TalkChess.com

Rebel wrote:

Graham Banks wrote: Amazing how much trouble the same small group of members can try to make when they don't like something. Not the first time and won't be the last.

And that small group has names?

And perhaps you have missed the fact that the programmers (who responded) so far have spoken against the new policy. You know, those guys responsible for your daily medicine Their minds may work a bit different than yours.

Hi Ed,

Yes this is the point 99% of the programmers want the announcements to be here, so they should be here. Without the programmers there is no computer chess and no, genuine, computer chess forum.

If you, me Bob and HGM all agree then we must have a point!

Cheers and Shalom from sunny Tel Aviv,
Harvey

Graham Banks wrote:Poll for members regarding this issue:

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60297

This is the wrong approach, in general. If all the tournament lovers respond, that will greatly outweigh any vote by programmers, as an example. Because there are more of them. Sometimes "majority rules" is not the right idea. But it is definitely better than just doing something because of a word in the subject.

Graham Banks wrote:Perhaps the mods could consider putting an announcement or sticky thread in this forum, indicating that all tournament announcements can now be found in the tournaments subforum?

First of all, stickys are evil. Secondly, who ever looks at them after they've seen them once? There is no way to see that an event was added.

Harvey Williamson wrote:Hi Ed,

Yes this is the point 99% of the programmers want the announcements to be here, so they should be here. Without the programmers there is no computer chess and no, genuine, computer chess forum.

If you, me Bob and HGM all agree then we must have a point!

Historic moment indeed

Kidding aside (and I can only speak for myself), the point of tournaments like the WCCC, CSVN is that you invest a lot of energy to perform. Because of that you live every move of your program to the full. And in every game there always are 1 or 2 crucial moments where your program has to play the right move. And if your program fails (loses a game or fails to win) that position is engraved in your memory and after the tournament is fixed. Tournaments programmers find important (for whatever reason) are great motivators for progress.

It's why I voted no in Graham's poll.

Rebel wrote:

Harvey Williamson wrote:Hi Ed,

Yes this is the point 99% of the programmers want the announcements to be here, so they should be here. Without the programmers there is no computer chess and no, genuine, computer chess forum.

If you, me Bob and HGM all agree then we must have a point!

Historic moment indeed

Kidding aside (and I can only speak for myself), the point of tournaments like the WCCC, CSVN is that you invest a lot of energy to perform. Because of that you live every move of your program to the full. And in every game there always are 1 or 2 crucial moments where your program has to play the right move. And if your program fails (loses a game or fails to win) that position is engraved in your memory and after the tournament is fixed. Tournaments programmers find important (for whatever reason) are great motivators for progress.

It's why I voted no in Graham's poll.

I completely agree.

Dann Corbit wrote:You have a right to ask for these things, and there is nothing wrong in your asking for them.

The moderators can choose to follow your wishes or not.
If you do not like the moderators choice, you can continue the debate.
If the forum agrees with you, they will apply social pressure or replace them.
Personally, I genuinely do not understand why you find it upsetting that tournaments are moved to the tournaments folder.

You can, for instance, open a window to the tournaments folder and set the threaded setting to not threaded and bookmark it. Then just leave it open in a browser tab. Then, if you should want to know what tournaments are happening, just click that tab. A single click.

While this isn't a big deal to me personally, i can identify with HG and company's position. The tournament and matches subforum is a place i go to maybe twice a year when i already know there's something there i want to find because mostly there's a ton of postings that just don't interest me. If i were intimately interested in live tournament postings and that was where they were to be buried i might try to start make a habit of checking it, but before long that habit would probably die on account of 'nope, nothing' day after day.

As it is, i have zero interest in results and crosstables and a bit of interest in events where there will be a potential for interesting people talking such as TCEC. If the announcements are in T&M i'll likely not see most of them but that doesn't bother me too much, i'll find other uses of my time.

Hi Kevin,

programmers need material and impressions. Without the basics never all the enignes have such an high level. Most of the programmers don't have own beta testers or only 1-2 people helping in background. An other point is that programmers can't drive around the World for Computer chess tournaments ... to expensive for the most. Maybe 10 or 20 do that from time to time.

TCEC (Chat) or official computer chess tournaments are great. Persons can switched better the information. In the last years you find on official tournaments more programmers as users. Interesting what users await and interesting what users do for it ... all the time interesting to read.

It's OK if you search your fun with official tournaments!
Nice to read your "new" name here.

For myself it is allways the same ...

An official tournament or a livening room tournament from user a or b at home ... computer chess programs plays chess ... not more not less.

BUT:
I wish me that more people drivíng to official tournaments. If only 2% from all persons, searching a discussion to such a topic, do that ... great!

Fact is ...
The official computer chess tournaments are not more as livening room tournaments organiced most of the time by programmers ... maybe 20 persons participant. Hard but fact ... in the past the official tournaments are much more interesting ... for users and programmers.

With a bad organization in background (the main problem) and people, most of the time working on own interests only, we can be happy if 20 persons participant on official tournaments.

I think before we search the discussion to such a topic much other many more important points need a clarification. Sorry, but for myself ... a Kindergarten discussion for adults without any potential to make the bad situation better.

Best
Frank

Guenther wrote:

Jesse Gersenson wrote:

Computer Chess Club: Tournaments and Matches
Discussion of computer chess matches and engine tournaments.

Seems the perfect place for discussion of tournaments.

Just for the record that description text appeared after the 'new' T&M forum was created not vice versa, which means it says nothing, it is only a tautology.
No one was asked how the text has to be formulated and no one was interested in it either in 2006, because real live and genuine CC tournaments still appeared in the general forum.

