Thanks for taking the time to explain your "philosophy of moderation", Walter. I do admit to having the opinion that "3) All posts must be approved" meand "moderated" and that "1) Everyone can post" means "unmoderated". In my experience, "moderated" newsgroups do indeed have a smaller number of posts; however, the posts are all "on topic" and flame wars are (of course) nonexistent. On the other hand, you volunteered for the job of moderator and no one else has any business telling you how to do it (and I hope that my post did not sound like someone trying to tell you how to do it). Interestingly enough, I think if Ed had simply instituted "3) All posts must be approved" and not allowed any posts not directly related to Gothic Chess, he would still be moderator. Of course, that's just my opinion...

I just love that accent.. ;)

I'm up the apples from the vicar's brother at St. Mary-le-Bow. Not quite the bobby are ya now?

Ed, perhaps?
lol

LOL
I wonder who's multi nick you are Little Tom

I think this is all queered up all right. So you're sayin this bloke is such a pain in the arse he can't bloody post no more, but his old posts are so bloody top notch you can't bear to take a butchers in here and not seem them? Seems to me LJ is a right plonker!

IMO as ET has posted the posts on a public board, they are now public domain and not owned by him and therefore he doesnt have the right to demand their deletion.

BTW I thought when a user is on ban list and wishes his posts to disappear, he could be put on hide list also and his posts will not be shown.
Or did he explicitly say he wants to remove all traces from brainking databases?

Just a little notice. I think it has no sense to suggest some workarounds here. Remember Fencer doesnt need to use BrainKing interface to delete some posts. I believe they are all in database table so he can write one simple delete loop and execute it, all within one minute. Something like delete post where user_id=3629 (E.T.) and board_id=179 (this board).
In my opinion perhaps editing and deleting posts should be done in a way allowing to track the real contents (may be it is even done that way I dont see into Fencers code :P). I mean the history of changes should be stored and instead of real deletion only some flag should be set. If such text messages history would consume after some period of time more disk space than necessary, it could be deleted after doing backups and left only in those backup databases to save space. May be the history of changes could be accessible for everyone or moderators to view by clicking at some little link near to the post to prevent situations where someone writes something rude and later edits it letting the reactions look unappropriate.

Ahh yes, you are right. I forgot that this is a public board and the moderator can do that. I was thinking of fellowships, where we still can't do that anymore.

he can be put on hide....that will allow him to remove them,but wont allow him to post.

I just thought of something since now I see what happened! Maybe he wanted to make sure all of his posts remained on here so he asked for all of them to be deleted!

rod03801 - Yes, I agree - it should not be up to the Moderator to remove the post, but the user. So if the user still wants to do that, possible find a time to let the user back in and remove them themselves. I agree.

Not sure how it started but I see all the posts looks like you blokes say are missing.

BBW, so just because Ed now wants ALL his posts deleted, Walter or Fencer MUST go through every page on this discussion board and delete? Unreasonable to expect either of them to take the time to do that.
I say, unban him for 24 hours and tell him to remove them himself, with the understanding that he isn't to post anything during that period, and if he does he is immediately banned from the board again, and his old posts can just stay. Tough luck on him.

He's not still seriously claiming he was "hacked" is he? His way of deleting the sick fellowship and avoid apologising, more Bagpuss thinking.

you are forgetting one thing. Gothic Chess MIGHT NOT continue on here as long as you say. Ed does have a patent for it and Fencer must renew
it every year. I don't know when that date is, but I would like to hear from Ed if
he will allow BrainKing to renew the license or not.

1) Actually Ed has left the site at least twice before - never to come back, and has said he would leave a few other times also.

2) If Ed wants all his post deleted, then they should be deleted. They are still *his* post that he wrote, and if he would like to mess up conversations and ideas for all that reads this site - this is his choice about his own post.

3) I'm not sure what Scarlet is asking, but if the tournament game is OVER (and not current looking for the next best move), then I see no problem on posting a game number here and letting other (much better then me) players give suggestions and ideas about what could have been done better with the game.

EDIT:

Since Ed can't reply here, here is his side of my point that he had left before. (reposted from message with permission of "telling it how it is")

"The hacker RESIGNED all of my games and then posted that I would leave. I never posted that myself.

I said I was going to leave and NOT come back if Danoschek was not banned, and he was."

Anyhow, I know others would like to know his side and I'll be happy to give it.

I disagree Walter.....These are tourny games that Scarlet is on about. I dont think anybody should be allowed to ask for advice on a tourny game. Pleasure games..yes but not tourny.

What about the game of Building you referred to a post? Can you provide a link to find the rules for it?
I Googled for "Building game" but nothing.....

I haven't tried it on the board, but i think it should be a mate in 3 for white and black, by an Archbishop on h7 and h2.

