Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 19:55:28 07/25/99
Go up one level in this thread
On July 25, 1999 at 18:12:02, Christophe Theron wrote: >On July 23, 1999 at 17:34:20, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>Hi all: >> >>Many things has been said about my resignation and the reasons of it. A lot of >>posts support Bruce, other support my case, others take an intermediate position >>and many just take for granted malevolent interpretations in order to >>strengthen his arguments. So I have the right to clarify this not to prolong the >>battle -although it deserves to be prolonged because the issue is essential - >>but precisely trying to get some consensus about what should be done. And I will >>do it here point by point. >>a) My resignation is not and cannot be considered an act of immolation in order >>to get the upper hand against Bruce, as he thinks and proclaims with not >>dissimulated enthusiasm. Or a ?dirty suicide? as Christophe putted it. By the >>way, Christophe, I never expected such a "double tranchant" interpretation from >>you. > > >I never expected such a dramatic childish exit from you. I voted for you because >I thought you were very balanced, experienced, and able to calm things down when >it becomes necessary, because you were supposed to be very tolerant. > >And what happens? You resign from your post and point a finger at Bruce and say >that he is responsible for your "suicide". > >OK, maybe you did not think about it when you wrote your message, but now I >think you could at least understand why many of us get so irritated. > >You don't see why? No, really? > > > > >> I was compelled to perform a public resignation due to reasons than even a >>child could understand. To be moderator is a public position and so you cannot >>go without doing it publicly; people that elected you deserve an explanation and >>besides you must warn about what they can expect. Or should I email each of the >>3 or 4 thousands members of CCC instead of posting one post? Each day I receive >>and I still do posts of people asking this or that, sometimes related with CCC, >>sometimes with WCCR, where I am coordinator. So, I had to make public my >>resignation. To confound this obvious reason with other resignations that were >>dramatic and operatic is a nasty move. >>b) To discuss all this problem on the ground of considering as a definite fact >>that my post was a ?dirty? one and only deserves to be in the bathroom wall is a >>logical fallacy. The point is PRECISELY to discern if it was such a lousy dirty >>thing that was going to produce a mess. > > >This is NOT the point. > >The point is not about "was the joke acceptable or not". > >The point is in the way you reacted to the deletion. > > > >> It is a joke circulating in the Jews >>circles of NY, with great laugh of all people. Then, why so much concern here >>about it? And why NOTHING off topic can be said, including jokes, when even in >>the most serious meetings of real scientist of real high level they take his >>time for talking of everything to relax a bit? They are human beings, no >>pedantic guys talking all the time of his professional equivalent of hash >>tables. That simple fact is no understand by Mr Moreland. In fact It amazes me >>that so many people with supposedly a scientific education are so an easy prey >>to his prejudices and does not know to debate with the sane principles taught in >>the elementary school. In every argumentation against me it is considered as >>axiomatic that I made a mistake because of the off topic condition of my post, >>his dirty quality, etc. > > >I did not use this argument. The mistake you did is to react the way you did >AFTER the deletion. > >Consider the 2 hypothesis: > >Hypothesis #1: Bruce is right. So why do you need to react as you did? He did >what he had to do, if you disagree you can at least talk first with him and >KarinsDad, and if you still disagree you simply resign and don't start a battle >here publicly. > >Hypothesis #2: Bruce is wrong. He is going to be blamed for what he did. Your >post will be restored. So why would you need to resign and create such a mess? > > > >>And nevertheless we have never had here a serious >>discussion about that, being this site all the time in the hands of the >>particular morality and prejudices about cleanliness of some people. It is not >>necessary to be a psychologist to see how unbalanced is a person that put a cry >>in Heaven because of a joke with sexual elements. Almost every joke has them. >>The force with which such ?unmorality? are discussed and proclaimed here by some >>people remember me some preachers seeing sins all around them and ready to >>strike the sinners. > > >Who is preaching here? > >The only one I see is you. > >It's quite funny: > >Fernando: "Let's be free, let's be human!!!" > >Everybody else: "Yes, you are right." > >Fernando: "What? What are you saying? You are talking like robots! You don't >understand me! Let's REALLY be free!!!" > >Everybody else: "Well... Yes Fernando, we agree... OK..." > >Fernando: "Oh my god! Why do you say yes? Why do you agree with me? You want me >to stop talking? These guys want to censor me! But I will fight against you, >robots!" > >Everybody else: "Come on Fernando! It's alright! We are free... No problem... >Can we talk about computer chess now? Please..." > >Fernando: "I see! The devil has got you already! But don't worry! I'm going to >save you from yourselves!" > >and so on... > > > >>c) Moreland has said that he tried to prevent complains, etc. Well, that is a >>really awful argument for an intelligent person like him. Trough the path to >>prevent things you can go directly to hell. > > >Talking about preaching... :) > > > >>To prevent genocide Nato killed >>scores of people. To prevent something it is necessary more caution and >>subtlety, or you are going to get more troubles instead. This discussion about >>my case is just a long, long example of it. > > >Philosophical and political preaching now. :) > > > >>d) Respect to people that ask me to stay as moderator in order to compensate >>Bruce and KD views of the world, > > >Don't worry too much, there are not so many people asking you to stay as a >moderator. > > > >> I only can say that without consultation before >>each candidate post to deletion be actually deleted my position becomes >>unusable. > > >Did you ever think about consultation AFTER deletion? Your post has been erased >because Bruce thought it would start a fire. It isn't an unbalanced reaction at >all. I guess that if you had insisted to repost your message and talked about it >with the other two, they would have say: "OK, Fernando. Repost