extent, if they feel provoked enough, of a great many in comp chess, BH included. Eliminationist ideology is immature and uneducated.

Someone will always have control of the software switches, and we all know what happens when one person, or triumvirate even, gets total executive power - read your Stalin and the History of the Soviet Union. Now, of course, JB has the power of the software switches and I think the defense against that is simply that the internet is bigger than he is and alternative forums can be created. Users can vote with their feet, as they've already done and are doing with talkchess.

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves. Moderators almost always turn into arrogant idiots who think they know best, and then use "because I can".

Alternatively, get a life. CC is a fairly irrelevent backwater, no?

Already exists. It is called rec.games.chess.computers. No moderators. No information content. Nothing but junk. It was so bad it led to the formation of CCC in fact. You can always go back if you want complete chaos... Not for me, however.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

Should I apologize that I donate my time and money to keep this board up and running? On principle, we don't delete posts or ban users. I just checked the moderator forum. The last posts which were split off were in August 2010, the result of a stupid flame war begun by, well, by you, Sean. You were also sent a warning at the time.

Apart from that, there's been zero, zip, null, nada moderation action which wasn't the simple deletion of pirate links or anonymous spam (if you're interested in Viagra or need new shoes, we can leave those posts, too). If anything, we've become extremely lax with forum rule enforcement, and the board actually runs itself amazingly well. As a relevant aside, when I was at CCC, the number 1 source of user strife was moderator activity. OpenChess runs differently, and we manage pretty well.

You are simply complaining because you may. Which is fine. You may. But I defy you to find a single abuse of moderator or administrator power on OpenChess. There hasn't been one.

That CCC has a vaguely democratic conceit is super for CCC. But it doesn't work, IMO, and I would rather have a small circle of trusted, do-little moderators than a bunch of nutty moralists who think they know better than you. Better an enlightened monarchy than an elected Orwellian council of Klugscheißers [1].

Yes, I retain control of the keys to my web server. I think that's reasonable. No, I don't give assholes moderator permissions. I think that's reasonable, too. But no one here bans people for being jerks or for disagreement with "our" way of thinking. And certainly not for "interfering with commercial interests". I think Chris said it pretty well -- if OpenChess is a nice place to "be", to discuss chess and computer chess matters with intelligent people in an intelligent fashion, people will come, stay and use. If we screw up, people will leave. I don't think we're screwing up.

[1] I googled Klugscheißer to ensure that a non-german speaker could easily find out what it means. The graphic associated with the first link I found was so resonant and darkly amusing, evoking a disturbingly similar image posted on CCC in the past, that I just had to add it to this post. I think you'll enjoy it, too.

A classic Klugscheißer

180px-Klugscheis.jpg (9.78 KiB) Viewed 1320 times

[Chris Whittington]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

yes, that's a good point. however, from what I've seen so far, JB currently lacks the characteristic that permeates the dysfunctional ones in cc, he does not appear to be an eliminationist, or, in other words, his reaction does not appear to be ban/delete/eliminate - which is very much the ideology of, say, Banks, Conkie, Skinner, Hull and to some extent, if they feel provoked enough, of a great many in comp chess, BH included. Eliminationist ideology is immature and uneducated.

Someone will always have control of the software switches, and we all know what happens when one person, or triumvirate even, gets total executive power - read your Stalin and the History of the Soviet Union. Now, of course, JB has the power of the software switches and I think the defense against that is simply that the internet is bigger than he is and alternative forums can be created. Users can vote with their feet, as they've already done and are doing with talkchess.

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves. Moderators almost always turn into arrogant idiots who think they know best, and then use "because I can".

Alternatively, get a life. CC is a fairly irrelevent backwater, no?

Already exists. It is called rec.games.chess.computers. No moderators. No information content. Nothing but junk. It was so bad it led to the formation of CCC in fact. You can always go back if you want complete chaos... Not for me, however.

Entirely arse about tit. What actually happened:

Bob did NOT want to create a CCC, his opinion, strongly held and oft repeated, was that although there were stalkers on rgcc, these were handle-able and he preferred to stay there. Bruce Moreland took the same view. Bob was the last person of the founders (he was actually the last person to be in the founder group and missed out on most of the earlier preparation and discussions) to eventually agree, but he agreed with the proviso that he would carry on posting into rgcc, which he did for some time, and he was only "joining" ccc because he went with the majority (of the founding group) despite disagreeing with it.

rgcc was actually an excellent and buzzing forum, but since forums live and die on the quality of the posters, the real destruction of rgcc was when its posters left and went elsewhere, leaving the place to spam and viagra. Thus CCC destroyed rgcc, in fact one could say that talkchess simply hijacked rgcc.

[Chris Whittington]

Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess

Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?

Cordially,

Sean

yes, that's a good point. however, from what I've seen so far, JB currently lacks the characteristic that permeates the dysfunctional ones in cc, he does not appear to be an eliminationist, or, in other words, his reaction does not appear to be ban/delete/eliminate - which is very much the ideology of, say, Banks, Conkie, Skinner, Hull and to some extent, if they feel provoked enough, of a great many in comp chess, BH included. Eliminationist ideology is immature and uneducated.

Someone will always have control of the software switches, and we all know what happens when one person, or triumvirate even, gets total executive power - read your Stalin and the History of the Soviet Union. Now, of course, JB has the power of the software switches and I think the defense against that is simply that the internet is bigger than he is and alternative forums can be created. Users can vote with their feet, as they've already done and are doing with talkchess.

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves. Moderators almost always turn into arrogant idiots who think they know best, and then use "because I can".

Alternatively, get a life. CC is a fairly irrelevent backwater, no?

Already exists. It is called rec.games.chess.computers. No moderators. No information content. Nothing but junk. It was so bad it led to the formation of CCC in fact. You can always go back if you want complete chaos... Not for me, however.

rgcc is not a "bottom-up" forum.

[Chris Whittington]

My preference would be a bottom-up forum without moderators where users can uniquely moderate for themselves.

This was experimented on Rybka Forum's The Edge Board, where moderation is non-existent and members are allowed to moderate their own threads. The result? Members that disagree about what was posted on their threads just delete or edit your posts.

The consequence is that I can't post there on threads created by members that I know would disagree with me and just delete/censor my posts. The workaround would be to create my own thread there to reply to them (it happened recently), but that just fractures the discussion (instead of having a thread where discussion happens, one would potentially have one thread per reply so it's not moderated by the creator of the thread).

There are users that just shouldn't be allowed to moderate for themselves, and that's a problem with the bottom-up scenario.

And I don't think it really matters who is moderator, what matters is what is the forum policy, and that whoever is moderator enforces it fairly.

I doubt a self-organising bottom up forum would be structured to allow any user to edit or delete another users post. The individual control would be to unfollow or filter out the offending users posts. If a user offended many people he would then have no, or very few followers (readers). If you were worried about Rolf's posts (I'm not but many are), then Rolf's posts would be unread by the majority, same for someone like McCracken. They'ld realise very quickly that they were being ignored en masse (by individual democratic choice) and either stop posting or self-modify their behaviour - if they don't, then why worry? nobody reads them.