The shocking news from the new BINFOS is that Bill Hall plans to
eliminate most of the powers of the Forum Oversight Committee or FOC
and Susan Polgar wants to ban entirely about ten miscreants who are
known to criticize her.

Presently, there are three moderators to the forum but only two are
active after one killed himself and the two active forum moderators
were selected because they are the two most notoriously anti-Sam Sloan
members.

However, the FOC is a mixed bag that will often restore posts that
have been deleted by the moderators.

Now, Bill Hall wants to eliminate the power of the FOC to restore
deleted posts and reduce the FOC to a sort of policy board that can
review suspensions but cannot restore deleted posts.

There is a real question of whether Bill Hall has the power and
authority to do this. The FOC was set up and given its powers by the
previous board. Also, the board selects the FOC whereas Bill Hall
choses the moderators. This explains how Bill Hall was able to appoint
two vehemently anti-Sam Sloan moderators.

It would seem to take a vote by the new board, not action by Bill
Hall, to take away the powers of the FOC.

Then, there is Susan Polgar, who simply wants to ban permanently those
who criticize her, such as those who say that she did not win the
Woman's World Championship four times.

Here are their emails to the board:

# From: "Bill Hall" bhall@xxxxxxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:41:35 -0500

"We are getting close to restructuring the Forum Governance. Currently
my plans are to provide a disconnect between the Moderators and the
FOC. The Moderator's would be empowered with full moderating authority
and sanctioning capability and the FOC would become a body for
recommending policy changes to the EB and hearing sanction appeals.
There are still a few details to finalize, but we are moving toward
the next step in the experiment."

"Bill Hall"

# From: SusanPolgar@xxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:01:25 EDT

We need a prompt system with as little bureaucracy as possible. Once a
system is in place and the trouble makers are properly sanctioned
including permanent banning, there will be no problem with the forum.
99% of the problems are caused by less than 10 people.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
www.SusanPolgar.com
www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
www.SusanPolgarFoundation.org

Already on the USCF Forums this morning Paul Truong is demanding that
this posting be deleted. Paul Truong wrote:

Moderators, I request to have this deleted. It is highly inappropriate
and in poor taste. :shock:

This is the kind of insensitive garbage that we do not need on this
forum.

Thank you.
PT

On Sep 18, 6:16 am, samsloan wrote:
The shocking news from the new BINFOS is that Bill Hall plans to
eliminate most of the powers of the Forum Oversight Committee or FOC
and Susan Polgar wants to ban entirely about ten miscreants who are
known to criticize her.

Presently, there are three moderators to the forum but only two are
active after one killed himself and the two active forum moderators
were selected because they are the two most notoriously anti-Sam Sloan
members.

However, the FOC is a mixed bag that will often restore posts that
have been deleted by the moderators.

Now, Bill Hall wants to eliminate the power of the FOC to restore
deleted posts and reduce the FOC to a sort of policy board that can
review suspensions but cannot restore deleted posts.

There is a real question of whether Bill Hall has the power and
authority to do this. The FOC was set up and given its powers by the
previous board. Also, the board selects the FOC whereas Bill Hall
choses the moderators. This explains how Bill Hall was able to appoint
two vehemently anti-Sam Sloan moderators.

It would seem to take a vote by the new board, not action by Bill
Hall, to take away the powers of the FOC.

Then, there is Susan Polgar, who simply wants to ban permanently those
who criticize her, such as those who say that she did not win the
Woman's World Championship four times.

Here are their emails to the board:

# From: "Bill Hall" bhall@xxxxxxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:41:35 -0500

"We are getting close to restructuring the Forum Governance. Currently
my plans are to provide a disconnect between the Moderators and the
FOC. The Moderator's would be empowered with full moderating authority
and sanctioning capability and the FOC would become a body for
recommending policy changes to the EB and hearing sanction appeals.
There are still a few details to finalize, but we are moving toward
the next step in the experiment."

