Mediation with a hint of Spice

One thing bothers me about this whole PT is to busy with the SPICE tournament to give a deposition in Lubbock discussion.

If he doesn't have time to give a deposition in Lubbock, how are we supposed to believe that he and his wife ever intended to, in the middle of the SPICE tournament, fly to California and participate in a mediation?

What is Forum Moderation Bias?

Bias is defined as a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question. Such bias can cause partiality (positive or negative) towards a particular person. Such a preference or an inclination can inhibit impartial judgment.

We see this displayed in forum moderation through the closing or pulling of threads for no stated or obvious reason. Posts can also be deleted for no stated or obvious reason. This can be against a person or an idea. In the worst case sanctions can be applied to certain individuals in an arbitrary or inconsistent manner. We rarely see traditional bias demonstrated against race, disability, or affiliation but it is often demonstrated through the provision of much greater scrutiny of the posts of those we dislike while allowing the benefit of the doubt for those in their own group or in positions of authority. This type of inconsistency is what we most often refer to as moderator bias.

When I was on the USCF FOC other than regulating SPAM, moderation bias was of great concern and in my opinion regularly permitted. I took great pains to not post on the forums while also on the FOC to preclude the appearance of bias in that I was debating issues with those I had the power to suggest sanctions against. In reviewing the forum archives one could see the generation of this bias from the earliest days of the forum where the team saw something they did not like an then parsed the AUG to try to find a reason to remove the post or sanction the involved individual. Sanctions were often stacked up or parts of the same posts were used as a justification to pile on certain individuals. Topics on the issue of moderation practices were particularly scrutinized as there appeared to be too much concern that members might defy the FOC’s authority (which the FOC considered disrespectful of themselves) rather than making efforts to improve respectful speech between individual members.

Below is a current example of an ongoing struggle against inconsistent USCF Forum moderation practices. I will leave it up to the readers to determine if any bias is involved with this endeavor.

please explain #2

Sent at: Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:25 am
From: hmb
To: Ron Suarez WPraeder tsawmiller Brian Mottershead BrianLafferty rharing Moderator Committee

Tim - As you were kind enough to answer my previous question about Ron's offer, perhaps you could explain what was inappropriate about Ron's post, which follows. Suggested changes to bring it into conformance with the law of the AUG in your opinion would be appreciated, too.

Thank you.

----[Start Ron Suarez post]

First off, I need to remind the moderators that this forum is part of the USCF and its operation is certainly an USCF Issue.

Secondly, I need to remind the moderators that I am not writing anything in this post about any one particular person or groups of persons. Therefore, I am not attacking, disparaging, etc. anyone or any group of people.

Therefore you must allow this post and thread to remain, by the law of the AUG.

OK, so I am writing to all of the forum members that feel they have either personally been wronged or know of anyone that has been wronged by the system that administers and moderates this forum.

Please do not post your complaints of the system on the forum as you will then be exposed to the moderative wrath of this forum.

I repeat, do not post your complaints here.

What you need to do is send me a PM with your complaint and any and all details of the complaint you can provide.

I am now compiling a file that I will present to Bill Hall at a future time. My presentation will show problems and of course solutions to those problems. Understand that when I speak of problems I am talking of structural and strategic problems. By improving the structure of this forum operation, we can and will have a better discussion forum for the USCF and all its matters.

Thank you all.[End Ron Suarez post]
Hal Bognermailto:Bognerhal@chessmagnet.com
Please note: Although I am a partner in Chess Magnet School and perform consulting for USCF and others, nothing I post here represents the opinions of my clients or partners unless stated otherwise.

SPICE Craziness at USCF

Will somebody please explain to those poor opinionators at the USCF that more goes on behind the scenes at a FIDE tournament than just playing and directing? They're saying that since the tournament has started, Paul has nothing to do, since he's only the organizer so he should be working on the lawsuits instead.

What do organizers do behind the scenes (non-TD work) while an international chess tournament is in progress? Will someone help list some of these things to those folks at the USCF?

The Lord of the King

Rush to your nearest chess tournament and experience the adventure!

Spice Cup 2009

Just for perspective, note that the SPICE Cup Tournament is now in progress. Section A is FIDE Category 16, while Section B is FIDE Category 11.

