As I said previously, I'll do it if there aren't three or four suitable candidates otherwise.

In light of Mig's recent decision to ban Petrosianic for six days I withdraw my offer to moderate the CN forums.

Petrosianic was spamming the mods, and me, with notification emails that were beyond petty. After seeing how worthless the first six were I had no interest in wading through the next dozen. That is abuse, pure and simple. There was nothing in any of what he sent that I would call abuse, especially since it took place in the Off Topic forum.

More importantly, it was nothing that couldn't have been solved by using the ignore feature. It appears some people won't use that because they enjoy whining about others' posts too much. I have yet to see a good explanation as to why this simple solution doesn't work for anyone who is freaked out by a few over-enthusiastic posters.

It's probably the first time I've banned anyone in years. Hell, probably the first time in a long time I've used any powers here at all, to which I credit the capable mods. Tolerance is the only way these public places work. As for Cube's summary of posting guidelines, those are just that, guidelines. Other than the felony offenses of spamming, non-jocular flaming, and blatant hijacking (extreme or intentional off-topic), we can only hope people are civil and forgive us the netiquette sins we ourselves commit on occasion.

Mods are here to exist, mostly. Not to referee or take sides. The best moderation is no moderation, as ever. Sending the mods a dozen reports about perceived offenses that are, at worst, harmless and easy to ignore, is abuse. It's not the job of the mods, other posters, or me to attempt to enforce profundity, cleverness, or anything else content-related (other than the three things listed above). You always err on the side of tolerance and non-moderation or else it becomes a room full of tattle-tale second-graders saying so-and-so broke this rule and why did you punish me for doing X when so-and-so did Y. Horrible.

Personality clashes are unavoidable and we shouldn't try to stamp them out by force. If someone is annoying enough to drive some people away, perhaps that person should be spoken to and options discussed. (E.g. allowing the person only one post per hour, which often has a beneficial effect on just about anybody!) And/or perhaps the board lost some thin-skinned people who were always going to find a reason to leave in a huff. You can't moderate to the needs of the squeakiest wheels. The first question a mod must ask isn't "who's right," but "who cares?" If something is trending badly, a PM warning is a good place to start before blowing things up in public.

Anyway, more dead pixels lost in the eternal cause of bloviating about the obvious. I'll assign some mods this evening after I glance at the appearance rate and the last 20 posts of those nominated. I'll also post the fabulously brief official guidelines for mods and mortals again, as well my thoughts on the right way (and wrong way) to go about getting people to follow them.

If, in light of my explanation for Petrosianic's ban, SH,IV reconsiders his availability, let us know.

Saludos, Mig

PS The 'top posters' widget (now set to ("last 30 days"0 disappeared in last night's upgrade for some reason, along with the new "featured member" box that is supposed to be on the right side. Trying to figure that out.

Hello there Mig. As Crumhorn said in the Kramnik's Interview thread, thank you for setting up and hosting ChessNinja. I've very much enjoyed being part of the community here over the last year or two.

From what I can gather, all the steps you noted above (and more) have been taken with Chess Fan. Indeed, I've seen it claimed that moderation has been favourable and indulgent towards him, the 'squeakiest wheel'. I would say that things are trending very badly. Several people have made various complaints about Chess Fan's posts and yet he has mostly escaped moderation, at least until recently. In fact, The Gelatinous Cube said this on 9th Jan:



It's obviously your call as the owner of ChessNinja but it seems to me like Chess Fan's posting habits are causing much grief to several people. I am still willing to be a moderator but I urge you consider adding something to the rules about contentless posts. The sheer number that Chess Fan posts (updates on sporting events which anyone could follow over the internet, agreement posts, disagreement posts etc.) have caused much annoyance, I think.

Chess Fan has certainly been annoying enough to drive some people away, and I don't think those people, at least not all of them, were especially thin-skinned. Unfortunately, neither public nor private responses to Chess Fan have done any good. Limiting him to one post an hour sounds good, but would not help: CF's ultimate goal, it seems, is to increase his post count; if someone tells him to post only once an hour, he needn't comply since the moderators' only recourse is to delete the offending messages. And deleted messages still count toward post totals... Chess Fan has basically proved that the moderators are close to impotent. I'd really like to see the moderators, or at least the senior mod, given the power to dispense temporary bans. The official moderation policy is that less is more, but given CF's absolute refusal to change his posing habits, we can only post more and more passionate entreaties asking him please, please to see it our way (or anyone but CF's way, really). If the moderators could temporarily ban people, though, CF might have a reason to listen to us.



I hope this widget never returns, as a few CN members simply aren't mature enough to live with not being number one.

I thought the 30-day post count would just be a nice way to show especially new people who are the more active people. But it occurred to me also when someone mentioned it above that just keeping it gone is the easiest thing to do. Few benefits.

Rationing someone's posts can be very effective. It teaches them to be more judicious. It can be one per hour or one per day, note.

i post on here only in spurts, and have also been extremely put off by a few posters around here. that said, i think limiting posts per day would ruin the ability to have perfectly pleasent back and fourths in semi realtime with the folks around here (bridging the instant messenger and email mediums).

i implore you not to let the bad apples ruin the board for everyone.

Dear Rockin, if I am one of the few posters who put you off, please PM me with what I did to do so. I'm always open to criticism. I don't want to be a bad apple.

And, please let me add here that, there are a few CN members who are quite obviously not mature enough to know when something is actually *really and truly serious enough* to complain about.


Chess Fan

I totally agree with the comments Mig has made regarding the outstanding issues on this forum. In fact, I wrote similar things before Mig, so maybe he agrees with me, and not vice versa

Anyways, not a lot of people have accepted the nomination to be mods - perhaps this is due to the fact we are now nominating people who are not as active (as the hardcore addicts have already had their turn). niceforkinmove has been gone for a while. I've just sent octal an email, so maybe he will come out of hiding.

Just in case Mig wants to open this up to people among those who have already been mods before, I want to nominate well-named, Crumhorn, Ken and spock. If there still aren't enough people who are interested in doing this, I would consider serving another term, if offered. Hopefully, this will be scary enough a threat that SHIV, Guy Kerr, FBX, RL, NFM, and others will either reconsider or step up