New Charter

[shawn]

Dear Talkchess,

As a Gen-Z Discord invader, I have neither the necessary attention span, nor the required reading comprehension skills to parse and understand the new charter. So, can anyone explain to me what had changed with this new update, preferably using Fortnite terms?

Thank you

[Rebel]

The old charter of 1997 is still available in the announcement section, not much has changed. We felt it was needed to do this before the upcoming election because the 1997 one was pretty outdated and had incorrect data (The shop is no longer the host and should not be linked as such) and some of the stipulations needed an addition.

[hgm]

Dear Talkchess,

As a Gen-Z Discord invader, I have neither the necessary attention span, nor the required reading comprehension skills to parse and understand the new charter. So, can anyone explain to me what had changed with this new update, preferably using Fortnite terms?

Thank you

Don't behave to others like in Fortnite Battle Royale.
Be nice and helpful to the other players.
A forum is not a first-person shooter game.

[Peter Berger]

Quite a helpful question, shawn, thank you very much ( I had never really read the original charter before, as there was no need).
So, what's new? Some new criteria on what not to post:
"6. Are not bullying, or vicarious bullying"
OK, why not?
"7. Do not advocate the banning, exclusion or expulsion of individual members"
Again, agreed. Given, that only the moderators etc. have the power to ban someone, public posts on this topic don't make too much sense.
(Whenever there was a really serious need for the community (like when there were moderators gone completely mad and the FG/chessclub.com not seeming to care) - there used to be an unwritten rule, that you could do a post with MODERATION in the subject line that was tolerated. This was never in any rule, and I see why it wasn't, so this is just for the record).
"8. Do not spam, swamp or degrade threads with noise. Respect the right of members to start a thread that they wish to remain on the topic they wish to discuss."
This one I don't like too much as it is just too subjective to judge. It is also terribly worded. It is easy to imagine a universe where chrisw might claim that your post degraded a thread just for the kicks. But I seriously believe that this rule is in good intent, so no need to bother. This is basic netiquette after all (something Gen-Z will most likely not know too much about ).
"Please note that unsubstantiated cloning or copying or plagiarising accusations are considered insult / libel, and that substantiated accusations are allowed only in the Engine Origins section."
OK, why not? Makes sense.
"From time to time, The Founders Group will appoint or co-opt or call for a voting selection or renew a panel of moderators which has the power to erase specific messages that violate the spirit of the charter of the Computer-Chess Club, and to take, if necessary, suitable sanctions against offenders. Moderators moderate the message board and agree to uphold the charter and here expressed constitution of the CCC. The Founders Group is bound to uphold the charter, the constitution and the well being of the CCC forum."
This one may sound kind of offensive to people who feel they have waited way too long for moderator elections by now at first sight. But actually, this is all good for me after some consideration.
Summary: the new FG saw a need to update the charter for specific reasons unknown to me. This is basically irrelevant for members who just want to participate as usual.
We can move on and think about something else.

Peter

[chrisw]

We've had a suggestion to extend the scope of clause 8. "Do not spam, swamp or degrade threads with noise. Respect the right of members to start a thread that they wish to remain on the topic they wish to discuss."

9. Do not open multiple threads that are on the same topic or very similar in nature, thereby spamming the forum overview with noise.

Obviously it's not over-desirable to have a long list of dont's, one simple "Be Nice" ought to suffice, but I guess its a general reflection of the dysfunctionality of parts of the "community" that we feel it necessary so to do.

[towforce]

"Are not flagrant commercial exhortations" is a grey area: if someone has a new computer chess product or service, then they should be allowed to tell CCC about it, even if they charge for it.

I think that most moderators would be sensible about applying that rule though, so hopefully not a real problem.

[chrisw]

"Are not flagrant commercial exhortations" is a grey area: if someone has a new computer chess product or service, then they should be allowed to tell CCC about it, even if they charge for it.

I think that most moderators would be sensible about applying that rule though, so hopefully not a real problem.

That has always been there, but we could delete it, basis there are no commercial engines anymore, well very few, and just treat buy thus buy that as deletable spam. It’s not as if anything available isn’t already known and people here don’t want to be told the same thing repetitively.
There was a lot of ridiculous “buy warez” type spam on rgcc at the time this forum was being set up, and was a primary source of annoyance about rgcc. Cui bono by destroying rgcc and getting this forum? Well the shop, so I always suspected they were manufacturing the spam, plus various annoying spammers.

[hgm]

The term "flagrant exhortation" has always been interpreted that it is OK for authors of commercial engines, or authors of chess books to announce their work, including updates. But not allow them to announce the same work over and over again, in new threads or for keeping an existing thread at the top of the overview page. They can react to questions about their product from other members.

[chrisw]

The term "flagrant exhortation" has always been interpreted that it is OK for authors of commercial engines, or authors of chess books to announce their work, including updates. But not allow them to announce the same work over and over again, in new threads or for keeping an existing thread at the top of the overview page. They can react to questions about their product from other members.

Yup, that was exactly the intention when I wrote it in 1997.
Incidentally, I always figured that Larry Kaufman's "Komodo Rules" as part of his signature probably breached the clause (over and over and over in every post), but that nobody would ever do anything about it because.

[mclane]

The old charter of 1997 is still available in the announcement section, not much has changed. We felt it was needed to do this before the upcoming election because the 1997 one was pretty outdated and had incorrect data (The shop is no longer the host and should not be linked as such) and some of the stipulations needed an addition.

Yes indeed. The old charter was part of the old forum. This new one is much better and its very good that you changed it.