Re: Stopping the Hyattian-Triumvirate
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:20 pm
Yup, the history of the last century is that when the uneducated masses get hold of democratic power, they replace it with their own brand of totalitarian fascism, whether communist or nazi or americano warfare state. Enlightened monarchy, provided they've been steeped in liberal philosophy and education works better. Bottom up self government using leaderless organisations is best of all however.Jeremy Bernstein wrote:Should I apologize that I donate my time and money to keep this board up and running? On principle, we don't delete posts or ban users. I just checked the moderator forum. The last posts which were split off were in August 2010, the result of a stupid flame war begun by, well, by you, Sean. You were also sent a warning at the time.Sean Evans wrote:Beg to differ, please explain how the one and only admin "Jeremy" is sackable? The main problem with Open-Chess is it is controlled by one person "Jeremy" he owns and decides what will or will not be posted. So how are we going to extinguish this issue?? Wait for Jeremy to decide or is the Open-Chess membership going to decide for themselves?Chris Whittington wrote:Real Computer Chess (for what it is worth), not controlled by unsackable admins, shops and dysfunctionals happens here at OpenChess
Cordially,
Sean
Apart from that, there's been zero, zip, null, nada moderation action which wasn't the simple deletion of pirate links or anonymous spam (if you're interested in Viagra or need new shoes, we can leave those posts, too). If anything, we've become extremely lax with forum rule enforcement, and the board actually runs itself amazingly well. As a relevant aside, when I was at CCC, the number 1 source of user strife was moderator activity. OpenChess runs differently, and we manage pretty well.
You are simply complaining because you may. Which is fine. You may. But I defy you to find a single abuse of moderator or administrator power on OpenChess. There hasn't been one.
That CCC has a vaguely democratic conceit is super for CCC. But it doesn't work, IMO, and I would rather have a small circle of trusted, do-little moderators than a bunch of nutty moralists who think they know better than you. Better an enlightened monarchy than an elected Orwellian council of Klugscheißers [1].
Yes, I retain control of the keys to my web server. I think that's reasonable. No, I don't give assholes moderator permissions. I think that's reasonable, too. But no one here bans people for being jerks or for disagreement with "our" way of thinking. And certainly not for "interfering with commercial interests". I think Chris said it pretty well -- if OpenChess is a nice place to "be", to discuss chess and computer chess matters with intelligent people in an intelligent fashion, people will come, stay and use. If we screw up, people will leave. I don't think we're screwing up.
[1] I googled Klugscheißer to ensure that a non-german speaker could easily find out what it means. The graphic associated with the first link I found was so resonant and darkly amusing, evoking a disturbingly similar image posted on CCC in the past, that I just had to add it to this post. I think you'll enjoy it, too.