Locking Threads....

[Geoff Chandler]

I like this seve all links idea.

Maybe just one link for anyone who stumbles upon this forum....To the Samaritans.

[Craig Pritchett]

To answer Donald's query: yes, no problem keeping our links to orgs that we are members of (e.g. FIDE, ECU) and to orgs that are affiliated to CS (e.g. regional orgs, leagues, clubs etc). These are already pre-vetted insofar as they exist at the monent on the website and they also fall into the category that I suggested is OK and vettable from a practical perspective by CS web masters / moderators - there are also one or two others, I believe, such as the SJCA Chess Educational trust of which I am a trustee, which are already embedded in articles of various sorts at the various CS web pages and easy to vet.

It's the vast number of general sites that are not practically vettable in that appropriately active way by CS and about which there might be fierce disagreement among members about their appropriateness that's the issue (as there are simply far too many of them and they change all the time both in terms of their content and in overall numbers).

[Andrew McHarg]

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.

Feel free to send me a link in a PM to the letter and I'll edit your original post in the other topic by adding it.

But, with respect, consulting people before removing content they have posted that we deem inappropriate is not a practicable idea. And to a large degree you were notified that I didn't think the link suitable by your responses in this topic (and Andy B's one) to my responses; and furthermore by my request that the original source of the link be highlighted (which clearly implied that I'd be removing it).

The link in question had already had fairly significant exposure in terms of the lifespan of the topic in question, and therefore it's unlikely that its content was not seen by almost anyone reading the topic whom would have desired to read it. So I don't think that I inadvertently censored it. I also highly doubt that the only source of the letter was on the website you posted a link to.

Finally, that the website contains some content which is suitable is pretty irrelevant. Good content doesn't in any way balance out content that we think is not suitable. For instance, a film which is otherwise extremely child-safe but contains a single scene which is wholly inappropriate for a child would still be branded an "18".

[Craig Pritchett]

Thanks, Andrew,

I think we will simply have to agree to disagree.

In my view you (albeit I am sure quite innocently and inadvertently) inappropriately censored my post to the Licensing players thread by the action you took to take the link in question away without first alerting me.

I am not inclined to use links that contain anything inappropriate in them. The link didn't have anything that I can recall inappropriate in it, certainly no content of the lurid sort that Andy B goes on about - it was just the letter from the West European zonal president and nothing else other than perhaps a brief introduction to the piece itself by the blogger ... or maybe I was duped somehow and didn't notice!?

Otherwise I certainly wouldn't have used the link myself and I'm quite sure that the chesscafe.com, who I took it directly from, wouldn't have linked to it either.

I expect there was some other link to the letter but I found nothing else at the time. As I say, the appropriate reaction would have been to contact me. There is no need to amend the old post now. The problem has been solved by new the link to chessvibes yesterday.

Let's just move on.

[Andrew McHarg]

Sure, I think we will Craig.

However, I want to make clear that I didn't in any way think that you had known the website that you linked to contained innapropriate content. I also didn't mean for my actions to alienate or offend you, so I apologise if that's the way it came across.