Real Names

[Carl Hibbard]

Not sure what this would gain to be honest?

Well , we are here because as we understood it we signed up to the ECF Official Forum and its terms & conditions.

The ECF forum is no longer in existence, so all the posts that were made by the users are now on this new forum, they should have been deleted, you have transferred ECF Official posts without giving notice, You have also failed to change the terms & conditions.

IMHO, Whether it gains anything or not is not the issue.

You are holding and displaying the ECF official posts by members on this forum which is a third party chess forum, I believe that you are wrong to do so. Those posts were made under the T&C of the ECF Official Forum, surely if the forum changes its status then those posts must not be transfered without the authors say so?!

You do have a sort of valid point - in my defense the only thing that has changed is the name and the "official" status otherwise nothing is new apart from the physical presentation

The rules and terms and conditions remain the same with no intention to change - which do you feel have or need altering?

Nothing has been transferred, this always was a third party site just with the official backing etc.

Anyone else have an opinion on this one?

[John Upham]

I much prefer to see real names being used even if that isn't the name of the poster.

Too many fora suffer from illiterate idiots (e.g. Rexel's Brother on the Atticus forum) posting junk that devalues the discussion.

I did suggest to CM that CH implement an ECF members only section not visible by the great unwashed.

Useful debate could take place without fear of upsetting sponsors etc.

John

[Sean Hewitt]

theres certainly no need to delete previous posts imo.

as to user names - i would allow non-real names personally (and i would allow exisiting users to change their names) but i'm not particularly fussed either way.

i'm much more interested in WHY this change has come about. come on carl, the ecf have had plenty of time to tell us. spill the beans!!

[Stewart Reuben]

The change came about because views being offered on the forum were patently not necessarily those officially of the ECF.
Although I am a Board Member, the above statement never would have carried the official stamp of the federation as it was not previously cleared with the Board or Chief Executive.
The decision to make it clear that the views expressed were not necessarily official was heavily supported. Opinions on the change in name of the site were divided. Indeed mine were divided.

People have sometimes commented that officials of the Board have failed to engage in dialogue with posters on the forum. People should realise that we are busy people and the forum is only visited by a few people and then often only sporadically.

If you want your posting replied to, you should alert the officer from whom you would like a response.

Real names. They are very valuable and sometimes I have responded to the individual direct from my own database.

Have you noticed the FIDE Forum has totally vanished again. No reason has been given. I guess it was just lost in the redesign of the site. The previous time I believe it was because it had been hacked into.

Stewart Reuben

[John Upham]

Have you noticed the FIDE Forum has totally vanished again. No reason has been given.
Stewart Reuben

Stewart,

Try here : http://forum.fide.com/

The URL was the give away.

Possibly Robert Mugabe has become Director of Communications?

I hear he is a big champion of vigorous and constructive debate.

John

[Carl Hibbard]

theres certainly no need to delete previous posts imo.

as to user names - i would allow non-real names personally (and i would allow exisiting users to change their names) but i'm not particularly fussed either way.

i'm much more interested in WHY this change has come about. come on carl, the ecf have had plenty of time to tell us. spill the beans!!

The decision was made at the ECF board meeting of the 7th of June - hopefully the main ECF site will publish the minutes in due course and this will better document the reasons etc.

Well in better phrases than I can

[John Upham]

Have you noticed the FIDE Forum has totally vanished again. No reason has been given.
Stewart Reuben

Stewart,

I notice that you are now posting again on the FIDE forum for the first time since Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:18 pm

I'd like to thank myself (at least since nobody else has) for pointing you in the right direction.

See you at the Cavendish AGM!

John

[Stewart Reuben]

Dear John,
Are you paying my return fare from Romania where I am currently chief arbiter of a chess event with no draws?
You sent a semi-private message. I don't think it is fair to clog up a forum in that way.
I last looked a week ago. At that time the FIDE Forum was nowhere to be found on the FIDE website. Thus I assumed it had vanished. but you pointed me in the right direction. I note few people are posting and this is hardly surprising as FIDE are not advertsing its existence, quite unlike the much-maligned ECF and its similar site.
Stewart Reuben

[raycollett]

We want and require forthright direct debate but offensive and abusive comments under an anonymous username just cannot be accepted by the official ECF body

I agree. There is no need to give personal offence or be abusive to promote a viewpoint.

[raycollett]

Real names. They are very valuable

I prefer real names. Why should any one with serious comment wish to hide, but I do accept the point that a policy to ban pseudonyms would be difficuly (impossible?) to implement?

[raycollett]

We don't tolerate 'offensive and abusive comments' on the Atticus forum

I thought comments were very ageist on that site.

[Carl Hibbard]

Real names. They are very valuable

I prefer real names. Why should any one with serious comment wish to hide, but I do accept the point that a policy to ban pseudonyms would be difficuly (impossible?) to implement?

A very good example is a Gerry Walsh "want to be" who just "registered" to make an "annoucement" but it's pretty easy to determine who that was of course

[David Robertson]

Not ageist, Ray. Merely brutally true

David

[raycollett]

Not ageist, Ray. Merely brutally true David

So should we ban all volunteers over say 35 years old?

[Stewart Reuben]

Personally I regard anybody much younger than myself as lacking experience, or much older as being over the hill. The only solution is for all English organisers to have been born on the same day and in the same year as myself.
There is no lack of talent currently among such people.
It would also have the effect of reducing the cost of running the ECF. Professor David Robertson has obviously hit on a great economic model. Discourage all chess organisers and the costs will go down dramatically. Why did I not think of that 55 years ago?
Stewart Reuben