The Fine Art of Chess

[zullil]

One-time announcements of commercial products related to computer chess have certainly been permitted in the past. (I'm sure I could give specific examples after searching, but don't have time to do that.) What is specifically not permitted are "flagrant commercial exhortations" (emphasis is mine).

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

As to concerns related to our host's response---moderators should contact our host directly and see if such concerns exist, in which case the charter ought to reflect that.

Thank a lot, Louis!
Wow, how much I miss you.

I wrote it. And carefully considered the meaning of the words involved. What would you like to know about what it means, why those particular words are used and what it is designed to cover? Clause 4. is not supposed to catch primary original product producers, unless they get very very flagrant indeed. The intention was to stop secondary resellers from spamming the forum with commercial advertising or pushing of product in whatever way, once was kind of okay, but lots not. Original creative producers were to be given more leeway to talk about their creations. Chess engine creators were to be given more leeway than creators of support material, into which the category books, texts or youtube videos would come. I don't get the impression Lyudmil is a secondary reseller, but I may be wrong. That's the purpose of the word flagrant. Make it yourself, and the closer your thing is to an actual chess playing program, the more often it is okay to be making posts about it.

Thanks for the clarification. So it seems that my interpretation of 4. generally matches its original intent.

[chrisw]

One-time announcements of commercial products related to computer chess have certainly been permitted in the past. (I'm sure I could give specific examples after searching, but don't have time to do that.) What is specifically not permitted are "flagrant commercial exhortations" (emphasis is mine).

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

As to concerns related to our host's response---moderators should contact our host directly and see if such concerns exist, in which case the charter ought to reflect that.

Thank a lot, Louis!
Wow, how much I miss you.

I wrote it. And carefully considered the meaning of the words involved. What would you like to know about what it means, why those particular words are used and what it is designed to cover? Clause 4. is not supposed to catch primary original product producers, unless they get very very flagrant indeed. The intention was to stop secondary resellers from spamming the forum with commercial advertising or pushing of product in whatever way, once was kind of okay, but lots not. Original creative producers were to be given more leeway to talk about their creations. Chess engine creators were to be given more leeway than creators of support material, into which the category books, texts or youtube videos would come. I don't get the impression Lyudmil is a secondary reseller, but I may be wrong. That's the purpose of the word flagrant. Make it yourself, and the closer your thing is to an actual chess playing program, the more often it is okay to be making posts about it.

Thanks for the clarification. So it seems that my interpretation of 4. generally matches its original intent.

At the time there was rec.games.chess.computers which was plagued by shops/mail order companies/re-sellers of chess machines, all competing with each other for user forum space pushing why users should buy programs or chess machine from them and not one of the others. These were the days before downloads and when buying stuff was usually done through a middleman. Computer chess forum was also much heavier with programmers, and much lighter with endusers. “Finding” endusers was obviously critical to the re-sellers. Now with downloads and so on, re-seller numbers are low.

“We” mostly controlled re-seller spamming by flaming them, and they realised their best policy to find friendly endusers was to not spam endlessly, but to occasionally promote their wares a little more subtly. They each also thought that if one of them made some kind of advertising, then that allowed each one to make one more each to compete. “We”, meanwhile wanted to promote creative people to be okay to discuss their work, at same time as removing the re-sellers. People who created stuff non-commercially were not to be affected. Obviously, one of the re-sellers was ICD. This created something of a conflict of interest when ICD wanted to host this forum.
So, we devised a charter that was friendly to creative producers, commercial or not, and treated all re-sellers a) equally and b) at arms length. The deal made with ICD specifically stated they were to have no advantage over other re-sellers, and that ICD could not link from this forum back to their webpages.

Back to Lyudmil. If he is producing, himself, book material related to chess programs, whether he sells them or not, then the original intention of this forum is that it is fine if he posts about what he is doing, just as it is fine for, say, Komodo authors to post about what they are doing. Komodo authors would probably get more leeway in extremis because they make an engine, while Lyudmil makes text material, but the idea would be to protect the postings of both.
Note that the opinion of ICD, questions of competition over product, or anything else is quite irrelevant here.
In fact the only cause to “moderate” or censor or whatever, a primary producer of computer chess related material here, would be if the material itself doesn’t pass as “computer chess related” or the volume of material, or repetitive nature of it, became overwhelming, and that’s a pretty high bar, or, if the primary producer was making repetitive posts all about endusers sending money for product, again, that’s a high bar. The normal way for users to deal with related material they don’t like, or posters they don’t like, or whatever, is by not bothering to read it. It is absolutely not for moderators to decide certain creative individuals and their postings are persona non grata and start interfering with their posts. Such individuals are protected by the purpose of this forum.

[Ovyron]

Yeah, I don't see how Lyudmil Tsvetkov's announcement of his book differs from Larry Kaufman's announcements of new Komodo releases.

