Other Irish chess blogs - discussion thread

Sparks

I'm half tempted to report that one to facebook, but given their... somewhat lower bar for "what, is that offensive?" compared to here, I'm not sure anything would be done.

sinbad68

Sparks wrote: »

I'm half tempted to report that one to facebook, but given their... somewhat lower bar for "what, is that offensive?" compared to here, I'm not sure anything would be done.

Well done Sparks, you finally made me laugh !

Sparks

sinbad68 wrote: »

Well done Sparks, you finally made me laugh !

By thinking that someone saying something mean about people was less important than (to take a real example), some preteen complaining to facebook that a family member had posted nude photos of her online? If perspective is that funny...

must have a jest

This thread is totally one-sided. That's why Facebook is the place to be for guys like me and Supercoach. The tiny minority of haters on this hateful blog of hatred just don't get it. Come the AGM, the ordinary hard working members of the ICU will understand the necessities of cleaning shop: cancelling tournaments, dismantling the website, suspending the rating system, dispensing with due process, banning life members in secret, bypassing the constitution and rejecting motions. These are simply unavoidable bumps along the road if the evil that festers at the heart of Irish chess is to be rooted out.
And now a group of dilettantes are staging an outrageous, elaborate coup (called an "election") to reverse this process. This privileged few and their baroque Machiavellian plans...blah blah blah

(excuse me, I am being dragged away kicking and screaming like a lunatic...I'll be back later for more discussion under a new username)

rob51

Chess_Coach wrote: »

The question that I can answer in my private capacity I ll do gladly.
However the reports are very sensitive and I have suggested to Executive that they should be published at ICU website .
Imagine the letter from Executive to MCU President was hidden from members of the MCU AGM. So even when letter is sent they do not want to inform the members. Just try for moment be fair and objective.

Why would ICU Chairman the real Gentleman go this road if he had another choice ?
The amount of sabotage was just breathtaking .

The fundamental question is

Who is having the most financial gain as member of the Executive ? Who is in Executive for 10 plus years in various positions and why ?

Who is really controlling ICU ?

Since coach apparently saw the letter then he knows it contained no explanation of why the ICU Chairman and Executive totally ignored two articles of the ICU Constitution. That was the point at issue in the MCU AGM nothing else. Just like coach the letter was long on allegations but totally ignored the actual issue raised at the AGM.
Would coach or the Gentleman he referred to explain simply why they believe they acted fairly in ignoring the ICU constitution.

cdeb

Worth highlighting the attached exchange on the facebook page.

You can go into Kevin Scully's account and see it was formed in 2015, and he has 3 friends, including both moderators of the facebook page (and one other recent contributor)

I suspect this exchange is actually Darko talking literally to himself.

This is the kind of behaviour we're being asked to endorse and vote in again at the upcoming AGM.

Edit - in fact, the Kevin Scully account was originally Kevin Flathead (you can see the latter tagged earlier in the thread, but it links into Kevin Scully). Kevin Flathead is a name also used by Colm on his blog. So it seems reasonable to assume that either Colm or Darko have set up a new account to talk to themselves and give the appearance of more support for their position.

I should note in reply to rob51's post above that Chess_Coach has had his ban extended to one month for sending abusive and threatening PMs to posters here. So that explains why no reply yet.

Tim Harding

That JPG was distasteful but interesting. I am not on Facebook and don't normally wish to poison my mind by reading that sort of stuff but a little of taste of what they are up to is no harm, perhaps.
It gives a glimpse into the "last days in the Fuehrer bunker" mentality of the people concerned. It is of course no surprise that they believe they are crusading in a righteous cause, so there is a sort of mirror image with some of their opponents on this board, which may make judgment hard for casual readers of this forum.
Also no doubt, as they say, the "quiet-spoken gentlemanly chairperson... has no personal agenda". That just makes him a pawn, the ideal front man for DP, CD and perhaps others unknown to me on the ICU executive. As I do not know which others are responsible for the current situation I shall vote against all of them.

Unfortunately, whoever wins this election, I fear the Irish scene has been badly damaged for a long time to come with little prospect of good publicity, let alone sponsorship for tournaments etc.
Having had a detailed (though not always clear) response to the thread I started a few days ago, requesting a list of the alleged transgressions of the current executive, and realising I've wasted too much time on this board as a result, I don't intend to make any more postings on this or related topics. I do intend, though, to attend the agm and register a vote for change.

