Goodbye Talkchess

[Roger Brown]

That looks great, all the trolls are leaving... well, some collateral damage, but time will heal wounds...

Greets, Thomas

Hmmmmmmm....

Thanks Thomas Mayer.

Later.

[Sam Hull]

Hi,

I am finished with talkchess.com. The site administration and my co-moderator Graham Banks have made it impossible for me to continue as a moderator, and in a more extended sense, as a member of this community. Before I explain my reasons for leaving: I am starting a new, free, uncensored, (though unconditionally non-warez) computer chess site -- OpenChess -- which can be found at http://www.open-chess.org/ -- effective immediately. I hope that, with time, it will become a valuable alternative to talkchess.com, but without commercial influence over content, and without biased moderation or censorship of discussions in progress. I encourage anyone with an interest in computer chess, everyone who desires a forum where free, uncensored, tolerant discourse is possible, engine authors as well as testers and end-users, to join. There's not much there yet, but that's just a matter of time and your participation. As we populate and organize OpenChess, your suggestions are welcome.

To my reasons... The moderation team was informed yesterday by the site administrator, Sam Hull, that the site owners, Your Move Chess & Games/ICD, want the moderation team to aggressively remove links and any posts which could be seen as "encouragement to acquire software of questionable legitimacy". "Software of questionable legitimacy" obviously refers to the engines derived from the source code known as I--- (I censor myself here to avoid being banned to the CEO forum by Graham), and the request was justified by the various commercial partnerships which YMC&G/ICD maintains. The immediate consequence of this new directive was that Graham dumped a number of threads into the hidden Chess Engine Origins forum, including several posts which merely mention the engines in question. Most objectionable to me was a post which simply reproduced a couple of lines of analysis output from one of the questionable engines -- the problem was apparently that the clone's analysis was more accurate than Rybka 4's.

Graham has no doubt in his mind about the meaning of "encouragement" or "promotion" -- it means any positive or neutral mention of the existence of said software (insults are fine, of course). He's never made any bones about his personal agenda vis a vis the "clone" engines, nor his disdain and intolerance for anyone who demands evidence for the claims which have been made against them. This bias has been a source of tension and disagreement within the moderation team (with one or two regrettable public incidents) for the entire term. Graham, who's done zero moderation of talkchess in the last month and half out of protest against open discussion of these engines, got back in the saddle last night when he heard the good news and started purging. When I protested, my attempts at discussion or compromise were refused. In fact, Graham was only willing to discuss whether the "clones" would be removed from the Tournaments sub-forum, as well.

I ran for moderator on a platform of open, civil discussion. The newest developments make open discussion at talkchess.com de facto impossible. Never mind that there is overwhelming technical evidence demonstrating that IPPOLIT and friends are NOT clones (at least as a counterpoint to the significant circumstantial evidence in favor of them being clones). Never mind the principle by which accusations should be backed up with evidence before they are taken seriously, or used as the basis for decisions to censor or banish discussion. Never mind that "the posts on the Computer-Chess Club message board do not necessarily agree (nor disagree) with the opinions of Your Move Chess & Games, I.C.D. Corporation, or Computer Chess Reports, and these companies do not control, and have no say in, what is posted or how it is posted. Nor do any of these organizations have any say or control over decisions made by the moderators." That's from the Charter, in case you missed the reference.

If it has really come to this, where, in violation of talkchess.com's own charter, Your Move Chess & Games/ICD can influence forum content in favor of their commercial interests, where moderators feel smugly justified simply censoring threads and posts which contain mention of or factual data (analysis output!) regarding or generated by undesired software, then I cannot stay here. I am not a salesman -- as moderator, it's not my job to help YMC&G/ICD move their merchandise. Nor am I a nanny -- it's not my job to protect forum members or visitors from legal, freely available, relevant, topical information or discussion with one another. And I do not want my name associated with a community which hinders, suppresses, deletes or censors discussion, or with moderators who feel comfortable bullying and alienating "illegitimate" users.

So, once again, goodbye, talkchess. I apologize to anyone that I am letting down by abandoning my months-long effort to keep Graham away from your posts, but I've been undermined by the administration and will not continue to roll this proverbial stone up the proverbial mountain. I hope to see you on OpenChess soon (http://www.open-chess.org/).

Taking the high road regards,
Jeremy

(a) Sorry for weighing in late. Our downtown Dallas office building has lost power and shut down my entire network two business days in a row, and I couldn't get back to the board after posting the guidance from Quentin for the CCC mods until now.

