Open Warfare TalkChess Forum vs Prodeo Forum

[supersharp77]

I must admit fellow Citizens I was blindsided about this new development until the last couple of days..I will admit I did notice the 'Survey" that ran a few weeks ago concerning the goings on inside the Chess Players Forum (other topics section..politics etc) but since I was running some engine tourneys (KO Champs 2020 and just finished a NNUE vs New Engines Swiss yesterday morning) and was so busy monitoring these events and with the 2020 elections wrapping up around that same time frame I did not have the time to do a deep dive into all the issues going on in that particular forum section (I don't even think I ever posted there..perhaps maybe once..don't remember) Anyway I got a somewhat Cryptic private message not too long ago and went to this ProDeo Forum site and Lo and Behold A whole new Forum had indeed sprung up with similar sections to TalkChess and all. So it seems there were some hard feelings. I had no idea they were actually going to be shut down although I heard that some of their subject matter was distasteful to quite a few of the members of TalkChess..There seems to be some hard feelings over there (Prodeo Forum) concerning this 'shutdown" or 'ban' by the members or the moderators...and some hard feelings vs their main moderator(s)...could someone fill me in on the final goings on? I don't think I had a vote because I rarely to never attended or posted in that particular section of the TalkChess forum...I had No Idea...Thank You, AR

[Madeleine Birchfield]

New moderators were elected to the old CTF on a platform to shut the CTF down for being too much of a toxic cesspool for talkchess. There was a vocal minority who were opposed to shutting down the CTF, and after the new moderators were elected for the CTF that vocal minority started looking for alternate sites to host the CTF apart from talkchess, and Ed Schroeder found the Dutch website actieforum for the new CTF, and has PMed a number of users on talkchess to migrate to the new forum at prodeo.actieforum.com. However, the ProDeo name for the forum is an odd one for me as it implies the forum is meant to be for Ed Schroeder's open source ProDeo engine, similar to the Rybka and Hiarcs forums, instead of being a direct replacement for the CTF.

[Madeleine Birchfield]

However, the ProDeo name for the forum is an odd one for me as it implies the forum is meant to be for Ed Schroeder's open source ProDeo engine, similar to the Rybka and Hiarcs forums, instead of being a direct replacement for the CTF.

On the other hand Ed Schroeder seems to have indicated in the Welcome thread that the Prodeo forum would be more than just the CTF, so maybe it is more like the Rybka and Hiarcs forum.

https://prodeo.actieforum.com/t9-welcome

[Guenther]

...the forum is meant to be for Ed Schroeder's open source ProDeo engine...

You read a bit here and bit there and suddenly Prodeo in one of your soapboxing lectures becomes open source?

[Madeleine Birchfield]

...the forum is meant to be for Ed Schroeder's open source ProDeo engine...

You read a bit here and bit there and suddenly Prodeo in one of your soapboxing lectures becomes open source?

I meant that Prodeo is free, as opposed to the commercial Rebel engine.

[hgm]

The CTF section was originally meant as an off-topic session for computer-chess afficionados, where they could discuss other topics that occupied their mind amongst friends. Over the years it had lost that function. Both the topics discussed and the tone of the discussion became an embarrasment to most of the computer-chess community, with as a result that they shunned the section, which became dominated with people that had no real connection to computer chess, other than that they sometimes also knew the rules of chess, and thus were able to play against a computer.

Eventually this led to a situation where the CTF crowd demanded independence, and did not want to allow the true computer-chess members to have any say in how CTF was run, reserving the right to vote for CTF moderators only to those frequently posting in CTF. So basically the majority of CCC posters did not want CTF on their website, and the majority of CTF posters did not want to be part of the CCC community. The logical solution was that they would move away to their own website, but for some unfathomable reason they fought that idea very hard.

Anyway, there finally was a moderator election, in which all TalkChess members could vote, and closure of the CTF section was put on the ballot as one of the moderator choices for CTF. And it won a landslide victory. So CTF is closed now, and the people frequently posting there have set up their own forum as a replacement, and found their way to it. Which they could have done month ago without all this hassle.

So a new 'Pro Deo' forum was created, which has a section that is the natural successor of CTF. It also has a section on computer chess, and it seems some people that are now posting there have vowed to never post on TalkChess again. Perhaps not coincidentally these are mostly the people whose posting caused most complaints during my previous moderator term. So this seems a win-win situation.

All in all this seems a very good result for everyone. 'Warfare' is not the proper term. There are no reasons for hard feelings from the TalkChess side; we have every reason for celebration. Rivalry between computer-chess forums serves no purpose at all. There already are many such forums, and the more the better.

As I think this explains the situation well enough, I will now lock this thread. If you want to know more, visit the Pro Deo forum!