jr wrote:
Mr. Channing, I have praised your willingness to appear
on this forum and answer questions as a breath of fresh air.
Lately, however, you seem to have vanished here -- and
you are sorely missed.

As you know, there has been a lot of controversy about
decisions made by the new editor who is still wet behind
the ears. I will not rejoin the USCF and I'm sure many others
will follow suit unless he reconsiders some rash decisions.
I would hate for this to happen to a game that I love.

While we have your ear, why can't we all see the Chess Life
redesign report prepared by Paul Hoffman for a reported fee
of $25,000? Apparently this report is the reason given by the
editor as the basis for his decisions.

Thank you for the kind words, jr.

I really think we're on the right track with ChessLife, but I don't
want to discuss it here. There is a preponderance of unhappy and
unhealthy people here which takes away too much of the fun of honest
discourse. I'm restricting my dialogues to the USCF Forum. Mike Nolan
is a decent guy who has to err on the side of caution because, as of
this monent, we have not been able to find liability insurance for a
moderated forum (hard to believe, but the sponsors of unmoderated
forums have no liability), but at least he does censor the nut cases
who make this place so unpleasant. You can contact me there and I'd be
happy to tell you all I know about what's happening.

Joel Channing