Motion to Remove Louis Blair from the Forum Moderation Oversight Committee

Motion to Remove Louis Blair from the Forum Moderation Oversight
Committee

I agree completely with Don Schultz. We should not discuss
personalities except in confidence. However, Bill Goichberg has forced
us to do otherwise by abruptly without any prior discussion making a
motion to create a Forum Moderation Oversight Committee consisting of
eight specifically named people.

This was not the proper way to do it. First, Bill should have moved
that the committee be created. After that motion passed, then Bill
should have opened the floor to a discussion of who would be on that
committee.

By not doing that and instead proceeding the way he did, this put the
board in the position of either having to accept the entire committee
nominated by Mr. Goichberg, or else voting not to have a committee at
all.

When two board members protested, Bill Goichberg then said that we
should have made a motion to change the composition of the committee.

Now that we can see that the Committee selected by Bill Goichberg
consists of highly political people who in its very first day of
existence suspended at least two members from posting and deleted a
large number perhaps dozens of posts, it becomes necessary to make a
motion to remove the most obviously objectionable person. That person
is Louis Blair.

Louis Blair has a long record of attacking board members. He wrote
hundreds of posts attacking Tim Hanke when Hanke was on the board.
When makes Louis Blair most annoying is that he will select a target
and then attack that person every day for months on end.

In addition his attacks consist of long lists of quotations by others.
This way he can always say that he did not write this. Her was merely
quoting what somebody else wrote.

Louis Blair's history of attacking people on rec.games.chess.politics,
on the USCF forums and on my FIDE-chess Yahoo Group is well known.

Typical of the type of thing Louis Blair does is in just one day he
wrote 19 letters to Wikipedia administrators seeking the deletions of
the biographies of Bessel Kok, Ali Nihat Yaziki, Geoffrey Borg, Julion
Ingolotti, and Panupand VIJJUPRABHA from Wikipedia. Bessel Kok was a
candidate for FIDE President, Ali Nihat Yaziki was President of the
Turkish Chess Federation, Geoffrey Borg was President of the Malta
Chess Federation, Julion Ingolotti was president of the Chess
Federation of Paraguay and Panupand VIJJUPRABHA was the General
Secretary of the Thailand Chess Association.

The above persons were the candidates the USCF was supporting for FIDE
Election.

Louis Blair managed to get all of the above persons deleted from
Wikipedia, with the sole exception of Bessel Kok. In two cases he had
Wikipedia "salt the earth" which means that nobody can post about
these people again. The biographies of these persons remain deleted
even today, one year later.

I feel that the Executive Director of the USCF should write a strongly
worded letter to Jumbo Wales, the owner-operator of Wikipedia,
protesting these deletions. Not only has the USCF not done that, but
now Bill Goichberg has made Louis Blair a member of the Forum
Moderating Oversight Committee of the USCF.

Accordingly, I move that Louis Blair be removed from the Forum
Moderating Oversight Committee. I vote Yes on the motion.

Sam Sloan

Sam Sloan ) (NNTP-Posting-Host:
69.124.205.180) wrote (17 Mar 2007 17:50:16 -0700):

7 ... When makes Louis Blair most annoying is
7 that he will select a target and then attack
7 that person every day for months on end. ...

_
Can Sam Sloan give a specific starting date
and concluding date for such a period of time?

_
Sam Sloan ) (NNTP-Posting-Host:
69.124.205.180) wrote (17 Mar 2007 17:50:16 -0700):

7 ... Typical of the type of thing Louis Blair
7 does is in just one day he wrote 19 letters
7 to Wikipedia administrators seeking the
7 deletions of the biographies of Bessel Kok,
7 Ali Nihat Yaziki, Geoffrey Borg, Julion
7 Ingolotti, and Panupand VIJJUPRABHA from
7 Wikipedia. ...

_
I have not written a note to Wikipedia that
even mentioned Bessel Kok, Ali Nihat Yaziki,
Geoffrey Borg, Julion Ingolotti, and Panupand
VIJJUPRABHA.

_
Sam Sloan ) (NNTP-Posting-Host:
69.124.205.180) wrote (17 Mar 2007 17:50:16 -0700):

7 ... In two cases he had Wikipedia "salt the
7 earth" which means that nobody can post about
7 these people again. ...

_
I have not made any "salt the earth" requests at
Wikipedia.

