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>