Levy's interview on Chessbase about ICGA/rybka

[bob]

Why are you picking out a specific group? I didn't name them. So what does that have to do with the discussion?

Thinking about the group of Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, Elton John and Bob Hyatt in my opinion at least 1/3 of them are sexually deviant.

And I don't think Michael Jackson is, as he is dead.

Would you, just maybe?, feel a little offended by this statement if I were serious?

I mean: certainly nothing bad would really be said about you specifically.

Wouldn't bother me at all, actually...

I don't see why you named me specifically, but that is a different issue...

[Daniel Shawul]

Who said he was not a nice guy? I don't think he is dishonest, I think he is a nice guy who gave in to the propaganda and I even said that I think he is a reasonable person.

And I didn't say that you said that he is not a nice guy. What I said is that you give your main message ("dishonest" , "gave into propoganda") with a chocolate of that person being a nice guy. At least that is what I meant, capiche ?

I know that the premise that the ICGA is evil is clearly wrong so he was a victim of the propaganda attack. So how was I guessing at his motives? I don't believe he had bad motives at all. And are you his watchdog or something?

comon you say it every time.. To Fernando, To me, to everyone and now to Jon,. It is like you can't express your opinion without doing that. You are "dishonest".

[Rebel]

Ok, I will agree there are some vocal opponents who are not reasonable. But if I also oppose some of what ICGA has done, that does not mean I side with the most unreasonable opponents in all their unreasonableness.

And I'm not saying that you do. You seem like a reasonable person to me but I do think you have been persuaded by the constant negativity and unfair vilification of the ICGA and anyone perceived to be associated with it.

If you hear enough negative talk, the brain cannot separate it from fact and you start believing it. That is called propaganda and it works extremely well. It's the only way to get entire countries to go to war against other countries due to the will of some leader or leaders.

Does this logic apply to the 5 year long Rybka=Fruit campaign in CCC as well ?

[BubbaTough]

You seem like a reasonable person to me

Enough pleasant and reasonable talk Don. The main reason I voted for you was you promised to ban people early and often.

-Sam

[Don]

Ok, I will agree there are some vocal opponents who are not reasonable. But if I also oppose some of what ICGA has done, that does not mean I side with the most unreasonable opponents in all their unreasonableness.

And I'm not saying that you do. You seem like a reasonable person to me but I do think you have been persuaded by the constant negativity and unfair vilification of the ICGA and anyone perceived to be associated with it.

If you hear enough negative talk, the brain cannot separate it from fact and you start believing it. That is called propaganda and it works extremely well. It's the only way to get entire countries to go to war against other countries due to the will of some leader or leaders.

Does this logic apply to the 5 year long Rybka=Fruit campaign in CCC as well ?

Of course it could. It could be applied by either side and in either case it's essentially a dishonest form of persuasion, appealing to rumor an innuendo and endless repetition.

[Terry McCracken]

I would not be surprised in the least to discover that 1/4 of the cct-12 programs are not original.

Any burden of proof is on YOUR side. Naming would be a nice start. Evidence is next. Waiting...

"I would not be surprised . . ." is not an allegation.

Best
Dan H.

Casts a slur of suspicion though.

"On WHO?"

On most or all of the participants of CCT 12. According to you, 1/4 of these people are may be using derivative engines. Which begs the question "Which of these authors may be dishonest?". You say the the "gut" is rarely wrong in these situations. That means you feel strongly that some of these authors are breaking the rules:

Almond/AlmondX Richard Hall
Amyan Antonio Dieguez
Berta/BertaCCT Felix Schmenger
Butcher/ButcherX Marek Kolacz
Deep Junior Amir Ban, Shay Busihnsky
Daydreamer Aaron Becker
Deuterium/DeuteriumCCT Ferdinand Mosca
Diep Vincent Diepeveen/Brian Fraiser
Dirty/DirtyChess Pradu Kannan & Andres Valverde
Gaviota Miguel A. Ballicora
Hannibal Sam Hamilton/Edsel Apostol/Audy Arandela(Book)
Hiarcs Mark Uniacke/Robert G. Osborne
Ikarus Muntsin & Munjong Kolss TBD
Jabba/JabbaChess Richard Allbert
Komodo Don Dailey and GM Larry Kaufman
Ktulu Rahman Paidar/Edwin Dabbaghyan
mathmoi/ChessPlusPlus Mathieu Pagé
Scorpio Daniel Shawul / Book. Salvo Spitaleri
Shredder/ShredderX Stefan Meyer Kahlen / C. Keck
Sjeng/SjengX Gian Carlo Pascutto/Sujay Jagannathan
Spark Allard Siemelink
Telepath/TelepathX Charles Roberson
The Baron Richard Pijl/Arturo Ochoa
Thinker/Thinkerdev Kerwin Medina
Tinker/TinkerFICS Brian Richardson

The fact of the matter is that your statements are strong enough to come close to being an allegation. Some may not interpret your statements quite that way. But others do. There is some ambiguity in the English language, and not everybody has a copy of the Bob Hyatt lexicon. Many times I have seen people interpret your statements in a way that did not match exactly what you meant. Too many times I have then seen you accuse that person of a lack of understanding on the topic of discussion, or accuse them of twisting your words, when you could have simply acknowledged there may be a misunderstanding and then attempt to clarify.

