Sunday, July 30, 2006

ACF Shuns New Forum

Score one to the Australian Chess Federation. The national chess body has just denied Matthew Sweeney's request to have his new initiative, the Australian Chess Club Forum, to be advertised in the ACF's weekly newsletter.

Sweeney's small band of followers, so far numbering a dozen or so registered users, have adopted a pragmatic approach in response to the ACF's denial.

One poster from the state of Victoria said, "ACCF does not [yet] have a track record that demonstrates its value to the chess community. Rather than calling for [the ACF] to endorse this board, I would recommend we focus on our knitting and let the kudos fall where they may."

So far at least the new forum seems to be in a, shall we say, sane state of affairs. The Australian Chess Federation's forum of choice, Chess Chat, on other hand, is currently plagued by constant bickering, discussions of Mid-east politics, beer and Jesus Christ and TV scheduling. There is even a thread devoted to mild pornography* called "Cute Girls". The thread contains images of scantily clad women.

At least three ACF officials are regulars of Chess Chat including no less than ACF boss Denis Jessop.

NOTE: * As pointed out by our anonymous friend, there are no naked pictures in the aforementioned thread. But I still characterise it as "mild pornography".

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pornography implies nakedness...there are NO NAKED PICTURES IN THAT THREAD.

I would suggest you modify your description...could be seen as defamatory against the forum.

Anonymous said...

I think Matt was being a bit optimistic if he expected the ACF to provide a link to his forum,seeing as he is currently banned by them!

Anyway,good luck to Matt with his forum. An alternative to chesschat isnt necessarily a bad thing.

Anonymous said...

Reluctant as I am to (and in fact I'm not going to) say anything in defence of the chesschat "cute girls" thread started by Belthasar to see if he'd get banned for it, I should point out that it is not on general view but occurs within a closed area of the site accessible only to posters with over 200 posts (and not always all of them). Such posters are typically adults in the eyes of the law. The thread's as tame as it is lame, so I don't suggest anyone rush to or away from the forum on its account!

It is not surprising that Mr Malejewicz complains about chesschat, since he is permanently banned from it for numerous reasons. He is a nice guy in real life in my limited experience but I will be interested to see if he ever joins Matthew Sweeney's forum and if so, what happens. :)

As for the unwillingness of the ACF to link to Matt's site, Matt burnt that bridge well and truly by having his previous forum advertised as junior-friendly when it was anything but. In my view, if he wishes to be trusted he needs to now demonstrate that he deserves it over an extended period.

Anonymous said...

How on earth would KB know what was or was not child friendly?

There was nothing on UCJ that was not heard every day in school play grounds all over Autralia. Stuck up middle class WASPS and ignorant childless-by-choicers are the only creeps who complained.

People trust me more than they trust the ACF, ain't that the truth! [hand]

Matt

Anonymous said...

It is amusing that Matthew Sweeney pretends to know the nature of those who complained about UCJ when he does not actually know the identities of those parents whose complaints about UCJ's unsuitability for their children led ultimately to his banning by NSWCA and subsequently ACF.

Matt's argument is, of course, an obvious fallacy. Language of the sort seen on UCJ may well be seen regularly in playgrounds, but so are fighting, name-calling, stealing and (genuine) bullying, and in none of these cases does these things being common make them desirable.

Vulgar language has its place, but that place is not within public debate on issues concerning the administration of a sport, nor is it as part of defamatory attacks on individuals doing their job (such attacks have no place whatsoever.)

Anonymous said...

Chesschat’s overrun with folksy oddballs at the moment. Hardly any females posting these days and a general feeling of disillusionment and inertia. But perhaps that’s just me. At least the ACCF has a ‘clean slate’ freshness about it and the people who have joined are mostly old chesschat hands who know how things can degenerate which is useful. It is mildly comical seeing Matt pleading for good behaviour (have to laugh) but I think he’s sincere and it’s to his credit. Good people are joining it too. Best of luck to them. :-)

Anonymous said...