As for the content of the book... well, in my database 1.d4 f5 2.d5!? is not on the top 16 moves. It scores worse than the likes of 2.Be3!? - it'd be very interesting to discuss why d5 is best, unless it is nonsense. But at this point, I'd be surprised if 2.d5 was better than 2.a3 (...which, I have better than 2.b3 - figures).

[PK]

This was NOT a good moderation decision. I don't necessarily agree with everything Lyudmil wrote, but his incessant pushing of the idea of pawn chains helped Rodent at some stage. This book might contain something of similar value, so information about it should be accessible right on this forum.

[hgm]

OK, it seems that everyone agrees that this is harmless, if it doesn't go much further. So I moved Lyudmil's original thread back to the General Topics section.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

I will shortly just address some messages here, as I don't want to make this thread too long.
Actually, the faster it is concluded, the better. Tired of all that fuss.

Chris (Whittington, I suppose, sorry, if I am wrong), THANK YOU very very much. I feel much safer now, in your presence.
"Secondary reseller" - I like that. There is a lot on engines in the book:
- why engines misplay some positions, and what positions exactly; pet weaknesses of the tops, primarily Stockfish
- the book is thoroughly analysed with Stockfish, for consistency, but there are frequent references why I disagree with them on many many occasions; by delving into this analysis, any engine author may draw important conclusions concerning optimal game play
- a number of engine-engine and human-engine games are included, featuring Stockfish, Komodo and Deep Blue
- there is a WEALTH of opening innovations; actually I have "busted" on the basis of careful year-long analysis with the help of the top engines, but primarily relying on my intuition and large database inferences, nearly ALL opening theory, as we know it. In the book, you will find at least 30-50 significant opening novelties, starting from the very first moves, 1st or 2nd move. By assimilating that knowledge, chess (engines) can make a qualitative leap in their development.
- etc., etc.

Harm, you can close the thread if an emergency appears, or if it gets too long. Actually, I prefer that you close it 2 days from now, letting people just the necessary time to get informed. For my part, I will try not to post here anymore, unless strictly necessary, to conform to some basic civility laws.

Ovyron, I intend to post a new thread, to deal with some opening innovations. There you will know why 2. d5! is best in the Dutch.

Pawel, how are you doing? Thanks for the moral support. From the current book, you (and engine developer) can get 2 things:
- clearer, or much clearer explanation of some underlying principles contained in The Secret of Chess, illustrated by ample examples
- as said, wide-ranging opening innovations may help improve engine's opening and middlegame play

Nuff said. I got tired.

[Spliffjiffer]

[Moderation] Lyudmil Tsvetkov is now selling a new book he has written, and tried to promote its sales here.

I think this kind of advertizing violates the charter, so for the time being I moved it to the moderator archive. I would be interested to hear the opinions of others on whether such announcements of commercial material are considered interesting.

There also is the concern how our host / sponsor would react on commercial activities here that divert sales to a competitor...

in my opinion this forum ("General Topics") is not the right place to advertise products because this is a discussion and question forum regarding computer-chess...beyond that i think though that "TalkChess" is very well suited for people who want to present their work they wanna sell but this has to be done exclusevly in a forum that is especially made for that.
it is important that there are possibilities for people to talk about the things they created and they want to sell now (oc im talking only about chess)...whether "TalkChess" wants to fulfill this criterion or not i cant assess but if so then my standpoint is/will be clear....advertisement (at least "computer-chess-foreign") not in this forum !

my opinion, regards

[chrisw]

[Moderation] Lyudmil Tsvetkov is now selling a new book he has written, and tried to promote its sales here.

I think this kind of advertizing violates the charter, so for the time being I moved it to the moderator archive. I would be interested to hear the opinions of others on whether such announcements of commercial material are considered interesting.

There also is the concern how our host / sponsor would react on commercial activities here that divert sales to a competitor...

Wrong on all counts, but most wrong on host/sponsor, whose opinion is not relevant for reasons expounded elsewhere.

If retailer ICD were to be protected from competition (and Lyudmil would be a mere drop in the ocean on that front) the main, probably entire competition, comes from Stockfish and/or LCZero who provide world best chess engines entirely FOC. Come to think of it perhaps you should protect the retailer from your own GUI product competition, also provided FOC, or all those Craftys likewise FOC.
Even dreaming of picking on Lyudmil is a) outrageous, b) totally disproportionate and c) for the reason given, wholly hypocritical.
ICD host this site because being next to it brings traffic. It has done its job for them because once there were many retail resellers, and now there is only one. Guess who. The cost is trivial and the whole hosting thing could easily be done “community” based. I’m not advocating that, just pointing it out.
This forum original set up was designed and agreed arms length from ICD for the simple reason the people setting it up did not want to favour any one reseller over any other. It was in the agreement, actually, that there was to be no link back to the reseller, for same reasons.

[hgm]

Old hat...

You are ranting about an issue that has long since been resolved.