I hope everyone else reading this will do the same. There should be no complacency about the intentions or ability of the current committee and their associates to get their vote out on the day.
I would also caution against their rhetorical attempts to make the behaviour of Mark Orr and/or the track record of Pete Morriss an issue in any way in persuading members how to vote. Neither of those two are candidates.

The only points in relation to Mark Orr that we as voters should consider are:
1) Was due disciplinary process followed against him? (Pretty evidently it was not and the executive has tried to hide the whole thing from the membership.)
2) Why was his recommendation for a successor not accepted, especially in the light of the fact that the I.C.U. has failed to run a satisfactory website for a great part of its term of office?

The last point I wish to make that is that it is most unsatisfactory that the elected Hon. Sec. was replaced last month by a nominee and that the candidate nominated to run against him has been disallowed. I don't know whether the grounds on which his nomination was refused are valid; perhaps so. The lack of an opponent in the forthcoming election is particularly disturbing because the new Hon. Sec. is a member of the same chess club as the current chairperson.
Under the circumstances I believe that the election of the new secretary should not be automatic. Either alternative candidates should be allowed to be nominated or some other way found to have a contest for the position. I also hope and expect that the former Hon. Sec. will give an account to the agm for his period in office along with his reasons for resigning.

Ficheall

I see Daly has a swathe of new 'password protected' posts up today, condemning each of the non-incumbent candidates.

Sparks

'password protected' posts

Be grateful for small mercies, I prefer sewage be inside the septic tank rather than spread all over the driveway myself.

edit: Might be worth noting though, that merely password protecting a page does not mean it isn't publication from the point of view of the Defamation Act 2009, because "private" there means person-to-person with reasonable expectation that the defamation itself might never reach third parties, which is patently not the case here.

rob51

I love the bit about beta testing!!! If Marks website was being beta tested what could you possibly say about its attempted replacement.:)

Off with their heads immediately must be the only option.

Ballynafeigh Chess

rob51 wrote: »

Off with their heads immediately must be the only option.

So a slow spit roast followed by a drawing and quartering isn't even being considered then

Sparks

You can't spit roast someone and draw and quarter them BC, it's the Daffy Duck problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEYYYMuwCyA

pawntof4

Has the Irish chess Facebook page disappeared?

reunion

pawntof4 wrote: »

Has the Irish chess Facebook page disappeared?

No they ban members that don't agree with their point of view. No matter how valid your questions may be.

My guess is you are banned.

pawntof4

yep that was it.

iriship

I need to be to the good side of the force, how do I get my badge of honor, sorry i mean BAN from the fb page

cdeb

Posting here is usually a good start.

sinbad68

iriship wrote: »

I need to be to the good side of the force, how do I get my badge of honor, sorry i mean BAN from the fb page

If you post comments against current executive on fb page, you will be verbally mauled, but in terms of believing in freedom of speech and letting their opponents have their say and post comments , the fb page does display sportsmanship and it is not that easy to get banned from the fb page !, it prefers mauling rather than banning !.

Sparks

By which you mean that there are only two moderators and neither of them ban people so if you're banned, as they don't ban people it was Mark Zuckerberg who did it because Reasons; and of course they believe in free speech to the point where defamation is ignored, civility is one of those foreign concepts they don't hold with, logic is something for other people in other places, and anyone who disagrees with a moderator is a venial liar of the lowest character and needs to be physically assaulted at any public meeting and must be verbally threatened leading up to such meetings and of course anyone who doesn't go to such a meeting is a coward and should have the Gardai called to keep an eye on them while anyone who does go to such a meeting is just a timewaster looking to reintroduce eight hour long meetings and damage Irish Chess to make money.


Yeah, it's a great place. The very jewel of the web. Why facebook doesn't laud it more is a mystery.

And to be serious, they do do wonders to uphold the art of waffling for ten pages without ever making a clear point; they've obviously missed their calling in public office...

sinbad68

Sparks wrote: »

By which you mean that there are only two moderators and neither of them ban people so if you're banned, as they don't ban people it was Mark Zuckerberg who did it because Reasons; and of course they believe in free speech to the point where defamation is ignored, civility is one of those foreign concepts they don't hold with, logic is something for other people in other places, and anyone who disagrees with a moderator is a venial liar of the lowest character and needs to be physically assaulted at any public meeting and must be verbally threatened leading up to such meetings and of course anyone who doesn't go to such a meeting is a coward and should have the Gardai called to keep an eye on them while anyone who does go to such a meeting is just a timewaster looking to reintroduce eight hour long meetings and damage Irish Chess to make money.

