Actually I run a selections info mailout list precisely to address the problem of informing top players about upcoming selections chances, especially at times when the ACF Newsletter is delayed. Information on how to join this list was emailed to every top player I had an email address for shortly after the previous Olympiad selections. It was also recently published in the ACF Newsletter, and elsewhere. However for anyone who still somehow missed it, email k_bonham@tassie.net.au with "Join selections mailout list" in the subject heading and you're in.Actually I run a selections info mailout list precisely to address the problem of informing top players about upcoming selections chances, especially at times when the ACF Newsletter is delayed. Information on how to join this list was emailed to every top player I had an email address for shortly after the previous Olympiad selections. It was also recently published in the ACF Newsletter, and elsewhere. However for anyone who still somehow missed it, email k_bonham@tassie.net.au with "Join selections mailout list" in the subject heading and you're in.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
ACF Responds to Alex Wohl
I think this rarely happens, but this post has provoked a "formal" response from the ACF - specifically, from the ACF Selections Co-Ordinator, Kevin Bonham.
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23 comments:
Too little too late.
Not at all, anonymous troll; even that post has acheived at least one very useful outcome in communicating with leading players about upcoming events in the future. Suggest you crawl back under your bridge (or more pertinently, rock) as you are clearly unsuited to any form of life above ground. :)
(As with any post by me not signed with my position this does not necessarily represent the views of the ACF. It does however represent the truth about lame useless anonymous snipers who pick and lose arguments on this board.)
Not often do I agree completely with somebody from the ACF :-) but this is one of these rare occasions.
First, any improvement in communication between the ACF and players is neither too little nor is it too late.
Second, comments by "anonymous" do not contribute to any debate. They do however expose the lack of character and courage of the author.
The Anon above was/is me. I posted it accidently as an anon. Perhaps I should have reposted it with my name.
In any case, nobody thinks I am gutless! I will defend my statements here. (At least I can do so here. ACF VP Kevin Bonham continues to slag me off on Chess Chat where I cannot defend my self. He is the coward and a bully. but I digress ...)
It is too little: the ACF couyld personally contact every GM and IM - there aren't many by telephone. The phone works! Email is just more junk.
It is too late:I t hasn't been happening when it would have been better had it been happening. Ipso facto, it is too late.
Yep I agree that any improvement in ACF communications is a step in the right direction, but it is still too little too late.
Matt, since you call me a coward, I feel no compunctions about asserting that you are indeed gutless, and asserting it on the grounds that you do not have the guts to admit that your treatment on chesschat was entirely deserved.
And furthermore, your claim that you cannot defend yourself on chesschat is rubbish - you can do so if you contact site staff and advise that you wish to be readmitted and will abide by the forum rules. If you do this you will be unbanned, but you *elect* not to do so. Meanwhile you continue (probably for no other reason than that you are a very silly, ineffectual and bitter troll) threadjacking topics on your own very dead EZboard to post useless and laughable abuse about me, when I am no more likely to ever be willing to post there than you are to post on chesschat.
Of course, you didn't bother investigating the facts before carrying on with your too-late trolling rubbish. So for starters, the attempt at improving communication was happening when you claimed it wasn't happening - the first set of invitations to join the selections email list was sent out on 14 Feb 2007 to dozens of leading players and recent applicants, IM Wohl at his current email address among them. I started this service promptly after a couple of leading players raised concerns with me that (mainly due to disruptions to the ACF Newsletter) selections info was getting rather difficult to find.
*You* might think that ringing up dozens of FMs, IMs and GMs every time a selection opportunity (of which there are several every year) would be a productive use of my time, but not only are telephones generally a very inefficient form of communication (relying as they do on the other person being there or at least having a message service enabled at the time) but the telephone is particularly unsuitable for sending out selections details given that players need to know the various requirements for a formal application, which are really too convoluted to be dictated over the phone. Ring and then email? Sure, I could, but just emailing in the first place is simpler, and I have never yet had one request from a player to telephone details to them in the future, whereas I have had several requests from particular players to email as many tournament details as I can. So I doubt that top players share your apparent inability to tell emails that matter from emails that are rubbish. Perhaps you need to get a better spam blocker. :)
And I'm not sure I buy this excuse of accidentally posting as anon; anyone can do it once or twice (and indeed I have done so) but in your case it seems to happen unnecessarily often. Please try to be more careful not to do it in the future.
"Email is just more junk"...Matt I think you need to join us in the 21st century.
