Author: Steven Schwartz
Date: 10:37:26 09/11/99
When I got into work this morning (yes, I work on Saturday, GGRRRR!), I noticed a post by Jim Walker entitled, "Steve, You Must Be Proud". It read, "Just look at the information/ideas being exchanged on this page. This is great stuff!" Not having yet read the posts on that page, I did not know whether Jim was being facetious or not. Apparently, he was not. CCC has grown up in its almost 2 years of existence. Of course, we are all human, so we have our occasional World Wars, but because 99.9% of us are happy to have CCC and want it to survive and flourish, peace prevails and computer chess can once again be discussed (until the next World War). I think it was Enrique who once told me early on in the planning stages of CCC, when the Founders were arguing about one issue after another, that if we could all sit in a café with each other, face to face, over coffee or Chateau L'Fete '56, we would probably all get along famously. I am sure that he was right. But here we are on a bulletin board and everything about us is different except for the common denominator, Computer Chess, and that is what keeps us together regardless of cultural differences that might otherwise be insurmountable. Occasionally we are interrupted by someone with an agenda other than discussing Computer Chess, and that is when moderation comes in handy. Unlike most of you, I get to read the discussions by moderators over issues concerning the CCC, and I can assure you that even though members often disagree with moderation decisions and sometimes believe that they are being too harsh or too lenient (that's usually 50/50), every moderator has been dedicated in his task and truly wanted to do the right thing for CCC. I am more convinced than ever that each member's name should have a link to a short autobiography (age, country, marital status, computer programming experience, education, employment and a photo). It would be not be mandatory, of course. It is just a shame to have Bob and Ed discussing computer chess with each other (as has been the case for the last couple of days) and having a certain percentage of the audience not know who they are and what they have done in our field. Our problem in getting this done is time. We are incredibly busy getting ready for the holiday season. Today is one of those lull days before the storm. In glancing over at the CCC Opinion Polls, I have some observations: 1) Computer chess fans do not think that computers should be part of human world championship qualifying matches. 2) When I compare the tolerance for off-topic posts from June, 1998 and now, I see that, whereas a year ago there was a distinctive bell curve; that is no longer the case. Now we have almost a straight line with fewer people at the intolerant end and more people at the tolerant end than a year ago. But the mean is now stuck midway between extreme tolerance and extreme intolerance. 3) About 70% of us would purchase a dedicated computer for a price of $100 or more if it could incorporate the strength of the top software programs running on a middle-of-the-road Pentium. I somehow do not think that this is going to convince the chess computer companies to produce such a beast. I think the era of the super-strong dedicated chess computer is over. 4) I was surprised to learn that, amongst us computer chess "geeks", fewer than half actually own a dedicated chess database program. I would have suspected that over 80% of us own databases, but what do I know. 5) As far as electronic format wish lists… "Updates to the software I now have" leads the way and that is probably no surprise to anyone. 6) In the closest CCC poll ever, "Should the game, Rebel-Hoffman, be taken in account to calculate the performance rating of Rebel in the GM challenge?" the winner is still in doubt. And the voting is lagging behind because we put up the question a few days after all the others. A hotly debated issue for sure. I do not suspect that we heard the last of it especially since hardware is most likely to crash when we need it most:-). Thank you to all of our members for making CCC a success beyond what we ever thought could be. Hosting this sight has been a bumpy road along the way and certainly has not paid for itself, but it cannot be rated as anything but a tremendous success from the standpoint of the computer chess community, and for that I AM proud, Jim!!! - Steve (ICD/Your Move)
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