(SPICE = Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence.)

To compare, how many other international tournaments have been held in the USA in 2008 or 2009 and what was their FIDE strengths?

For more info:
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/09/spice-cup-b.html

USCF Expert Report

I mentioned at one point, USCF should get it's own expert to independently confirm Mottershead's report. Thankfully, they did so. (I'm sure they didn't need me to come up with the idea.) The expert went well beyond Mottershead's work. Brian Lafferty just posted the Executive Summary portion of the expert's report. Of particular interest, is the following passage:

At least 100 unauthorized access attempts to Mr. Hough's email account, some or all of which were apparently successful, including those related to the two specific emails identified above, came from IP addresses that:

"
(1) were used in comparable time frames to post to the USCF online forum under Alexander's user name, and/or
"
(2) were used in comparable time frames to post to the usenet forums under Alexander's identity, and/or
"
(3) were used from an Anonymizer account that identified Alexander as the account holder and that was used from IP addresses (a) assigned to Alexander by Comcast, (b) used to make postings to the USCF online forum from Alexander's USCF account, and/or (c) used to make newsgroup postings under Alexander's identity.

Ouch. That's going to leave a mark!

The report also gives opinions that many of the FSS postings can be linked to Truong:

*I found that the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses recorded as the sources of identified FSS postings were used at the times of those postings by a user logged in as "chessspammer@netzero.net", whose registration data indicated Truong and whose account was paid for over the period in question by Polgar. The terms of service indicate that Truong is responsible, and the same IP addresses and account were used for other business purposes by Polgar and Truong, including a posting to RGCP by Truong under his own name and from his user account at America Online.

*Within 64 out of the more than 200,000 postings to RGCP and RGCM, I found sequences regularly and contemporaneously recorded by servers not in the control or custody of parties to this case that normally record characteristics of computers used to make postings. These sequences were common only to one posting made by Truong from his AOL account and 63 postings identified as part of the FSS postings. This header is consistent with a computer using a Mozilla version 4.0 Web browser on a computer with a Windows NT 6.0 operating system, using AOL 9.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7.0, and with several other specific versions of specific software packages present, and that were only recorded for Truong's posting and FSS postings. This same information was indicated in 80 records of postings made by Truong's identity at the
USCF online forum.

*I found that the same IP addresses recorded as the sources for FSS postings contemporaneously and independently by Web servers not under the control or in the possession of parties to this case, were also recorded in the USCF records, indicating that those same IP addresses were used in postings to the USCF internal forums under the identity used by Truong.

*I found that 9 different "posting account" identifiers were used in the postings identified with FSS. These identifiers are apparently used to indicate a particular login credential, and are recorded by systems not under the control or in the possession of parties to this action. All except one of these posting accounts were used exclusively for postings identified as FSS postings, the same IP addresses used for posting under three of these accounts was also used by Truong for postings from his AOL account, and they were all used from IP addresses also used by Truong's identity at the USCF site contemporaneously.

Finally, the expert gives the opinion that GM Polgar had possession of several of the stolen emails before they were published on the net, which is consistent with Bill Hall's remarks at the end of the litigation forum this August.

*After the time at which the emails in question existed, and before they were otherwise publicly released, Alexander, who worked for Polgar on a voluntary basis and operated her Web site, appears to have accessed an email account containing those emails.

*Those emails or portions quoted therefrom were subsequently released to parties not authorized to have them, via emails sent from Susan Polgar's email account, and she has not disputed having sent those emails.

Lafferty reports that the full report will be available for download. No word on what experts, if any, were designated by Ms. Polgar

Update: The full report can be downloaded here. Polgar did miss her deadline to disclose experts in the Texas action. Since her primary claim in the Texas action was that the Mottershead report defamed her, she will be completely unable to prove that allegation. (Although given that the Mottershead report barely mentioned GM Polgar, that dog wasn't going to hunt anyway.)

Susan's Girls Tournament

I see in the USCF's Forums that they may stop supporting Susan's annual tournament for girls. Since this is the 5th. year of a 5 year contract, they may not want to renew it.

If so, then this leaves 2 options for the USCF: 1) they run one on their own or 2) they drop the tournament entirely.

Susan has the same 2 options.