There is an important discussion going on about the hierarchy of power in Talkchess. For those who can't access Talkchess I will quote. HGM can have his say here if he wants, he can subscribe again.
Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by H.G.Muller » Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:53 am
To reduce confusion about who does what:
There are registered members, who can post, and read some of the non-public forum sections.
There are moderators, who can edit, move or delete other member's postings in the forum sections they moderate.
There are board admins, who can configure the forum (add or remove sections, enable and disable some functionalty), and manage the member list (activate new registrations, ban members or delete their accounts), grant moderator rights to members.
There is a webmaster, who has ftp and ssh access to the server, can install software there (such as phpBB upgrades).
There is a provider, who has physical access to the server, and can pull the plug.
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Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by Rebel » Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:23 pm
And there is a hacker on a mission to destroy this forum. And so far he is winning. Any news from Quentin?
Besides of that, Thorsten is right, at creation time of the forum with chessusa (Steven Schwartz at the time) as host it was agreed that the forum belongs to its members. And that members elect their own 3 leaders two times a year. The admin at the time (Tim M. of chessusa) under the lead of the moderators cooperated to keep the forum going. I would like to see that basic democratic fundament intact. The first 3 moderators in 1997 were: Bob Hyatt, Enrique Irazoqui and Dirk Frickensmidt. Thorsten was one of the founders, he knows, Chris W. is a founder (he wrote the charter, unchanged till today), Bob was a founder, you can ask him as well.
Of course chessusa can pull the plug, they pay the bill.
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Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by H.G.Muller » Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:34 pm
ChessUSA is not the provider; they just rent the server in some data center. Quentin Turner of ChessUSA is the webmaster, though.
The technical reality is that there is a hierarchy of power, where every level is at the mercy of higher levels, which roughly goes from physical access -> root access -> webmaster access -> board admin -> moderators -> members -> guests. This is contrary to what is needed for enforcing a democratic system; the latter depends on those in power to be trustworthy, and voluntarily restrain himself for staying within their mandate. It is therefore important that the mandate is clearly specified. Unfortunately the charter says nothing about this. This seems a serious omission. We should extend the charter with a description on the methof of governance, and the tasks and limitations of every role in this. So that people to fulfil those roles can be 'sworn in' to abide to those rules. And be removed from power by someone higher in the technical hierarchy when they abuse these powers.
The following system seems workable:
* A team of 3 moderators will be appointed by the members through elections organized by the board admin.
* In case of disagreement, the moderators decide by majority vote.
* The moderators decide on organization of the forum (which sections exist) in the program they anounce before the elections, so that any changes in forum structure will also be under democratic control.
* The moderator team decides on sanctioning of members, such as banning or revoking membership, which on their request has to be performed by the admin.
* Moderators are appointed until the next moderator election, which can be requested by the memberships no sooner than 6 months after a previous election, or when one or more moderators offer their resignation.
* A 'rogue moderator' can get his moderator status revoked by the admin on request of the remaining two moderators; such impeachment counts as a resignation of the team.
* When the admin considers the behavior of the moderator team in violation of the charter, or the election program the moderators have been running with, he can start a referendum calling for impeachment of the moderation team, in which all members can vote.
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Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by Rebel » Tue Aug 10, 2021 7:48 am
In general I am in agreement and as such the forum more or less has operated since 1997, EXCEPT for one thing, the hierarchy of power of the admin (colored red above). It can't be that one person has absolute power. Also not 2 persons. Always 3 because of the democratic majority vote. And that would be the 3 elected moderators by the members. This all was well thought out during the foundation of the forum by the founder group. Giving the admin absolute power would be a breach with the stipulations on which this forum was founded.
Some other comments,
1. You speak of a 'rogue moderator' and what should be done, but forget to mention the case of a 'rogue admin' and what should be done then. In your supposed hierarchy of power system nothing can be done.
2. In your supposed hierarchy of power system where the admin has absolute power the question arises, how is he elected and by whom?
There are no such problems in the original set up by the founder group.
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Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by H.G.Muller » Tue Aug 10, 2021 8:23 am
The board software is such that an admin has absolute power over the moderators. We either have to live with that, or we should develop our own forum software that organizes things differently. And even then we would be subject to the absolute power of the webmaster, who could modify that software any time he pleases.
So it doesn't seem very productive arguing about whether this is good or bad. It is what it is.
The only way to recover from a rogue admin is to have the webmaster remove him directly from the member database. The only way to recover from a rogue webmaster is to have the server superuser remove the webmaster from the server's password file. The only way to recover from a rogue provider is raid his data center with the aid of the police to confiscate the server. But there will always be someone at the top of the food chain.
It would be nice if a majority of the members, or a majority of the moderators, could 'vote away' an admin or a webmaster. But I don't know any operating system that grants super-user rights based on majority voting.
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Re: Time to say thanks to ChessUSA for all the good years and move
Post by Rebel » Tue Aug 10, 2021 9:35 am
An non elected webmaster, an non elected admin ?
Sorry HGM totally unacceptable.
Hierarchy of power, yours vs mine. Mine is the set up of the founder group.
- Code:
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Yours Mine
1. webmaster members
2. admin moderators
3. moderators admin
4. members webmaster
In case of a rough moderator or admin members have the right to call for an impeachment. Such a case successfully happened in CTF.