Let us , programers, express ourselves

[Daniel Shawul]

Lucas, do you not see the irony in your post, that you in one breath argue that the ongoing discussions about undefined behavior should be censored, and in the next paragraph criticise the moderation team as being too heavy-handed about locking or deleting things?

Even if a poll showed that the majority of the users wanted them deleted, why would a tyranny of the majority be any better than the tyranny of a small group of moderators? I suspect they've exercised a light touch with respect to the UB discussion because its participants have all mostly remained civil and polite to each other. Even when tempers got a little heated, there hasn't been much if any nastiness or personal attacks in it. I suspect if that changed the moderators would not hesitate to address that.

I can't really see why anybody should be offended by a rambling but polite discussion, even if it is only barely on-topic. There is a fair amount of repetition in the threads, but new examples are also still showing up in the threads, and at least some people are finding them interesting to read and participate in them. I already tried to detach myself from it once, but I got drawn back in, since it is after all a topic I have interest in.

Wylie, since you seem to believe you are enlightening everyone I have couple of questions for you

1) This forum is computer + chess club as you know. I don't know if you follow other sub-forums but discussion of human + chess is frowned up on! This same group of moderators delete those threads. OTOH we have computer + no-chess allowed to roam here. It misses the most important gradient IMO which is chess.

2) Since you seem to really believe in the worth of strcpy() discussions, I request you to go to 'Computer Go' mailinglist and post threads like 'A note to C programers', 'Another note to C++ programers', 'How your stacks and integers OVERFLOW' etc. If it is equally worth to any game programers, they should be interested too. But I highly doubt it.

3) No matter how you bend it, a computer+chess programing forum can not be a computer+programing forum. So if most here are physicsts (I am sure we have a sizable number), should we have a poll for physics+programing, a slippery slope. We might as well name this place the cccOVERFLOW forum, where your OVERFLOW questions are answered in 80 pages. I am sure I can make daily contributions of C/ASM programing questions

[Daniel Shawul]

Did you really just threaten to ban Daniel? I actually wanted to vote in his poll. This iron fist moderation stuff is getting silly.

Yep this looser banned me, probably holds grudges from bopo vs ordo days. How can the below post gets you banned but not an 80-page drivel on off-topic discussion? Mind boggling

StackOVERFLOW where your programing overflow questions should be directed to.

The goals of stackOVERFLOW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Overflow

And if any programers are itching to ask integer OVERFLOW questions, a direct link
http://stackoverflow.com/

[wgarvin]

Daniel,

Since the moderators have posted a poll now, please cast your vote on it. We will see whether your view is shared by a large number of others or not.

I know its difficult to imagine, but maybe not all chess programmers have the same ideas as you about what is 'on topic' here or not. The moderators have the unenviable job of keeping the place 'clean' enough that it can be a welcoming and productive place for programmers to discuss chess programming. I say 'unenviable' because some users are inevitably going to be displeased by some of their moderating decisions. Its just what happens when you throw a bunch of fractious humans together in a venue like this.

So they may listen to our input (vote in the poll!) but in general the mods are just going to do what they think is right, and thats the end of it until election time when you are welcome to run against them for the job.

[Daniel Shawul]

The poll is for programers to express themselves. You are surely not doing your job. Stop addressing me in the mod's thread, if you don't allow me to reply in public. Let the programmers express their views with the poll. You have what 3/4 days to do something about it. Are you so afraid that you locked my poll in 0.25 seconds before I even finish editing. Are you afraid that someone else will actually agree with me, and you will not have an excuse that I am the only one to oppose?

Daniel is right. Some people think that holding endless discussions about programming per se on a chess forum is ok, some do not. Among the latter category, there is already Daniel, myself, and Marco. I'm sure there are a lot more! But we will never know, unless our moderators allow Daniel's poll to go trhough uncensored.

So what is the problem here? Moderators are afraid that the result of the poll will prove them wrong?

