English Chess Strategy Discussion

[Bill Porter]

I just looked in another place which claims : superchessplayer99 : Joined: 9:40 am Yesterday and has since made one innocuous post.

What sort of forum is the ECF running?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I thought Sue Dunham was Alan Burke. Same posting style.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I thought Sue Dunham was Alan Burke. Same posting style.

You could well be right for all I know. Although I wouldn’t say Mr B was routinely rabidly pro ECF as the late Ms Dunham was. I think there would also have to be an explanation as to how he came to be registered so early, before I would consider that answer the most probably.

To be clear, I don’t actually give a crap who Sue Dunham is/was. It’s more what the existence of the account says about what’s going on with the ECF that I think is problematic.

[JustinHorton]

An early account - if memory serves it was the second to sign up, joining before Mike Truran, John Philpott, Chris Fegan, Phil Ehr - was a sock puppet most likely operated by somebody within the ECF.

Which is extraordinary, no? If it really was the second account to be registered, it would indeed surely have to be an isider, i.e. somebody actually involved with the new forum.

Now I can actually see why somebody might set up such an account, maybe to check how the registration process worked or something. But what reason would they have for subsequently using it?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Which is extraordinary, no? If it really was the second account to be registered, it would indeed surely have to be an isider, i.e. somebody actually involved with the new forum.

Checking some notes I made at the time, I see that Sue Dunham had not only registered before the people mentioned joined the Forum, she had also posted before they had joined.

I wouldn’t 100% rule out it was a non-ECF person making the posts - though it doesn’t seem probable. For now I think, "most likely" to be an ECF person is the appropriate description given what is public knowledge.

As for why somebody would make these posts ... well, I find it hard to answer that.


As I said, before though, the question of who Sue Dunham is/was is considerably less interesting than thinking about what her existence (or non-existence, I suppose) and the ECF’s response to that says about the ECF.