LCU blog discontinued

EnPassant

The Leinster Chess Union has decided to discontinue the LCU blog.

I have created this thread so that those who posted and/or read the blog can discuss, mourn or celebrate its demise.

I think that there was no alternative really to ending the blog. Basically, the LCU should not have to worry about what is being put on its website.

The format of the blog itself was not suitable as a means of discussion. Those who were able to create posts had a higher status than those who could merely respond to posts - and this status has been abused in the recent past by one user changing another's post. (There is also no logging of changes).

The LCU is also not in the business of facilitating chess players to abuse each other on its website.

I agree 100% with the ending of the blog - it has run its course. I am starting this thread in a personal capacity as a point of contact for those who wish to continue to discuss Irish chess over the internet.

LiamMc

EnPassant,

Fair Play on managing the LCU Blog for as long as you did. I know you are deeply embedded into Irish Chess and you work benefits a huge amount of people. I have family members who are big into chess and I have played a few tournaments around Ireland myself.

It's unfortunate that an individual took it upon themselves to abuse the status of the blog. Mentioning Junior players inappropriately, then deleting them when this is pointed out and editing other Chess Players posts.
Leinster Chess Union Blog - Underage Training Squads
http://leinsterchess.com/blog/2013/05/underage-training-squads/#comments

That person is also a Secretary of a South Dublin Chess Club.

EnPassant

LiamMc wrote: »

EnPassant,

Fair Play on managing the LCU Blog for as long as you did. I know you are deeply embedded into Irish Chess and you work benefits a huge amount of people. I have family members who are big into chess and I have played a few tournaments around Ireland myself.

It's unfortunate that an individual took it upon themselves to abuse the status of the blog. Mentioning Junior players inappropriately, then deleting them when this is pointed out and editing other Chess Players posts.
Leinster Chess Union Blog - Underage Training Squads
http://leinsterchess.com/blog/2013/05/underage-training-squads/#comments

That person is also a Secretary of a South Dublin Chess Club.

Hi LiamMc,

I was thinking of a completely different incident when I referred to people editing others posts.

I had no problem with the edits made to the thread you mention. I would probably have made the same changes later. I think though that the thread shows that people tend to go a bit overboard on internet forums.

LiamMc

EnPassant wrote: »

Hi LiamMc,

I was thinking of a completely different incident when I referred to people editing others posts.

I had no problem with the edits made to the thread you mention. I would probably have made the same changes later. I think though that the thread shows that people tend to go a bit overboard on internet forums.

I understand.
But the initial posts about Junior Players should never have been made in the way they were.

Sparks

LiamMc wrote: »

I understand.
But the initial posts about Junior Players should never have been made in the way they were.

That seems to be misrepresenting what was originally published in the blog and the subsequent posts in the comments. It's not like someone came out and said anything was in any way at fault with any junior player; the comments were all aimed at the organisation of training by the ICU, and the discussion was frankly quite civil (I've seen far far far worse in other branches of Irish sport). Nobody said one word against any junior player.

LiamMc

Sparks wrote: »

That seems to be misrepresenting what was originally published in the blog and the subsequent posts in the comments. It's not like someone came out and said anything was in any way at fault with any junior player; the comments were all aimed at the organisation of training by the ICU, and the discussion was frankly quite civil (I've seen far far far worse in other branches of Irish sport). Nobody said one word against any junior player.

It wasn't appropriate to name names of individual Junior Chess Players. Yes, they were mentioned in a negative context that is why their Chess Club complained about it. It wasn't appropriate to mention them. The same individual describes ICU Officers as 'pathetic' and looks for an adversarial public argument, complaining when the suggestion to go to more private, confidential ways of communicating are advised.
It wasn't a civil argument.

@Sparks, did you contribute to the discussion on the LCU blog?

Sean Coffey

That's unfortunate. The blog was a very useful source of news and quite entertaining, I thought. And nothing really seemed that objectionable.

