To MODERATORS: Please STOP moving genuine tournaments!

[Guenther]

I completely agree with HG and R. Hyatt on this matter.
Author and 'real' tournaments should always have a place on the main forum.

The tournament/matches forum actually was created for home tournaments.
This does not 'belittle' the importance of (professionally done)
tournaments of that kind - statistically they tell even more, but that's not the point.

[Norm Pollock]

Whatever suggestion achieves consensus should still be put up to a vote of the membership.

[bob]

Whatever suggestion achieves consensus should still be put up to a vote of the membership.

This has already done. It was done when we split CCC into four separate fora (including chess thinkers)...

[Jesse Gersenson]

Whatever suggestion achieves consensus should still be put up to a vote of the membership.

This has already done. It was done when we split CCC into four separate fora (including chess thinkers)...

There is clearly a disconnect between how the forum has been used and how it's being moderated. A message to the moderators is in order.

[velmarin]

How humans always put stones in our own way.
If I want to find a tournament, I'm going to tournaments.
If I want to shock the moderator, post here.

By true, moderators, don't give up.
Tournament to tournament forum.

[CRoberson]

1) Historically, all computer Chess events that require physical, live, real time participation (ACCA, CCT, Leiden, WCCC,...) advertise in the main
section. If you don't believe me or remember then perform a forum search of the main section: years of them are there. Final results of such
tournaments should be in the "tournament" section, but not the advertisement and call for participants. Also, the decision to keep author
live events in the main area was made years ago. Today's moderators are actually going against the rules/tradition.

2) The reason for advertising in the main section instead of the others is that we reach out to two groups of people: programmers and audience.
The main section has both. The authors/team members have to decide to enter and physically participate (login, keep their machine running...).
While this tournament runs, we real time chat together with the audience on the Chess Programming channel. Without reaching at least the authors/teams,
the events will not happen. When we have a big audience, the chat is much more lively and enjoyable. The basement tournaments can happen
with/without author's/team's and audience's live real time participation, but these types of tournaments can not.

3) Mass emails are not as effective as you might think. I use them, but it is impossible to keep a list of all the new authors that could be interested.
I do want the new people involved; they often learn a lot in the chat areas and it is a great get to know each other thing.

4) I missed the advertisement about Leiden this year, because I look at the "tournament" section only when forced to do so.

The various rules here have been created to "meet the need"! In fact, the entire forum's existence has been about meeting the need for
decades. It started with just the programmers; the testers and aficionados came later. Before the web, there was rec.games.chess then
rec.games.computerchess was added. Once the web came, the first CCC web page was spawned and it started with just one seciton: mostly
authors/researchers talking deep tech.

The bottom line is: the "tournament" section was created for the basement tournaments, because they were flooding the main section. I
know, I was a member then. I know moderation can be difficult for those who haven't been involved in the CCC's for the last 20+ years like me and
40+ years like Bob, so please admit to the unintended error and adjust.

[velmarin]

It seems that two moderators are five days older than you.

Yet is anyone more entitled.
But this publicity is fantastic...

[Graham Banks]

Events that require others to subscribe and participate need exposure, and when they do not get it they will have to be cancelled because there are no participants.

Couldn't a mass email be sent out to all of the engine authors?
That would give them the necessary information directly. This would surely allay some of the concerns being expressed.

What about all the non-authors that are interested in WCCC, ACCA, CCT, etc???

EVERYTHING we do here could be done by email, with no record left behind for others to find.

Of course I meant in addition to posting in the forums.
I've not offered an opinion on whereabouts the announcement should be posted.

However, it seems that there lately seems to be a small number of participants in these author-only tournaments, so it makes good sense to make an extra effort to alert as many authors as possible.
Mass email seems to be a good additional way to do this.

No matter who the moderators are at any given time, they always come under pressure from or get criticised by disgruntled members over certain decisions.
I guess that's why we have moderator elections, although I believe that these have had their teeth pulled through the team approach.

[Rebel]

No matter who the moderators are at any given time, they always come under pressure from or get criticised by disgruntled members over certain decisions. I guess that's why we have moderator elections, although I believe that these have had their teeth pulled through the team approach.

That's too much drama as if there is a looming crisis at hand. Both sides on the issue have a point. I am confident they did not see this coming. Just give them some time to say something reasonable.

[hgm]

It seems that two moderators are five days older than you.

Those are just the dates that old TalkChess members registered with the new board, when we switched to phpBB. It tells you nothing about when they first joined TalkChess on the software that was used before.