ScarletRose, please feel free to pose, speculate, and ask questions. It'll make us think, plus someone out there might just have the answer that you're looking for.

In your post dated here, you ask a question about the moderator control of what can be posted. My page to this site looks different than when I wasn't the moderator. It has various options and controls on it. One of them is called "Mode". when I click it, I'm given three options:
1) Everyone can post
2) Pawns must be approved
3) All posts must be approved
I currently have it on "Everyone can post". The third option is the one that you refer to in your post. I suppose I could change the setting to it. Had that been the setting when Fencer reinstated EdTrice back to this board a few weeks back (MY how the time flies!), I doubt if any of the flaming posts would have even been sent to me for posting to the board. That would be a good thing. The bad that I see in it is the stifling of free thoughts and ideas. Humor is one of the first things to go when one selfcensors himself, let alone if I do it to someone. Unfortunately most of the humorous posts have been deleted and only the rude, derogatory, and vemonous ones remain. Though a few of them have been removed too. There's also the work involved with doing it that way. Though I imagine the actual number of posts would decrease dramatically and it wouldn't take much time and energy on my part to review and post the few that would come in. I like the setting as it is, but it has the drawback of letting people that don't have enough self control or who are immature to get out of hand and dominate the posts. As I said when I first bacame the moderator, I wanted to stay in the background and just post as others do. I believe this is part of how I chanced to be made the moderator also. EdTrice had a number of detractors during his previous regime and Fencer got tired of it. I just happened to have stumbled into this board after having learned how to play the game the week before.

That's a good question. A related one is what is the shortest game possible? In regular chess, believe it or not, Black can win in two moves! White can win in three. The one where White moves out his King's Pawn, then the Bishop and Queen, to then capture Black's King's Bishop is a four move mate.

I'll see if I can look at the Gothic Chess board and answer my own question. As for in a tournament with good players, it'd be hard to imagine a checkmate happening before the tenth move, but it might have happened. With resignations, I'm sure games have lasted just a few moves.

EdTrice said he was leaving the site soon, so I suppose it's of little consequence about reinstating him or not anyway. He is a man of his word, isn't he? Though if I recall right, he said he was going to leave the site in a few of his posts the he removed recently. And yet, he's still here. If he's finishing games and not starting new ones, then he's doing what I did last year. After I finsihed all the running games, I left this site and IYT. Nice break for seven months, but I got the game itch and here I am again. If he's starting new games since saying he was going to leave and continuing on this site, then I don't know what to make of his actions. He wants me to remove all of his posts.

Believe it or not Fencer and danoschek are the moderators for the Book discussion board. danoschek writes in a clear language in the few posts that I read on the Book board, so I can only conclude he was purposely writing here in a way to annoy the rest of us.

I want to make it clear that Fencer banned them both, not me. Since his action was taken I've received a few messages from both of them.
danoschek's messages and replies were strange and rude, and as long as I'm the moderator he won't be welcome back unless Fencer says otherwise.
QuoQuesno/EdTrice sent me a link to a site about Bird's, Capablanca's, and Gothic Chess written by him. I believe that's the same one the redsales mentions just below here. He also stated that he thought my remarks in the long post I wrote were dismissive of his efforts and didn't like the way I said it. He said this quite reasonably and without any malice that I could tell. He has since set me 8 or 9 messages telling me to delete all of his remaining posts. I sent him one message asking him why and he replied that he wanted to leave no trace of him on this board! I have not replied to this message, nor have I removed any of his remaining posts as of yet. I think the wholesale removing of one's posts is a blatant disregard of other people's rights. Sure you have a right to post, but after I invest considerable effort to form and write a reply and then you go and delete yours and make me look stupid, it doesn't seem right to me. If any of you have doubts about that, consider the posts at the end of July and the beginning of August. Since he removed about a hundred of his, there's not much sense to be made of the remaining ones. I kind of regret not saving the posts each day to my computer, but at the same time is there anything of that much importance to make the effort worth the trouble? Which also begs the question, especially in light of his stated desire to leave BrainKing, why should he care? I believe that once it's written and not changed, fixed, or deleted immediately, the post should remain.

I think this board can carry on without the both of them. It will probably lose a lot of its fire without those two trying to shout each other down, but perhaps we'll actually have most of the discussion about Gothic Chess or people looking for a game or tournament to play in. EdTrice's expertise in this game is going to be missed, but that doesn't mean that other people won't pick up the ball and run with it. If Gothic Chess catches on like Ed wants it too, they'll be plenty of people to move it forward. Those of us here that play it are doing it ourselves. Lots of uncharted territory in the game. Even regular Chess itself isn't completely known. It will be quite a few years before the book on Gothic Chess gets anywhere near the size of regular Chess's. And that's assuming people play the game, especially the experts that will write the books and popularize the game.

forum it would be okay..