Certainly it's up to the LCU what it wants on its own site--nothing to stop anyone else from setting up a replacement. Much of the material was ICU-related rather than LCU: maybe the ICU can be persuaded to set something up?

In the meantime I have a request: please don't delete all the material!

Sparks

LiamMc wrote: »

It wasn't appropriate to name names of individual Junior Chess Players.

The complaint was that specific junior players from one club which had a close connection with the juniors officer from the ICU were selected for training despite being hundreds of points below the cut-off while other clubs juniors were not; how do you make such a complaint without pointing out the specific juniors involved and their ratings?

As to civility, you have a higher threshold than me; I regard it as being civil when everyone keeps talking despite disagreeing. Which is what happened in that thread. It might not have been a lovely shiny topic, but that's hardly the fault of the person who first raised the issue, it's the fault of whomever caused the issue in the first place (and if you keep reading the blog, you see the complainant and the ICU juniors officer continuing to converse constructively because the people involved both work with juniors). Having seen an extraordinarily similar discussion before from both sides of the table in another sport, this was a level of civility that it took us a long time and a lot of work to reach in that other sport. You're almost spoiled here Liam

@Sparks, did you contribute to the discussion on the LCU blog?

No, I just read the blog, I never posted there.

LiamMc

Sparks wrote: »

The complaint was that specific junior players from one club which had a close connection with the juniors officer from the ICU were selected for training despite being hundreds of points below the cut-off while other clubs juniors were not; how do you make such a complaint without pointing out the specific juniors involved and their ratings?

As to civility, you have a higher threshold than me; I regard it as being civil when everyone keeps talking despite disagreeing. Which is what happened in that thread. It might not have been a lovely shiny topic, but that's hardly the fault of the person who first raised the issue, it's the fault of whomever caused the issue in the first place (and if you keep reading the blog, you see the complainant and the ICU juniors officer continuing to converse constructively because the people involved both work with juniors). Having seen an extraordinarily similar discussion before from both sides of the table in another sport, this was a level of civility that it took us a long time and a lot of work to reach in that other sport. You're almost spoiled here Liam


No, I just read the blog, I never posted there.

Thank you for answering my question.
I would prefer if you didn't chop-up my posts when quoting me, it removes context.

Your first post on the thread mentioned a lot of what didn't happen.

Embolded question, Use the clear mechanisms that are there to bring issues concerning young players in a private, confidential way. We have a Secretary of a Dublin Chess Club initiating a public discussion, identifying specific young players of a completely different Chess Club, in a negative context. When it's pointed out to him that it's not appropriate and names should be removed, only then does he do that. When it's pointed out that it's best to have a confidential discussion he resists this and wonders why the conversation can't continue publicly.
It appears to me, his motivation was for publicity, not for a solution.

To take your second paragraph as a whole. There needs to be blame. That suits the adversarial types and not the types looking for solutions.
When you invite me to read the blog is that the original or the edited version?

When a individual converses with people, even though they have suffered public, personal insults from others. That's not a credit to the abusers. That is only a credit to the targeted person(s).
The ICU Officer has a role with specific duties of communicating with all aspects of the Sport (more than two). Should that include suffering public insults on Leinster Chess Union blogs.

Sparks

LiamMc wrote: »

Embolded question, Use the clear mechanisms that are there to bring issues concerning young players in a private, confidential way.

To quote from the LCU blog comments:

Just for the record, because I dislike the idea of going off having unconstructive rants on internet forums, I did also e-mail the junior committee looking to see what happened.

When it's pointed out that it's best to have a confidential discussion he resists this and wonders why the conversation can't continue publicly.

This is also a very, very old pattern in Irish sport
It is usually caused by two things: lack of effective communication and irregular situations.
From hard painful experience, I've learnt that it's far better to fix the communications problem than to try to make out that it's the fault of the people making the complaints (so long as there's merit to the complaints, which is patently the case here).

