Time to immigrate to another forum?

[smatovic]

..

???

Take a look at the current poll in this thread, it is basically moving to Ed's forum vs. status quo, HGM+the other moderators represent status quo so to speak, in other words, this here is already your moderators election you seek.

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Srdja

[noobpwnftw]

..

???

Take a look at the current poll in this thread, it is basically moving to Ed's forum vs. status quo, HGM+the other moderators represent status quo so to speak, in other words, this here is already your moderators election you seek.

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Srdja

I'm confused, according to you, by voting "Yes", do we even need the old domain?

[smatovic]

I'm confused, according to you, by voting "Yes", do we even need the old domain?

I don't know, it is Ed's poll, meanwhile it seems Ed would like to keep the old domain, I guess it is a matter who pays for it (we could also collect donations IMHO), I myself see no sense in moving to a new forum without the domain+DB, so I voted "No", and if you do not take over domain+DB, the community will be split into newTC+oldTC, a loose-loose situation, and, further, the scraping idea won't work anymore, "verify that you are a human", scrapers are meanwhile blocked by the Cloudflare front-end....

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Srdja

[smatovic]

Maybe we need a lil pep talk sound



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Srdja

[CornfedForever]

A family member of mine with manager experience has the adage that you should always do the most difficult thing first. Because if you get that done, you know it is likely that the rest will also get done. If not you know you are stuck but you still have time and energy to think of a solution.

Let us be reminded that it's basically 50/50 to move or not...and that's not factoring in the 'not sure' who basically seem somewhat wary of moving in the first place.

At work I was on a committee to help in a revamp of how to 'do the work' when someone is out...a 'cover buddy'. I was the last person on the committee to say "Okay, that's what the rest of you want, then go forward with the idea you guys want". We did...and virtually everyone is howling because it is upsetting 'their applecart' too much.

I've not said "I told you so" to the rest of the committee...but I think it's pretty clear that because of a few complaining so loudly, those are the only people the rest heard. Note: I thought a simple 'tweak' would be better.

To come full circle...yes, you do the most difficult first...but be sure you really need to do anything first or you could just find yourself worse off than you were before.

Also, when I voted, the results to date popped up and were in favor of 'no' by; several votes. Only afterwards did an influx of 'yes'' votes come in....so that 'yes' now leads by 1. Hardly an endorsement.

[Rebel]

In the OP I asked for possible existing fora to migrate to and I was surprised by the low number of suggestions. I went to the good old CPW and noticed that many once popular computer chess fora no longer exist.

Regarding my forum, it's free, cost nothing, in exchange you get the ads. The latter can be fixed against an affordable price. Scrolling through the forum options I noticed the forum can be renamed to a new name, for instance "https://prodeo.actieforum.com" can become "https://talkchess.actieforum.com". I can modify the forum layout to Talkchess standard within in a couple of hours, I have only 2 "buts" -

1. Looking at the split outcome of this poll, someone (not me) creates a new poll if this is a desirable option.

2. When positive I will make the changes and will organize a moderator election, I will not run myself.

[chrisw]

State of play is something of a joke. As if you've all been maneouvred by the inertial mass into something that isn't going to work. Ed and the inertial mass are supposed to negotiate with Quentin (who may or may not be the actual boss, the inertial mass, who does know, isn't letting on who or what the other parties may be, or not be). Whose side is inertial mass on? Who knows? But apparently he is not going to do anything anyway, apart from throwing out dubious suggestions with unknown motivations. One thing is for sure, he and Ed pretty much loath each other, going back over many years - there's a good start.
Then they go into diplomatic 'negotiations' with Quentin (of unknown authority, and who can always pass the buck anyway) with zero mandate (poll locked into equality), and Quentin can just sit on his hands and do nothing. Inertial mass can throw another wobbly, like last time, and you'll all have to go home again. nothing achieved. Actually, gone backwards.
Moral of the story? Don't start from here.

Where to start? From a position of strength. You can't negotiate with nothing. No carrots, no sticks, just hope. Doesn't work. You can't even get a poll majority, despite the forum hardly functioning. Why not? Not offering a viable alternative, apart from vague promises and hope.

