Time to rethink what Vasik Rajlich has done?

[chrisw]

so what has he done? he sent some old crafty to compete in Olivier's chesswar (or openwar) disguised as Rybka 1.6.1 (or something) - this is lame and stupid and hard to understand. this has been proven beyond any doubt

as for "post-fruit" Rybkas - a wrong version was compared to Fruit (and even that comparison fell short, because Wegner et al were high and seeing "copied code" where there was none or imaginary at best)
so he allegedly "took too much" according to the panel, but too much is simply vague
of course, Wegner had a motivation of his own as he won WCCC with Cozzie's program later and retired as a "champ" when Vas was out of the way

if we'd look at todays top open source engines with 2011 optics, very few (if any) would pass the originality criteria back then.

I knew Zach Werner actually quite well, given social media, and discussed with him a few times by email. At the time he was still a student, not written any chess program, and his main motivation, as far as I could tell, was a new found social acceptance into a world of “famous” people, increased much by working on the “evidence” document. He was just a student and he told me afterwards that the document was just a first shot on which he expected critique and discussion. It wasn’t meant to be any final paper (Zach’s words, to me, in email). In fact, he said, the reception was no critique at all, just an immediate “great, this is just what we need”. Again, in fact, any college supervisor actually reading it with some knowledge on the subject and the necessary objectivity would have put a big red line through it and either marked him “Fail” or “Start Again”. Zach later realised that the social group he so aspired to be accepted into had collective feet of clay and were mostly either idiots or really rather unpleasant, that he had been used, and he washed his hands of computer chess and all to do with it, leaving, never to return. I guess he got a useful lesson at a relatively early age but it was not very nice for him, he being a victim of it too.
The lesson? The entire thing against Vas was fired by social group dynamic, it was a large social group, the inner core had “titles”, people are attracted to the idea of being “in”, they believe “titles”, the social group welded itself together by creating an “outside” hate figure. The hate figure suited many of them for commercial/professional/status/personal reasons. The evidence wasn’t meant to be read, it was meant to be bulky. The evidence wasn’t read. It wasn’t critiqued. The was no red team, only a blue one, and they fixed it so there was no internal disagreement.
An interesting lesson in how things can go catastrophically wrong, a lesson in how everything a social group knows can be wrong, shame it had to destroy somebody’s life in the process.

I am tired or responding to these sorts of very inaccurate postings. Zack's work on Rubka 1.0 was one of the reasons an investigation was started, but Mark Watkin's work on that and versions 2.x of Rybka were hat was mostly examined, since they were the versions close to the time of Rybka entering ICGA events.

haha. Funny one. Now disowning the "not even wrong" Wegner pack of invented BS, well described by Mar above.

Watkins contribution was something of a joke. Subjectively self-selected comparison criteria by a non-chess programmer. Including nonsense like Vas copied Fruit because they both didn't do King Safety calculations if the Queen was absent. Like almost everybody on the whole planet, except Watkins, being non-chess programmer didn't know that fact.

This includes comment assembly listings of the evaluations, which anyone, with time and patience, and an intel opcode book can confirm.

Oooh! Opcode assembly, eh?! As if any of that minimal stuff proved anything. It didn't.

This evidence was meant to be read and each voting investigation team member was asked if they had read this information.

There's skim reading and reading with a critical eye. Something you clearly hadn't done after you spent two week with Bob in Internet trying to assert Vas PSQT were direct copies of Fruit. Then claiming they were direct copies of Fruit with one multiplier. It took you quite awhile to give up on that one. You skim read the documents. If you read them properly you would have seen what Mar saw, and not published.

All that voted said yes. Rhetorical arguments about "titles" and "blue teams" says nothing.

Perhaps you are not aware of the truth that when making team/group decision over important matters with consequences and where multi-considerations apply - to avoid group think and Confirmation Bias you need a powerful Red Team (in finance Red Team consultants get renumerated in proportion to a) their overturning the Blue Team findings and b) the losses incurred by going ahead with Blue Team when Red Team found the fail points). Try Mergers and Acquisisitions 101. Getting rid of Red Team at stage one was part of your work.