it, but be ready >to be fully responsible of what will happen after that...". > > > >> Bruce erased my own post without a word before and KD had erased >>threads in the same way. Now they argue about time, about the necessity to do >>that tak very fast, etc. > > >They are perfectly right. Response time is an important parameter in moderation. > >If a moderator erases a message and, after that, the two others disagree about >the deletion, the message can be reposted, isn't it? > >So the only drawback of such a deletion is that the message gets delayed. I >cannot see any case where this could be a problem... > > > >> Robert Hyatt even made a serious and ponderous >>astronomical statement with all the weight of his reputation about different >>hour axis. Thak you, Bob, I did not know... All of them see the branch and not >>the tree. They forget than the real issue is still to discuss whether this or >>that post deserve deletion and whether the rules must be considered sacred and >>without reflection either. It is not enough just to mention that certain rules >>exist. Not even the most stupid judge ignore the necessity to compensate >>abstracts rules with a bit of sane reason for each case. That discussion is >>neccesary. > > The 'serious and ponderous astronomical statement...' was about the concept of requiring 2 moderators to agree before a post can be deleted. I don't believe that to be practical with just three moderators. If we want a 2-vote to delete system, we need enough moderators spread around the world that it is likely that two can correspond in a timely manner so objectional material can be deleted. We started with three. Sometimes a discussion can be had offline, particularly when the post is 'marginal'. Othertimes, a post needs to be removed quickly, and discussion only prolongs the thread and lets it grow. Removal is not a death sentence as other moderators _could_ say 'put it back' and the only thing lost is time... >And once again you want us to believe that the moderation system is >inappropriate. > >But it worked perfectly. > >And even if your post had been deleted for wrong reasons, it would have been >restored after consultation. > >But maybe the joke couldn't wait 12 additional hours? > > > >>e) That discussion has to do with the following point: clearly in this site the >>problem goes further than a problem between Bruce and me. > > >You want us to believe that there is a problem in this site. > > > > >> There are here two >>very different groups of people; one of them is very adhered to some supposed >>moral principles and abhors jokes, ?dirty? things, bad words, off topic post, >>etc. They are the kind of people that, like a guy here said to me in a post, >>?are transforming this site in a very insipid place, a kind of pathetic >>scientific magazine...? > > >Sorry, Fernando, I tried really hard to figure out who you are talking about, >but I really do not see. > >I can find nobody here that I could put in your "first group". > >If I had seen somebody like that here, I would certainly have reacted in some >way, trying to poke him by some nasty post or something, trying to get on his >nerves. I like to do that. > >I can find easily some guys who clearly are doing nothing else than causing >trouble here (I'm not talking about you of course), but really I cannot see who >are the "intolerant" people... > > I fit that model to a degree, in fact... as I'd like to see CCC have some- thing to do with "computer chess". All topics can't be allowed in all forums... too much overlap, too much noise... too much time wasted... > > >>And there is another group, probably with less >>pretensions and arrogance and more tolerate views of the world, that see this >>place not just a magazine about hash tables, but as a human place where people >>gather to talk about computer BETWEEN other things. > > >Oops... > >As I told you I cannot imagine who the people of the first group are, but I can >clearly see that I'm not in your second group either. > >So I must presume that you put me in the first group? > >I don't think CCC is a place to talk about computer chess amongst other things. >I think CCC is the place where you should talk about computer chess in the first >place, and where you can from time to time post jokes and off topic stuffs >(provided the content of such things stays marginal). > >From what I know you do the same. I mean you mainly post computer chess stuffs, >and from time to time a joke or an off topic message, which I don't see as a >problem. > > > > >>And clearly the first group, >>trough the more abundant chess computer reputation of some people that belong to >>it, has won the upper hand long time ago. They have shaped this place at his >>will and the result are that funny, entertaining people goes out and bore guys >>talking all the time about the same computerish thing remains and even rule. > The problem with your statement is that "those people with the more abundant computer chess reputations" are the _very_ people that started this message board. With a very specific purpose. We didn't set out to _change_ the shape of CCC. We _defined_ the shape of CCC when it became obvious that without moderation, a certain poster was going to wreck any sort of real communication in r.g.c.c... I believe we solved that problem pretty painlessly for most of us... > >Now maybe we should apologize for talking about computer chess most of the time? > > > >>A great discussion about this should be opened or this site will continue to >>clash on the same topic. The second group will continue to be trashed and >>overwheelmed and disdained and crucified with the emblematic phrase ?off topic?. >>That is the perfect tool they use to impose his will once and again. . >>Fernand > > >This "2 groups" dichotomy comes out from your imagination. > >The number of deleted posts is ridiculously small, and the "off topic" warning >is almost never used. Off topic threads tend to disappear from themselves >anyway. > >The only concern I have, and we can talk about it if you want, is that we don't >know when a post has been deleted. I would prefer that instead of deleting posts >the moderators replace it with a message like: > >"This message posted by XXX has been deleted because of its offensive nature. >XXX has been informed of this deletion and can post another message to replace >it, provided he does not break the CCC charter." > > >CCC works well and Bruce did not make a mistake. Even if he had, there was no >reason to react as you did and the mistake could have been corrected. All this >mess could have been avoided. > > > > Christophe
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