--- In , "ylblai" ylblai@... wrote:

--- In ,
"robmtchl" robmtchl@ (Rob)
wrote (Mon March 19, 2007 9:15 am):

7 ... What it appears to me is this:
7 Someone in a position to exact retribution
7 from an enemy is doing so.
7
7 If you are going to knife someone in the back
7 and are still holding the bloody knife in your
7 hands

_
I did not "knife" anyone "in the back" in order
to "exact retribution".
_
For the Wikipedia people, I put a spotlight on
what Sam Sloan himself had been writing about
his Wikipedia activity. I think that was
the right thing to do. Apparently, the
Wikipedia people themselves came to the
conclusion that some attention and action was
appropriate.

Louis Blair writes about contacting the "Wikipedia People" as though
he was contacting some sort of higher management or the public
prosecutor's office.

What he really did was post to the user pages of some very nasty
people including Bill Brock, a chess player who is on Wikipedia just
so that he can attack me and constantly modify my online biography,
and User:JzG who goes by the moniker JustAnotherGuy but whose real
name is Guy Chapman in England. Guy Chapman is probably the nastiest
administrator on Wikipedia. He brags that he has deleted thousands of
biographies, which is kind of like bragging that he is the Fastest Gun
in the West.

It is perfectly obvious that when Louis Blair posted his Sam Sloan
Announcement to their user pages, he did that to get them to delete
the biographies of these important chess personalities from Wikipedia.

The real issue now is that in full knowledge of this history of Louis
Blair, Bill Goichberg has appointed Blair as a member of the
moderation committee of the USCF Forums. The obvious purpose to this
appointment is to put Blair in the position where he can delete all my
postings to the forums and ultimately suspend or ban me from posting
there.

Sam Sloan

Sloan is gasping for air. He'll attack his own wife to save his ass.
Poor Sloan!

I believe Hillery is also responsible for the Wikipedia mess. I
specifically wrote them and told them what was going on to get some things
restored. For example, i was making a point about the best chess players in
History and Hillery didn't like it so he had Wikipedia delete an entirely
benign post about attempts to determine who are the greatest chess players
of all time. This demonstrates their complete lack of respect for the game
and honesty as well as those who obviously support their actions.



"samsloan" wrote in message
oups.com...
--- In , "ylblai" ylblai@... wrote:

--- In ,
"robmtchl" robmtchl@ (Rob)
wrote (Mon March 19, 2007 9:15 am):

7 ... What it appears to me is this:
7 Someone in a position to exact retribution
7 from an enemy is doing so.
7
7 If you are going to knife someone in the back
7 and are still holding the bloody knife in your
7 hands

_
I did not "knife" anyone "in the back" in order
to "exact retribution".
_
For the Wikipedia people, I put a spotlight on
what Sam Sloan himself had been writing about
his Wikipedia activity. I think that was
the right thing to do. Apparently, the
Wikipedia people themselves came to the
conclusion that some attention and action was
appropriate.

Louis Blair writes about contacting the "Wikipedia People" as though
he was contacting some sort of higher management or the public
prosecutor's office.

What he really did was post to the user pages of some very nasty
people including Bill Brock, a chess player who is on Wikipedia just
so that he can attack me and constantly modify my online biography,
and User:JzG who goes by the moniker JustAnotherGuy but whose real
name is Guy Chapman in England. Guy Chapman is probably the nastiest
administrator on Wikipedia. He brags that he has deleted thousands of
biographies, which is kind of like bragging that he is the Fastest Gun
in the West.

It is perfectly obvious that when Louis Blair posted his Sam Sloan
Announcement to their user pages, he did that to get them to delete
the biographies of these important chess personalities from Wikipedia.

The real issue now is that in full knowledge of this history of Louis
Blair, Bill Goichberg has appointed Blair as a member of the
moderation committee of the USCF Forums. The obvious purpose to this
appointment is to put Blair in the position where he can delete all my
postings to the forums and ultimately suspend or ban me from posting
there.

Sam Sloan

"Todd" wrote in message
...

I believe Hillery is also responsible for the Wikipedia mess. I

I think Hillery's a little too busy running for president to worry about
your silly interweb postings. Not to mention her husband, that guy'd bang a
snake if he could get it to stop wriggling around. Seems to me she has
enough on her plate.

John Hillery is the smartest man in the USCF. Stop picking on him.

"Todd" wrote in message
...
I believe Hillery is also responsible for the Wikipedia mess. I
specifically wrote them and told them what was going on to get some things
restored. For example, i was making a point about the best chess players
in History and Hillery didn't like it so he had Wikipedia delete an
entirely benign post about attempts to determine who are the greatest chess
players of all time. This demonstrates their complete lack of respect for
the game and honesty as well as those who obviously support their actions.