(b) There has been a rather large misunderstanding, and Jeremy has slightly misquoted what I passed along from ICD/Your Move. The guidance is simply to not tolerate anything that looks like a LINK to illegitimate software in CCC. No one said anything about censoring discussions or removing posts that simply make allusions or offer evaluations. Graham misunderstood the intent of the guidance - I have clarified it in detail for him this evening via IM. Where the issue of clones is concerned, and for the board in general, the goal of fair and balanced moderation has not changed, and there is no desire for favoritism in ANY direction.

(c) I hope Jeremy will reconsider his decision. I have not had a chance to converse with him directly and have received no PMs from him. I posted responses in the moderator forum as soon as I regained internet access, but I am still locked out of e-mail and will be until tomorrow morning. I think Jeremy has been an outstanding moderator and I fully support his philosophy of moderation - always have.

(d) I don't set moderation policy. I passed along a request to the CCC mods that I received from Quentin, which came as the result of certain members haranguing ICD about real, suspected, and imagined clones. Graham misunderstood the message, performed some moderation on that basis, and Jeremy decided to post a grand exit without waiting to get any clarification about the guidance.

(e) Personally I am surprised that two CCC mods who share an opinion cannot simply outvote and override one mod on those occasions when he has a different view. I got regularly overridden for two whole terms in CTF. I haven't complained, and nobody died. It's a discussion board, folks.

(f) If a member runs for moderator and is elected, I think it is fair to expect him to honor his commitment and serve out the term.

-Sam-

[Dirt]

So open your own site!

That's what just happened.

ICD owns this site! They can do what they want!

Well, yes, I suppose so. But that is against the charter.

[Stephen Ham]

Dear Jeremy,

I support your decision and have registered at your new site.

When Graham Banks was "somehow" elected to be a Moderator here in spite of his platform and posting behavior, I knew the end was coming for CCC, for thinking people here, and for those who value an open and thoughtful forum.

I look forward to learning more about chess engines at your new site, Jeremy. It will likely soon become CCC's replacement. And as long as Graham Banks and his ilk remain at CCC, it will become a wasteland with regard to intelligent posting and free speech.

All the best,
Steve

[Roger Brown]

(b) There has been a rather large misunderstanding, and Jeremy has slightly misquoted what I passed along from ICD/Your Move. The guidance is simply to not tolerate anything that looks like a LINK to illegitimate software in CCC. No one said anything about censoring discussions or removing posts that simply make allusions or offer evaluations. Graham misunderstood the intent of the guidance - I have clarified it in detail for him this evening via IM. Where the issue of clones is concerned, and for the board in general, the goal of fair and balanced moderation has not changed, and there is no desire for favoritism in ANY direction.

-Sam-

Hello Sam,

I respect your position even when I do not agree with it but here you are flat wrong.

There is no misunderstanding in Graham's efforts.

Take any of the following threads and tell me why any reasonable person would move them to the EO sub-forum or not move them out if they had been posted there originally:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34837

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34698

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34753

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34770

Plus a number of Houdini posts etc.

I personally requested that various engine results be moved out of the EO sub-forum and placed in the Tournaments sub-forum.

Nothing doing. In fact I was told that it would be better to have them there than nowhere else as if those were the only alternatives.

Then it became clear that nothing serious was to come out of the EO sub-forum, even by accident. It was merely to be a place of dumping, a place where flames could be started without any moderator action because it was hidden.

There is no misunderstanding - Graham has been 100% consistent in his actions in everything to do with the EO sub-forum.

Such a pity really because it does have the capacity to lead the way in terms of discussion on the topic of engine origins if allowed.

Do not believe for a moment that there was any misunderstanding here.

Time to get the asbestos suit ready now.....

Later.

[Graham Banks]

(a) Sorry for weighing in late. Our downtown Dallas office building has lost power and shut down my entire network two business days in a row, and I couldn't get back to the board after posting the guidance from Quentin for the CCC mods until now.

(b) There has been a rather large misunderstanding, and Jeremy has slightly misquoted what I passed along from ICD/Your Move. The guidance is simply to not tolerate anything that looks like a LINK to illegitimate software in CCC. No one said anything about censoring discussions or removing posts that simply make allusions or offer evaluations. Graham misunderstood the intent of the guidance - I have clarified it in detail for him this evening via IM. Where the issue of clones is concerned, and for the board in general, the goal of fair and balanced moderation has not changed, and there is no desire for favoritism in ANY direction.