"Bill Hall"

# From: SusanPolgar@xxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:01:25 EDT

We need a prompt system with as little bureaucracy as possible. Once a
system is in place and the trouble makers are properly sanctioned
including permanent banning, there will be no problem with the forum.
99% of the problems are caused by less than 10 people.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgarwww.SusanPolgar.comwww.SusanPolgar.blogspot. comwww.SusanPolgarFoundation.org

perhaps if someone not a USCF member moderated the forums, there would
be no politics as that person would have nothing to gain.

THE CENSORED USCF FORUM

Yep, yet another reason to return to rgcp. This
ploy was undoubtedly planned long in advance by the
chess politicians.


Rob wrote:
On Sep 18, 6:16 am, samsloan wrote:
The shocking news from the new BINFOS is that Bill Hall plans to
eliminate most of the powers of the Forum Oversight Committee or FOC
and Susan Polgar wants to ban entirely about ten miscreants who are
known to criticize her.

Presently, there are three moderators to the forum but only two are
active after one killed himself and the two active forum moderators
were selected because they are the two most notoriously anti-Sam Sloan
members.

However, the FOC is a mixed bag that will often restore posts that
have been deleted by the moderators.

Now, Bill Hall wants to eliminate the power of the FOC to restore
deleted posts and reduce the FOC to a sort of policy board that can
review suspensions but cannot restore deleted posts.

There is a real question of whether Bill Hall has the power and
authority to do this. The FOC was set up and given its powers by the
previous board. Also, the board selects the FOC whereas Bill Hall
choses the moderators. This explains how Bill Hall was able to appoint
two vehemently anti-Sam Sloan moderators.

It would seem to take a vote by the new board, not action by Bill
Hall, to take away the powers of the FOC.

Then, there is Susan Polgar, who simply wants to ban permanently those
who criticize her, such as those who say that she did not win the
Woman's World Championship four times.

Here are their emails to the board:

# From: "Bill Hall" bhall@xxxxxxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:41:35 -0500

"We are getting close to restructuring the Forum Governance. Currently
my plans are to provide a disconnect between the Moderators and the
FOC. The Moderator's would be empowered with full moderating authority
and sanctioning capability and the FOC would become a body for
recommending policy changes to the EB and hearing sanction appeals.
There are still a few details to finalize, but we are moving toward
the next step in the experiment."

"Bill Hall"

# From: SusanPolgar@xxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:01:25 EDT

We need a prompt system with as little bureaucracy as possible. Once a
system is in place and the trouble makers are properly sanctioned
including permanent banning, there will be no problem with the forum.
99% of the problems are caused by less than 10 people.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgarwww.SusanPolgar.comwww.SusanPolgar.blogspot. comwww.SusanPolgarFoundation.org

perhaps if someone not a USCF member moderated the forums, there would
be no politics as that person would have nothing to gain.

As predicted, my posting has been deleted from the forums. Here is the
notification from the Forum moderator:

Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:03 am
From: tsawmiller
To: samsloan
Dear samsloan,

Your thread "Bill Hall plans to disable the FOC" was pulled due to
clear violations of the AUG rules "Agree to Disagree, Respectfully"
and "Don't Attack Each Other".

Regards,

Moderator7

ANOTHER TABOO TOPIC

"Someone once quipped that if Russian and American chess officials
changed places, nobody would notice the difference." -- GM Larry Evans
in THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS

The mention of censorship is now to be censored
by the Federation censors at the USCF forum!

The Soviets used to have a thick volume, which
was called the "Talmud," that mentioned all of the
subjects that could not be mentioned. Among the
subjects was censorship itself. So, too, tightening
the screws of censorship cannot be mentioned at the
Federation forum.

Perhaps someone can post this little piece as a
third party quote at the USCF forum so that I, too,
can be censored. It would be an honor.

Yours, Larry Parr



wrote:
THE CENSORED USCF FORUM

Yep, yet another reason to return to rgcp. This
ploy was undoubtedly planned long in advance by the
chess politicians.


Rob wrote:
On Sep 18, 6:16 am, samsloan wrote:
The shocking news from the new BINFOS is that Bill Hall plans to
eliminate most of the powers of the Forum Oversight Committee or FOC
and Susan Polgar wants to ban entirely about ten miscreants who are
known to criticize her.

