Saturday, January 29, 2011

A Loose End

Last month, I learned from Hal Bogner that the principals to the Polgar lawsuits have the files on Chess Discussion.com. (Thank you, Hal!) This website had been run by Susan Polgar but has been taken down.

From Hal, I learned that the 3 top people (Susan, Paul, and Gregory) had a super-secret section on that forum just for themselves. I infer from Hal’s comments that this was where the lawyers’ interest lay. He quoted to me some of Gregory’s et al’s comments about me that were negative.

My reactions to these disclosures:

    I do not mind top management having a discussion area of their own. This is a necessary thing in most companies.
    Their negative comments pertained to their judgment that I was not politically reliable. I do not mind this, either because that judgment was true. I stated many times that I wanted the truth of all that mess. My continued support of them was based on continuing bad statements and actions of the USCF and their other detractors, while noting Polgar’s bad actions, too.
    Controversies related to forum management: I would have preferred to have Lafferty, Mottershead, et al to have full access to the forum. During the time, I tried various work-arounds. I was persuaded to Susan’s point of view only by (a) her desire to have the forum as non-political as possible and (b) by their exclusive and negative political content. My changing position on this front was the result of evolution, not duplicity. However, in retrospect, my biggest regret was not coming down hard on Polgar’s political supporters much earlier than I did. The policy of discouraging political diatribes was not executed fairly.


Postscript: Brian Lafferty has stated that he intends to publish the entirety of the forum someday. Believe that? Use your own judgment