As to the rest, I'll let the original poster take it up with you, but from my reading of it, the entire thing was civil from start to finish (again, I think you might be confusing "civil" with "never says anything that's not nice to hear". You can question a persons actions while being civil; that's what I'm seeing when I read that blog). And I don't think what you're writing here is fair.

phnompenhchess

Great work from the LCU in hosting the blog all these years and avoiding being sued. Hopefully the ICU will take on the challenge now to provide a forum to the players.

If there is a preference to host in a third party country I might be able to help - drop me a line.

PS I'm a little baffled as to why anyone would be having a go at Kevin about that last thread on Juniors, seemed fair enough to me and worth pointing out.

cdeb

Echo what's been said about the blog. In fairness, if there were issues over people not being able to start threads (or being sued??), then it's the correct call. Maybe there should be a direct link to this forum just under the link to the blog on the LeinsterChess home page?

On the posts here, they were pointed out to me by a clubmate (I haven't posted on here in three years, as can be seen). Just to make a few points -

First - I'm not a secretary of any South Dublin chess club.
Second - it's a bit funny that LiamMc seems to give out about me airing things in public rather than going confidential, but then chooses to go public here (anonymously) without any attempt to go confidential. LiamMc clearly knows who I am; why not contact me directly? Of more use than this thread, surely?
Third - I agree with Sparks and phnompenhchessclub (obviously) when they say that my comments were fair.
Finally - while LiamMc is an anonymous pseudonym, from the writing style and previous posts, I've a fair idea who it is (member of a west Dublin club who recently lost a game against our club?). If I'm right - well, let's just say said posted has a long history of such posts against me personally; just a bee in his bonnet. It's disappointing to see it continue behind my back, but you learn to ignore him after a while. That's just for the sake of providing the thread some context...

cdeb

@phnompenhchessclub - is Rory's pub on street 178 still run by Chad and Rod? Have good memories from there!

phnompenhchess

cdeb wrote: »

@phnompenhchessclub - is Rory's pub on street 178 still run by Chad and Rod? Have good memories from there!

No idea despite living 400m away! Fairly sure it is run by at least one American, Rory moved on from it years ago.

For transparency this handle belongs to Shane Lee, ICU Reg no 780.

cdeb

Jaysus - pop in some evening! Yeah, they bought the place off Rory two years or so ago alright; good guys though. Ask them if Mick from Strabane is still around; there's a story and a half for you...

JohnDelaney

It is a pity if we end up with no reasonable way to communicate information about events/ideas for events to others.

The Blog served this purpose very well. Perhaps there can be a different means of linking up in time.

Thanks to Ciaran, a lot of work and time, much appreciated!
It has helped a lot of junior chess clubs find each other, which was fantastic!

pcafolla

It seems to me that this is just a cover up so that the events of the recent Cork Congress won't be discussed openly as they should be. Many important issues have been raised on the blog which otherwise would never have been discussed and in many cases it has led to transparency and fairness which we may not have otherwise seen. Now there is no one to see how ICU funds are spent, what favours are given to the chosen few and how people are selected for national teams and various junkets. Shame on all involved in discontinuing the blog.

Sean Coffey

pcafolla wrote: »

It seems to me that this is just a cover up so that the events of the recent Cork Congress won't be discussed openly as they should be. Many important issues have been raised on the blog which otherwise would never have been discussed and in many cases it has led to transparency and fairness which we may not have otherwise seen. Now there is no one to see how ICU funds are spent, what favours are given to the chosen few and how people are selected for national teams and various junkets. Shame on all involved in discontinuing the blog.

@Peter -

In fairness, many of the issues discussed weren't anything particular to do with the LCU. E.g., the Cork Congress, or ICU Junior Training. It isn't that unreasonable for the LCU to ask itself how it ended up being the place to go to discuss anything related to Irish chess or the ICU. Nothing to stop anyone else setting up a blog. Ideally the ICU would do it.