Presently, there are three moderators to the forum but only two are
active after one killed himself and the two active forum moderators
were selected because they are the two most notoriously anti-Sam Sloan
members.

However, the FOC is a mixed bag that will often restore posts that
have been deleted by the moderators.

Now, Bill Hall wants to eliminate the power of the FOC to restore
deleted posts and reduce the FOC to a sort of policy board that can
review suspensions but cannot restore deleted posts.

There is a real question of whether Bill Hall has the power and
authority to do this. The FOC was set up and given its powers by the
previous board. Also, the board selects the FOC whereas Bill Hall
choses the moderators. This explains how Bill Hall was able to appoint
two vehemently anti-Sam Sloan moderators.

It would seem to take a vote by the new board, not action by Bill
Hall, to take away the powers of the FOC.

Then, there is Susan Polgar, who simply wants to ban permanently those
who criticize her, such as those who say that she did not win the
Woman's World Championship four times.

Here are their emails to the board:

# From: "Bill Hall" bhall@xxxxxxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:41:35 -0500

"We are getting close to restructuring the Forum Governance. Currently
my plans are to provide a disconnect between the Moderators and the
FOC. The Moderator's would be empowered with full moderating authority
and sanctioning capability and the FOC would become a body for
recommending policy changes to the EB and hearing sanction appeals.
There are still a few details to finalize, but we are moving toward
the next step in the experiment."

"Bill Hall"

# From: SusanPolgar@xxxxxxx
# Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:01:25 EDT

We need a prompt system with as little bureaucracy as possible. Once a
system is in place and the trouble makers are properly sanctioned
including permanent banning, there will be no problem with the forum.
99% of the problems are caused by less than 10 people.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgarwww.SusanPolgar.comwww.SusanPolgar.blogspot. comwww.SusanPolgarFoundation.org

perhaps if someone not a USCF member moderated the forums, there would
be no politics as that person would have nothing to gain.

On Sep 18, 10:27 am, samsloan wrote:
As predicted, my posting has been deleted from the forums. Here is the
notification from the Forum moderator:

Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:03 am
From: tsawmiller
To: samsloan
Dear samsloan,

Your thread "Bill Hall plans to disable the FOC" was pulled due to
clear violations of the AUG rules "Agree to Disagree, Respectfully"
and "Don't Attack Each Other".

Regards,

Moderator7

Find the unaltered quote he

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/...ESS/message/55

Perhaps someone could post this note at USCF forums, too...?

wrote in message
ps.com...
ANOTHER TABOO TOPIC

"Someone once quipped that if Russian and American chess officials
changed places, nobody would notice the difference." -- GM Larry Evans
in THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS

The mention of censorship is now to be censored
by the Federation censors at the USCF forum!

It is amusing, ain't it! Grimly amusing. So far as I can tell by reading
there, the maximum attendance has been 41 at the height of the voting
season, but usually there are just 4 or 5 people, being watched by 2 or 3
people, in case they mention chess management, the taboo subject - and yet
the reason USCF exists!

There are so many moderated forums these days, I wonder who USCF think they
are catering to? The only reason I can think for USCF to have a genuine
forum /is/ to discuss chess politics / chess management.

Even the new board who ran more on principle than on personality, must take
into account that previously all chess management was personality driven,
and supported by various clacques of followers and advocates. Even genius
level new board members can't shift the entrenched corporate culture, and
people are naturally anxious to clarify issues previously bent out of shape
by the Old Guard - to such a degree that they want 'show me' not 'tell me'
from the New Board.

Rob Mitchell's remark follows:

perhaps if someone not a USCF member moderated the forums, there would
be no politics as that person would have nothing to gain.

Quite! In fact two calls emerged last year for an omgoodsman - one NM said
it was necessary to expedite the 9 month lapsus in correspondance ratings,
for which the cc players had paid good money to USCF but received only
promises... and the second was for an independent forum moderator. Even a
past president [Redman] said the USCF forum was entirely political.

