2024 Moderation Election ***Update***

[LazySMP]

I think the current moderators are great and there is no need to change them. These discussions started right when I created a topic in this forum and then Stockfish community members started to disagree and wanted to change moderators.

https://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=970228

What is the problem with the current moderators?
H G Muller, posts=28127, username=hgm
Ed Schroeder, posts=7207, username=Rebel
Ch Whittington, posts=4457, username=chrisw

The concept of election makes sense when the number of voters is large, I don't think it is possible to elect a competent manager with only 200 votes.

[Ras]

What is the problem with the current moderators?

HGM is the last elected actual moderator and doesn't want to be moderator anymore. Rebel and Chris are not moderators, but members of the founding group (FG) that acts temporarily as moderators as per the announcement of the FG. In case Rebel and Chris should want to continue moderating (as moderators, not as FG members), they can run as candidates, and members will be able to vote for them.

[Rebel]

We deliberately draw the October line because of the so called sleepers, persons who have multiple accounts and only show up during the elections to influence the democratic process.

[chrisw]

What is the problem with the current moderators?

HGM is the last elected actual moderator and doesn't want to be moderator anymore. Rebel and Chris are not moderators, but members of the founding group (FG) that acts temporarily as moderators as per the announcement of the FG. In case Rebel and Chris should want to continue moderating (as moderators, not as FG members), they can run as candidates, and members will be able to vote for them.

HGM was elected as a moderator in 2020, at a time when the forum was owned by the shop ICD, with a tradition of holding elections every six months. Meanwhile the shop narrative was that the "members owned the forum" which was always BS, since the shop demanded 2500 dollars to part with it. Eg, the shop did and always did effectively own and control the forum and was able to charge money for it when it suited them. HGM sat on in, no elections since four years ago, as the forum gradually became less and less attractive to the shop, who finally threatened to ditch it ($2500 please), other moderators quit or fell into doing nothing, and it was left to a new FG, constituted around Rebel and me to salvage things, crowd funding, etc.
Now the forum is reconstituted, with different ownership (yes, it is a piece of owned intellectual property, such is capitalism), the new owners being the FG, a "menage a trois" of convenience between three of us who basically disagree about everything, but somehow manage to keep it running. The FG has rights and responsibilities, including assigning hosting rights by contract to a third party. FG is obliged to perform under the contract and in the case of dispute, hosting rights revert to the FG (see contract in Charter section).
One of our responsibilities is to appoint moderators, to oversee them ensuring they respect the charter and general aims. Traditionally, although not for the last four years (ask HGM) this has been by 6 monthly election, but this is not written in stone and has been ignored (ask HGM) for the last four years. HGM narrative is that he is some kind of super-moderator and Ed and I are imposters, one can ask oneself his motivation here, I care not to speculate. The fact is that it's a newly constituted forum, with change of ownership, run democratically by the FG (the owners, capitalism and contract law demands there has to be an owner), which democratically (unanimously in this case) decided to appoint the three FG members as moderators in the interim.

The FG has, or maybe has not, its hard to tell, decided to initiate a moderator election. Possibly the other two would vote for an election although personally I'ld vote not to have one at all. Just as War is Politics by other means. Moderator elections tend to just be an extension of psychopathic in-fighting that keep breaking out as one faction or another here tries to enforce its will by attacking the moderators instead when not agreed with. If there were no elections, the fighting would stop, as the fighters give up via exhaustion instead. However, if the other two FG guys want an election, I'll democratically go along with them and do my organisational bit. We are where we are.

The other thing we could do, is to genuinely reconstitute the forum as run and "owned" by the membership, but I think that "ownership" would be nominal and the amount of legal BS and hassle we'ld have to go through to get it organised would be too onerous. And for what? It's just a small special interest forum of no great consequence. If it were me, I'ld decline the process, way too much crap to have to wade through for fame and glory that I don't need.
Anyway, for those of you for whom this place is substitute family and real life bla-di-bla, no doubt you have other ideas.

[shawn]

I would like to nominate @LazySMP aka Daniel Pierce as a moderator candidate.

[LazySMP]

I would like to nominate @LazySMP aka Daniel Pierce as a moderator candidate.

You better hold an election for the Stockfish community and elect new admins. I have seen many times that the Stockfish admins restricted members just for expressing their opinions. By searching the word "block" you can find some examples. Therefore, your community needs an election more than ours.

https://github.com/official-stockfish/S ... /pull/4195

[shawn]

You better hold an election for the Stockfish community and elect new admins. I have seen many times that the Stockfish admins restricted members just for expressing their opinions. By searching the word "block" you can find some examples. Therefore, your community needs an election more than ours.

https://github.com/official-stockfish/S ... /pull/4195

We'll keep you updated in tomorrow's Early Edition!

[LazySMP]

HGM was elected as a moderator in 2020, at a time when the forum was owned by the shop ICD, with a tradition of holding elections every six months.

HGM was as a moderator since 2016. Right?

HGM is the last elected actual moderator and doesn't want to be moderator anymore.

Why doesn't he want to be a moderator anymore? But a month ago, he didn't have such a decision

[hgm]

I think I have fulfilled my duty long enough now. It is good that someone else takes over for a change. TalkChess is no longer the main place I dwell, on the internet. So it becomes a bit of a burden to have too look at the forum frequently.

[chrisw]

I think I have fulfilled my duty long enough now. It is good that someone else takes over for a change. TalkChess is no longer the main place I dwell, on the internet. So it becomes a bit of a burden to have too look at the forum frequently.

You stated this some time ago, but I find it more interesting for what it does not say. As you know, the forum is, and is organised in the software even, of necessity as a hierarchy. At the top are the owners (you, me, Ed), each of us concerned that any one of this group has powers to go rogue and either destroy or capture the forum. To combat this, we set it up as a triumvirate, where each of us is a forum Admin, with presumed individual/joint power to reconstitute a destructed or lost forum. The FG and Admins are one and the same. So far so good. We defined the next layer in the hierarchy as Moderator. Moderators have less software power than Admins, and thus Admins supervise Moderators within this hierarchy, as kind of dormant super-moderators.. So far, the FG appointed itself as interim Moderators.

So, questions arising from your statement.

1. Are you quitting as Moderator with immediate effect or after we're able to appoint new Moderators or some other time?

2. Are you quitting as Admin, or intending to continue until whenever?

3. Are you quitting as FG member or intending to continue until whenever?