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."