EnPassant

I think the fact that the the idea of hosting an Irish chess forum outside Ireland has been raised on this thread says it all about the demise of the LCU blog. As Seán points out, most (if not all) of the controversies on the blog were nothing to do with the LCU.

I started this thread and linked to it from the blog so that those who read and posted to the blog could decide what should succeed it. I would encourage all those who used the blog to express their opinions. It has been suggested that the ICU should host its own blog - is there any reason why the ICU would feel differently towards a blog (or discussion board) than the LCU?

@Peter,
do you feel in any way "sheep"-ish about the end of the blog?

JohnDelaney

There is a need to have some sort of way of communicating.
Perhaps a link off the ICU website might be best in time.

For specialist topics, it might be possible to develop a blog for exchanging positive ideas. In areas such as junior chess.
People would be known and indeed the website might be limited to those only.

Sean Coffey

EnPassant wrote: »

I think the fact that the the idea of hosting an Irish chess forum outside Ireland has been raised on this thread says it all about the demise of the LCU blog. As Seán points out, most (if not all) of the controversies on the blog were nothing to do with the LCU.

I started this thread and linked to it from the blog so that those who read and posted to the blog could decide what should succeed it. I would encourage all those who used the blog to express their opinions. It has been suggested that the ICU should host its own blog - is there any reason why the ICU would feel differently towards a blog (or discussion board) than the LCU?

@Peter,
do you feel in any way "sheep"-ish about the end of the blog?

@Ciaran (I mean, @EnPassant): when you say "ICU, do you mean just the Executive Committee or the entire membership? There's probably a different perspective.

Actually, if I recall correctly, the current ICU Chair was the one who started the LCU Blog in the first place. So he might not be against the idea in principle (perhaps with changes: outlawing anonymous comments at a minimum). But as it is the Executive can post to the ICU site whenever they like, whereas most members can't, so they're much more likely to appreciate the opportunity to comment. If done right, it's a very positive thing for the organisation.

Sparks

Out of curiosity, why do people feel this forum would be unsuitable for discussing chess in Ireland? It seems to work for most other sports.

(And if people are unhappy about anonymity... well, some of us haven't been anonymous here for a very long time Just put your real name into your profile and all people have to do is click on your screen name over there on the left to see who you are.)

phnompenhchess

Sparks wrote: »

Out of curiosity, why do people feel this forum would be unsuitable for discussing chess in Ireland? It seems to work for most other sports.

(And if people are unhappy about anonymity... well, some of us haven't been anonymous here for a very long time Just put your real name into your profile and all people have to do is click on your screen name over there on the left to see who you are.)

Three reasons for me why this forum doesn't work.

1) Without proper moderation there will be cease and desist legal letters flying at Boards.ie within weeks (guaranteed), threads removed as a result and overall chaos. Hence the suggestion to host at arms length.
2) There are posters on this forum who get involved with any and every thread they come across. Debate would not be helped by this interference that would inevitably happen here.
3) Whilst you remove anonimity by asking posters to display their real name you have no way of vetting that these posters are who they say they are, email checks, IP addresses etc as you have no backend rights on this board. Even if this could be overcome we would be at the mercy of this external forum.

Otherwise I think this would be a convenient place to host it.

Sparks

Perhaps; but there are counterarguments:

(1) is easily answered by looking at the record of moderation on boards.ie and how it's coped quite successfully with far, far, far more litigious groups in the past;

(3) is actually something that would apply no matter where you go (and the data protection act is a funky enough thing that I'd want a legal opinion before I relied on "arms length" to keep my house safe from legal costs); and

(2)... well, (2)'s a bit of a philosophical/social thing, and using either it or the last part of (3) as an argument for not using a third party forum like this one is really a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it -- either the LCU runs the thing and says who can and can't use it and has access to all their personal data (IP addresses count under the law, which is where the data protection act comes in); or else the LCU doesn't want that level of liability and so should step back completely from it. You can't really step back and continue to run things.