Honestly, The above paragraph needs serious reformat, specially the first two sentences make no sense at all and hard to understand what you are trying to say.I am neutral and not a supporter of fb page.

Only a few days to go til it's over, a large turnout is expected in the agm. Would anyone hazard a guess about turnout numbers and the result of Pat vs John for the job of chairman ?. I've done some calculations & have a estimate.

Sparks

sinbad68 wrote: »

Honestly, The above paragraph needs serious reformat, specially the first two sentences make no sense at all and hard to understand what you are trying to say.

parody
ˈparədi/
noun
1. an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
"the film is a parody of the horror genre"
synonyms: satire, burlesque, lampoon, pastiche, caricature, take-off, skit, imitation, mockery;

I've done some calculations & have a estimate.

The suspense is killing me.
One piece at a time.
It's terribly painful.
Why do you torture me so?

Ballynafeigh Chess

sinbad68 wrote: »

If you post comments against current executive on fb page, you will be verbally mauled, but in terms of believing in freedom of speech and letting their opponents have their say and post comments , the fb page does display sportsmanship and it is not that easy to get banned from the fb page !, it prefers mauling rather than banning !.

Now that's just pure nonsense Sinbad members of the ICU from Belfast were banned without even posting and the two mods that run the page of hate blamed each other when challenged. So no freedom of speech there, no sportsmanship or debating just the usual ban

reunion

Ballynafeigh Chess wrote: »

Now that's just pure nonsense Sinbad members of the ICU from Belfast were banned without even posting and the two mods that run the page of hate blamed each other when challenged. So no freedom of speech there, no sportsmanship or debating just the usual ban

I will also note other users who don't agree with 2 particular mods there (there are 3) are banned.

The list of banned users on the fb page is quite large (it's certainly not the 0 they have previously claimed).

cdeb

Worth noting that now Gerry Graham and Jonathan O'Connor have "both in the past shown a racist grudge" against an ICU member. This, to my knowledge, is a completely new charge which not even the ICU member concerned has ever publicly voiced.

Darko's comment? "I agree"

Yet this is the site Pat Fitzsimons publicly condemns for vile and virulent comments.

Anyone still in doubt as to which way to vote on Sunday should keep in mind that this is the way the current exec is operating. Nasty stuff, and the sooner they're gone, the better for Irish chess.

DmanDmythDledge

Surely the reference to embezzling funds is a serious legal breach.

Sparks

Yes, it is. And if it was the first time that that group had broken the Defamation Act, I'd be able to work up the energy to raise an eyebrow, but frankly, they've done it so often at this point that it's the norm there. One of these days, they'll poke someone who'll call their solicitor, and once that happens, someone's going to wind up neck-deep in legal bills.

cdeb

DmanDmythDledge wrote: »

Surely the reference to embezzling funds is a serious legal breach.

Yes - I meant to point that out as well; thanks.

I don't know where the stuff about social security falls. And bringing the cheater's (because that's what he was) background into things is nonsensical.

But the ICU Chair is implicitly ok with all of this being spouted; he's been asked to clarify his position on comments on other blogs and has refused to do so.

Ballynafeigh Chess

It is extremely difficult not to think of elements of the current board (not all) as being some weird Fifth columnists! Determined to do as much damage to Irish chess as is humanly possible.

reunion

Ballynafeigh Chess wrote: »

It is extremely difficult not to think of elements of the current board (not all) as being some weird Fifth columnists! Determined to do as much damage to Irish chess as is humanly possible.

I tried explaining one of the (many) situations to a friend.

An honourary life member was banned for 5 years partially because someone followed a github project (a facebook type website for coding projects). This ban was longer than using force on a child.

mikhail

reunion wrote: »

This ban was longer than using force on a child.

I think that by "using force on a child", you mean "becoming the victim of someone with a middle-class background". :P

This sort of stuff seems very out of line with this committee's public concern with child protection.