Elsewhere, Dr. Blair has made many long comments about his WIKI action,
including these:-

___"My 'help' was neither an 'objective' nor
___a 'subjective' 'critique" of Sam Sloan's
___'biographies'. It was not a 'critique' of
___the 'biographies' at all." - Louis Blair
___(Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:53 pm)


It was not an "evaluation" either. -Louis Blair.

---
Dr. Blair does not even acknowledge that others find his actions in respect
of WIKI odd, and has been dismissing them as 'nonsense' - as if he was
actually being asked to preside over the issue, rather than notice
objections to his 'help'.

PUZZLED!

What I don't understand about the forum in your own respect is something
similar, Todd - only this time the subject is about rating
inflation/deflation. I simply don't understand what was objectionable. I am
completely puzzled by it - and maybe it is easy for me to say this without
heat, since the subject does not interest me personally, and I also have not
understood very much about its statistical basis. But otherwise, your
writing seems anodyne - and even Bacheler's seems merely intellectually
dismissive rather than abusive. The only objectionable aspect that I can see
was to tell you to take your views from the forum and put them before some
committee - which is an impertinent thing to do - and coupled with his
dismissals do not make me think much of his attention to the subject - but
even so! I don't think his writing should be excised because he is lazy or
bored with your writing, or something.

WHAT IS THE FORUM FOR?

Is it okay to have a different point of view to... what? A received point of
view? Is the object of a forum to conduct discussions, and should these all
be with people who agree on some specific perspective, regardless if it is a
sensible or only perspective.

I didn't notice you using any terms of abuse. shrug

I am also confused about the role of Hillery and Bacheler in all the above -
are they interdicting with their OWN comments as moderators?

DR. BLAIR, REVISITED

What I have encountered with Dr. Blair, is that he does not address the need
to moderate - that is, in the WIKI material, he cannot say that he wishes to
change matters-of-record, or eliminate superfluous material [and both are
present in Sam Sloan's materials] - instead 'moderation' has come to mean
'destruction', and Dr. Blair's own term for his action is to 'help' - and as
may be seen above, such help was /not/ many things! And in some 20,000 words
of response from Dr. Blair so far, there has been NO address to content
whatsoever.

Dr. Blair cannot even /acknowledge/ that others think this is strange - and
discuss it. 'Nonsense' says Blair over and over again in the FIDE-chess
forum.

If the function of the USCF Forum is to conduct civil conversations on chess
topics - what function do moderators have when they prove they cannot hold
such conversations themselves? Even unto noticing that they are not being
asked to agree, but to note other points of view! The WIKI demonstration has
proved too much for Dr. Blair in the WIKI instance, and I suggest that other
moderators be viewed by exactly the same standard: to wit

A STANDARD FOR ALL?

Can they, the Moderators, repeat the point of view of someone who holds
another point of view, to the satisfaction of the other person, without
either judging it, or using warm-personal terms?

BUT FIRST A TEST...

If moderators can't do this when they themselves are involved - how is it
even possible to pretend any objective measure [standard!] about other's
writing?

Dr. Blair does not need to be removed - he needs instead to himself conform
to the same standard he would audit in the writing of others. Should he not
be able to do that then the very standard established for moderation is a
dysfunctional one - and this cannot be seen as other than deliberated, and
these moderators are gambit-pawns offered up to disguise hidden political
and even commercial intrigue.

Phil Innes
Vermont

Why not remove a scumbag like Mr. Sloan from this planet?

It is perfectly obvious that Louis Blair wrote this post. Only Louis
Blair would seek to impose on a discussion forum the same standards he
imposes on the Wikipedia Encyclopedia that every statement must be
supported by substantial proof such as a published book which has not
been self published and has sold more than 5,000 copies.

Much of my knowledge on this subject has been gained during my one
year on the board in my discussions with other board members,
discussions which were confidential. Also, much of it comes from the
quarterly meetings on the Executive Board and from the annual
delegates meetings and workshops including the meetings just concluded
in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

I note that Louis Blair was not there nor has Louis Blair ever to my
knowledge attended even a single meeting of the USCF Delegates or a
single workshop. So what gives Louis Blair the right to require that I
provide documentary proof of facts when he could have learned those
same facts by attending the meetings that I attended?

Sam Sloan