The Campaign to get Leo a New Computer

[Dann Corbit]

See:
http://wbec-ridderkerk.forumotion.com/w ... r-t119.htm

Can you cough up 14 Euros for a good cause?

[Rolf]

Dann, although your action is to applaud it strikes me that I could well find a sort of list with donators by Leo but I couldnt see anything written by himself why he needed the PC at all. Is it his sole PC, or his 7th? Also I want to mention that I see a negative aspect. Say someone is lost in CC testing at the border of his financial possibilities, I dont know what he's working, what could it mean if he now gets new PCs so that he possibly couldnt earn money further more. But thanks to him from all CC intersts for his tests. You know what I mean? Is this the best method to help someone to stand on his own feet? And afterwards what could he do, if he wanted to leave? To do something else? Would that still be possible?
I see many good alternatives where not a single person alone is responsible for the whole test work. I mean this couldnt be a job for money, it's always a hobby. Say we have 50 or more test matches, why I couldnt do some of them together with other interests? Take me by my word. Please try to understand the positive future aspect in that distributing on several shoulders. Nobody should be exploitated so much in the name of our community that he then becomes a perspectiveless addicted without any further income. Please understand that this is not written to avoid the paying of 20 bucks. But I see Leo stuck in helplessness. This must be changed. All IMO with respect.

[Erik Roggenburg]

Dann, although ...

Wow. You just can't help yourself, eh? I hope you are always here - this forum would be hollow without you. And, the servers hosting this site would be a few MB less full.

[Terry McCracken]

Please don't encourage him, (as amusing as your reply is), I reported his post.

[Dann Corbit]

Dann, although your action is to applaud it strikes me that I could well find a sort of list with donators by Leo but I couldnt see anything written by himself why he needed the PC at all.

Clue found here:
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/5thdiv.htm
More clues found in result listings like this one:
http://wbec-ridderkerk.forumotion.com/w ... s-t123.htm

Is it his sole PC, or his 7th?

I believe that he has at least 5 machines dedicated to testing. For instance (go to the bottom of the page):
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/info.htm
A machine used for 5th division stopped working.

Also I want to mention that I see a negative aspect. Say someone is lost in CC testing at the border of his financial possibilities, I dont know what he's working, what could it mean if he now gets new PCs so that he possibly couldnt earn money further more. But thanks to him from all CC intersts for his tests. You know what I mean?

I have literally no idea what you mean.

Is this the best method to help someone to stand on his own feet?

I guess that if you want someone to overcome all of their problems themselves then you would not want to help. But if you wish to help someone who has been doing something nice for the computer chess community for over a decade free of charge and one of his machines dies then it would be OK to cough up $20 = 14 Euro to heolp out {if you so choose.}

And afterwards what could he do, if he wanted to leave?

To leave what to go where?

To do something else?

I don't know what you mean about doing something else.

Would that still be possible?

All things are possible if you try hard enough.

I see many good alternatives where not a single person alone is responsible for the whole test work.

Sure. SSDF does lots of testing. CCRL, CEGT, George Lyapko, etc.
SSDF gets machines donated. CCRL and CEGT are hobbyists. Same for George. If one of their computers died, I might make the same suggestion.

I mean this couldnt be a job for money, it's always a hobby. Say we have 50 or more test matches, why I couldnt do some of them together with other interests?

If you did some together with some other interests, why would I care?

Take me by my word. Please try to understand the positive future aspect in that distributing on several shoulders. Nobody should be exploitated so much in the name of our community that he then becomes a perspectiveless addicted without any further income. Please understand that this is not written to avoid the paying of 20 bucks. But I see Leo stuck in helplessness. This must be changed. All IMO with respect.

I guess that Leo will not be helpless if we help him or don't help him. I guess that some people like the service that Leo has been performing for the chess community for a very long time. I noticed for several weeks that one of the tournaments he usually runs just stopped running (with the explanation that the machine broke). I guess that if he had a giant pile of cash handy, he would have just fixed it. I guess that other people like me appreciate the effort he has been putting forward for many years in computer chess and might like to help. I do realize that we could also donate our $20 to fight cancer or save the whales or end Aids or help the farmers or educate children or many other things. I guess that people who would rather donate to those things and who think that computer chess is not important won't send Leo any money. Personally, I cannot see any harm coming from doing something nice for someone, especially when it is someone really nice like Leo.

If you do not want to donate to the project then feel free not to donate. If you want to discourage other people from donating, then feel free to discourage them. In this world, we are all allowed to have our opinions and mine is no better than yours. Personally, I donate to things that are a lot more important than this, but I thought that kicking in lunch money to help someone out who has been doing a great service for the computer chess community would be a good precedent and not a bad one.