Adam

Please...

"It wouldn't surprise me if ..."

as opposed to

"A, B and C are derivative programs"

Give me a break.

For the record, since you seem to think I use a different dictionary:

allegation: A claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.

So, who EXACTLY is this "someone"? To allege that someone has done something illegal or wrong, one has to identify "someone."

Bob, you are just *horrible* in admitting to have made a mistake, as minor as it may be!

Let's have a look: of this list Amyan, Butcher, Junior, Diep, Gaviota, Hiarcs, Ikarus, Shredder, Sjeng, Telepath, The Baron, Thinker and Tinker should be out of doubt, as you have known and competed against them for years.

Now if 1/4 of the field are expected to be cheaters according to you, how would you feel yourself if you were one of the remaining entries ?

Still regret I'm here? If you read Bob's posts you would see he woudn't be the least concerned.

Why should he?

[Terry McCracken]

Why are you picking out a specific group? I didn't name them. So what does that have to do with the discussion?

Thinking about the group of Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, Elton John and Bob Hyatt in my opinion at least 1/3 of them are sexually deviant.

And I don't think Michael Jackson is, as he is dead.

Would you, just maybe?, feel a little offended by this statement if I were serious?

I mean: certainly nothing bad would really be said about you specifically.

Good analogy.

No, it isn't. I'm saddened you've gone on your own personal crusade.
What's worse is you can't see it.

[jdart]

Just for the record, I was offended.

You are saying I am a nice guy, but .. basically you are also saying I am a dupe, someone who is so naive they need to be told "Don't believe everything you hear".

I am not a child. I am capable of forming my own opinions. I don't dislike ICGA because somebody else told me to, or for malicious reasons; I dislike them for what they've done, for my own reasons. Levy, and a number of others, evidently do not see the slightest thing wrong, and they can go on feeling and believing that way. But I see it differently.

This issue really has divided the community, to the point where even discussion of it is fraught.

--Jon

[bob]

In particular, the more I think about it, the less I think a lifetime ban for Rybka is justifiable, even if you grant all the allegations about it were true.
--Jon

The whole idea of a retroactive investigation is just crazy in my mind, though I have seen many proponents of it in sports over steroids and such. If it was me, I would say you have a year to file your complaint, then its over. The idea you can file a complaint about something that happened 5 or 10 years ago or whatever is just crazy to me. I would say that part bothers me more than anything about methods and such. Of course, once you go back that far, you kind of have to do a lifetime ban, if it had been say a five year ban for Rybka 1 activities it would have been already over by the time it was announced. What seemed to happen in my mind is

1. Some folks discovered something wrong probably took place with Rybka.
2. They realized checking the next upcoming Rybka version was not going to catch anything.
3. They decided proving the wrong-doing was worth a retroactive investigation and punishment.
4. To have any teeth, the punishment had to be extremely long.
5. To be consistent, they had to pursue other wrong-doers as well.

An easy road to go down once you hit step 1. (I don't have a strong opinion on whether they are right or wrong about 1., but I believe they believe, and are not in it for revenge or whatever). To me, though, the big problem is step 3. Just because you think someone did something wrong does not mean you should throw everything into turmoil blindly pursuing justice. The proper thing in my mind was to publish results, require a source code submission or other means of validation for participation in the next event (for any accused, not just Rybka), and then enforce the rules. Its likely Rybka would have not participated, or if it did, that the code would be sparkling clean. Problem solved. Maybe it would not have felt like justice, but it would have been better in my opinion than this whole bull-in-a-china-shop type approach.

-Sam

Isn't EVERY investigation "retroactive"??? Except in the movie "The Minority Report" where people get arrested and convicted for crimes they have not yet committed. Which means they can't commit the crimes in the first place. So how can they be arrested?

All "real investigations" happen after the fact. How would it be otherwise???

[bob]

But they have alienated a lot of people by their actions. In particular, the more I think about it, the less I think a lifetime ban for Rybka is justifiable, even if you grant all the allegations about it were true.

Exactly Jon. What pissed off many is the whole procedure from the beginning to the end. The ICGA is a FIDE affiliated organization and are not even allowed to punish more than 3 years to begin with. An organization that punishes when someone break their rules but break the FIDE rules themselves they signed for.

3.2 Anyone acting in contravention of this code can be excluded from participation in all FIDE tournaments or from specific types of tournaments for a period of up to 3 years. Weight shall be given to the type of violation and to any previous violations in decided upon the length of the exclusion period.

How many computer programs are a member of FIDE, exactly?

"zero".