Dear friends,
I would like to apologize to all of you in advance but I have just activated the moderation feature on this blog for the first time. Most of you would probably not even notice it but what does it mean? It means that all of your comments will be held in an incoming box for a little bit (most of the time for seconds or minutes) before they are published. This has to be done to prevent people from spamming this blog with inappropriate messages.
You may wonder why it is happening now. The answer is it is the USCF Executive Board election season and this is the most important chess election in the US in a long time. It has been dubbed as the make or break election. It is basically coming down to a new group of incredibly talented, energetic and success professionals who are determined to change the long failing way of this federation versus a group of people who stand for the status quo and believe that the USCF ain’t so bad.
They believe that it is acceptable for the USCF to lose money in 9 of last 11 years (again this year) and nearly went bankrupt not long ago. Wrong! Many things are wrong and it is time for big changes. We can do better and we will do better. There are no more excuses. Our momentum is going very strong and these chess politicians are very afraid. This may be the first time that petty, dirty and destructive politics will end. No more inefficiency! No more unethical conducts! No more unprofessionalism! No more insulting and demeaning members, supporters and sponsors and chasing them away.
They see the writing on the wall. They see their Titanic sinking. They know that the majority of the members only care for chess and not chess politics. They realize that their chances to win are getting smaller and smaller. So just as the one trick pony that does the same thing in every chess election, they send out their agents to launch vicious attacks and malicious lies to smear innocent people.
And since this blog is more popular than any forum that they have access to, they come here to spam. This moderation feature will stop that. Please bear with me for the time being. This is very important to me and to thousands and thousands of USCF members.
Many potential major supporters and sponsors are waiting with big open eyes to see the results of this election. Just as the AF4C and Merrill Lynch (they pulled out after finding disturbing facts about our board members on Google), these people do not want to be associated with the current USCF. They want to see changes as well.
Here are some of the most experienced, talented, passionate and competent people who have the ability to fix this federation. Here are my reasons for recommending them:
FM Paul Truong: He is by far the most successful person in chess marketing, promotion, public relations and management. He can bring something to this federation that no one could in the past. He will also help fix many current weaknesses of the USCF and end the destructive chess politics. He can help the USCF in so many ways!
Dr. Mikhail Korenman: He has a strong record in promoting and organizing major chess events. He’s a member of the USCF Scholastic Council. He is well respected by many people, including former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, 7-time World Champion Anatoly Karpov, and many others. He can help unite the USCF!
NM Randy Bauer: He has had tremendous success as the budget director of the state of Iowa, dealing with a multibillion dollar budget. We need his financial and budgeting expertise to help end massive losses!
I promise that posts about the election will be minimized. Once again, thank you for your understanding and support!
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
I have a blogspot blog and the way the moderation feature works is that someone has to manually approve each comment. Does that mean that comments will wait until you or “admin” (which I think you mentioned once is Paul T) have read it and approved it?
To have the delay be seconds or minutes, you
will have to be monitoring the moderator inbox all day long, 24/7. Do you really plan to do that?
How long can we expect the approval process to take?
Will there be times of day when it will be faster and other times when it will be slower?
This post of yours took 6 seconds to be approved 🙂
The answer is no, I do not need an admin to approve the post. Whichever email I set the moderation to, that person(s) can approve or reject. I have 6 people volunteering to help with the moderation process. Anyone of them can do it. They do not have the ability to do anything on my blog other than reject or accept posts.
Most posts will go through between seconds and minutes. Some will take a little longer such as the time when the moderators are sleeping 🙂
Again, this will only be on for a very short time due to the election. There were 103 posts by the same 3 people (and I know who they are) in the past 24 hours with inappropriate messages.
After that, it will go back to normal.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
I guess these people must really be desperate to try these tricks. How pitiful! I feel sorry for them. This is why we must elect you and your team. Us members want to play chess. We don’t want to deal with these buffoons.
Can you share with us the instructions you have given the 6 volunteers about what standards to apply to the posts? I guess this is a way of asking what is acceptable and what is not acceptable as a comment. Or is each of the volunteers applying his/her own notion of what is acceptable (meaning, probably, varying standards)?
The instruction is very simple. Approve everything except:
– Profanity and obscenity
– Personal attacks for political reasons
– Offensive remarks about religion, gender, race, etc.
– Remarks designed to cause pain, harm, embarassment to others, etc.
Basic things along this line. Another word, nothing has changed 🙂
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
One of the problems I see with this for you Susan is that you can now be regarded as responsible for every comment that appears on your blog. That was not so previously, since you weren’t approving individual comments, and nobody could have expected that you or someone working on your behalf had read and approved every comment.
