Sam Hull wrote:bob wrote: Point was, the old board treated everybody the same. If you could see anything, you could see everything...
Point is, the board works now just like it did then for anyone who wants to legitimately sign up. These forums exist as a service for
members and there is no obligation whatsoever to provide/expose any contributed material to the general public. The fact that parts of the board can now be viewed by non-members is simply a bonus.
I am a member of JamPlay (a guitar web site). It costs. But the message board fora are public to non-paying people. The lesson/music content is "for pay" because the stuff takes time and costs real money to produce at the quality they offer.
CCC has no cost, so exactly what is the difference between a member and a non-member? Probably non-members are either (a) not interested in posting, but are mainly following links posted elsewhere, or (b) do not want to sign up for something that might lead to additional SPAM since most web sites have sign-up policies specifically to create working email lists...
Since members don't pay any more than non-members, what is the point for making the normal CCC fora visible to all, but the discussions of engine origins visible only to members? I can only think of one. To hide it as much as is practical. What other reason could there be. I have no problem with CTF being hidden or disbanded. We formed CCC to talk about "computer chess" and certainly engine origin issues fall under that umbrella. Stuff in CTF not so much.
bob wrote: Hint: read, parse, understand. You will _never_ be able to produce _any_ quote that said warez links are OK. True Warez-type links. True copied/stolen/cracked software. I challenge you to find _any_ such quote. My only comments have been related to Fruit/Rybka/Robo, which is quite a different matter altogether.
Clue: if you believe some links should be deleted and others shouldn't, somebody is going to have to decide which are which; i.e., moderators. That's exactly what I stated above if you read, parse, and understand it.
Until you reach the point where the moderators decide _which_ programs are questionable. That is _not_ their task. That takes technical competency. If that were a requirement to be a moderator (that someone is an actual author and understands assembly language and at least C or C++) then this might be more practical since the moderators have the necessary skill to make informed decisions. But at present, that is not the case, and that should not be their call to make (which is OK and which is questionable). Obvious Warez/piracy links are fine to eliminate on the spot if they recognize them. But this crap of assuming every single post that matches the regular expression "ip*|robo*|etc" is not allowable and has to be moved or deleted is way over the top. And the primary person doing this could not tell a clone from a clown in the first place, it _does_ require programming skills. Not just user skills.
bob wrote:Having grown up in the US, having lived here for all of my 62 years, from having my grand father fight in WW1, by father in WW2, all in the name of freedom and the US constitution, yes, I believe in "Innocent until proven guilty." Those proven guilty have met with swift action over the years with respect to clones. Those unproven were left alone. Whether it be from claims made at an ICGA event, an ACM event, or here on CCC.
Disallowing download links to questionable software isn't unpatriotic and it isn't equivalent to a criminal conviction. Airport security does not allow items on airplanes that could be used as a weapon; does that imply that anyone who has to surrender his pocketknife is a felon? No.
It certainly can cause an arrest. Family member had a box-opener in her purse a few years ago. Flew into Vegas with no problems. Leaving the x-ray machine spotted the thing and delayed her/us leaving by 4+ hours. And I didn't say it was "unpatriotic". I said it was "unconstitutional" which is a different thing. So far there is no evidence that the "questionable program(s)" being discussed are really "questionable". How long does one have to wait? We are into the better part of a year now with zero information supplied. So just brand ip* "questionable" for all time and move on, with no supporting information?
Does that _really_ sound reasonable? _really_???
bob wrote:... We originally _did_ disallow any links to IP* and family if you look back. And waited on "reasonable proof". _NONE_ was ever offered. After several months, we decided that "innocent until proven guilty" was the rational course. I think the decision was right then, and it is still right today. Not what has been done with the blatant attempt to hide the discussions since it seems obvious they can not be completely quashed.
In other words, your mod team made the call on whether or not to allow links, and you initially deleted questionable links. I assume at the time you didn't think deleting those links was "stupid." The current team is doing the same thing - you just disagree with some of the calls, just as there has been disagreement with some of yours.
We gave a more than reasonable amount of time out of respect to a well-known program author who made the claim that ip* was a reverse-engineered clone. "more than reasonable" != forever. We based our decision on technical expertise available to us. We all looked at the IP* source and thought "wow, no human writes code like that unless he wants to try to hide something, somehow. So we applied technical expertise, we asked others with expertise, _in the message forum, btw_ and then took action. We did not just up and slam the door, even though we had the technical expertise to make such a decision. But what has been going on of late is _far_ removed from that.
The notion that discussions available to every single member of this board are being "hidden" is silly. Was CCC "hiding" everything on the board for the first nine years of its existence?
-Sam-
I'll ask again, since membership is free, what is the only rational explanation to make CEO not available without signing up, when all the other areas are visible? I can only come up with one, no matter how far I try to stretch/bend reality. To hide it from general view, particularly when people (members) try to post links on other sites that break due to not being signed up.
Shocking.