Chris(t), I am already in the 22nd century where emails are as quaint as smoke signals and TXT messaging ;-)
emails are a truly a povo technology for the primatively sentient.
ACF Vice President Kevin Bonham (ACFVPKB):Matt, since you call me a coward, I feel no compunctions about asserting that you are indeed gutless …
DNM: We know you are a gutless backstabber and the type of ACF Veep Australia needs like a kick in the nut. Are you going to go crying to the Blogger here too.
ACFVPKB: … you do not have the guts to admit that your treatment on chesschat was entirely deserved.
DNM: I will not admit what I do not believe – especially to inconsistent matesy bullies. I wish that those school playground bullies had given you regular savage hidings. Maybe then you would have developed some humility and not have turned into the smartarse narcissist you are. (I wonder why some thick-necked Taswegian hasn’t knock all your teeth out already. Here’s hoping)
ACFVPKB: And furthermore, your claim that you cannot defend yourself on chesschat is rubbish - you can do so if you contact site staff and advise that you wish to be readmitted and will abide by the forum rules. If you do this you will be unbanned, but you *elect* not to do so.
DNM: If I was willing to lie to people I could be a politician too. But in the same way I would not stoop that low for a quid, I would not grovel at the feet of the bully boy bastards of Chess Chat. I will not submit to your anti-free-speech rhetoric, nor do I cry about it. It is badge of honor the type of which most people never have the courage to wear.
ACFVPKB: *You* might think that ringing up dozens of FMs, IMs and GMs every time a selection opportunity (of which there are several every year) would be a productive use of my time,
DNM: Yes I do. And I will not be engaging with you in discussion as to why you “ *elect* not to do so. ” I do not want to spend my time on a social luddite.
Thought I'd replied to Matt's latest offal, but apparently not, though it's scarcely worth the bother of doing so again.
Firstly, I yawn in Matt's direction as he again goes off on the schoolyard bully tangent, dishing out the bogus "bully" tag and endorsing violence yet again.
The term "backstabber" denotes feigned loyalty, but I'm not aware of any loyalty I've ever feigned to Matt or other such jokers.
I've observed before that Matt's understanding of political philosophy issues is extremely simplistic and his latest rants about chesschat being anti-free-speech just confirm it. Such twaddle was debunked at http://chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=4050
Matt is not required to approve of the forum rules should he wish to rejoin the site. He is simply required to agree to abide by them. Agreeing to abide by something in order to acheive an aim does not necessarily denote agreement with it. (Of course, we couldn't care less if Matt rejoins or not, but to pretend he is unable to rejoin, or to suggest he would be condoning the rules if he agreed to abide by them, is nonsense.)
Matt's byzantine absurdities about the superiority of the telephone might ring a bit less hollow had he used said device himself to apologise for those NSWCA meetings he missed. Likewise, if a frothy ranter who recommends violence and needlessly employs vulgar abuse towards other posters, including new posters, tries to call someone a "social luddite", all the reader can really do is laugh. :)
Kevin Bonham said:
"... the telephone is particularly unsuitable for sending out selections details given that players need to know the various requirements for a formal application, which are really too convoluted to be dictated over the phone."
Kevin,
There seems to be no reason beyond your own complacency and or apathy that you cannot use both forms of communication to contact titled players.
You were the selections coordinator for the Olympiad Team which chose Speck over Solomon thereby costing Wohl a GM title. Your response to criticism on OzChess that you should have placed titled players above Speck was that some titled players like Chapman didn't put their hand up.
Did you make any effort to contact Chapman by phone OR email to see if he wanted to be considered?
I think we know the answer to that.
After that stuff up, which you don't want to take responsibility for (unsurprisingly), you probably should have called it a day mate.
At least my criticism over that issue has encouraged you to be pro-active in now contacting titled players by email, but email alone is just not enough.
Regards,
AO
Pulling the wings off the remarkably stupid fly who just belatedly buzzed into the thread will be a pleasure. Just a shame it couldn't have asked me some of these questions about the facts before it made an absolute dill of itself by making false statements about the issues on its own silly forum and here.
Here's a premium case of clodmouth inserting foot in facial cavity - AO writes:
"Did you make any effort to contact Chapman by phone OR email to see if he wanted to be considered?
I think we know the answer to that."
Well, the answer to that is that on March 11 2004 I indeed contacted IM Chapman. The purpose of contacting him was to ask if he might be considering applying (especially on the back of his strong performance in the 2004 Aus Champs), and if he was not going to apply, to invite him to act as a selector.