Vasik was presented the information reviewed by the panel, including summaries of the information. He provided no defense of the data presented.

Oh yes he did. Read emails between him and Levy.

I saw no evidence of any hate by any panel member.

Sorry to read about your eyesight. Perhaps an optician might help?

People were measured in their comments, and it was clear to me they understood the work. You should stop making things up. Let the work stand for itself instead of passing along lies.

That's funny. You make personal attacks about lies, when your entire contribution to the entire process was to robotically defend and deny a pack of BS lies used for the utterly unjustified verdict and the psychopathic penalties. Penalties condemned by the relevent Ethics Committee. Btw.

The annals of history have been written. Better people than you have decided. They show you part of a corrupt pretend-legal process, commonly known as Lawfare, waged for bad motives (envy, being one) against an entirely innocent and able engine programmer who still stands head and shoulders above the pack who condemned him. I condemn you for your part in that.

[Rebel]

I am tired or responding to these sorts of very inaccurate postings. Zack's work on Rubka 1.0 was one of the reasons an investigation was started, but Mark Watkin's work on that and versions 2.x of Rybka were hat was mostly examined, since they were the versions close to the time of Rybka entering ICGA events. This includes comment assembly listings of the evaluations, which anyone, with time and patience, and an intel opcode book can confirm. This evidence was meant to be read and each voting investigation team member was asked if they had read this information. All that voted said yes. Rhetorical arguments about "titles" and "blue teams" says nothing. Vasik was presented the information reviewed by the panel, including summaries of the information. He provided no defense of the data presented. I saw no evidence of any hate by any panel member. People were measured in their comments, and it was clear to me they understood the work. You should stop making things up. Let the work stand for itself instead of passing along lies.

Mark -

Let's talk about the REAL reason this case went to the ICGA, it's because most (if not all) of the guilty voters BELIEVED / FELT that Rajlich copied Fruit, you included by your own admission in (somewhere in Openchess) when I pressed you for an answer. I asked many programmers the same question.

The public witch hunt started in 2008 (Theron first, Zach later, Bob followed) and all the "Vas copied Fruit" statements that on a frequent base were thrown in Talkchess and Rybka forum could not be proven until someone came to the clever idea to take the case to the ICGA with stricter rules than copyright.

And in the end your belief could not be proven, but you may still believe it.

BELIEF not necessarily FACT.

It's quite ironic that all you found is what Rajlich already said in 2005 a couple of days after the Rybka 1 release in an interview when asked about the origin of Rybka.

Yes, the publication of Fruit 2.1 was huge. Look at how many engines took a massive jump in its wake: Rybka, HIARCS, Fritz, Zappa, Spike, List, and so on. I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things.

I think nowadays generation of chess programmers would raise an eyebrow.

[mclane]

!!!!

Important statement.

[Madeleine Birchfield]

Conversation done, could the moderators please lock this thread like the Albert Silver thread?

[hgm]

[Moderation] Thread locked at request of OP

[hgm]

Absolutely nothing to do with that. It's created to be a safe place for people who are fed up with Talkchess. Recently moderator Dann Corbit who moved to it, you still need to remove his name from the moderator list. There are more, you know their names. Secondly as an alternative for CTF. It never was my intention to become a competitor to Talkchess, I have run 4 times here as moderator, the idea to once again serve as a "mother-ater" among bickering children in a busy forum isn't something I am looking for. The forum as it is, is just fine.

Well, it seems Dann didn't last long in your 'safe place for people fed up with TalkChess':

I made a mistake in coming here.
I thought, "They faced un-just persecution from CCC and came here. Therefore, they will be attentive to justice."
I was wrong.
This place is not better.
Maybe, it is worse.
Time to go somewhere else. Or maybe there is nowhere else.
When there are no ears that hear what you say, why should you speak?

A single encounter with Thorsten was enough to bring him to this conclusion.