And now for a word from your moderator - Chess Forums

Perseus · 06-25-2008, 11:43 AM

Starting a new thread to keep track of and inform everyone of my activities as moderator. Transparency and all that good stuff.

As you may know, some time ago I came up with a set of rules to keep the forum clean. These are common sense rules and with an exception here and there, haven't been broken:
Forum Rules Recently, I've added two more when the need arose.

Members should refrain from posting without adding to the discussion. Posting just to increase postcount is not allowed.
Warez are intellectual property (software/music/movies/tv-series/tv-shows/etc) either through download, serial, or crack in a manner that breaks its copyright and/or license. You are not allowed to give/link to/ask for/advocate/provide information for obtaining warez.

Changing subject, for random spam I have given a lifetime ban (my 42nd) to someone advertising telephone services in India.

As of now, I'm also banning shri8131 and will remove all of his threads as spam, for the following reasons.
Firstly, I must conclude that his threads weren't really about chess, as mostly they were articles on procedures and organisations; they did not touch chess as a subject.
Second, they were written in such confusing english that it was hard to find out what they were about in the first place.
Further the threads in question don't leave much (if any) room for discussion of any kind, the user in question never replied to any threads (save his own, once); he just comes in, drops his text occupying his clipboard and moves on. And, since I have found other fora carrying the exact same texts, I name it spam, case closed.

Thought I'd work it out and put my reasoning up as well, since it would set a precedence

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JacksonWShowalter · 06-25-2008, 02:40 PM

Just wanted to say I think you’re doing a good job here.

FinFangFoom · 06-25-2008, 05:57 PM

Yep, Perseus, you have done a great job on everything here, thanks! And, I'm quite sure the spammers would have drove me crazy here without you here taking care of business. If I may, I have a little question about first time posters. When a first time poster's "first post" is just a link to another website I guess those are tolerated on a case by case basis? This is the post that I have seen on the first page everyday for a while and it seems out of place-
http://www.chessforums.org/correspon...ine-games.html
I'm moving and may be offline for a bit...I wanted to see when Fromper hits 1000 posts if he becomes King or not but I guess I'll have to wait untill I'm set-up at the new place.

Fromper · 06-25-2008, 06:31 PM

LOL Am I really going to be the first to hit 1000 posts? I hadn't even noticed that my post count was so high.

I'll agree with the others - good job, Perseus.

About the warez links being illegal, I noticed that you didn't mention books. I know there's at least one thread asking about where to download copies of a copyrighted book (Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move) for free. I'd suggest that this policy include such material as well.

--Fromper

Perseus · 06-25-2008, 06:52 PM

Not if get there first! Though, I think you'll get there ahead of me with your wonderful improvement thread.

Thank you for the votes of confidence. Hm I noticed a few spelling errors just now, guess I forgot to make a cup of tea there. You're absolutely right about the Chernev book, I'll look into that in a bit, while I'm waiting for Germany-Turkey (Euro 2008 football/soccer) to kick off. Though, that is far less blatent than a user asking for a CM10 cd key hehehe; still to paraphrase Freud, a small sigar is a sigar as well.

Actually, FinFangFoom, that is not the case, though I will on occasion 'look things through the fingers' (don't know if that dutch saying translates). I didn't catch it for the following reasons:
- Unfortunately, I suffer from a forum bug that disallows me from seeing any of the auto-stickied first posts in the puzzle and correspondence sections.
- To 'view' the first post, I must copy over the thread to another section first (I use the off-topic section for this) and read the post in the duplicate thread there. Afterwards, of course I delete such threads.
- When I'm making my rounds, I click 'new posts' and at least glance through them, of course with this thread, there was nothing to glance. I suppose I forgot to take a look at it, with its rather dodgy title.

As you can see, both the thread and its started have gone. I've just deleted the thread asking for a copy of Logical Chess as well as another thread mainly involved with only copyrighted materials; and I removed a post in the QGA books thread linking to a site hosting these things.

Where was I, ah yes, tea.

Perseus · 07-09-2008, 05:44 AM

Well, I've been absent for about a week as a consequence of breaking the plug at the end of the power cable of my internet cable modem. For once my ISP wasn't to blame hehe. I just caught bill1500 as #46 to receive the perma-ban. Guild Wars, World of Warcraft... don't people have something worth while to spam about these days?

Edited some threads in the CC section to show the players engaged in games. Moved a few others out of the General Discussion to the appropriate sections. I wonder where I can purchase a Star Trek replicator.

Tea, earl grey, hot. Double strong, double sweet.

UPDATE: Right, time for a newsflash.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow to the Czech republic, Praha (Prague) to be exact, which in effect means I'll be away from the forum for about 8 days. Shouldn't pose a problem, all ye misbehavers and spammers beware that I'll clean up misconduct immediately after turning on my laptop next week!

Perseus · 07-28-2008, 08:01 PM

I've returned, cleared off a spammer just a minute ago. I'm making my way around the new posts, but I'll have to get back to everyone I promised my stuff to since I got up 4:00 this morning, have been in a bus driving home for about 13,5 hours and had drive our car home after for another hour...

Arrogant-One · 08-18-2008, 01:29 AM

Originally Posted by JacksonWShowalter

Just wanted to say I think you’re doing a good job here.

Agreed! Good job Perseus. I must say most of the spam we get at OzChess is from spambots, so to hear of actual people spamming is really quite a novalty!

Best Regards,

AO

Perseus · 08-29-2008, 01:26 AM

Alright, just banned matty for spamming. Nice find that FinFangFoom. If ever you need to get in touch with me to report a spammer or something, you're welcome to use this thread if the PM function isn't working

Perseus · 01-14-2009, 09:19 PM

By my last count I've permanently banned 66 users for their violations of our quite unrestrictive rules.

That said, I will miss things sometimes, I don't have the time to read everything that's going on in every thread. So if anyone has something to report, post here or send me a PM and I'll get to it.