The reason I mentioned Chapman not being a candidate in previous comments on this was *not* to debunk any line of argument concerning the selection of Speck over Solomon specifically, but to point out that AO was being a completely clueless goose about the whole selections matter, given that IM Chapman, who AO thought should have been ranked ahead of Speck *by the selectors*, had never applied in the first place and hence was not even on the selectors' radar. Anyone with even the most rudimentary ability to comment usefully on the issue would have done their background research well enough to know this, but AO didn't.
I am not going to comment on the merits or otherwise of any selection except to say that the line of trolling AO is running is a blatant example of fallacious post hoc reasoning: any mug can blame selectors for an individual player's poor results in hindsight, while at the same time not crediting the selectors for other players' excellent results (such as Wohl's in this example). However, there is a substantial margin of error in any prediction regarding who will best perform well in a handful of games (be that prediction formed by selection, by a ratings system, by a qualifying system, by the examination of entrails and tealeaves or whatever). No matter who is selected, someone generally has an Olympiad far better than expectations while someone else has a shocker - but there is no completely reliable system known for predicting who it will be in advance. The irony is that when Speck was selected in 2002 his selection was widely criticised before the event (far, far, far more widely than in 2006) but he performed impressively in that case.
As for whether Wohl would have acheived a GM norm had the team been in a higher position through the event, all we know is that Wohl played eight players of average rating 2313 scoring 7/8 and hence performing at a brilliant 2649. Whether he would have performed at that sort of rating over nine games against opposition of sufficient quality to secure him a 20-game GM norm is unknowable, so declaring that any other player's form *definitely* cost Wohl a title is silly.
If someone believes the selectors are getting it wrong, their claims will only be credible if they repeatedly outguess the selectors more often than not with predictions made *before the event*. In the very long term, the selections process is working if, on average, Australia punches above its weight in terms of results compared to rating, all off-board factors being equal. To expect every player selected will perform above their rating every time is unrealistic.
Furthermore in trying to take credit for my actions AO is his your usual fibbing or else inattentive trolling self - I already pointed out in reply to Matt that the action I took to improve contact with titled players predates all this nonsense by several months.
This post does not necessarily represent the views of the ACF, but it does represent the views of someone who is checking his can of Mortein to see if AO is among the insects susceptible to it. :)
Kevin
You really need to learn how to be more concise and less convoluted. I asked you a question whether you had contacted IM Chapman to see if he was interested in being selected for the Olympiad.
You took about 10 paragraphs to answer yes. Note here that I never claimed you hadn't, although I did suspect such. Then you try to deflect criticism of the selection committee's choice of Speck by claiming that Speck's awful performance was not 'definitely' responsibile for costing Wohl a GM norm. General opinion in the chess community is that it most certainly was.
I suspect you are a person who would try claiming that the nexus between smoking and lung cancer is not "definite", only highly probable. A distinction without a difference.
You also, in your long winded rant, failed to address my first criticism - Why can you not both use the phone and email to contact players for special events?
Regards,
AO
AO, I actually took only until the second and third paragraphs of my reply to answer your garbage re Chapman (two and three are not about ten in my mathematics, but I have no doubt they are in yours). The remainder of my post dealt with other matters. The only reason I did not deal with the Chapman matter in the very first paragraph was that I thought the first paragraph should be devoted to an introductory statement of the theme of the rest of the post, specifically that AO is being an imbecile.
It is true that you didn't explicitly claim I hadn't contacted Chapman, but your wording made it abundantly clear that you believed I had not, so all your failing to make your claim explicit shows is that you were being a silly troll and trying to play cagey "I didn't actually say it" games. Anyone can see through that nonsense so don't expect it to assist you in the slightest. What was that about definite vs only highly probable, a distinction without difference? ;)
Also, don't expect your unsubstantiated assertions about "general opinion in the chess community" to carry the slightest weight when the great majority of it would not waste its breath on you except to call you a goose.
Furthermore your clueless suspicion about what I would or wouldn't claim re smoking is just as wrong as your clueless suspicion about whether I had contacted Chapman. An issue of whether a given thing causes a specific effect is not the same as the issue of whether a given observed result over a sample size too small for a title to be awarded, would have manifested in the same way over a slightly larger sample size and under significantly different conditions. For what it's worth, I do not doubt the mainstream medical view that smoking definitely causes an increased risk of lung cancer, but it would be far more useful at this point to discuss what causes AO's perennial public stupidity, theatrically incompetent trolling and total aversion to the facts.
