Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move

[hgm]

Well, at the time I was an ordinary member, and I saw you misbehave in a way that was utterly unworthy of a moderator. So I applauded the decision to revoke your moderator status, no matter who took it. And I know many members felt the same. If it was an admin decision, I don't see that as a case of power abuse by the admin, but rather as an example for how an admin should be able to repair an intolerable moderator situation.

But I agree that it is bad that such decisions have to be taken through improvisation. It would be much better if the procedures for impeachment were clearly described in the charter.

[Rebel]

Yet the charter is completely silent about this. I would like to see this repaired.

It makes sense to have the admin be appointed by the moderators, as they are the only ones who have to deal with him. An alternative is to have the moderator candidates propose any change in admin they want to implement, as part of the program they run with. That way the members would have some say in it in a more explicit way.

Webmaster is a more tricky issue. It seems very much related to hosting. If someone is offering hosting, it is unlikely he would be willing to transfer control of his server to someone else. For this reason it seems good to distinguish root access to the server from ordinary user access; the webmaster should be able to maintain the forum as an ordinary user, while still being at the mercy of the superuser. In that case it would have great advantages to combine the function of admin and webmaster. So that the admin can really manage the forum software.

Agree.

Ideally admin and webmaster should be one job.

[mclane]

Well, at the time I was an ordinary member, and I saw you misbehave in a way that was utterly unworthy of a moderator. So I applauded the decision to revoke your moderator status, no matter who took it. And I know many members felt the same. If it was an admin decision, I don't see that as a case of power abuse by the admin, but rather as an example for how an admin should be able to repair an intolerable moderator situation.

But I agree that it is bad that such decisions have to be taken through improvisation. It would be much better if the procedures for impeachment were clearly described in the charter.

It was mainly about having a pseudonym/alias name. Something today is no problem but at that time the Admin did not allow it. Today many people register under wrong name.

[Harvey Williamson]

It was mainly about having a pseudonym/alias name. Something today is no problem but at that time the Admin did not allow it. Today many people register under wrong name.

As someone who is always telling us how important democracy is, surely you can see that having a 2nd account and therefore a 2nd vote should never be allowed?

[hgm]

It was never possible to verify whether the name people give is actually their true name. But new accounts still do not get activated unless people complete the 'real name' field with something that sounds like a real name. The problem is that the entire database of real names for existing members got destroyed in the upgrade. Probably because the phpBB 3 version no longer prints the real name, but the login handle, above postings.

[mclane]

It was mainly about having a pseudonym/alias name. Something today is no problem but at that time the Admin did not allow it. Today many people register under wrong name.

As someone who is always telling us how important democracy is, surely you can see that having a 2nd account and therefore a 2nd vote should never be allowed?

It was not about elections but about stalking. A member was stalked by another member and asked for a pseudonym name to be able to post without being the victim of stalking in each posting.

I guess the demand is understandable.

I am sure that in other forums it is handled similar. If the moderators know about the pseudonym it should be no problem.

[hgm]

No, I don't understand that. Either the stalking is against the rules, and then moderation bans the stalker. Or it is legitimate criticism within the rules, in which case the poster has to put up with it.

[mclane]

No, I don't understand that. Either the stalking is against the rules, and then moderation bans the stalker. Or it is legitimate criticism within the rules, in which case the poster has to put up with it.

I dont want to go into detail and i dont wanna tell which people it was all about.
But the person asked the admin for a different name to have an alternative account and the admin did not do it.
So i did it.

In another situation a guy who had a name X was playing a game of chess in the forum.
Many had the suspicion that the guy X is not really X but another well known person. So someone asked him directly if he is person Y.
HE SAID: yes. I am y. And then 3 of 4 moderators asked the admin to unblock he original account name Y for that guy because it was obvious the person is not X but Y.

But again the admin was not doing it.


So we have cases here where the moderators, although beeing elected democratically, had problems with an admin who was never elected.

Therefore it is IMO a good idea to get the hierarchy straight.

My point of view is that the admin has to do what the moderators want.

[hgm]

My point of view is that the admin has to do what the moderators want.

No disagreement there. The admin is there to serve the moderator team.

Yet this should stay within the bounds of reason. If the moderators would request to erase the forum database, I'd rather the admin refused to do it. The charter should put limitations to what a moderator team can request, and refuse to execute requests that violate the charter.

This is why I proposed that modifications to the forum structure (like opening or closing sections) should be proposed in the moderator candidate's program, so that they are subject to member approval. An admin can then prevent the moderators from making unsanctioned modifications.