Now the real problem. Regarding thread locking, deleting (or changing) messages, the current moderation team has gone too far. Way too far. And it's not the first time. Far from that. I have nothing against Adam Hair, and I think he does not abuse his moderation power, but I cannot say the same of Julien, and even Miguel.

This whole moderator thing was supposed to be a democratic process. Instead we have an oligarchy of moderators. Let me make my self very clear:
* I want them OUT.
* They will modify or delete this message, and I will repost it again, and again, ad nauseam, until they leave it uncensored. Yes, this is especially for YOU Julien.

The last 3 elections were a complete farce:

election 1: only teams were allowed, and they were the only team. voila.

election 2: Individuals were allowed. Now, if you have a choice of one team and many individual, mathematically the team has an advantage. If 75% want them out, but these 75% votes get spread across different candidates, they can still win. Admittedly there were few, almost no candidates. So I put forward two names (not myself, but people I trust): unfortunately they refused. So our moderator oligarchs were "elected" again.

election 3: Again, no one bothered to put their name forward. It's as if everyone knows already that it's a farce, not a real democracy, so there's no point in participating. One day before the expiry date, I finally decided to put myself forward, if only to force them to have an election. This was enough to push a couple of other candidates to put their name forward. So there was our moderator team + 3 other individual candidates. The election was not held. The matter was completely shushed up, and the thread locked.

What I find even more annoying is that our dear moderators make it sound like they are really so nice and brave to do this work benevolently. Really we should be thankful, and we don't want to be moderators ourselves and have to put up with all the politics, etc. That is basically their eternal excuse for justifying their oligarchic power.

Now, again, for our moderators, I repeat:
* there is no ad hominem attack or insult in my post, so you have no right to delete it.
* if you delete or change it, i will spam this forum. i will create new threads eternally until you allow one to go uncensored and unmodified. It only costs me a Ctrl+V (I'm not stupid I saved this message in a text file on my computer).

The only democratic way to resolve this issue would be as follows:
1/ a poll asking a simply yes/no question: "do you want our current moderation to stay?"
2/ then, an election where everyone can participate, with two rounds. one round to choose finalists, second round to decide. That way the winner has the absolute majority of expressed votes.

This post is so good it is as if I wrote it myself
ICGA number 2 on the loose.

[Daniel Shawul]

Daniel,

Since the moderators have posted a poll now, please cast your vote on it. We will see whether your view is shared by a large number of others or not.

I know its difficult to imagine, but maybe not all chess programmers have the same ideas as you about what is 'on topic' here or not. The moderators have the unenviable job of keeping the place 'clean' enough that it can be a welcoming and productive place for programmers to discuss chess programming. I say 'unenviable' because some users are inevitably going to be displeased by some of their moderating decisions. Its just what happens when you throw a bunch of fractious humans together in a venue like this.

So they may listen to our input (vote in the poll!) but in general the mods are just going to do what they think is right, and thats the end of it until election time when you are welcome to run against them for the job.

I will cast my vote in their poll if you answer the above three points.

You talked about someone being in denial of a staring truth, which I agree. Here is your chance to show that you are capable of handling the truth, even when the outcome might not be in your favour. So CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?

[Joerg Oster]

Really, what is your problem?

How often in the past did such Threads like 'A note for C programmers' or the thread about strcpy() occur? Once in a month? Once in half a year?

At least it was a very entertaining thread. If you are not interested, simply ignore it.

Is that really so difficult?

[JuLieN]

[moderation]
I inform the forum that Daniel got another 24h ban for the same reason he got banned by Miguel yesterday: posting again and again his stackoverflow thread, despite we asked him not to willingly spam the forum by creating such a thread, but posting his message inside one of the dedicated threads instead. Up to now that's a dozen threads we removed, and there's no reason to think Daniel will any time soon come to his mind and remember the forum's charter he agreed with when he signed up :

I - Computer-Chess Club Charter

Important Information - Please Read Carefully

A panel of moderators has the power to erase specific messages that violate the spirit of the charter of the Computer-Chess Club, and to take, if necessary, suitable sanctions against offenders. (...)
You are further agreeing to abide by the decision of the moderators should a post of yours be deleted and/or if you should lose your membership privileges after due consideration of the moderators, and also agree not to re-enter the forum under an alias or assumed name in this case. You also will be agreeing that the decision of the moderators is final.