Not a problem anyway.. I think I lost most of them.. I think only one game is left..

oh oh....which question red?
Scarlet....you can still message him ;P
Ed...cant answer you if I'm on your enemy list ;)

they are tourny games, if you get advice from anybody, that is cheating the other players

bwildman, i think Ed answers that question on his website. Scarlet, you can still msg him!

I had several Gothic Tourney games going on at the time of the ban that I would have liked to have asked Mr. Trice questions concerning the games I was trying to learn..

anyone know what the shortest checkmate in gothic chess(actual match) is?

its occured to me,I've been banned from this board twice now!!! LOL:) and now.....the invetor of the game...the one who so haphazardly banned others LMAO is banned himself!!
does this strike anyone else as being just a bit humourous?I bet the person who wrote that fine article,redsales....is dyin to comment on it :)
Fencer,how long is this ban in effect? Its no fun.....I've been there!LOL:)

OK, something on topic again about Gothic Chess:

I found a monthly column on Gothic Chess that just started up at chessville. Those interested should read it
here

simple fact is, as has been proven countless times, many many people here like to see flame wars. They find them entertaining.

hard to get a word in edgewise when in the middle of an interesting conversation,the insults re-arise,and the same ole,same ole,starts over.I believe,IMO,that Danoschek tried to maintain the topic here...but was dragged in by not one but TWO people,who of course thought it was funny.I too was asked to join in on the "lets dog Dano" agenda...but kindly declined.
this knife has 3 edges,and like juangrande pointed out...its a damn shame.

It is a shame that the Gothic Chess discussion board has been subjected to the "danoschek vs. Trice" war. Neither one of the participants seems to have the sense to realize how silly the flame war has made both of them look. In fact, too few people seem to realize that simply ignoring inflammatory posts is the best course of action: The poster will soon realize that his/her posts are having no effect and will give up. The really sad thing is that both danoschek and Trice are extremely intelligent and would have very interesting comments to make if they would only bother to leave their flame war alone. I will miss Ed's posts on Gothic Chess.

I found your comments (as well as Chessmaster1000's reply) regarding the originality of Gothic Chess (as compared to Capablanca Chess, Bird's Chess, etc.) interesting. My guess is that the patent has not actually been tested in court and that the patent holder hopes that it never is. Of course, I should add that I am not an expert on patent law and have no intention of challenging one. I am just glad that the initial piece setup that Ed discovered makes Gothic Chess a fair game and enjoy playing Gothic Chess for the fascinating game that it is.

As for actions for the moderator, I used to think that a moderated discussion board meant that prospective posts were first screened by the moderator before being posted; that is, only the moderator can actually post to a moderated discussion board. Apparently that is not the case here, but such a procedure would certainly have made it possible to avoid the silliness we've seen without having to resort to banning anyone. Is such a thing possible, or is it more work than a reasonable person is willing to take on? I appreciate the effort you've put into being moderator, Walter, and would support any of the actions you feel are appropriate (up to and including banning certain individuals).

<edited to correct silly grammatical errors>

Well balanced post, very nice.

<>It's modified Capablanca Chess and you didn't make it up except for changing the initial >positioning of the pieces.

Although the change seems rather easy to make and not something different and revolutionary, it is actually a huge change! While Capablenca Chess gives to the white side a big advantage, Gothic Chess keeps both sides equal. Just like a game must be.
So it is a big deal the modification Ed Trice did, as it transformed an unequal game to something playable and fun after all.


>I'm the best Building player in the world, but do you hear me continuously carping about it, >or putting people down that don't play as well as me?

Can you please tell me what game this is? (Building) Or provide me a link to find the rules for it.


>Help from everyone else about these three. Should I ban them all, one or two of them, or >none of them? Should I stay on as moderator?

These are not real questions since i found you a very clever person,so i trust your decisions, but here is my opinion.
I think in your post about QuoUsque you are a bit unfair about him ("Fine, you're a good player of it. Why keep pounding it into us?").
He never said that he is superior to anyone else. Well almost anyone except Danoschek. But even then he didn't say it clearly, but he started calling Danoschek a chicken. That was his only fault in my opinion.
As for Danoschek i don't really read his posts as when i'm doing it i feel a little dizzy, while trying to decode his statements and all the ~*~:)0-(.

My vote is to bring back both of them, but Danoschek has to start speaking English ((Can he?) I couldn't avoid this comment! Sorry.) while QuoUsque should avoid talking about Danoschek.
As for the third person you were talking i have no idea.

I'll put two tallies on the ban column then.

Benevolence and magnanimty, now there's two things I'm not normally accused of being. It's also been said of me that I don't suffer fools well.

And yet, here I am, moderator of this particular discussion board. I have to ask myself, how'd that happen?