(c) I hope Jeremy will reconsider his decision. I have not had a chance to converse with him directly and have received no PMs from him. I posted responses in the moderator forum as soon as I regained internet access, but I am still locked out of e-mail and will be until tomorrow morning. I think Jeremy has been an outstanding moderator and I fully support his philosophy of moderation - always have.

(d) I don't set moderation policy. I passed along a request to the CCC mods that I received from Quentin, which came as the result of certain members haranguing ICD about real, suspected, and imagined clones. Graham misunderstood the message, performed some moderation on that basis, and Jeremy decided to post a grand exit without waiting to get any clarification about the guidance.

(e) Personally I am surprised that two CCC mods who share an opinion cannot simply outvote and override one mod on those occasions when has a different view. I got regularly overridden for two whole terms in CTF. I haven't complained, and nobody died. It's a discussion board, folks.

(f) If a member runs for moderator and is elected, I think it is fair to expect him to honor his commitment and serve out the term.

-Sam-

In a nutshell, our sponsor would like the CCC mod team to be as aggressive as possible in removing anything that looks like a questionable link, or any other encouragement to acquire software of questionable legitimacy.

This was the part of the message that I misinterpreted. My understanding was that any post praising the strength or qualities of the engines in question was actually encouraging members to acquire them.
Once Jeremy gave me the go ahead to remove some of the threads as long as I left a message (he was going to bed at the time), I went ahead and did so. However, it seems that I was too liberal in my interpretation of what he actually meant.

I therefore apologise to Sam, to my fellow moderators and also to the forum membership for the controversy and unfortunate situation that has occurred due to this genuine misunderstanding.
I am happy to work with Jeremy and Swami to undo as much of the damage as we can, if they're prepared to do so. This would include an amendment of the announcement posted.

Cheers,
Graham.

[Graham Banks]

I personally requested that various engine results be moved out of the EO sub-forum and placed in the Tournaments sub-forum.

Nothing doing. In fact I was told that it would be better to have them there than nowhere else as if those were the only alternatives.

Then it became clear that nothing serious was to come out of the EO sub-forum, even by accident. It was merely to be a place of dumping, a place where flames could be started without any moderator action because it was hidden.

It would be helpful to quote where all this came from, because a lot of it did not come from me.
However, I know that I'm the target here, so anything goes it would seem. At least try to be honest please.

[mcostalba]

(a) Sorry for weighing in late. Our downtown Dallas office building has lost power and shut down my entire network two business days in a row, and I couldn't get back to the board after posting the guidance from Quentin for the CCC mods until now.

(b) There has been a rather large misunderstanding, and Jeremy has slightly misquoted what I passed along from ICD/Your Move. The guidance is simply to not tolerate anything that looks like a LINK to illegitimate software in CCC. No one said anything about censoring discussions or removing posts that simply make allusions or offer evaluations. Graham misunderstood the intent of the guidance - I have clarified it in detail for him this evening via IM. Where the issue of clones is concerned, and for the board in general, the goal of fair and balanced moderation has not changed, and there is no desire for favoritism in ANY direction.

(c) I hope Jeremy will reconsider his decision. I have not had a chance to converse with him directly and have received no PMs from him. I posted responses in the moderator forum as soon as I regained internet access, but I am still locked out of e-mail and will be until tomorrow morning. I think Jeremy has been an outstanding moderator and I fully support his philosophy of moderation - always have.

(d) I don't set moderation policy. I passed along a request to the CCC mods that I received from Quentin, which came as the result of certain members haranguing ICD about real, suspected, and imagined clones. Graham misunderstood the message, performed some moderation on that basis, and Jeremy decided to post a grand exit without waiting to get any clarification about the guidance.

(e) Personally I am surprised that two CCC mods who share an opinion cannot simply outvote and override one mod on those occasions when has a different view. I got regularly overridden for two whole terms in CTF. I haven't complained, and nobody died. It's a discussion board, folks.

(f) If a member runs for moderator and is elected, I think it is fair to expect him to honor his commitment and serve out the term.

-Sam-

In a nutshell, our sponsor would like the CCC mod team to be as aggressive as possible in removing anything that looks like a questionable link, or any other encouragement to acquire software of questionable legitimacy.

This was the part of the message that I misinterpreted. My understanding was that any post praising the strength or qualities of the engines in question was actually encouraging members to acquire them.
Once Jeremy gave me the go ahead to remove some of the threads as long as I left a message (he was going to bed at the time), I went ahead and did so. However, it seems that I was too liberal in my interpretation of what he actually meant.