As for me not addressing your criticism "Why can you not both use the phone and email to contact players for special events?", the reason I did not address that question is you did not actually ask it (contrary to your false claim that you did - like PhilD707 recently, you are inventing core meanings for your incoherent contributions after they have been demolished, so you can pretend those meanings weren't addressed). The main answer to your question is that for most purposes your question has already been answered to my satisfaction so there is no point me giving it the time of day. Furthermore your question embodies an assumption which is empirically false, but given the lack of evidence in your claims, there is really no need for the details.
All your name calling and abusiveness aside, the question still remains unanswered Kevin.
Why could you not use both telephone and email to inform players about special events that they may wish to attend?
You responses so far have ranged from 'I have already answered this question elsewhere' to 'AO didn't explicity ask me that question in his first post on this blog, and therefore I am not required to answer it now' even though it was certainly the theme of that entire post.
Just admit it already Kevin, save what's left of your shredded credibility, and be honest.
The reason you are unwilling to use both forms of media is that you are too lazy, (ie.) Just can't be stuffed.
Regards,
AO
Alex Vincent Toolsie, it's obviously your credibility that is in rather worse shape than shredded here. You didn't know the facts about Chapman not applying, you made presumptuous suggestions I hadn't contacted him that turned out to be wrong, and in many other ways you've harped on regarding the selection process (including on your forum) without having any real clue about how it works.
Furthermore you quote me as saying things I didn't say in those precise words, which while not quite justifying life imprisonment on bread and water, is nonetheless exceedingly sloppy. In any case there is no paradox in me asserting that I had already answered a certain type of question and in asserting that you hadn't asked it, because when I previously answered it had been raised by others.
As for name-calling in Toolsie's own first post on this thread he accused me of "apathy", "complacency", stuffing up (when I didn't), and lack of proactivity (when I was proactive before this nonsense arose). Under such circumstances I have unlimited licence to insult Toolsie however I please, though it is difficult to find any construction of words that insults him more than simply stating his name.
Someone who by his own admission was insincere in agreements he made on chesschat now asks me to "be honest" and refers to the concept of credibility. What a joke.
Too dense to read it the first time, little troll? Here we go again then (please send $20 compensation for wasting my time):
"Ring and then email? Sure, I could, but just emailing in the first place is simpler, and I have never yet had one request from a player to telephone details to them in the future, whereas I have had several requests from particular players to email as many tournament details as I can."
If top players request me to call them about upcoming events I shall do so (on an individual basis of course). None have so requested, so to do so would be a waste of my time and theirs. Not wishing to waste time does not mean one is lazy, merely sensible, ie unlike Alex Toolsie. :)
Apparently my last comment in reply to Kevin's didn't go up, and presumably got lost - as happens I find 20% of the time on TCG. Hence, this reply will be shortened, abridged if you like, and will constitute my last post in this thread.
Kevin, if you think saying my name insults me, you are wrong. I do, however, not want any association with CC and my name appearing in such a seedy place surely diminishes my reputation, hence my request to have it expunged from there. TCG, however, is a far more reputable site, and I have no issue with you saying my name as often as you please here. Indeed, it will probably make you a better person if you do say it and try to emulate me.
But my Christian name isn't Alex actually, its Alexander. And there were bonus marks you missed by not using Dr based on my doctorate which you've confirmed I hold when you searched UQ's alumni site - as they list me as Alex Vincent Toolsie as well.
Kevin, your insults (the real one's), and the suspect basis you use to indulge in name calling reflect poorly on you. Calling you complacent isn't name calling to 9/10 members of the community but you seem to be the 10th person if you took offence to it. If an apology will help, then you have one, despite the truth or otherwise of the remark.
Regards,
AO
Last post on the thread, Alex? Well, I've heard that one from plenty of trolls before, and more often than not they come back to get themselves buried some more, but if it is your last post, then, as usual, don't let the door ...
I am not aware of any request Alex Toolsie has made to have his name expunged from chesschat. Though if having posted so badly and disgraced himself there is embarrassing to him, he should have thought about that before he did so, or been more contrite afterwards (ah well, there is still time, but building back the trust he has destroyed may not be easy.)