Over the years, people who run chess boards burn out from the effort and the expense. It seemed to me to be a nice gesture to show Leo that we appreciate all that he has done. If you think it is bad to send money for such a cause then I will simply say that we will have to agree to disagree on this.

[PauloSoare]

I like the messages of Rolf, my problem is that he writes a lot and I
have trouble to understand.
Rolf is one of the key persons of CCC, because he is clever, controversial
and stubborn.
CCC without Rolf? No, it´s less fun.

Paulo Soares

[Volker Pittlik]

I like the messages of Rolf, my problem is that he writes a lot and I
have trouble to understand.

...

What is without any doubt the only reason for your statement.

[Rolf]

I like the messages of Rolf, my problem is that he writes a lot and I have trouble to understand.

Please let me explain for one time.

In my message I wrote a paragraphe which a native (?) speaker, with a long professional computer history and experience, also of a lifetime, couldnt, literally (!), understand.

The text was

Also I want to mention that I see a negative aspect. Say someone is lost in CC testing at the border of his financial possibilities, I dont know what he's working, what could it mean if he now gets new PCs so that he possibly couldnt earn money further more. But thanks to him from all CC intersts for his tests. You know what I mean?

Is this really so obfuscatedly written, that a senior member here couldnt decrypt and above all understand the text and its moral? Apparently, yes.

The moral is that literally nobody among us, of our community, in our hobby, from the USA, Europe or other wealthy States, should lose himself so deeply here that he oversteps the limits of the financial budget he can afford for his hobby besides his other responsibilities as there are profession, job, family, wife and children, sanity, other cultural hobbies.

If that is the threat, then someone should call for help, of course also in our community itself. But Leo didnt do this at all. At least I couldnt find it.

Dann didnt understand the danger of his otherwise very generous action. Our hobby tends to make people addicted somewhat so that they overburden themselves. If then the community spends the hardware the whole test project is becoming the boss and the tester is its helpless assisstant. But also the responsibilities towards to community are increasing after the well known scheme. That cant be supported IMO.

I asked further what if a tester with such importance would like to make a break, holidays or stop it totally? Would that be possible? And please NB, I'm asking on behalf of the individual, NOT the interests of the community.
Because I've already seen many here die or leave and the overall shock wasnt so strongly visible as I had expected. With exceptions almost nobody cared too much, this is the sad truth. So, is it reasonable, if I ask for the well of the individual member and not only out of the group interests?

Why must a single tester make 5 or 6 master groups? Each on a seperate computer? Where is the limit? Wouldnt 20 tournaments be better? So, my question was, could the breakdown of this single PC be a good reason to re-organuse the whole testing? With more people testing?

It's very sad to see, when a senior member like Dann tells us clearly that he couldnt understand at all what I've written and still he claims that of course I could well perhaps have meant to inform others not to spend some of their money for helping Leo.

Now this is a very bad and negative affront against my reputation. Shouldnt someone who couldnt understand a text not better avoid making dirty allegations? In this case I had especially written that I didnt want to tell others not to sponsor. So?

I repeat what I have observed and with my professional experience I can say this:

without any cry for help from the individual himself, but who then published already a list of donators, always as if writing in another person's name and not his own, who never had asked for help himself, this makes on me the impression as if someone wanted to hide his personal identity, behind a quasi public, official authorization by a fantasy order from the community, and he's thankful that he can perhaps soon continue his duty (??) of testing. But who ever had authorized him than he himself? So, he himself could also increase the testing to 20 tournaments or de-activate a PC so that now only 4 tournaments could be organised at the same time. What's wrong with such a procedere? Why must Leo always use 5 PCs? Czub had even 7 PCs longer time ago.

I never, never, never read somewhere either here or in the German CSS that someone would be searched for who would like to accompany someone like Leo in his testing. all what I see is that always individuals are working with 160% oerformance like the unforgettable Louwman, the man from Bad Kissingen who simply vanished, and people like Elvis or Rainer, who just died and left a bigger whole than what the community could replace! Is that so by a natural law or do we have a virtual doping problem? Does the CC community live on the expenses of the veritable life efforts of some few addicted? Could this be normalized?

IMO it's time that senior (=life experience) members begin to talk about the internal mechanisms of the community itself so that much more help and influence could be started instead of reducing the valid problem to the question "will you spend 20 bucks for tester Leo (who didnt even ask for the help), if not, then at least shut up or I'll report you".

[gerold]

Thanks for your opinion Rolf.

Best to you,,

Gerold.

P.S. I fully understand your statements.

[PauloSoare]

If you write with more objectivity, perhaps I understand what do you want to talk.
What do you want? I think do you want that people collaborate with Leo to buy
a computer. I have other priorities, including helping people in Brazil, or
maybe spend my money, which is not so much, with things that I like,
but I will help Leo.


Paulo Soares