Author: Eelco de Groot
Date: 19:06:09 08/09/00
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Hello, some answers to Steve's questions: 1) On a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the most tolerant and 10 being the least tolerant, where would you place yourself when it comes to posts that are off topic? As I said some time ago to Bruce Moreland when he asked this I think such a number does not tell you very much, it depends on your interpretation of 'tolerant'. Who is going to say of himself or herself that he or she is intolerant? How much moderation then, as a more general question? Things did change to some extent, here in CCC and on the Internet in general. Fortunately regards chess and computer-chess there is now the General Chess Forum which I think was a great idea! And it is not as heavily moderated as CCC. People have faster modems and computers,-still that 386 with Windows 95 did its work!-, and the CCC board has become a lot faster too thanks to the provider-switch and a lot of hard work by Tim Mirabile too, -Thanks, Tim! So the issue of traffic is not as important anymore. Also it has become much easier to start your own messageboard where people can place their comments and opinions on a lot of things, there is things like the Winboard forum etc. But even at GambitSoft Forum they now have a system with passwords and they felt the need for moderation of abusing posts too. I can only speak for myself but I didn't enjoy reading there a lot anymore before. Now the place really does a lot better in my opinion. So I would give myself a three or four, fairly tolerant, on a scale of tolerance of off-topicness but I'm not really sure if that tells you anything. Each off-topic post is of course a case in itself. I don't think some amount of off-topic posting by itself will disturb many people here interested in computerchess. In my honest opinion. 2) If a new member signs on and immediately starts to attack a current member, what action would you take? I would delete that post or posts and if it was clear to me that the only intention of the poster was to place abusing posts I would try to contact you Steve or Tim to get his account blocked as quickly as possible. Waiting for the other moderators to give their opinion about a formal suspension before taking such action would take too long. 3) Would you allow discussions ABOUT moderation on the CCC board (i.e. someone is banned and people wish to voice their opinion one way or the other). Yes, as it is done already now. Messages should be preceded by the word: "Moderation" in the title. Within bounds such discussion should be possible. 4) How many of the three moderators should agree before a message is deleted? The moderator on active duty can take care about that. He should send e-mail to the poster explaining why the post was deleted. If he thinks the post could be acceptable if phrased differently he or she should suggest this to the poster. Another question: If the other two moderators strongly disagree about the deletion I think the message could in principle be put back eventually, preferentially with all three moderators agreeing about that. However I don't think that it would happen much in practice that a deleted post would to the other moderators seem perfectly alright. 5) How many moderators should agree before a member is suspended? I think all moderators should try to come to an agreement about that. If the three moderators can't come to a agreement about suspension they should at least decide about what action then they will undertake instead. 6) If a member "flies off the handle" (i.e. starts cursing at another member) in a single post, what action, if any, would you take? Delete the post and ask the poster by e-mail to come with arguments and to try not to resort to abusive language. 7) If you are outvoted by the other two moderators on a given issue, and yet feel very strongly about your opinion, what, if anything are you prepared to do? If I would feel strongly that we can't agree about a common moderator policy in general it might be best to resign the post. But on the other hand if there was a relatively minor issue that as a moderator I did not feel strongly about I think it should be possible to take a 'majority of moderators rule' stand, unless you think this majority view clearly goes against your own ideas about what should be done. 8) If someone posts some information on a human chess tournament, do you feel as if they need to be notified that this is a computer chess forum or would you wait for follow up posts? While not strictly on topic I think enough people here are interested in chess in general that they do not mind reading something about a human chess tournament. If there were to come really a lot of such posts I would ask the posters to take some of it to the GCF but I haven't seen that happening yet. Of course not every human chess tournament is equally interesting to our general readership. 9) If you ask a thread to stop and one of the participants posts that he disagrees with your directive, what, if anything, would you do? As stated above some discussion should be possible about moderation issues. I would hope that they would come with arguments about moderation that can be discussed. If they just continue the subject of the thread those posts might have to be deleted but if a lot of people have already become active in a contoversial thread it is probably better to let it run its course instead of deleting all those posts, provided none of the thread warrants deletion because of important reasons like offensive language, trolling and the like. 10) If a member of CCC were to go to the chess newsgroups and constantly attack a member here and quote messages from CCC and comment negatively upon those messages, what, if any action, would you choose to take? I think the moderators should handle issues taking place in CCC where they have jurisdiction. This always taking in mind that the final word about possible issues should be to the owners and sponsors of the board, ICD-Chess. For actions of CCC-members outside CCC I think you would have to look for other means, maybe legal means if appropriate. Now I haven't looked at what the other candidates had to say about all this so I am sure I will find I could have given much better answers reading all their responses next. Eelco
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