I did some research (a pity that we lost all posts between 2006 and early 2007 - I still remember that loss) and it is clear that until 2013 all genuine
tournaments appeared in the general forum.

Then suddenly a shift towards the home tournaments forum (it really was meant to be like that!) started, but even in mid 2015 it was still a lottery in which forum the posts about them appeared(or had to be moved).

Only after mid 2015 the shift towards the T&M forum was completed! This means the last moderation team(s?) silently did make a change which was not demanded, but followed a description which never was decided fully about.

The description text should simply be changed to what we wanted it to be at that time and then we can move on...

For the record, the last moderation team (that was 1.5 years ago or more) changed nothing about this.

General comment:
I do not like the current implemented policy, but once we voiced our opinion, and the moderators made a conscious and thoughtful decision after they have listened, we need to move on [1]. They need to make calls and that is why we voted them in. I know how hard it is to keep a balance in this forum and the first word that comes to my mind about this current team is "thanks".

Miguel
[1] You can contribute to democracy by volunteering time, building a team, and running for moderator.

michiguel wrote:

Guenther wrote:

Jesse Gersenson wrote:

Computer Chess Club: Tournaments and Matches
Discussion of computer chess matches and engine tournaments.

Seems the perfect place for discussion of tournaments.

Just for the record that description text appeared after the 'new' T&M forum was created not vice versa, which means it says nothing, it is only a tautology.
No one was asked how the text has to be formulated and no one was interested in it either in 2006, because real live and genuine CC tournaments still appeared in the general forum.

I did some research (a pity that we lost all posts between 2006 and early 2007 - I still remember that loss) and it is clear that until 2013 all genuine
tournaments appeared in the general forum.

Then suddenly a shift towards the home tournaments forum (it really was meant to be like that!) started, but even in mid 2015 it was still a lottery in which forum the posts about them appeared(or had to be moved).

Only after mid 2015 the shift towards the T&M forum was completed! This means the last moderation team(s?) silently did make a change which was not demanded, but followed a description which never was decided fully about.

The description text should simply be changed to what we wanted it to be at that time and then we can move on...

For the record, the last moderation team (that was 1.5 years ago or more) changed nothing about this.

General comment:
I do not like the current implemented policy, but once we voiced our opinion, and the moderators made a conscious and thoughtful decision after they have listened, we need to move on [1]. They need to make calls and that is why we voted them in. I know how hard it is to keep a balance in this forum and the first word that comes to my mind about this current team is "thanks".

Miguel
[1] You can contribute to democracy by volunteering time, building a team, and running for moderator.

This is not quite the same thing. The US has three branches of government, one that writes the laws, one that interprets the laws, and one that enforces the laws.

Our moderators are intended to be the enforcement arm. To stop or prevent (where possible) flame wars and personal attacks. But not to decide where things ought to be located, when that decision represents a significant change from the original intent. That has crossed over to interpreting the laws (the US judiciary branch) as opposed to enforcing the laws (the US executive branch).

Why the change was deemed necessary is unknown, since there was no public outcry demanding a change. I simply wrote it off as a bad decision, at the time, and still consider it that. As I said, I was there when we created the tournament forum, and it was primarily triggered by Graham's posts about CCRL's testing matches and results. We all agreed that there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, we just wanted it "out of the way" so that we could continue to find technical posts. And at that point we decided to split the programmer-specific topics into the programmer's forum for the same reason... The majority do not care about technical issues and testing results based on modifications of known theory and practice. Very few beyond programmers care about bit boards, mailboxes, LMR, PVS, parallel search, and on and on. This does NOT mean that every question that is remotely connected to a programming issue should be in the programmer's forum, however. And making that change would be an equally big mistake.

We want moderators to enforce the rules, not rewrite or try to re-interpret them. And the rules are quite precise regarding the two main issues, personal attacks and commercial exhortation. And no, announcing a new version of Komodo is NOT considered "a commercial exhortation". Larry/Mark don't continuously post advertisements exhorting people to buy their software.

What I find rather sad is that the moderators don't even seem interested in engaging in conversation about the issue, just a "this is what we are going to do, period."

kbhearn wrote:

Dann Corbit wrote:You have a right to ask for these things, and there is nothing wrong in your asking for them.

The moderators can choose to follow your wishes or not.
If you do not like the moderators choice, you can continue the debate.
If the forum agrees with you, they will apply social pressure or replace them.
Personally, I genuinely do not understand why you find it upsetting that tournaments are moved to the tournaments folder.

You can, for instance, open a window to the tournaments folder and set the threaded setting to not threaded and bookmark it. Then just leave it open in a browser tab. Then, if you should want to know what tournaments are happening, just click that tab. A single click.

While this isn't a big deal to me personally, i can identify with HG and company's position. The tournament and matches subforum is a place i go to maybe twice a year when i already know there's something there i want to find because mostly there's a ton of postings that just don't interest me. If i were intimately interested in live tournament postings and that was where they were to be buried i might try to start make a habit of checking it, but before long that habit would probably die on account of 'nope, nothing' day after day.

As it is, i have zero interest in results and crosstables and a bit of interest in events where there will be a potential for interesting people talking such as TCEC. If the announcements are in T&M i'll likely not see most of them but that doesn't bother me too much, i'll find other uses of my time.

Graham sends me emails about when amateur group 2 will be playing a match. When that happens, I will, maybe once a week, go through and hunt for the group 2 discussion, which is generally NOWHERE near the top of that forum because there is a lot of activity. But I know what I am looking for. Otherwise I NEVER visit there, particularly just to browse.