Interesting Development: Two FOC Members, Terry Vibbert and Wayne
Praeder, have resigned but have offered to serve under new rules. The
proposed rules are linked below. Bill Goichberg has come out in favor
of the new rules and I too find the new rules to be reasonable and an
improvement.

Here is a quote:

"As communicated before, for months now, the FOC has not been able to
work effectively. Wayne has developed an opinion piece which outlines
the need for change in the current process. It can be found at
http://members.aol.com/wpraeder/bbs.htm . We strongly urge you to
consider empowering the moderators with strong moderation powers
backed by a revamped AUG. We honestly believe that this is the future.

"With that challenge in mind we have drafted a new proposed acceptable
use guidelines shell for consideration which can be found at
http://members.aol.com/wpraeder/newaug.htm ."

As I read the two pages they cite

http://members.aol.com/wpraeder/bbs.htm
http://members.aol.com/wpraeder/newaug.htm

They are resigning because of pressure from members of the Executive
Board to ban certain posters and because of threats by certain members
of the Executive Board to shut down the USCF Forums altogether.

The two links above are worth reading because they contain interesting
material.

Sam Sloan

How about the following quote? Explain why you have a different
interpretation:

"Board Member Intermediation

"There seems to be a considerable amount of posting as well as
correspondence from our leadership and technical support staff
expressing their various opinions on what is appropriate or not
appropriate regarding the forum. The impact of this intermediation
with the membership is noticeable.

"I did want to express concern about board members expressing
displeasure with various posts or moderator actions and suggesting
also that comments referring to themselves or their colleagues be
removed. This has been exacerbated by requests to ban others from the
forums. This action combined with various comments from our leadership
about shutting down the forums lends a chilling effect to the process
and contributes to dysfunctional forum moderation.

"Even if our leaders are hyper-sensitive to criticism they need to be
models of decorum for all of us and be prepared to productively answer
critics and not suppress them. Improving organizational behavior must
start at the top. The USCF must have those who represent it to lead by
example. Note personal attacks should not be allowed but the idea is
not to stifle criticism, debate, or even disagreement as one can have
polite discourse and still challenge others' points of view, their
record, their statements, their actions, their behavior, and their
opinions.

"The Forum Oversight Committee

"I understand all this intermediation by our leaders should not
influence FOC actions but it does as such behavior encourages
individual and arbitrary interpretation of the AUG that the forum
members all have agreed to follow. In my opinion this arbitrariness,
interestingly enough, also empowers what the leadership labels
disrespectfully as malcontents as well as provides a rationale for
those in authority not to maintain their public accountability."

I wish to commend Mike Nolan and Randy Bauer for doing the best they
can to defend the right of USCF members to express dissenting views on
this forum.

NO: I am not being sarcastic. I really am commending them.

Meanwhile, Bill Goichberg continues to press for amendments to the AUG
that would make it much harder, not easier, to express dissenting
views.

Here is one of Bill's proposed amendments to the AUG:

"Do not post allegations that are clearly misstatements of fact. If
your facts are challenged, address this before making further Forum
posts."

However, the examples he provides which he says are "clearly
misstatements of fact" are all statements that I made that are
absolutely true. So, in effect, Mr. Goichberg is requiring the
moderators to be come "truth police".

It is to be recalled that two members of the FOC, Wayne Praeder and
Terry Vibbert, resigned from the FOC but said that they would rejoin
if their proposals were adopted which made it clear what kind of posts
were acceptable and which were unacceptable.

I read the Praeder polemic and found it to be quite good and I agreed
with it.

However, Goichberg, after first saying that he agreed with Praeder and
Vibbert, not wants to attach further provisions such as the one above
which will go in exactly the opposite direction from the direction in
which Praeder want it to go.

Again, I am here to thank Mike Nolan and Randy Bauer (who have both
raised questions about the Goichberg amendments) for fighting the
never ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way.

Sam Sloan

Here is an example that Goichberg posted of the kind of posting that
should be banned, not allowed on this forum, and should cause
sanctions to be issued against the poster.

