Eligibility Votes - March 2022

[amuir]

A selector or someone organising the Scottish Championship needs a succinct list of eligibility rules. They must know easily which people can be selected or win titles. They should be able to go to a single page of rules. Motion 1 does not do this and should be withdrawn and rewritten.

[Andy Howie]

A selector or someone organising the Scottish Championship needs a succinct list of eligibility rules. They must know easily which people can be selected or win titles. They should be able to go to a single page of rules. Motion 1 does not do this and should be withdrawn and rewritten.

I have been keeping out of this discussion mainly due to time constraints as I am arbiting at the Grand Prix (which has been complicated by me having to take on three roles instead of the customary two.)

Motion 1 simply enshrines the eligibility rules in the constitution. If the motion fails, the net result is they remain in standing orders, not be withdrawn and re-written.

On Alex's point about Dougie and himself, yes I agree (which completes the Triumvirate!)

I disagree with many things that have been said here but that is my personal view. If Matthew has been afforded SCO status (and has done so now for 11 years), I think it is disingenuous for him to be practically the only player worldwide that cannot represent his country (other than those who are under sanction for one reason or another).

Back to my day job and another fun filled Semi Final match!

[JMcNicoll]

I have a couple of concerns,

Why are we, seemingly, the only organisation in Scotland, as far as I can tell, that requires eligibility to be added to an already bloated constitution?

Surely putting such a thing into the constitution makes it now unavoidable that any entrants or team selections must prove with documentation that they are indeed eligible for playing for a Scottish title or being picked for a Scottish team.

Who gets to handle that admin?  I would also note that if passed before the primary and Secondary Championships next month the organisers would surely have to see documentary evidence of Scottishness before the event, wouldn't they?

I have an issue with the word "parents"  in the second eligibility requirement. We surely need to define parent much more clearly, Is it the biological parents only, the step father or mother, also called parent, the grandparents who brought up the orphan, they also are parents, are they not?

The 2 year requirement, in the third criteria, how is that documented? What do we require? How many holidays of what length during the 2 year requirement are allowed?

Just a couple of thoughts, if it's going in the constitution it must surely be open to the least amount of interpretation as possible, for a change.


Possibly an admin could also remove the gum bumping postings about irrelevant past events to a separate thread for the purposes of clarity.

[Douglas Bryson]

I have a couple of concerns,

Why are we, seemingly, the only organisation in Scotland, as far as I can tell, that requires eligibility to be added to an already bloated constitution?

Surely putting such a thing into the constitution makes it now unavoidable that any entrants or team selections must prove with documentation that they are indeed eligible for playing for a Scottish title or being picked for a Scottish team.

Who gets to handle that admin?  I would also note that if passed before the primary and Secondary Championships next month the organisers would surely have to see documentary evidence of Scottishness before the event, wouldn't they?

Players establish their eligibility for championship and international play at the time they apply for a Scotland FIDE registration. Many players may be eligible for multiple countries eg they have mixed nationality parents. A player fixes their eligibility for FIDE status at the time they choose to be registered by a particular country. Once established as a SCO player they retain the right to be classed as a Scotland player for life. So for example a player who moved to Scotland as a child of non-Scottish parents and became SCO FIDE registered through residency would not lose that SCO status if they say moved to England to work (even although technically they would not be eligible if applying for a new SCO FIDE ID).  

The Scotland federation uses that SCO code as the marker by which a player is allocated all rights to Championship titles or International representation. Players are informed of the criteria born here, parentage, resident and they confirm they meet at least one of the requirements. They are then added to the FIDE server and allocated a FIDE ID. We assume that players are answering honestly and we do not check passports, council tax bills etc.

If a player already FIDE registered with another federation asks to transfer to Scotland we do require documentary evidence since FIDE will not process the transfer until that is supplied. Player seeking a transfer must of course already meet the criteria to be SCO registered. They must also meet any financial obligations involved in the transfer process. 

Parent was suggested as a new requirement so that CS has the permission to be handing over information to FIDE. The only information supplied is player name, year of birth and gender. Guardian could be added to the parent requirement.

[WBuchanan]

Hi Andy.
 
"On Alex's point about Dougie and himself, yes I agree (which completes the Triumvirate!)"
 
None of the Triumvirate have engaged with the substance yet.
Still to hear from Douglas, does he agree the motion/amendment was incompetent?
 
You don't say what you are actually agreeing with, Andy.
Alex says the motion was incompetent but made Matthew eligible anyway.
 
There is also the elementary logic - how can adding an additional  restriction on eligibility end up expanding it? And odd that there is no record shown of any decisions regarding this motion, yet it is invoked in ghostly fashion.
 