Gray, Bonham.

"Junior friendly" means that juniors can go there and be free to behave as they offen do when parents and teachers are not around. That means it is nothing like the current Chess Chat. You two childless know-alls should stay out of such debate, so STFU

Furthermore, your Chess Chat is about as sinking a shit hole as could be presented to the public in terms of how ACF, NSWCA and CAQ officials behave. My crude abuse is nothing near as bad as seeing our leaders, State and Federal Presidents and officials (Gletsos, Howard, Jessop, Bonham et al.) calling people "morons" "rag heads" and "dribbling fools." The ACF should either shut down Chess Chat with legal action or ban all chess officials from posting under their own names. It is a disgrace.

As for me not knowing the parents (not their kids!) who complained, they would be backstabbers who where not adult enought to send me a big rasberry. No, they are typical of the cowardly middle class snobs, who dob, pry and gossip.

Finally, perhaps this blog could do without you wimps treating it like a BB. Make you comments on Chess Chat and I will make mine on Australian Chess Club Forum.

Matt

Anonymous said...

When was there ever alot of females on chesschat?

Does 5 females constitute alot?

Anonymous said...

Matt, it's up to the blog owner to decide what he wants to accept here. On many other blogs I follow it is common for posts to spark dozens if not hundreds of comments, and this increases interest levels in the blog.

Furthermore, it is pointless for us to conduct debate (if it can be called that) by me posting on a site you are banned from and on which quoting your comments is banned, and you posting on a site I have no intention of joining (even assuming I would be allowed to) until you apologise for certain of your past misdeeds. It is amusing to see that despite being pulled up on uncivilly (!) addressing people by their surnames only, you continue to do so here (albeit inconsistently, unless you meant George Howard rather than Howard Duggan.) It is even more amusing that you deride gossip when you were quite happy to make outdated unfactual slurs about my personal life on UCJ. ;)

The beatup about the use of "rag heads" in a satirical post about Israeli attitudes to the Hezbollah has already been thoroughly discredited. Pay attention.

If your idea of "junior friendly" is to give juniors a place to swear and carry on as if in an unsupervised online playground then one can really hardly blame those parents who complained. But in any case UCJ never attracted any significant interest from junior players, unless they were the trolls!

Anonymous said...

Durr, astute one, there were never a lot of females on chesschat... but the handful who were there, were active posters. Now they're not. Just making a factual observation.

Anonymous said...

“… it is pointless for us to conduct debate … by me posting on a site you are banned from and on which quoting your comments is banned, and you posting on a site I have no intention of joining … until you apologise for certain of your past misdeeds. “

1. You Chess Chat moderators banned me for something NOBODY else gets banned for. It is the CC mods., who are the power-tripping hypocritically abuse mongers who have precipitated this schism. V..
2. That is a slur. Without specifying the “misdeeds,” you are leaving others to speculate. V..


“… outdated unfactual slurs about my personal life on UCJ. ;) “

Hmmmmm, I will await an announcement before I reverse my attitude to your choices.


“The beatup about the use of "rag heads" in a satirical post about Israeli attitudes to the Hezbollah has already been thoroughly discredited. “

You can SAY that, but it does not look good. Nor does “moron,” “dibbling fool,” “clueless,” “deadshit,” et cetera coming out of chess body Presidents.


“If your idea of "junior friendly" is to give juniors a place to swear and carry on as if in an unsupervised online playground then one can really hardly blame those parents who complained.”

But I can say that the 2 year ban imposed on me *playing chess* is outrageous and the ACF is populated with a phuktard majority.


Matt

Anonymous said...

When Matthew Sweeney gets banned for things no-one else gets banned for it is because no-one else breaks the rules as consistently as to force their own banning in such ways. As it happens one of the two offences he was last banned for is one several others have also been banned for.

