English Chess Forum

Alan Burke, unable to win or engage in an intelligent discussion, has reported my exchanges with him on this forum to the ECF under it's code of conduct.

Although there is clearly no case to answer I have nevertheless asked Carl to close my forum account.

Anyone with ECF business will now need to email me. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Regards

Sean

I have deactivated rather than closed Sean's account and I have also done the same to Alan's until I hear further news

Sean Hewitt wrote:Alan Burke, unable to win or engage in an intelligent discussion, has reported my exchanges with him on this forum to the ECF under it's code of conduct.

That's the problem with codes of conduct, they get used for petty disputes. For that reason, I disagree with the voting membership of the ECF, who recently introduced one without much debate or opposition.

Where is the link to the ECF code of conduct and is the below proposal activated?

On the Code of Conduct, one response centred on the issue of ECF officials engaging with
“unofficial media” (e.g. English Chess Forum), proposing that the Code should state that
ECF officials should be banned from such use of such unofficial channels and should limit
their comments to official channels such as the ECF website. The second response focused
on the suggestion that the Board should not have the authority to dismiss one of its own
members (i.e. someone elected by Council) and disagreed with this constraint.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... icials.pdf seems to be it. (?)

Various points are covered there. Describing somebody as being unable to win or engage in an intelligent discussion does seem, at least to me, to clearly breach those guidelines.

This is not an ECF publication?

Indeed, but doesn't 3.1 indicate that not only ECF publications are within scope?

IanDavis wrote:Indeed, but doesn't 3.1 indicate that not only ECF publications are within scope?

Indeed it does and by volunteering to work for the ECF as an official, manager or director, you appear to hand the ECF censorship rights over what you can write online.

The third point of 2.1 could imply that remarks critical of the ECF are not allowed.

1. Introduction
This document sets out the standards of conduct expected of all English Chess Federation (ECF) directors, managers and other officials.

2.1 All officials of the ECF are representatives of the organisation and must ensure that their actions do not:
ï‚· cause gratuitous offence;
ï‚· injure the ECF, its officials or its events, directly or indirectly;
ï‚· bring the game of chess or the ECF into disrepute

.

3.1 Care must be taken to ensure that written communications comply with the expected
standards of behaviour set out in section 2 above. The use of any profane, vulgar,
offensive, racist, sexist or demeaning language is prohibited, as are all forms of
harassment and/or personal insults. This applies equally to public fora, social media
sites and personal blogs.

I don't want to get involved in the mudslinging but there are a couple of observations I'd like to make.

Firstly the loss of Sean Hewitt from this forum is a sad one. Although I didn't always agree with his approach he always did his best to answer genuine queries about ECF policies and queries. More to the point, unlike 90% percent of forum contributors he is actually contributing much of value to the English chess scene and deserves a lot more respect than he has sometimes been shown.

I can understand why Carl may want to nip this one in the bud but given that it was a complaint from Alan Burke that started this and his name is the thread title I feel he should be allowed to make a statement before his account is deactivated.

Sean Hewitt wrote:Although there is clearly no case to answer I have nevertheless asked Carl to close my forum account.

If there is no case to answer, why close your account? Other members of the board are still posting here. Stop posting while the matter is dealt with, sure, but that need only be a temporary measure.

Roger de Coverly wrote:That's the problem with codes of conduct, they get used for petty disputes. For that reason, I disagree with the voting membership of the ECF, who recently introduced one without much debate or opposition.

For the record I opposed the Code of Conduct strongly both at the SCCU Executive Committee Meeting a week or so before the ECF Council Meeting and at the Council Meeting itself. The SCCU agreed with me and voted against the Code at ECF Council, but Council itself did not.

I felt that the Code was far too wide and likely to give rise to a profusion of examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences. In my opinion Andrew Farthing's own report to Council as Chief Executive would have contravened the Code had it already been in force.

I rest my case.

Andrew Zigmond wrote:Firstly the loss of Sean Hewitt from this forum is a sad one. Although I didn't always agree with his approach he always did his best to answer genuine queries about ECF policies and queries. More to the point, unlike 90% percent of forum contributors he is actually contributing much of value to the English chess scene and deserves a lot more respect than he has sometimes been shown.

I agree that Sean is contributing much of value to the English chess scene, but so are many other forum contributors.
Can you justify the phrase "unlike 90% percent of forum contributors"? I can easily list 10 who are contributing - can you list 90 who are not?

Neill Cooper wrote:

Andrew Zigmond wrote:Firstly the loss of Sean Hewitt from this forum is a sad one. Although I didn't always agree with his approach he always did his best to answer genuine queries about ECF policies and queries. More to the point, unlike 90% percent of forum contributors he is actually contributing much of value to the English chess scene and deserves a lot more respect than he has sometimes been shown.

I agree that Sean is contributing much of value to the English chess scene, but so are many other forum contributors.
Can you justify the phrase "unlike 90% percent of forum contributors"? I can easily list 10 who are contributing - can you list 90 who are not?

Start here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/memberlist.ph ... &sk=d&sd=a

Not arguing either way, just pointing it out.

Ray Sayers wrote:

Neill Cooper wrote: I can easily list 10 who are contributing - can you list 90 who are not?

Start here:
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/memberlist.ph ... &sk=d&sd=a
Not arguing either way, just pointing it out.

But that is just a list of members, not contributors to the forum.
I would suggest start here: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/search.php?se ... ive_topics
Look down the right hand column of 'Last Post'. Most forum contributors are also active in promoting/supporting chess through organising events, developing/maintaining websites, running teams, coaching, chess administration etc.

Neill Cooper wrote: Most forum contributors are also active in promoting/supporting chess through organising events, developing/maintaining websites, running teams, coaching, chess administration etc.

Does it even matter if they aren't? Organisers are to an extent competing against each other and against other leisure activities, so they shouldn't disregard the views and opinions of players or chess parents.