Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 08:50:37 01/30/00
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On January 30, 2000 at 06:30:21, jonathon smith wrote: >"remove this account as he posted this shit again" Faber >"You're totally right to delete that crap" Diepeveen Fine opinions. >as alternative intelligent opinion, and thought, possibly not alone, that >Curtiss's poor quality post was perhaps of higher quality than the responses >quoted above. > >However, to Curtiss's post: > >It was (a) all in upper case, (b) without punctuation, (c) semi-illiterate, (d) >opinionated, (e) with out data to back it up, unless the alleged 27 move victory >against Shredder was true, (f) non believeable, (g) mindlessly repeated. > >ChrisW suggests there are two possibilities: > >1. Curtiss is a badly educated child who likes to shout his mouth off and >doesn't bother to read any responses. ChrisW thinks that this is the case that >Bruce wants to believe. ChrisW thinks Bruce generated this thread beause of a >Manichaean world view which wishes to reduce the moderation question to one in >which various well-defined and generally agreed extreme cases are cited as >suitable examples. ChrisW thinks that Bruce now needs a new extreme case to >quote from, since he is now slightly disturbed that his five times quoting of >the prior example, "**** you, no really **** you", probably merely had the >effect of increasing the insult-threat-hurt quotient of that post onto whoever >it was targeted. I ask about that "f you" post because I want to see what moderator candidates will do about it. Some of the candidates want to reduce moderation to a mathematical system of geometrically or exponentially determined suspensions, perhaps preceded by a series of warnings that may as well be computer generated. We've also had a few candidates who've professed that they don't want to delete anything at all, they would prefer to try to reason with everyone. I think these people would have a hard time with this case and want to confront them with it. I suppose the post could be viewed as political expression or even as a work of poetic art. These are fine interpretations but I think that they'd lose the typical moderator candidate a lot of votes. The post was a base post written by someone who had never posted here before, so I doubt it offended anyone in specific. >2. Alternatively, Curtiss is yet another incarnation and fake identity, and the >postings were designed specifically for a purpose. Sure. >ChrisW says he thinks case (2) is more likely. ChrisW's experience is that >persons with a literacy and logic level such as that displayed by Curtiss, learn >quickly, throught the school of hard knocks, that their best option is not to >write anything, anywhere, anytime. ChrisW thinks it more likely that the posts >were written by soembody else with the following aims in mind: > >a) to place Bruce into the 'elitist' dilemma. The post is semi-moronic. "We" are >not semi-moronic. "We" don't want to be associated with semi-morons. etc. In >other words it is a moderation question which is never stated. By posing the >question of what *level of stupidity* does so irritate persons who wish to >maintain discourse on a higher level, the Curtiss post raise the never-spoken >question of 'elitism' in computer chess newgroups. Where comes the dividing >line? Moderation means dividing lines. > >Now ChrisW happens to know the answer to Bruce's position on this. Bruce wrote, >at the time of the start of the board: "CCC should be to discuss computer chess. >The Komputer can stay on rgcc and answer pesky end-users queries there". ChrisW >quotes this from memory, but the content and sentiments are accurate. I was hoping that this might turn into a place with a higher ratio of programming discussion. I underestimated the number of people who are not programmers who want to discuss playing styles, relative strength, tournaments, specific games, when a new version would be out, etc. So I was wrong about the final composition of the membership. In my opinion the current mix is fine. I don't recall having said anything of that sort about KK but I don't think it is a big deal. You wrote an email to the effect that KK would be allowed to post his lists here, along with a bunch of other stuff, and it sounded fine to me at the time. I didn't delete the thread because the guy is a moron. I deleted it because he's being repetitive. If someone wants to say that a program sucks, fine, I don't care, but not four base posts within 48 hours, especially when you ignore all responses to your posts. That's not discussion, that's a spam attack. >b) To further probe Bruce's Manichaean weakness. Which is that he favours those >who he has defined as the 'good guys'. This accusation is made most often in >relation to Bruce's alleged protection of Hyatt. In the world of fast moving and >disappearing posts all that remains is the impression. >It is known that Stephan Meyer-Kahlen tends not to post, especially not in such >a case as Curtiss's. It is also known that Bruce thinks Meyer-Kahlen is one of >the good guys. Therefore a mindlessly stupid attack on the Meyer-Kahlen program >is likely to bring Bruce out in some sort of defence. Bruce is aware of the >charges of favouritism, therefore the Curtiss posts are/were designed to place >Bruce in a difficult position, increase his stress level slightly, to try and >provoke a mistake. And to try and further strengthen the 'impression' of >favouritism via the predictable Bruce response. If Curtiss was trying to provoke me by attacking a program written by someone I like, and you think that is why he is doing it, then why am I taking any heat from you? It sounds like you are advancing this purpose by raising the issue. I can make plenty of mistakes without being provoked, I don't see the point since my term expires in two days, and the only reason I'll be here longer than that is that the election isn't finished. In any case, I don't care what program is being "attacked". The repeated posts are extremely easy to identify and deal with. There have been numerous emailed complaints about each of them, including the first one, which was left. bruce
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