Time Changer...

[Roger de Coverly]

If anyone ever sets up a properly moderated forum to discuss English chess on, I'll push off in a display of no loyalty to Carl whatsoever

Any such forum would struggle to achieve the critical mass of readers and content.

But you could have an official forum restricted to Council members. Even better, you could prevent non-Council members from reading it. Would that be suitably bland for sensitive directors to contribute to? Perhaps not, as even Council members show signs of anarchic or questioning behaviour from time to time.

If you had an OMOV system instead of a Council, would that be better? Direct elections should concentrate the minds of candidates for election, against that, once elected, it would be difficult or impossible to hold them to account.

[Roger de Coverly]

I disagree.

There is a substantial critical mass who have become alienated from this forum

Feel free to set up a rival.

There are a number of regional lookalikes, all of which have a handful of postings a day.

[John McKenna]

So little activity indicates a subcritical mass. A critical mass is just sufficient to sustain a reaction but it may not last long. What's required is a supercritical mass but then the reaction may become self-destructive. The Grail is fusion but here that remains a pipe dream.

[Colin Patterson]

I would settle for just one recent episode taking a rather different course ...

McShane defeats Carlsen in the last round of the 2012 Tal Memorial, winning the event from being a lowly wildcard enry. He instantly decides to quit his day job and persuades Carlsen to join him for a pint to celebrate his new pro status. The Kosintseva sisters walk into the same bar, cupid fires a few arrows and several double dates later, the foursome enjoy a double wedding in England, where they all decide to settle and swear allegiance to the ECF. The two England teams for the Tromso Olympiad therefore line up as - M - Carlsen, McShane, Adams, Short, Jones and - W - Kosintseva, Kosintseva, Hunt, Houska, Ciuksyte.

The stage is set ... what could possibly go wrong?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I would settle for just one recent episode taking a rather different course ...

McShane defeats Carlsen in the last round of the 2012 Tal Memorial, winning the event from being a lowly wildcard enry. He instantly decides to quit his day job and persuades Carlsen to join him for a pint to celebrate his new pro status. The Kosintseva sisters walk into the same bar, cupid fires a few arrows and several double dates later, the foursome enjoy a double wedding in England, where they all decide to settle and swear allegiance to the ECF. The two England teams for the Tromso Olympiad therefore line up as - M - Carlsen, McShane, Adams, Short, Jones and - W - Kosintseva, Kosintseva, Hunt, Houska, Ciuksyte.

The stage is set ... what could possibly go wrong?

Carlsen and McShane, brothers-in-law!!

They could, of course, decide to settle with their spouses in Norway or Russia...

Some of these parallel universe are very strange. Maybe I should try and write more of a back-story for the one where Kasparov doesn't retire in 2005, but I don't think I could match what has been written so far. If someone else want to, um, go wild with that scenario, please feel free.

[LawrenceCooper]

Colin may have hit on the best way to improve our international chances.

Instead of sending our best available players to the next Olympiad, we should send our most attractive single players. Hopefully they will come back married to some top players. British women's teams have already been improved by patriotic dating, so we know it works. My only fear is the Kiwis have beaten us to the punch.

What a pity the International Director nominations have just closed. I could have thrown my hat into the ring on this manifesto...

Assuming no last minute nominations were received the board may now have you at the top of their list of people to appoint as my successor

[Kevin Thurlow]

"But you could have an official forum restricted to Council members. Even better, you could prevent non-Council members from reading it."

The (unofficial) Countdown forum did this. Someone set up a secret invitation-only intraforum, which an outsider hacked into and revealed that the main use of it was to make abusive comments about people who weren't members of the caucus.

I like the idea of the Carlsen/McShane family connection. Would they play the same draw for the next thirty years?

Suppose Gordon Crown was not diabetic and survived his operation in 1947...

[Leonard Barden]

One which should have happened with a rational decision:

If Lieutenant Klaus Junge had not decided to take on British tanks on his own in April 1945 but had simply returned to his parents' home in Hamburg, world chess in the early 1950s would have been very different. Even more so if that boat had picked up Keres for the return trip to Sweden in 1944.

[John McKenna]

J McKenna >What's required is a supercritical mass but then the reaction may become self-destructive...<
I can't share your view of what is critical. The Forum is like a nuclear reactor in some respects. Of late, it more resembles a breeder than a pressurised-water one. A breeder doesn't require much moderation. Self-moderation is best.
If Carl hadn't set this up we'd be reading ECF Pravda and/or Steve's Samizdat 64 and no discussion.

[Geoff Chandler]

I'm thinking that sometimes I bet Carl wishes he could turn
back the clock and not start this forum. He's on a hiding to nothing.

[John Moore]

I'm thinking that sometimes I bet Carl wishes he could turn
back the clock and not start this forum. He's on a hiding to nothing.

Geoff - still the best Forum on chess there is - anything that can fit to name but two, you and Simon Spivack, on the same site is doing a good job. I laugh, occasionally(!), at you and I learn from Simon and there are many more, including I shouldn't forget Leonard Barden. Someone asks an historical question. Leonard often knows the answer becuase he was there.

I reckon there are occasions when Carl might regret running this site including the amount of time it costs him, but if the moaners want to do something else, let them and see how many followers they get.

[John McKenna]

It's pronounced "Fronkensteen".

[John McKenna]

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan..." like Coleridge I had a vision. In Dec. 1241 if Ogadai Khan (Genghis Khan's successor) had not died but had lived another 5-10 years then the Mongol conquest of Europe could have continued apace. The combined German-Polish armies had already been defeated at Krakow & Liegnitz (Legnica) and the city of Pest, largest in Hungary, had been destroyed, The road to the West lay wide open and only Ogadai's death, which required all Mongol leaders to return to Mongolia to elect the next Great Khan, prevented a complete conquest of Europe.
Today we could find the Great Khan of Eurasia is named Kirsan and the il-Khan (or Sultan) of Europe is called Ali. The Americas are still all undiscovered, computers still not invented and the only game in town is shatranj, which is a sport as it is played in true Mongol fashion - on horseback.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'd probably feel different if I was, say, an ECF Director and lending the forum respectability.

ECF Directors and Officers use the forum to promote their agendas. In some cases it isn't controversial and a means of reaching a wider audience, such as the reports on International or Junior activity. In other cases they are promoting ideas that lack wholesale acceptance. They should be prepared to accept challenges on them, particularly when economy with the truth can be demonstrated.

It would be possible, probably at an unaffordable manpower cost in moderation or censorship to open up the ECF official site with comments.

[Phil Makepeace]

My contribution.