Either way works, obviously, and equally obviously it wouldn't have to be here that acts as a third party (and despite what you may think I don't have an interest in this); it's just that it really is an either/or sort of thing.

phnompenhchess

I'm not so sure a Boards.ie moderator would have a rashers what chess geeks are saying about each other and for that reason doubt they could moderate it to any effect. Setting a blog up in, let's say, the People's Republic of Laos would negate any Irish data protection issues provided that it was not being run by an Irish body. The idea then would be to have a completely unmoderated forum save to have a proper vetting system that registered users are who they say they are (possible sure, doable probably with a bit of effort).

Maybe such openness would just lead to abject abuse being hurled around or maybe it would encourage healthy debate. I guess we should wait and see if the ICU fills the gap first.

Edit: On second thoughts this would be chaos without at least some form of moderation - perhaps democratic votes to ban users who consistently offend or the like. Or maybe forget the open forum and go for a closed invitation only group to discuss important issues such as the Junior chess ones John raises?

Sparks

I genuinely think you might be giving less credit than is due to the mods

And as to the idea that "arms length" is legal protection... well, read this first and then remember that there have been successful suits taken against people in Ireland who published defamatory things on websites hosted in other jurisdictions.

I mean, ideally, you wouldn't be bothered by this, you'd just do what boards does and take the position that people own what they say - so if person A defames person B on the LCU blog, then person B yells at the LCU, the LCU says (assuming they didn't sanction the comment) "we're just the publisher", person B gets a court order and the LCU hands over person A's identity, and then sues person A directly and the LCU has nothing to do with it. Of course, ideally person A wouldn't have defamed person B in the first place, but that's hope chess

EnPassant

Sean Coffey wrote: »

@Ciaran (I mean, @EnPassant): when you say "ICU, do you mean just the Executive Committee or the entire membership? There's probably a different perspective.

Actually, if I recall correctly, the current ICU Chair was the one who started the LCU Blog in the first place. So he might not be against the idea in principle (perhaps with changes: outlawing anonymous comments at a minimum). But as it is the Executive can post to the ICU site whenever they like, whereas most members can't, so they're much more likely to appreciate the opportunity to comment. If done right, it's a very positive thing for the organisation.

I was referring to the ICU committee. Given that you have had one ICU committee member using the LCU blog to criticize another, I'm not sure how well an ICU forum/blog would work.

In theory this forum could be the place to discuss Irish chess online provided it was strictly moderated (this is my own opinion not that of the LCU). Junior Chess may well require its own separate forum.

Is it possible that people would be more restrained in their comments on an external (non-chess) site like boards.ie than they might be on an LCU or ICU forum where they may feel their comments are only for a limited audience?

Ciaran

Sparks

EnPassant wrote: »

Is it possible that people would be more restrained in their comments on an external (non-chess) site like boards.ie than they might be on an LCU or ICU forum where they may feel their comments are only for a limited audience?

Would that not be what was desired (to an extent) by the LCU?

(and speaking from personal experience, I think that the amount of restraint you'd see would be less than you'd expect )


edit: I've been rabbiting on a bit about this without meaning to; so to summarise and step back --

• I thought the old LCU blog format was excellent for read-only posting of news items (it's a blog, they're optimised for that). It wasn't fantastic for discussions on a story, here is far better for that level of discussion; that's a judgement made on purely technical terms (ie. the software on boards is optimised to community discussion while that on blogs isn't).
• If the LCU want to step away from the liability issues, then they really have to step away; if you hold onto the reins at all, you get dragged if the horse bolts, that's how it works.
  • Offshore hosting to escape liability doesn't work if you still live in this jurisdiction.
• If the objective is wider discussion of chess by Irish players, it's hard to argue with the sheer number of eyeballs this site gets. The price for that is that you'll get what you want (a larger community, which means more voices). There may, however be an issue with juniors under 13 years of age. Of course, that issue will arise no matter what you do.
• And lastly - why not just give it a try? The LCU blog didn't work, so the LCU blog was stopped. Likewise, if the LCU posting here doesn't work, they're not contractually bound to keep doing it. And if they're worried about what people might say here without the LCU having a finger on the off switch, well, this place has been open for a decade so far without causing chess to be banned by law in Ireland...