But we discussed this before.
https://www.chessscotland.com/forum/show...975&page=2
 
You gave this answer here:
 
"SCO code is 24. That would mean for example, Andrew Greet could not be Scottish Champion. He has SCO designation but has a 40 code (ENG)"
 
But SCO is the value (the exact text) representing the country 'Scotland' in the Federation field - obviously, the value that appears for along all Scottish players?
The field was specified as the one in question by Douglas in the 2016 AGM motion amendment as 'federation' - for the avoidance of doubt.
 
The interpretation make no sense - why would you give a name to a (part of) one field that was already the near-exclusive value in another field?
 
The SCO code has been referred to extensively by officials and members.
 
If it could mean what you say, then would previous motions and rules based on that not automatically crash?
For example in 2019, was it taken that the SCO code condition on the entry form excluded all the Scots who didn't have 24 at the beginning of their FIDE ID?
 
And if the 'code 24' SCO meaning according to the Diumverate (I won't assume Douglas subscribes to this non-rational logic unless he says so) were to be used,  then Matthew could never have been considered eligible, could he?

I'd especially like an answer to that from Alex, who says the motion made Matthew eligible! 
 
The only time I have seen your suggestion that SCO code might refer to 'code 24' of the FIDE is when it is being used to claim Matthew's eligibility.
 
Cheers

[Alex McFarlane]

Walter,

I will repeat what I have said.

SCO in FIDE speak is not a code but a designation.  The code for Scotland is 24 at the start of a FIN and since you missed it too, the code for England is 4 (not 40).

To talk about having a SCO code is probably fine in everyday use but should not be used in an official document when it can be used to complicate the issue.  Your failure to grasp this point despite being made by several people seems to highlight the problem of being lax with words and emphasise the importance of being precise.  Previous imprecise motions have landed us in this situation.

The amendment by Douglas made it totally clear in all but one case.  The original motion would have meant many people's eligibility being open to interpretation.  

Can I suggest that in future any ambiguous motion is ruled incompetent immediately rather than being amended on the hoof.  It would have saved a considerable amount of time.

The minutes of an AGM can only be approved at the next AGM but it would have saved many problems if draft (full) minutes had been published soon after the original meeting.

I accept that with what I now see of the minutes, I would not have made the decision I did.  However, I maintain that is not the info I was given.  (I was doing a tournament at the time so not at the AGM.)

[Ianbrownlee]

Possibly an admin could also remove the gum bumping postings about irrelevant past events to a separate thread for the purposes of clarity.

 H John,
I was asking for posters to stay on topic and look at the response i got.  I was gong to try and tidy it up John but where do I start , we seem to be getting down to what is a FIDE FIN code (despite repeated clarifications by Alex , Dougie and others) and a country's designation code. Most of the other stuff appears to be blaming someone or other, either at an AGM or in trying to fix it. Whats done is done, I wish all our efforts were channelled towards a resolution which would satisfy most of us. I think your admin worries shouldn't be a problem, If its a general FIDE rated tournament, each player must be registered with FIDE (headache goes to Dougie working with the arbiter. If its a CS event, like any FIDE event, all processes are adequately written (or should be) . The motions are an attempt as an attempt to clarify and bullet proof those rules and procedures. All constitutions, rules and procedures should be continuosly reviewd anyway which can only be a good thing. Yes, in hindsight, past events could have been handled better and all CS  is trying to do is carry out the wishes of all ts membership, and protect CS integrity.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for all CS officials, arbiters and volunteers. Yes we can get things wrong, but dont harang us for trying to get it right.

[KMcGeoch]

From what I can gather the country code is done by FIDE to assist in administration and means that one can add multiple codes from separate federations without conflicts. Let's say there are 123456 current FIDE players with numbers 1 to 123456. When a new player is added all federations will be wanting to add player 123457. In theory no one would be able to register player 123457 without checking with every other federation that there is no conflict as otherwise you could have dozens of players with the same FIDE id. So instead all the federations have a set of numbers reserved so they can add them knowing it won't impact other federations hence why Scotland has 24 code and England has 4. This has the benefit that a different person can enter all the new players for each federation safe in the knowledge that it won't cause any conflicts with anyone else's entries.

You then have the other issue that let's say codes were SCO123 and ENG123. In this case if someone was to switch federation then ENG123 would become SCO123 and would mean two players potentially have the same FIDE id since number 123 might well be allocated in both federatons. You would also have an issue that if a player had two FIDE id then tournament organisers and/or players could use the wrong one and thus their rating history would be incomplete.