Note that this posting that Goichberg considers to be highly
objectionable does not contain any accusations at all, much less a
"spaghetti bowl" of "gutter level accusations":

The moderators will have to use judgment, and should not take action
if the matter is at all unclear, but here is the kind of thing I have
in mind, which recently happened. The following was posted (I have
put the most important part in bold):

"I personally believe that I could get one million scholastic members
by 2009 (which was my campaign promise) and I would have done that if
I had been elected along with three others who share my vision.

The basic steps of my plan a

1. Get elementary schools to buy blocks of 100 memberships (at a
discount of course).

2. Send bundles of "Chess Life for Kids" magazines to the schools for
distribution to their student members.

3. Teach teachers how to run USCF rated tournaments.

4. Make videos and DVDs of our National Elementary Championships and
send them to the schools for promotional purposes and post them on
youtube.com

These steps, fairly easy to implement, would have brought us a million
members over time in my opinion. I made the above proposals several
times when I was on the board and they were voted down every time.

Instead, the new board has suggested no new ideas. The only thing the
new board had done in the one month that has passed since taking
office is debate on how to bring about "civility" on the USCF Forums
and how to stop any criticism of them."

Sam Sloan

On Sep 28, 12:11 pm, samsloan wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsawmiller IMO, ANY accusations are improper, unless they are easily and independently verifiable. Just because something may turn out to be true, doesn't mean that accusations should be plastered all over the place. THIS forum should be a step above the other gutter-level forums where the spaghetti bowl of accusations is allowed to be thrown against the wall to see what sticks.

Here is an example that Goichberg posted of the kind of posting that
should be banned, not allowed on this forum, and should cause
sanctions to be issued against the poster.

Note that this posting that Goichberg considers to be highly
objectionable does not contain any accusations at all, much less a
"spaghetti bowl" of "gutter level accusations":

The moderators will have to use judgment, and should not take action
if the matter is at all unclear, but here is the kind of thing I have
in mind, which recently happened. The following was posted (I have
put the most important part in bold):

"I personally believe that I could get one million scholastic members
by 2009 (which was my campaign promise) and I would have done that if
I had been elected along with three others who share my vision.

The basic steps of my plan a

1. Get elementary schools to buy blocks of 100 memberships (at a
discount of course).

2. Send bundles of "Chess Life for Kids" magazines to the schools for
distribution to their student members.

3. Teach teachers how to run USCF rated tournaments.

4. Make videos and DVDs of our National Elementary Championships and
send them to the schools for promotional purposes and post them on
youtube.com

These steps, fairly easy to implement, would have brought us a million
members over time in my opinion. I made the above proposals several
times when I was on the board and they were voted down every time.

Instead, the new board has suggested no new ideas. The only thing the
new board had done in the one month that has passed since taking
office is debate on how to bring about "civility" on the USCF Forums
and how to stop any criticism of them."

Sam Sloan

You will be in federal prision if you try that. I'll never let you
sell any scholastic memberships to teachers who don't want to be
involved with child molesters.

The game is dead.

Marcus Roberts

Subj: The Need for a Chief Moderator/Administrator
Date: 9/23/2007 9:15:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: WPraeder
To:

Bill,

We know your current 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 hearing sanction appeals. We hope this will
eventually foster a more constructive environment where members can
interact with their leadership and discuss difficult issues.

Terry and I left the FOC to create an opportunity to rapidly
transition to this new structure and to give the Moderators some
unhindered practice at guiding the forums. We strongly urged you to
continue along the line of empowering the Moderators with strong
moderation powers backed by a revamped AUG. The key aspect of this
new structure is that it will focus on a simplified set of rules that
should not be further parsed below each complete thought. Under such a
system the Moderators are completely empowered to moderate the forums
without the need for interpretative intervention from outsiders. We
still believe we need to empower a Moderator like a sports referee. We
hope that by moving to a simpler system based on a proven and more
open model will improve our speed, consistency, and the enjoyment of
our guests. It is important to note that the USCF President has also
agreed with the suggestion that the Moderators be allowed to make
decisions and issue sanctions, with the FOC available to hear appeals
to these sanctions.