So, if someone posted a criticism of Goichberg or Lux, nobody could interpret that as your point of view. Some people argued that you were already deleting comments that you don’t agree with, only after-the-fact.
But most people probably didn’t think those claims were true, and reckoned that the comments on the blog were the commenters’ opinions.
But now every comment is going through your filter, it is much easier for people to assert that you endorse all the opinions that are posted here, and that contrary opinions or opinions unflattering to you are filtered out.
That will rather diminish the positive comments that you get, and it certainly is going to make the blog more bland.
Paradoxically, I think most people will be positive, but if they feel they are compelled to be positive, and that anything but “positive” comments will be filtered out, people will be offended and not write anything at all.
good lcuk susan, hope win and change thigs around, if needed. for the best only.
jb.
Thanks for your concern. I agree that it is not the ideal situation and it is more work for me and the volunteers.
However, it is for a short period of time and it is absolutely needed to end the same pattern of political destruction.
These 4-5-6 agents for some of the candidates do not take no for an answer. They will continue to spam with lies and personal attacks even though they were asked not to.
They do not have to vote for me. They do not to like me. But they have to respect me in my own blog. Lying, attacking and insulting people are unfortunately a second nature to them.
We have so many big time supporters and sponsors waiting to help. I am not going to allow these people to chase them away again.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
“After that, it will go back to normal.”
I think you should continue this after the election is over. There have been far too many posts egregiously in violation of the Win With Grace Lose With Dignity mantra. Kramnik cheated, Topalov cheated, people feel free to say anything about anybody because they know they can post anonymously and not have to back up anything they say. Keep it like this.
I can understand the need to moderate; some of the comments I’ve seen have just been outlandish. Even if you do turn off moderation eventually, I suggest banning anonymous posts. “Anonymous” has been a shield for those posting inflammatory comments for far too long.
BTW, that graphic is gruesome. I like it. 🙂
And “anthony” isn’t anonymous?
Well, I like the new system. I don’t mind. I’m tired of reading the garbage too.
It’s more of an ID than “anonymous.”
Oh, really? What does “anthony” tell me more than “anonymous”? Nothing forces you even to keep using the same name. If I click on “anthony”, I learn absolutely nothing about you, not even your previous comments on this blog.
Susan, you’re making Lafferty crazy because you and your moderators won’t allow him to spam anymore. I feel sorry for him. He’s shouting everyday but most people just ignore his rant. The guy has simply lost it. He’s so frustrated.
Even the moderators are pulling his posts in the USCF forums. They’re sick of him too. I hope you’ll ban him here permanently. All he’s looking to do is make legal threats since he got there. Anyway, thanks for a more civil and informative place for us “normal” folks 🙂
Why are we talking about Mr. Lafferty? Until he can publicly apologize for his comments, conducts and behavior, he will not be allowed to post here. The same goes with any poster who cannot follow the rules. It is not personal. I wish him the best at the USCF forums or any other place he chooses to post and let’s leave it at that.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
Come on guys! Don’t make fun of Lafferty. I feel his pain. I hope that he’ll change his ways and start to help the USCF instead of issuing legal threats.
So I’m not anonymous in any way. I’m Richard Rajchel. I don’t play much tournament chess, and my USCF rating is only in the 1200’s, but I understand the need for moderation in this case. Some people might even consider it censorship, but this is Ms. Polgar’s personal blog and she can do whatever she deems necessary. Some people think because it’s a public forum of sorts that they can say whatever they want.
Inflammatory comments not only disrespect the people they are attacking, but also show the lack of intelligence and maturity required to actually put up a legitimate debate.
If I were to post facts that showed Ms. Polgar didn’t follow through with her agenda or something contradictory I would think it would still be let through, but attacking her on a personal level, calling names, and threatening to bring legal action are not facts in any way.
If these attackers and political dirt throwers knew a 10th of what Ms. Polgars team did about promotion and positive actions(as opposed to negative words) they wouldn’t have to resort to spamming her blog to try to get their point across. They would have a blog as popular themselves to bash Ms. Polgar’s team all they wanted(within legal boundries of course).
I may be one of the Adults to renew my USCF membership if only to give a vote for Ms. Polgar and her team as well. It seems I have until around the end of May to make a decision, but it’s a tough financial decision for some of us as well.
One suggestion I would make to Susan and her team is to put a post about the election process and how to even be able to vote as the election details aren’t even very obvious on the USCF’s own web site. It’s a small link to the right of all the news.
This new system seems to have considerably reduced the number of comments on your blog posts. I guess it could be that the blogs posts since yesterday have been a bit boring.