Those of you that complain about other people talking off topic will be banned. Let the idiots rave. Who cares? Sure, the topic of this discussion board is Gothic Chess, but what kind of conversation is held that only allows one subject to be talked about? So there's members here that really should just shut up, but no, they continue to rant and try everyone's patience. Why get worked up about it? Eventually I'll get around to banning everyone and I'll have the place to myself. In the meantime, get over it.

Warnings for danoschek---
If you post or so much as mention this or simular type things again, you will be banned. "your diffuse puberty rituals of fixative proving" or "rabid wildboar who cannot control his periodic foam outbreaks". As has been pointed out to me before I ever came to this board, you are not allowed to copy and paste a user's previous post. This includes your own! It really is in the user agreement of this site. Besides, if you don't see how stupid it makes you look doing it in this particular instance, I don't want to read anything else that you might have to say. No matter how clearly written you might make it. As far as copying and pasting goes, bringing up a line or two to help illustrate a point is fine by me, but copying the whole thing to clutter up the board is annoying and wastes my time rereading it.

Warnings for QuoUsque/GothicInventor/WhateverElse.
Great, so you think you've invented this game and have somehow tricked the patent office into going along with it. It's modified Capablanca Chess and you didn't make it up except for changing the initial positioning of the pieces. Fine, you're a good player of it. Why keep pounding it into us? I'm the best Building player in the world, but do you hear me continuously carping about it, or putting people down that don't play as well as me? I've won over half the tournaments(28) that have been held since 1979. I created the game in 1972. I am the chairman of the Building Rules committee. I am the tournament director. It is not the only game that I have created, nor is it one that I play all the time. Moreover, I know it can be played better than I play it, it's just that a person that could play it better than me doesn't play the game. And I hope you realize this same thing about you and your ability at Gothic Chess. Hey, let's talk about Dark Chess. How's about you and I play a series of games? I don't have a machine to help me play, and you may use one if you'd like, but please announce it before we start to play. You've certainly done well in promoting this "Gothic Chess", but if how I came to be moderator of this board doesn't show you some serious problems with you and your approach, then you're a bigger fool than even danoschek thinks you are. I'm still mad about how you deleted all of your posts of a few days back. Now the posts in response to yours make no sense and you've cleared yourself too. Also, how you seem to change the past to fit how you feel about the present. I have half a mind to delete every post that you've made here and then put you in "hide" status so that you may read other people's posts, but not be able to respond to them. Serve you right for how you have acted.

Warning for ScarletRose. Let him go. He's faraway, leave him there. Take the bad times somewhere else or talk to each other on the telephone. I won't drone on about my past loves if you don't.

Help from everyone else about these three. Should I ban them all, one or two of them, or none of them? Should I stay on as moderator? Please send messages to me or post directly to this board or both. I shall tally any responses and I might act on them shortly. I'll see how I feel about it depending on the responses that I see here or receive.

Having written this, I also wish to say that I'm sorry for having written this. I've tried mightily to just let things flow and take their course, but no! We just keep having to push the envelope. I've written to Fencer concerning the actions that I might take and what authority I have to do so. He's said that I have free hand and supports what actions I might deem appropriate. If there are objections or support for this post, please let me know.

I can imagine, Gothic's insults were boringly unimaginative.

I've just banned both of them.

and what the H*ll do you call your obsessive behavior..?? Why must you try and push everyone else out?? If we don't follow your opinions or rules.. why is it that you continue on and on and on and on..

a rabid wildboar who cannot control his periodic foam outbreaks ? ~*~

I am getting rather fond of Amazon.. That has a bit of the chess flare to it?? Do you play??

I think Dano is really a tortured monkey in a lab somewhere at a keyboard, given an electric shock every time it does not produce total incoherence.

are often heavily knitted into diffuse puberty rituals of fixative proving whatever. ~*~

WTF!!! No.. I came on here.. and noticed Dano had to continue being on top..

He sits and whines about Ed not giving him another chance to play against him.. and when ED did.. he denied the challenge..

It doesn't matter who my friends are.. and it is none of anyones biz for that matter..

still the bugreport remains ignored - as the topic also ...

1. August 2004, 18:46:40


your diffuse puberty rituals of fixative proving whatever are as low as your
board-habits - why not answer to the topic questions here ? btw calling a cheater
a cheater is a definition, it's no insult either, so you better don't demand reports.
Although you have not apologized for your poor performance silly me presumed a courtesy
of leaving it behind. Of course we know why indeed you sulk about going away - it's easy chicken out from true competition. I for my part won't feel pelled to having hectic games with running rabbits - no game until licence is renewed. Due to my precious reward as serious
player I prefer to brag only with complete games - if feeling urged to such, anyway ... ~*~ 0:)

Well if you can get past move 12 you would have done better than Dano has in his 3 games with me.

Sure we can play.