It is critically important that if someone is violating the AUG in his
or her forum conduct, it should be reported privately to the
Moderators, and the Moderators should act quietly, discretely, and
swiftly. The focus is to stop inappropriate use of forum resources
rather than trying to punish members. We can find no other successful
forum that uses the concept of the FOC with a committee structure to
interpret rules, debate sanctions, and publicly embarrass violators.

To be effective with this new structure it will be important not to
model the Moderators and their process like the FOC. Since not all
moderators will be experienced in forum administration and cyber law,
as any tricky situations arise where the Moderators can't agree on how
to handle it in a timely manner, you need an experienced Chief
Moderator/Administrator that can always step in to break the deadlock
and provide necessary guidance to both protect the organization while
enhancing the enjoyment of the forum guests. This supervision will
also serve to keep Moderator bias in check more effectively than just
relying on appeals to the FOC.

We need to think of our Moderators as forum hosts rather than
sheriffs. I hope we have learned from our previous experience and thus
I would strongly recommend we move to a referee model system rather
than a committee model system for moderation under the supervision of
a seasoned Chief Moderator/Administrator.

Regards,
Wayne Praeder

This is a good place to discuss some interesting points in Wayne's
letter. My comments should be read as tongue-in-cheek, as I wish the
new system all success. -- David

On Oct 5, 8:54 pm, WPraeder wrote:
Subj: The Need for a Chief Moderator/Administrator
Date: 9/23/2007 9:15:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: WPraeder
To:

....
Terry and I left the FOC to create an opportunity to rapidly
transition to this new structure and to give the Moderators some
unhindered practice at guiding the forums.

So Terry and Wayne thought they were the two FOC members, out of six,
who were doing the most to hinder the Moderators and prevent them from
promoting the enjoyment of Forum guests?? I'm not sure I understand
what Wayne meant here.

... Under such a
system the Moderators are completely empowered to moderate the forums
without the need for interpretative intervention from outsiders.

But as enacted, there's a Moderation Committee directly above the
Moderators. If successful, perhaps the Moderation Committee will be
considered insiders, whereas the FOC was considered outsiders.

We still believe we need to empower a Moderator like a sports referee. We
hope that by moving to a simpler system based on a proven and more
open model will improve our speed, consistency, and the enjoyment of
our guests.

I suppose that speed would be enhanced, if there were no appeals. But
as enacted there will be appeals to the Moderation Committee for posts
and the FOC for sanctions. It's not obvious whether consistency would
increase or decrease, by having no supervisory committees (as
envisioned in Wayne's letter) or two supervisory committees (as
enacted), instead of one supervisory committee (the old way.)

The FOC is sometimes slow but it has acted in a hurry several times,
and it's a lot faster than the Ethics Committee. It will be
interesting to see how fast the Moderation Committee will be.

... It is critically important that if someone is violating the AUG in his
or her forum conduct, it should be reported privately to the
Moderators, and the Moderators should act quietly, discretely, and
swiftly. The focus is to stop inappropriate use of forum resources
rather than trying to punish members. We can find no other successful
forum that uses the concept of the FOC with a committee structure to
interpret rules, debate sanctions, and publicly embarrass violators.

This is always the tension between public and secret trials. Public
trials are indeed more embarrassing.

To be effective with this new structure it will be important not to
model the Moderators and their process like the FOC.

So if that's what not to do, it will be interesting to see what is to
be done.

Since not all
moderators will be experienced in forum administration and cyber law,
as any tricky situations arise where the Moderators can't agree on how
to handle it in a timely manner, you need an experienced Chief
Moderator/Administrator that can always step in to break the deadlock
and provide necessary guidance to both protect the organization while
enhancing the enjoyment of the forum guests. This supervision will
also serve to keep Moderator bias in check more effectively than just
relying on appeals to the FOC.

I suppose it depends on whether the Moderation Committee is more or
less biased than the FOC was.