I therefore apologise to Sam, to my fellow moderators and also to the forum membership for the controversy and unfortunate situation that has occurred due to this genuine misunderstanding.
I am happy to work with Jeremy and Swami to undo as much of the damage as we can, if they're prepared to do so. This would include an amendment of the announcement posted.

Cheers,
Graham.

I read what happened and there are many thins that actually I don't like at all.

1) If some commercial author pushed the owner of the site to censor Ippo links (as probably has happened) then the owner of the site should openly and trasparently state that "the forum will not tolerate..and so and so ..." and not pushing his pawns behind closed doors to do the dirty job.

If the owner of the site wants to protect his cutomer and do not reveal that has been pushed by someone to take this decision then this is fair, but should at least put his face on this decision and state this clearly _before_ starting to remove stuff.

This has not happened.

2) Because the order has been sent privately, then privately the owner of the site should have been take counter actions if/when found something was going wrong and not (sorry for this italian expression) "give shit" publicly to a pawn/moderator that mistakenly made a double instead of a single push.


So I feel unconfortable to post in a forum influenced by "hidden" commercial engines companies (I'm quite sure of this because a site owner doesn't wake up a morning chosing to ban something if not pushed by some customer, I think I know quite well how these things work because is my day job BTW) and whose policy is not transparently declared before corresponding actions are taken. If I go to Rybka forum I know Rybka controls everything, but this is ok as long as "Rybka" is written on the name of the forum and it's up to me to decide if posting or not (I don't), but here I didn't expect something like what's happened.

At last I would like to say something also to Graham.

Graham, you have been voted by people here and you are moderator because of forum users (not owners) put you there, so you deserve loyalty to people that voted you, not to someone else. If someone else is in a position to force you to do something it is up to you to decide what to do, but I think that would be fair to say _before_ : "Dear users, dear people that trust on me, I inform you that I was asked to remove stuff, I have accepted that duty and I will start it now"

[Roger Brown]

I personally requested that various engine results be moved out of the EO sub-forum and placed in the Tournaments sub-forum.

Nothing doing. In fact I was told that it would be better to have them there than nowhere else as if those were the only alternatives.

Then it became clear that nothing serious was to come out of the EO sub-forum, even by accident. It was merely to be a place of dumping, a place where flames could be started without any moderator action because it was hidden.

It would be helpful to quote where all this came from, because a lot of it did not come from me.
However, I know that I'm the target here, so anything goes it would seem. At least try to be honest please.

Hello Graham,

Great.

Now you insinuate that I am dishonest.

Why am I not surprised?

Look in this thread for one example of what I am talking about.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

Of course I would expect a retraction of the dishonesty insinuation from anyone else but I do not propose to hold my breath waiting for it from you. Insinuate away.

The flames comment was not yours - and I never attributed it to you. In fact, it seemed to be a popular joke at the time of I recall. A joke with far too much truth unfortunately.

Later.

[Roger Brown]

I read what happened and there are many thins that actually I don't like at all.

1) If some commercial author pushed the owner of the site to censor Ippo links (as probably has happened) then the owner of the site should openly and trasparently state that "the forum will not tolerate..and so and so ..." and not pushing his pawns behind closed doors to do the dirty job.

If the owner of the site wants to protect his cutomer and do not reveal that has been pushed by someone to take this decision then this is fair, but should at least put his face on this decision and state this clearly _before_ starting to remove stuff.

This has not happened.

2) Because the order has been sent privately, then privately the owner of the site should have been take counter actions if/when found something was going wrong and not (sorry for this italian expression) "give shit" publicly to a pawn/moderator that mistakenly made a double instead of a single push.


So I feel unconfortable to post in a forum influenced by "hidden" commercial engines companies (I'm quite sure of this because a site owner doesn't wake up a morning chosing to ban something if not pushed by some customer, I think I know quite well how these things work because is my day job BTW) and whose policy is not transparently declared before corresponding actions are taken. If I go to Rybka forum I know Rybka controls everything, but this is ok as long as "Rybka" is written on the name of the forum and it's up to me to decide if posting or not (I don't), but here I didn't expect something like what's happened.

At last I would like to say something also to Graham.

Graham, you have been voted by people here and you are moderator because of forum users (not owners) put you there, so you deserve loyalty to people that voted you, not to someone else. If someone else is in a position to force you to do something it is up to you to decide what to do, but I think that would be fair to say _before_ : "Dear users, dear people that trust on me, I inform you that I was asked to remove stuff, I have accepted that duty and I will start it now"

Hello Marco,

Wonderful!

Later.