Splitting hairs between "Alex" and "Alexander" when he himself uses both names is exactly the kind of pedantry I get falsely accused of. Furthermore I did not obtain the "Vincent" from the UQ alumni site and was in fact unaware of said site's existence until now. As for doctorates on alumni sites, a certain New Age quack I had the misfortune to know got away with claiming himself the title "Dr" in an alumni donor's list although his only genuine qualification was a quite sub-average B.Sc. that it took him six years to acheive. So I'm not going to take a claimed alumni listing alone as any evidence that Toolsie has a genuine doctorate. And finally I did just search UQ's alumni site, and no Toolsie, calling itself a Dr or otherwise, was anywhere to be found in my search! (Perhaps it's there, but if so, it must be hidden somewhere obscure, and rightly so.)
Unsubstantiated comments about what the community thinks won't get you anywhere either, Alexander - you know how this works, if you dish out trash you get flamed, and there is no point trying to take the moral highground to lick your wounds when it happens.
Thanks however for the apology and also for effectively admitting that you don't know if your complacency claim was true. :)
Kevin,
Do you think you won this argument because Alex gave you the last word? I think you got the worst of it, and clearly tried to put words into his mouth at the end. You created a straw man and then knocked it down. In the whole debate with him you landed maybe 2 punches and took at least 5.
Final Decision - Alex wins by Knock Out.
No, I know I won the argument because Alex T was, as he usually is in such debates, a clueless trivial blowfly whose facts are MIA and whose arguing skills are pathetic. I thank the gutlessly anonymous poster from Nov 1 for inviting me to recap the history of Toolsie's failure on this thread.
He started with a ridiculous blunder in which he was stupid enough to assume and imply I had not contacted Chapman whereas in fact I had. He also claimed false credit, which I had already exposed.
In his second post he mischaracterised the debate, used a lame analogy and criticised me for not answering a question that he hadn't asked and I had already answered.
In his third post he continued treading the same discredited ground and misquoted me.
In post four he abandoned the substance of the debate (which he had lost) and settled instead for meta-debate quibbles about his name - even then his claim about where I got the version of his name from was wrong - and a failed defence of his own comments in which he tacitly admitted that he had been wrong.
It could get even better from here, since based on his past record, the most recent post could well be him as well, in which case we could add an insincere/weak attempt to leave the debate to the charge sheet. However, it could just as easily be some other idiot, there are a few of them out there. Whoever it is, the claims are unsubstantiated so it is either the same goose or another equally useless one.
*sigh* again, too easy! Please continue, I'm having fun demolishing your witless and featherweight efforts. :)
Kevin Bonham said:
"He started with a ridiculous blunder in which he was stupid enough to assume and imply I had not contacted Chapman whereas in fact I had."
Once again the facts escape you. Toolsie didn't imply anything, he merely asked you a question. Notice that his question is denoted by a question mark "?". He if had implied something, you would not have been asked a question.
This seems to be the latest hole for you to plug. Hurry Kevin, before you boat sinks yet again!
Toolsie asked a question in a way clearly intended to make an accusation. Indeed he very strongly implied that he did know the answer by writing, if I may be so bold to quote, "I think we know the answer to that." *No one* just asking a question and with no preconceived view on the matter would have employed such a phrase.
The use of "questions" to assert is commonplace and this latest lame pseudosemantic defence (complete with the claim that I was plugging a new hole when in fact the non-point being raised had already been disposed of in my post of Oct 12) is delightfully desperate.
Let me give you a fine and topical example (purely hypothetical, of course!) of the use of questions to assert:
"Are you actually that dimwit Alex Toolsie? Are you continuing to post without naming yourself because you said you were leaving the thread but now realise you were whipped? Do you realise that your style, or lack thereof, is a blatant giveaway, that there is a point where it becomes obvious it is you, because *nobody* else could possibly be that stupid?
Don't bother with an unconvincing denial. I think we all know the answers to those questions. :)"
Kevin
If I was going to re-enter this thread for further discussion with you, I would have no hesitancy initially my posts. The comments of anons are their own, I have not put anyone up to anything nor have I failed to sign my own posts.
Regards
AO
Alex, your problem is that the false commitments you made on chesschat have left you with a major credibility problem no matter what you say about your own actions: you can *say* that, but why should anyone believe you? Having a track record for spawning hydra accounts faster than a plague of rabbits on fertility drugs doesn't help your cause either.
Indeed just by posting at all you are reneging on your previous comment that your October 16 post "will constitute my last post in this thread."
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