Matthew has a poor memory for his own unfactual slurs, since the one I most objected to implied that something would be likely to happen to me, that could actually only occur if I was married! Since I have never married and have no intention of doing so, Matthew's insult was factually wrong and requires a retraction and apology.

As for the perceptions others may have of Matthew's beatup about "rag heads", if they cannot be bothered investigating the facts and seeing that the matter has indeed been addressed then I do not care what they think.

Matthew Sweeney objects to the word "deadshit". I can only find four discussions in which this word has been used as an insult in the history of chesschat. The first three of these were all by ... Matthew Sweeney! As for the rest, if people will troll and behave in a malignantly fact-averse manner they have to expect the odd light insult back.

As for the two year ban, Matt - you're lucky you're not a Queenslander!

Anonymous said...

I do not object to "deadshit" In fact some of my best friends are deadshits. ;-) However, I do object to Duggan, Gletsos, Jessop and Bonham (high officials all) publically name-calling and degrading people in the biggest chess forum in Australia. It is disgraceful conduct for top officials - far worse than my advertising of a rough as guts chess BB for juniors.

As for the frequency of the use of the term "deadshit," I recall NSWCA President using it against me - not that I care. However, we both know how many posters, to varying degrees edit their posts after second thoughts. nuff sed.

BTW Don't YOU get married cuz you will only be cuckholded.

Anonymous said...

I do not object to "deadshit" In fact some of my best friends are deadshits. ;-) However, I do object to Duggan, Gletsos, Jessop and Bonham (high officials all) publically name-calling and degrading people in the biggest chess forum in Australia. It is disgraceful conduct for top officials - far worse than my advertising of a rough as guts chess BB for juniors.

As for the frequency of the use of the term "deadshit," I recall NSWCA President using it against me - not that I care. However, we both know how many posters, to varying degrees edit their posts after second thoughts. nuff sed.

BTW Don't YOU get married cuz you will only be cuckholded.

Anonymous said...

According to my OMED, to "degrade" is to "reduce to a lower rank". It is not the same thing as giving someone their due based on their abysmal conduct, which is exactly what is going on when trolls get called for what they are.

I don't recall anyone using the term "deadshit" against Matthew on chesschat ever, or Bill Gletsos using it on anyone ever - not that I read every post. Anyway we already know what Matthew's memory is like - he says he was banned for two years but it was actually 17 months.

Assuming this anon is actually Matthew Sweeney (tsk tsk, Matt was always so harsh on people making anonymous insults) I thank him for his admission of factual error in his original insult and look forward to his apology. :)

The Closet Grandmaster said...

Why?

Blogs are about conversation and exactly this type of exchange is fairly common.

Feel free to post. Just keep the lingo above board.

Anonymous said...

Alexander Malejewicz writes "Is it true a regular poster on ChessChat is that person who punched another chessplayer at the Doeberl Cup 2001?"

No, it isn't true, it was the Doeberl Cup 2000! That minor correction aside, just because some dubious characters have not managed to yet get permanently banned from chesschat does not prove that those who are thus banned are not dubious. Also, while firegoat is a regular poster, he is hardly esteemed on the board.

For the record, firegoat was once suspended for a week. Only four serious chesschat posters have been suspended for longer than that in total.

Anonymous said...

Here we go Kevin Bonham Telling fibs about firegoat7. He IS well liked on Chess Chat. He just happens not to be on your side.

Anonymous said...

The ACF is unlikely to allow a link from the ACF web-page to the new Australian Chess Club Forum.

However, the reappearance of some chesschatters on ACCF must make Karthick Rajendran wonder why he has lost market-share where he previously had a monoploy.

Anonymous said...

What a load of sensationalist pseudo-journalism from Rosario - nothing on that thread is pornographic.

Anonymous said...

The chess scene is a joke... look at this ranting. It's funny that the ACF endorse the chesschat forum though, but then say it has no bearing on matters.