Sean Coffey

EnPassant wrote: »

I was referring to the ICU committee. Given that you have had one ICU committee member using the LCU blog to criticize another, I'm not sure how well an ICU forum/blog would work.

In theory this forum could be the place to discuss Irish chess online provided it was strictly moderated (this is my own opinion not that of the LCU). Junior Chess may well require its own separate forum.

Is it possible that people would be more restrained in their comments on an external (non-chess) site like boards.ie than they might be on an LCU or ICU forum where they may feel their comments are only for a limited audience?

Ciaran

If "strictly moderated" means that nobody can be criticised, the exercise loses much of its point. Sometimes criticism is justified! And sometimes or often not, I grant you, but even then in the majority of cases it came down to someone's opinion. Looking back over the history of the LCU Blog, the positive greatly outweighs the negative, it seems to me.

To take one example among many, the thread on last year's AGM, http://leinsterchess.com/blog/2012/09/agm/, was a good one, even though there were a handful of comments that weren't "restrained". It would be a good start if the ICU web site provided space for discussion of this year's AGM.

phnompenhchess

Sparks wrote: »

I genuinely think you might be giving less credit than is due to the mods

And as to the idea that "arms length" is legal protection... well, read this first and then remember that there have been successful suits taken against people in Ireland who published defamatory things on websites hosted in other jurisdictions.

I mean, ideally, you wouldn't be bothered by this, you'd just do what boards does and take the position that people own what they say - so if person A defames person B on the LCU blog, then person B yells at the LCU, the LCU says (assuming they didn't sanction the comment) "we're just the publisher", person B gets a court order and the LCU hands over person A's identity, and then sues person A directly and the LCU has nothing to do with it. Of course, ideally person A wouldn't have defamed person B in the first place, but that's hope chess

Perhaps I have not been clear, individuals going after each other is of no concern, keeping the blog up and intact is. That will not be the case if hosted here as Boards.ie will remove material on receipt of an email let alone the slightest hint of litigation again themselves (read their terms, 8.2). That is the reality and perfectly understandable business practice from them. The other issues using a third party is that we have no control over how it is generally moderated or who can register.

Sean Coffey wrote: »

To take one example among many, the thread on last year's AGM, http://leinsterchess.com/blog/2012/09/agm/, was a good one, even though there were a handful of comments that weren't "restrained". It would be a good start if the ICU web site provided space for discussion of this year's AGM.

From relatively clear memory there was a host of content removed from that thread. An unmoderated blog might work though if there was a function to democratically permanently remove a member (say 66%). If registration was tightly maintained that could dissuade scurrilous comment.

Sparks

phnompenhchess wrote: »

Perhaps I have not been clear, individuals going after each other is of no concern, keeping the blog up and intact is. That will not be the case if hosted here as Boards.ie will remove material on receipt of an email let alone the slightest hint of litigation again themselves (read their terms, 8.2). That is the reality and perfectly understandable business practice from them.

Speaking as a mod who's been through that process a few times, that's not quite how it goes.
If there's a complaint, the thread is temporarily taken offline while it's reviewed; if the complaint has merit, it's dealt with. If not, no change is needed. Either way, best efforts are made to restore the thread whenever possible (so, if I start a thread entitled "why person X is a bad person" and that's all the content there is, then it'll be pulled; but if I make a defamatory post in a long thread of useful content, then just the offending material is pulled).