It really depends what the current board intend to forum to be - many posts
there are repetitive and can be answered by a FAQ. But if chess
management/politics is taboo, what is there left to discuss? Chessville's
forum seems to cover more ground on both the theory and practice of play,
and good folks like Dan Heisman often hold fort, and field all sorts of
inquiries. We also talk a lot about graves [lol] and some kind soul recently
compiled an interesting chess tour of NY City.

Currently several journalists are compiling questions for the new board, and
I suppose this will be one of them - though not even very high up the list,
since actually, as Mr. Parr says above - [to liberally extend that
sentiment] if you can discuss chess politics here in rgcp, then what is the
fuss about a very few people plus rather more overseers discussing what is
better attended to elsewhere? That is in fact what killed chesscafe's forum.
USCF could save themselves $11,000 in insurance and a lot of board
distraction.

I mean, you don't read Pravda for the news, but for the official spin and
party line.

Phil Innes

wrote in message

ps.com...

ANOTHER TABOO TOPIC

"Someone once quipped that if Russian and American chess officials
changed places, nobody would notice the difference." -- GM Larry Evans
in THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS

Just for the record, I am that someone who made the quip about the
Russian and American chess officials. Here is the referenced column
in its entirety that was published on the USA Today Sportsline online
chess site (now defunct). Note that I wrote this in 1988, so it's
rather dated:



============================================
THE CHESS SCENE
by Mike Petersen

"Coming Up"
January 15, 1988

We have just completed a rather exciting year in chess in 1987, capped
off
with what ended up being the most exciting finish in the history of
World
Championship match play. But what about 1988? What will happen this
year?

Well, I've been wondering about that myself, so I decided to do
something
about it! For your information, I have contacted a top psychic, who
has been
kind enough to give us (albiet incognito) some predictions about what
is
coming up in chess in 1988!

* Karpov and Kasparov will play a secret match starting in June and
ending in
December. However, just before the match ends, the media will find
out
about it. When asked about the reason for such a marathon match, both
K's
will say that they had gotten in the habit of playing each other and
didn't
want to stop. The score of the match? That is a little fuzzy, says
our
Secret Psychic, which may indicate a drawn match...57.5 to 57.5
perhaps?

* The entire USCF and USSR Chess Federations will swap administrative
personnel, but the switch will not be noticed by either country.

* Bobby Fischer will come out of retirement and play a match with
former
champion Muhammed Ali. When asked why Ali, Bobby will say that he is
the
only champion of anything who would consent to play him.

* Larry D. Evans will reveal that the "D" in his name DOES stand for d-
other.

* Larry Parr will become the editor of Time Magazine. When asked if
he thinks
that being editor of Chess Life had been helpful in obtaining his new
position, says our Psychic Prognosticator, he will reply, "Chess been
bery,
bery good to me."

* Yasser Seirawan will reveal how to pronounce his name.

* A. Petrosian will reveal his first name.

* Since this is the year of the Leap Second, a new rule will be
proposed by
FIDE that all GM's skip the use of seconds in match play. It will
only be
narrowly defeated, says our Felicitous Fortune Teller.

* Fantastically, a forced win for White will be discovered by an
unknown
Afghanistan youth. However, he will be killed in a pitched battle
between
the Rebels and the Occupation Forces, and the secret will die with
him.
According to our Super Soothsayer, this has happened not less than 23
times
before.

* Susan Polgar's rating will go over the 2600 mark, and FIDE will be
forced to
raise the rating of every woman player by another 300 rating points to
catch
up. This will cause the next Super Interzonal Swiss, to which the
highest
100 rated players in the world are seeded, to be contested entirely by
women.

* The "In Search Of..." program will be brought back to television,
and the
first program will be about chess and be titled "In Search
of...Ricardo
Calvo". They won't find him, says our Caissic Psychic.

* Instant replay cameras will come into use in important matches.
This will
assist the arbiter in matters relating to the number of moves made
before
time control, whether the flag fell during the mating move or after
the
player's hand quit the piece, etc. Our Hidden Predictor repeated this
several times very quickly.

* Chess will be enjoyed by many, many people in 1988.

Amen to that, brother.

=============================================

Regards to All...Mike Petersen