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Subject: Re: Is this appropriate for this group?

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 20:51:23 04/08/98

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On April 04, 1998 at 16:15:52, Enrique Irazoqui wrote:

>On April 04, 1998 at 15:31:28, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>I agree with every word you say here. There is one more point: it is all
>too easy to jump in the middle of a problem and establish policies from
>the outside. Either you jump back in the group of founders with all the
>bore this means or you stop looking over our shoulders. It is unpleasant
>this way of eating your cake and have it.
>
>Enrique

First, let me state that I have not ever met any person of the
"founding" group (or anyone who has left it  -- and something is wrong
with that statement!  A person is still a founder, even if they are no
longer there!  I'll use a different word,  "director", to refer to the
people doing the job today.)

Also, I don't know anything about why Bruce resigned from the directing
group, other than he said in some post a little while back that it was
not a coincidence that he left the group of directors around the same
time that Rolf Tueschen was banned.

The inference I make (admittedly, having next to no data) is that Bruce
disagreed with the decision to ban Rolf, and resigning was a way of
indicating strong displeasure with the decision.

This does not mean that Bruce does not have an interest in the operation
of the CCC.  Nor should it mean that he should not engage in
constructive criticism with regard to the administration of the CCC.  If
I were to have made the comments that Bruce did, would you have taken me
to task?  Probably not; you indicate that you agreed with all of them.
So why is Bruce chastised for making those comments, when he is merely
exercising his privilege as someone who has signed up to use the CCC
service?

It is my opinion that the role of the moderator is to decide what is
inappropriate, and to censure that material.  It is an entirely
different thing to censure a person, and if you (and Bruce!) will allow
me a wild guess, it would be that this is why Bruce disagreed with the
decision to ban Rolf.

There is a vast difference between limiting one's freedom of expression
when it infringes on the rights of others by censuring posts, and
denying a person the ability to speak at all by refusing access to them.
 I believe that censuring posts which contravene the charter of a
discussion forum is justifiable, indeed, I think it is completely
appropriate.  I believe that completely banning a person from a
discussion forum that is intended to be public is unethical.  It is okay
to insist on proper conduct, and if every single message that Rolf wrote
failed to meet the guidelines, it would be fair to censure them all.
But if he wrote something that would have been deemed acceptable if
somebody else had wrote it, there is no reason why the post should not
appear on the CCC.

If I've missed on my guessing, I apologize (mostly to Bruce).  But even
if I've guessed incorrectly, don't think for a minute that those
thoughts are hypothetical, that nobody actually thinks that way...
because the thoughts I have ascribed to Bruce reflect my opinion on the
subject.

Dave Gomboc
drgomboc@acs.ucalgary.ca



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