The other issues using a third party is that we have no control over how it is generally moderated or who can register.

Well, yes. But isn't that lack of control what's being sought, since liability and control are tied together? (And if you wanted to have a blog without comments and strict editorial control, and discussion in here, then why not do that?)

And more puzzlingly, how did I get dragged back into this?

phnompenhchess

Sparks wrote: »

Speaking as a mod..

I think that's my point on moderating here, anyone could be doing it with any slant they felt like putting on it. For all I know you could be Peter, Jonathan, Colm, John or (God forbid) me.

Sparks

phnompenhchess wrote: »

I think that's my point on moderating here, anyone could be doing it with any slant they felt like putting on it. For all I know you could be Peter, Jonathan, Colm, John or (God forbid) me.

<--- points to own photo, name and other profile data.
That's rather a lot to fake.
However, again, we're back to the same point - either the LCU/ICU don't want the legal liability associated with the editorial control, or they want the editorial control associated with the legal liability. So long as both publication of news and open discussion are wanted, the two are tied together.

I think I did suggest above that the publication of news and the open discussion don't actually have to be done in the same place or controlled by the same editorial board, if that helps with thinking about a solution any.

phnompenhchess

Aha, using the desktop version of this site I can see your name. Am I right in saying that you neither play Leinster leagues nor are a member of the ICU?

Sparks

At the moment, correct.

phnompenhchess

phnompenhchess wrote: »

Am I right in saying that you neither play Leinster leagues nor are a member of the ICU?

Sparks wrote: »

At the moment, correct.

I'll leave it at that.

Sparks

phnompenhchess wrote: »

I'll leave it at that.

20 years away from the game, I finally get back into it a few months ago, help start up a club at work, start going to my local club a month or so ago to play there and try out for the league teams come September. I've also gone through the whole "boards or not" meme from both within and without a national governing body, and I've been doing the moderator thing on here for a few years now. But I suppose you're right, what could my opinion possibly be worth?

phnompenhchess

As I said I'll leave it at that although point 2 in my earlier post does jump to mind.

cdeb

What, this point? -

phnompenhchess wrote:

There are posters on this forum who get involved with any and every thread they come across. Debate would not be helped by this interference that would inevitably happen here.

That's a bit silly. The discussion here is mainly over issues of moderation, and whether boards.ie is suitable in that regard. Sparks is clearly an experienced boards.ie poster and moderator (and a chess player); his views are very relevant. And given you don't play Leinster Leagues at the moment either...

phnompenhchess

cdeb wrote: »

What, this point? -



That's a bit silly. The discussion here is mainly over issues of moderation, and whether boards.ie is suitable in that regard. Sparks is clearly an experienced boards.ie poster and moderator (and a chess player); his views are very relevant. And given you don't play Leinster Leagues at the moment either...

I absolutely did not say that Sparks views are not relevant. He is clearly an enthusiastic chap, over 30,000 posts on here allude to that.

Ciaran was excellently placed to be a moderator due to his knowledge of the sport in Ireland. I do not think we should replace him with someone who is at the opposite end of the chess knowledge spectrum.

I reiterate that in the absence of a speedy ICU proposal let's go for an unmoderated board with solid user verification and the ability for the members to remove troublemakers by group vote. This Boards.ie forum certainly does not allow that and it's (mostly) non chess playing moderators should not be given control over our group. Remember once we start down this road it is hard to go back so we should try to get it right.

cdeb

phnompenhchess wrote: »

I absolutely did not say that Sparks views are not relevant.

You fairly clearly implied it. Once you found that he wasn't an ICU member or a currently active player, your reaction was an immediate refusal to engage, dismissing him as someone who just gets involved on any topic. That's silly.

