Locking Threads....

[Andrew McHarg]

There is still a link to the blog in another topic ;P

Please let me know where? =|

[Alan Tate]

Close your eyes, count to a hundred (slowly), then come and find it!

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Andy.

"I'm actually quite stunned at Geoff and Andy McC's approach)"

I never could anything too seriously. There is always room for a joke.

As I said before, complaining about it introduces the Jam Jar Syndrome.

If you cannot get the lid off a jam jar.
Put it on the kitche table and tell the kids not to touch it.

Anyway. Enough of this.
The English lads have been having fun looking at their pictures on the Chess DB site.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://chess-db.com/public/">http://chess-db.com/public/</a><!-- m -->

Very very few are correct. (I'm OK)

I had a look at yours, you appear to have changed somewhat from the last time we met. =|

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=2400855">http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=2400855</a><!-- m -->

(click the wee arrows left and right).

[andyburnett]

Hi Geoff,

I know fine well that you prefer to take the humorous approach to most things in life I like that approach and wish I could do something similar more often; laugh at Brian Soutar rather than reach for my baseball bat whenever I see or hear him!

Maybe it's just me, but I find it bizarre that Spraggett's blog doesn't seem to come across as a bit weird and creepy to you guys?!

As for the ChessDB photos, I knew I'd seen the main one before - he wrote some books on Roman coins (cooler than writing a chess book? :\) He always came up on Google searches of my name, usually just behind the Andrew Burnett who threw his dog off a bridge in the US

[Craig Pritchett]

As the inadvertent, completely innocent even, initial mentioner of the dreaded blogger whose name can apparently no longer be mentioned in polite company (in a separate thread about the FIDE presidential board's new licensing "step"), I must say I've been quite astonished at the outcome!

All the dreaded "unmentionable" did was draw the letter of objection by ten FIDE members (and apparently growing) to the FIDE presidential board's step on licensing players for rating purposes earlier to the wider chess world than anyone else did ... a huge public service for chess.

Moreover I only picked it up from the daily list of chess media links at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chesscafe.com">http://www.chesscafe.com</a><!-- m --> (which confirms Geoff Chandler's excellent point about circularity on the web as well as his other point that the "unmentionable's" blog is a darn sight fuller of more pertinent, quickly delivered information of real interest on world chess than a lot of other stuff "out there".

I am not an expert on the details of the "unmentionable's" purported blog transgressions ... I don't even read the blog very often ... but I'm beginning to wonder whether I made the right choice in visiting the recent Pablo Picasso exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery, not to mention the recent (and outstanding) Scottish artist John Bellany's towering 70th birthday retrospective platformed by the same institution (both to rave reviews in the media, I might add, despite their, well shall we say rather interesting approaches to art and their respective muses).

Oh dear! I can't help thinking that (as Bellany felt his entire life, worked through and expressed in much of his art) that we Scots rather all too often suffer from an overdose of the worst John Knox-ism.

[andyburnett]

So not only is Spraggett the winged messenger and fount of all knowledge, he is also an artistic genius? Very good Craig ;|

My young students father wasn't of the same opinion when I explained this discussion to him and asked him to visit the blog and give me his opinion.

It's a simple question really - should Chess Scotland link to a site which contains not only chess (good or otherwise) but also the bloggers favourite pornographic pics of women and puerile filth about minors (famous or otherwise)??

[Andrew McHarg]

All the dreaded "unmentionable" did was draw the letter of objection by ten FIDE members (and apparently growing) to the FIDE presidential board's step on licensing players for rating purposes earlier to the wider chess world than anyone else did ... a huge public service for chess.

If that was all he did then there wouldn't be a problem. You have admitted yourself that you you're not an expert on the purported transgressions, so perhaps you should take a look at it in more detail and maybe you will understand where Andy, I, and others are coming from? And there is a massive difference between the art works of Picasso and Bellamy, and what is on that blog. This is not about nudity as far as I am concerned, and if that was all there was to it then I'd agree with your view entirely.

[Geoff Chandler]

Gosh there are three Andy's all having their say.
No wondwer things are getting confused.

Hi Andy The Chess Good Player.
(the one I used to keep giving brilliancy prizes too) =)

I agreed elsewhere there things unchess like and was happy to see the link removed.
(so then had fun with the linking thing. I am what I am.)

Hi Andy the not so good player (but good none the less).
er.....Hi.

Hi Andy the Forum Thread Locker.
You cannot take the side of the good guys.
This is all your fault, it was you who put the link on the CS site in the first place.

Hi Craig.
If you want to join in then you must change your name to Andy.

Geoff Ch ANDY ler

[Craig Pritchett]

Two points:

1. In removing the unmentionable blog-site reference in the seprate thread on Licensing Players, the moderator (I expect inadvertently) in effect censored the (wholly unobjectionable) letter from the Western European FIDE president, which was supported by a large number of international federations, that called on the FIDE presidential Board to drop the action. I wasn't pleased at that, not least because I wasn't consulted. It would have been easy to have, say cut and paste the letter into the thread even if the link to the unmentionable blog were removed. In effect a perfectly valid thread and debate were themselves (even if inadvertently) censored.

2. I am now of the view that CS should carry NO links to any external site. Delete them all. The job of trying to police the internet is clearly hopelessly impossible. I would still accept links to (appropriate) sources embedded in specific articles on the various CS pages and on the CS noticeboard, as these ARE ALL currently subject to scrutiny (links at CS pages) or active moderation (CS noticeboard posts) and because that job is not impossible. Interestingly this appears to be the way many websites are now going, including such new sites as ChessDom and ChessVibes and older established sites such as ChessBase. I trust that my link yesterday to ChessVibes, which brings the original (censored) letter of objection and the FIDE presidential Board's climbdown reply to it together, mending the (unfortunate) earlier scissors job done to the Licensing Players thread, offends no one.

[Donald Wilson]

Craig,

Are you suggesting that the Chess Scotland site should carry no link to the FIDE site, and no links to the websites of the clubs and leagues operating in Scotland?

That would be a gross disservice to CS members, and indeed to non-members who look to our site to help them find other perfectly legitimate sites.