Robert Flesher wrote:Rolf wrote:SzG wrote:SzG wrote:liuzy wrote:Since Norman has made great contribution to chess, I think it's time to let him return to our community.
Contribution to chess has nothing to do with banning. He was banned for violating the charter.
To be more precise, he kept saying Rybka was a clone but provided no proof.
You may notice that many here accused Ippolit and co. to be a clone without providing a proof. I don't remember any of them has been banned...
A damned untruth/halsehood. He wasnt banned for saying this but because he sold his several clones to the people and that is a crime. Therefore it's alsi in itself dirty to argue that he ported something to Windows and that were a fantastic contribution. This is similar (although one cannot compare the two cases!) to a murderer Bloodgood who spent a life sentence in jail and became a 1.g4 expert. IMO we cant ignore true crimes alone for the integrity of our youth. But honestly I would prefer Bloodgood as a chess expert over Kranium, who BTW is also playing around with many pseudos, and he is, above all, betraying chess fans with his clones. While Bloodgood didnt murder a chessplayer. So that one could argue that his chess dedication had absolutely nothing to do with chess! Other than with Kranium who abused chess fans themselves. That is why I see him a lot more dangerous than a murderer who sits forever in jail.
I agree with what you are saying, however, it never ceases to amaze me how wound up people become over issues that do not concern them. There will always be people to seek to gain and exploit others, this is the world we live in. By responding to threads that support accused theft and piracy, this only serves to feed the evil machine with attention. Again, I am more and more shocked at how this forum has fallen into stupid ethical chats over right and wrong. Maybe we need a third forum for political, ethical, and emotional rants ?
AKA ...."Chess Thinkers Forum"
I agree with you that such a message with a petition that Norm should be invited back because he had contributed so much - belongs into CTF but NOT CCC. Or should belong into Help,Suggestion subforum.
But then I would disagree. Simply because the logical weakness has affected too many real experts too. The reasons are different in each person but the main argument boils down to this one. we should judge computerchess as a field with old and hopefully always new contributions for the programming of new features and whole engines. So, as sort of engineering without ethical questions at all. If you want to build a bridge Earth-Moon and it is possible then we should do it, we shouldnt question this with too many doubts. Another would be the question of crimes. What does it interest the community if a Wch butcher was a serial murderer who dismantled his victims like cattle? What counts is his talent to work with a knife.
You seem to think that all this is belonging into CTF as a freaky monster show. But here in CCC we have the absolutely sane and cool logical stuff. I disagree because how we could alienate clones and their gamblers if we would only talk about code bits? I think the solution is easy. We already have the programmer's subforum where even a Norm could participate on topic. But in any other forum he cant because that would mean we would tolerate his crimes. Well crimes in our scene and when you look at the commited fraud by selling clones.
So, if a membership could be restricted on such a subforum, also Norm could participate. IF he reduced himself on code questions and wouldnt mention his philosophical reasons to clone stuff. Which is in fact what he did here in the General Forum as a member.
I agree with many who argue that we shouldnt censor the topic of cloning as such. Therefore I would create another subforum exclusively for cloner questions. There nobody should write his considerations why clones shouldnt exist. The problem would be if the host can risk to host such a support forum in favor of clones and cloners. But I would argue that having a public (or private?) forum about it would help many new members to understand what this is all about. Without censorship. Because now we have a difficult situation where ethical aspects overrule computerchess internal questions.