As we can't stay moderating Daniel 24/7 (we do have our jobs...), we had to give him some thinking time away in the hope he'll come back to his senses. Bottom line is : Daniel can't answer you for the moment.

Regarding all the lies spread by Lucas and Daniel this is very disheartening and, if Sam, Miguel and Adam agree with it I'll publish screenshots of the discussion we had during the last elections, as they leave no place for doubt about our intentions.

[Ryan Benitez]

[moderation]
I inform the forum that Daniel got another 24h ban for the same reason he got banned by Miguel yesterday: posting again and again his stackoverflow thread, despite we asked him not to willingly spam the forum by creating such a thread, but posting his message inside one of the dedicated threads instead. Up to now that's a dozen threads we removed, and there's no reason to think Daniel will any time soon come to his mind and remember the forum's charter he agreed with when he signed up :

I - Computer-Chess Club Charter

Important Information - Please Read Carefully

A panel of moderators has the power to erase specific messages that violate the spirit of the charter of the Computer-Chess Club, and to take, if necessary, suitable sanctions against offenders. (...)
You are further agreeing to abide by the decision of the moderators should a post of yours be deleted and/or if you should lose your membership privileges after due consideration of the moderators, and also agree not to re-enter the forum under an alias or assumed name in this case. You also will be agreeing that the decision of the moderators is final.

As we can't stay moderating Daniel 24/7 (we do have our jobs...), we had to give him some thinking time away in the hope he'll come back to his senses. Bottom line is : Daniel can't answer you for the moment.

Regarding all the lies spread by Lucas and Daniel this is very disheartening and, if Sam, Miguel and Adam agree with it I'll publish screenshots of the discussion we had during the last elections, as they leave no place for doubt about our intentions.

Great, now we all get to live in fear of the ban hammer. I get it that being a moderator is a horrible chore but there are better ways of expressing that you want out.

[wgarvin]

Great, now we all get to live in fear of the ban hammer. I get it that being a moderator is a horrible chore but there are better ways of expressing that you want out.

You probably don't have to live in fear of the ban hammer if you behave yourself. Repeatedly creating the same new thread after the moderators have locked or deleted it and asked you to stop, is deliberately provocative behavior and the charter specifically says not to do that.

The charter says:

By participating here, [...]

You are further agreeing to abide by the decision of the moderators should a post of yours be deleted and/or if you should lose your membership privileges after due consideration of the moderators, and also agree not to re-enter the forum under an alias or assumed name in this case. You also will be agreeing that the decision of the moderators is final.

[Daniel Shawul]

Regarding all the lies spread by Lucas and Daniel this is very disheartening and, if Sam, Miguel and Adam agree with it I'll publish screenshots of the discussion we had during the last elections, as they leave no place for doubt about our intentions.

Isn't it true that you all repeatedly claimed this is your last term without even been requested? And yet here you are in your third term baning me and all. I expected you to stick to your words, or was that a kindergarten reverse psycohology? There you lied in public just like a politician and then call me a liar .

posting again and again his stackoverflow thread

What is wrong with my stackOVERFLOW thread?? I asked your pal and he can't muster up which part of the charter it viloates. Explain. Don't expect me to abide by your random deletions without a single drop of explanation. Infact it is very much according to the newest cccOVERFLOW that you turned the place into. I want C programers to know about the place.

StackOVERFLOW where your programing overflow questions should be directed to.

The goals of stackOVERFLOW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Overflow

And if any programers are itching to ask integer OVERFLOW questions, a direct link
http://stackoverflow.com/

Would you rather I posted my daily notes to C programers? I am cool to play with your new rules.