So basically SCO is your designated nationality while the country code is basically your country of registration that is roughly equivalent to country of birth. So using SCO rather than 24 is correct as otherwise a Scottish player could switch federation to England and be Scottish Champion due to their 24 code and English Champion due to their ENG federation designation.

[hamish olson]

Possibly an admin could also remove the gum bumping postings about irrelevant past events to a separate thread for the purposes of clarity.

 H John,
I was asking for posters to stay on topic and look at the response i got.  I was gong to try and tidy it up John but where do I start , we seem to be getting down to what is a FIDE FIN code (despite repeated clarifications by Alex , Dougie and others) and a country's designation code. Most of the other stuff appears to be blaming someone or other, either at an AGM or in trying to fix it. Whats done is done, I wish all our efforts were channelled towards a resolution which would satisfy most of us. I think your admin worries shouldn't be a problem, If its a general FIDE rated tournament, each player must be registered with FIDE (headache goes to Dougie working with the arbiter. If its a CS event, like any FIDE event, all processes are adequately written (or should be) . The motions are an attempt as an attempt to clarify and bullet proof those rules and procedures. All constitutions, rules and procedures should be continuosly reviewd anyway which can only be a good thing. Yes, in hindsight, past events could have been handled better and all CS  is trying to do is carry out the wishes of all ts membership, and protect CS integrity.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for all CS officials, arbiters and volunteers. Yes we can get things wrong, but dont harang us for trying to get it right.

I just wish to emphasise that I do not blame anyone for any of the occurrences that have been discussed.
I'm not sure anyone does - I certainly hope not.

The problems associated the 2016 vote were the result of a systemic failure in communications. We should record the exact final wording of motions, and it should be published shortly after the AGM concludes, exactly like Alex said a few posts ago. 
That isn't the fault of any one individual, it is a process that in my opinion needs to change slightly.

There may have been other systemic problems too (Alex has made some suggestions earlier I believe).

I completely agree with your last statement too - indeed I said the same thing in post 66. I am extremely grateful to everyone involved in Scottish Chess, regardless of whether I agree with them on every issue or not.

The only reason I am asking about the 2016 motion is that it feeds directly into this.
There would be no need for long posts about it if Jim or Andy H or yourself would clarify what the official position is on it.
As things stand Alex has been left to tell us the history, which as he pointed out at the start is not his responsibility.

[Willie Rutherford]

We have certainly gone down some rabbit holes! I probably helped dig some...

The MT eligibility question is important but not the core issue. He clearly doesn't meet any reasonable set of eligibility criteria so the question is does the past confusion justify an exception for him. I think no, others may think yes. But at least it's a yes/no.

I don't really care who said what when in past meetings/votes. I also don't really have any interest in the mechanics/codes etc used to register players as Scottish with FIDE, which no doubt could change from time to time anyway. I think the level we should be discussing at, and the rules should be defined at, is registered as Scottish at FIDE (whatever the mechanics are). 

The core issues are (a) what should the eligibility criteria be and (b) should they be embedded in the constitution.

(b) is the less important of the 2, and I guess I am ambivalent. The higher vote threshold to make changes could be a pro or a con in different circumstances in the future. 

(a) the actual criteria should be the focus of discussion. I think WB made this point a while back, and more recent posts have raised some questions in my mind anyway.

e.g. "birth" - how defined and evidenced, if required? I am no expert but I assume an official birth certificate or adoption certificate showing the birth or adoption occurred in Scotland would suffice. I think Guardianship is a whole other thing - wards of court etc, and not relevant.

"parentage" - at first sight simple - your birth/adoption certificate shows who your parents are and then you just apply the same "birth" criteria as above to them, right? But what about divorce/step-children etc? Should "parentage" apply only to original birth/adoptive parents? That's before you get into surrogates etc...I guess this is where the rules need some leeway in interpretation as hard to cover all circumstances. 

generally birth and parentage are permanent so should confer permanent eligibility

"residency" - this can be much more temporary so is it right that it confers permanent eligibility? I didn't realise until WB pointed it out that under Proposal 1 somebody could become permanently eligible for Scotland just because they lived here for a year as a kid when their parent came for a work placement, or because they themselves happened to do a degree at a Scottish Uni many years ago. That doesn't feel tight to me. I see the EWP had a lot of debate and split opinions on this themselves, and the argument for this seems to boil down to logistics/data protection etc. I'm not convinced by that - it is only relevant if somebody is potentially up for selection, which will be small number of people at any one time. 

Anyway, maybe these points are the more important ones to focus on.