I've no particular problems with either route - forming a forum (not a blog; that's where the problems came from previously, I think) or staying on here. I don't know do the chess section mods here post in the section - maybe they could be asked for their views. Yes, it'd be good to have an LCU rep put in as mod as well, but I don't think it's essential.

bernard palmer

Well folks i am a registered member and regular player and i also do not feel the pressing need to go under a pseudonym shall we get past the yah boo stage and post a few practical suggestions for setting up a new post/forum possibly under i c u authority?

Rev Hellfire

cdeb wrote: »

I don't know do the chess section mods here post in the section - maybe they could be asked for their views. Yes, it'd be good to have an LCU rep put in as mod as well, but I don't think it's essential.

There aren't chess mod for this forum, rather mods for the strategy grouping.

Here on boards mods aren't looked at to be authorities on the subject, their job is to facilitate discussion rather than direct it. It helps if you've knowledge of the subject matter, but the users are stakeholders also and we look at them to do their part by alerting us to issues.

cdeb

Ah, ok. So at the bottom of the chess forum, it says this -

Forum Mods: cherryghost, Rev Hellfire
Category Mods: EnterNow, FutureGuy, Sierra Oscar

What's the difference between a forum mod and a category mod?

I assumed you and cherryghost were chess forum mods, while the other three were Games forum mods, including all sub-forums. Is this not the case?

bernard palmer

Interesting, none of the usual.compulsive blog contributor types, from leinster chess blog? Perhaps your all away this weekend ? Is it possible to have a word from anybody on the i c u executive? Anybody there ?

phnompenhchess

bernard palmer wrote: »

Well folks i am a registered member and regular player and i also do not feel the pressing need to go under a pseudonym shall we get past the yah boo stage and post a few practical suggestions for setting up a new post/forum possibly under i c u authority?

+1 for the ICU to take this up and run with it. If we can force people to post under their own names (not possible on here) then the completely crazy stuff will be kept at bay.

Sparks

How do you force someone to post under their own name and always know that it's them posting and not someone who guessed/was given their username/password?
And if (say) the ICU sets up such an "unmoderated" (it really is moderated if you've got posting policies, its just not moderated enough to keep you safe from lawsuits) forum, and they don't catch such a thing happening, how open are they to be sued for allowing defamatory postings by the person being impersonated?

I think perhaps you haven't fully thought through what you're proposing.

bernard palmer

It is you who are confused sparks. Both the i c u and the l c u are unincorporated body s that is , they do not exist in law. Only the mod of the blog is open to legal action . And this problem could be solved by using some unemployed member of the union, of which i should think, there are quite a few.

Sparks

bernard palmer wrote: »

Both the i c u and the l c u are unincorporated body s

So, (a) that's a horrible way to set up any NGB or RGB (this is a topic that arose in other sports before); and (b) I wouldn't bet my house (and a lot more money, given the state of the property market these days) on a judge in a defamation case saying that the mod of the LCU blog had nothing to do with the LCU and that they can't be sued because they have no assets, when the LCU has them as an officer/member and is setting moderation policy (if they're not setting policy, then there's no liability... but also no control).

edit: none of which explains how you'll force people to post under their own names (and prove that every post in their names was posted by them).

bernard palmer

You don't get it is"sparks" the i c u and the l c. Do not exist in law. They are not incorporated in law. I don't know how to. Put it more simply. Thus there is no need to pretend the mod has no connection with them l

Sparks

I do get understand the difference between a limited company and an unincorporated association Bernard, I've been the secretary of both at one time or another; I'm just saying that being unincorporated doesn't do what you think it does in terms of legal liability. The defamation suit would just name the officers of the LCU directly and state that they had a public association and that that association had editorial control over the blog and that therefore they were liable for any suit and before you know where you are, you're up to your eyeballs in solicitors and barristers (and from that position, even if you win you lose because of the cost of defence). As a result, the idea that the LCU could nominate some unemployed member to run the blog and have them as the cut-out doesn't really work (not to mention the ethics of the idea, which stink).