So, nincompoops, MAKE AN ALTERNATIVE FORUM. Starting now. Put the team together and get on with it. Only needs a smallish group, people who want to make it work, throw out the inertial ones and the moaners. Then, when you have something to persuade people with, then you go to Quentin, from a strong position (you're going to do it anyway, does he want to play ball?) and see if he'll cooperate, or not. It's in his or the shop or the real boss interest to cooperate (reputation).

Or, lets just piss about and have an interminable long thread spiralling off into wherever until the next drama replaces it.

[noobpwnftw]

The best part is for however long this gonna last, the shop people is paying for it and with the quality of service not improved, the cards in their hand will only depreciate. So it is to my best interest to take the time and watch drama.

[hgm]

A bit of history for a good understanding.

The forum was founded by a group of people called the founding-fathers in November 1997. Current active members are Chris, Thorsten and me. We made an agreement with ICD Corp. they would supply the forum software and maintain it as only obligation and no further rights. The forum, its ruling and its contents are the sole property of the forum members protected and maintained by elected members called moderators. ICD profited massively from the deal, I know the REBEL numbers they ordered during the years. So far so good, a win-win situation.

During the years the rights of the forum members have been trampled, it goes too far to go into detail but the current main beef is that the current owner (Quentin) is unwilling to hand over the domain name but most importantly he is unwilling to handover the data. This while no single byte written by members is his.

For a solution Quentin need to be contacted again, a previous try by HGM and me almost succeeded (HGM did a lot of work setting up a server) till Quentin started to question the rights of the data hinting for a money deal. He has no rights. What IMO needs to happen is :

1. New elected moderators, robust people able to make a deal with Quentin.

2. New server, new modern forum software, all data transferred.

3. Discussion (or election) who becomes the new owner (or owners) of the new forum.

4. The new moderators make an agreement with the new owner(s).

Although having moderator elecions is a good idea in itself, I don't see how it would be helpful in any way for migrating the forum. Moderators can edit other member's postings. How would that be helpful in striking a deal with ChessUSA? Or setting up a new server? To give everyone an opportunity to vote in an election will take at least a month. Which seems a completely unnecessary delay.

It seems to me that, when Quentin agrees to part with the forum, the moral claim for ownership reverts to (some woulde say 'stays') with the 'founding fathers'. So if their is no storm of protest amongst the members, it seems logical that they should be trusted striking the deal with Quentin. Of course it would be essential that only people with sufficient diplomatic skill will be in direct contact with Quentin. But it seems to me Ed qualifies as such. And he already has contacted Quentin in the past.

Likewise the same counts for you as admin, we are both in good standing with Quentin. Ideally of course would be to keep the talkchess domain name, the question is if we can make safe from (the) hacker attacks. As you know during our previous try I discovered a virus and maybe there are more backdoors for hackers. Your help and knowledge would be appreciated if we come that far with Quentin.

The point is that most people here do not seem to trust me. And last time you did your best to make Quentin mistrust me too. Plus that I am not a founding father. So I'd rather not burn myself on this.

Today I was traveling most of the time, returning from my holiday destination, but now that I am back I have more time to study what Quentin actually wrote to me. So far I only promised him that would respond to it this Monday.

[hgm]

And failed, is there anything else to add for reasons not to have an election that was due two years already?

I don't know, you tell me. Why haven't you conducted that election, these past two years, if you felt we would need a new moderation team so badly? And that is also a question for anyone else twho is so dissatisfied with the eprformance of the current team.

I'll just say it, the forum atmosphere deteriorating was largely due to poor judgement from moderators, the shop rightfully took advantage of the incompetency of the forum asset owners, and you don't want to face the seemingly inevitable "rebellion" coming your way in an election. I will put my 5 bucks on that exact word you'll be describing it.

My advice, after going though all things that you think you did right, maybe you can start to make a list of failures and admit to them, as that might even save the day and win my 5 bucks. People got angry not because they didn't know what you did for the forum, they just hate it when you always blame someone else or duck in when shit happens. People make a living doing DDOS prevention, fixing script backdoors and make forum software, and they don't seem cost to more than your ego.

My only failure no doubt was that I did not cater to the wishes of a few vindictive members who where chagrined by the fact that there are few interesting postings for bending the law to allow a lynching party of the scapegoat they designated.

Of course I consider that a success rather than a failure.

If you are not happy with the charter, then start an effort to change that charter. If a super-majority of the members want to modify the charter, nothing is stopping us from doing that. We could elevate the rule that people should be banned when two (or perhaps three) member request so to law.