Question to Shut Ctf Down posters

[duncan]

Ctf was not formed to give other people a democratic right to exist. It was formed to solve a problem of the tendency for too many off topic comments to get into CCC .

For some reason the 37 voters are not concerned about that now. Either because Ctf was a victim of its own success,or amnesia, or they have other considerations which over ride it.

However that reason has not gone away and still provides the something extra.

Indeed, some of the voters were (IMO justifiably) concerned about flooding of the CCC general topic forum with off-topic (i.e. non-computer-related or ches-related stuff). But I think this problem can be managed in better ways than keeping CTF open. There obviously will have to be a tough moderator policy versus those who would simply try to continue their current CTF activities in the main forum, and versus starting off-topic threads in general.

But the occasional birthday or holiday congratulations seem OK; we had those anyway, as posting them in CTF would be pointless: virtually no CCC poster reads there.

It might be a good idea to create a "Benign Off-Topic" section, similar to the current Moderation Archive, but visible to everyone, where moderators can move civilized Off-Topic discussions on non-devisive subjects (e.g. natural disasters, scientific or technological breakthroughs) once the interest in those subsided, to effectively lock those (it would be a read-only section), and keep the CCC forums clean in the long run. It would be up to the moderators to decide whether off-topic postings in the general section will be allowed to develop in a discussion, or removed immediately. If the number of off-topic postings is too large for comfort, we could switch to a system where requests for off-topic posting must be made by PM to a moderator, who will then create the topic if the request is granted.

When you say it would be up to the moderators to decide whether off-topic postings in the general section will be allowed to develop in a discussion, what happens if people want to know the moderators' position on this before he decides who to vote for. Should this be in the moderators platform, or would you prefer it be an arbitrary decision that the moderator takes ?

[hgm]

I still have to announce my moderation policy, and I will certainly address this issue in it.

[MikeB]

Look. I like to discuss the upcoming election in the US with my friends. However I feel no desire at all to do this on a forum dedicated to computer chess.

Look, I'm not here to debate - just an observation about the using the word "Look blah blah blah" in this context .I have noticed that politicians and CEOs have taken to use the word "Look" in replying to questions they do not like. It's basically a power grab to put the speaker in the power position and putting the questionioner in subliminal position — almost as if the questioner is being taken to a school and this is teaching moment for the politician/CEO. I generally dislike politicians and CEOs and now that I am 64 , my response to almost anyone saying "Look blah blah blah" to me face to face would be to reply 'No , you look blah blah blah" I don't think you meant it that way at all, but you might want to be careful how often you use that phrase face to face - it would have a tendency to piss people off, if they thought you were taking them to school.

I understand completely what you are saying and in agreement with it.

PS - I started my posted with the word "Look" on purpose — just to illustrate my point. It totally changed the tone of my post — not in a good way.

[hgm]

"Everything that comes before the word 'but' is horse shit."

I don't feel it the way you do. I think the opening 'look' is a very useful way to indicate that you temporarily escape from the actual question, in order to point out something in a wider context that needs to be understood first before the question can be sensibly answered.

[duncan]

"Everything that comes before the word 'but' is horse shit."

I don't feel it the way you do. I think the opening 'look' is a very useful way to indicate that you temporarily escape from the actual question, in order to point out something in a wider context that needs to be understood first before the question can be sensibly answered.

You could both be right, but Is there an equivalent in dutch to look in the sense that you use it.

[hgm]

Dutch idiom is often very close to English. It is just an invitation to view things in a wider perspective.

[Tony P.]

I'm not going to read the 8 pages, sorry if I'm repeating someone else's arguments. I'm just replying to the OP.

CCC is a board about a hobby, and it's an overkill to hold volunteer mods and admins to the same standard as real-life elected officials. I don't expect true democracy on internet forums in general. The CTF existence issue has got far more drama than it deserved.

From the few minutes of lurking in CTF, I got the impression that the habit of posting there was bad for mental health. When people are on the path to self-destruction IRL, we often remove their freedom to do so. Making it necessary to click more buttons (e.g. go to another site) to pursue a habit often helps break the habit, which is the motivation for the plethora of browser anti-distraction tools. Hence my vote for a total shutdown instead of restricted access.

Please note that membership as of the start of the poll was the only requirement for participation there. I found the decision to invite lurkers to the poll reasonable because the CTF dynamics were affecting the involved members' relationships and personalities and, indirectly, their conduct in the CC forums too.

I feel that CTF was violating the apolitical spirit of chess reflected in the FIDE motto, 'Gens una sumus'.

[glennsamuel32]

To keep this short...

Please shut down CTF.

Talkchess started as a chess forum and is becoming more and more unrecognizable as time passes.

Anyone who needs to vent, flame, attack and ridicule people or religions or whatever freeking topic under the sun, may consider creating their own forum away from Talkchess, to satisfy their needs.

Like this...

https://goregrish.com/