Friday, May 09, 2008

Once more at the ECF, again

As you almost certainly know, the English Chess Federation (ECF) have been in the spotlight recently, due to a sudden rash of resignations from their board. What you might not know - and I certainly didn't, until I found out by accident after reading news of the resignations - is that the ECF also runs a Forum, and a Forum with a lot of potential too, it seems to me:
  • The forum is not censoriously moderated - even controversial posts, critical of the ECF, are allowed - and the moderators are responsive to suggestions from the Forum too
  • Real names are the norm, an excellent policy which cuts down trolls, especially because those whom loiter behind pseudonyms will always carry less weight in their posts
  • Already some interesting people are posting, including several well-known titled players and some (although not all ECF) officials
  • There is a separate forum for ECF Matters and another for General Chat, so the heated, topical stuff can be separated out from everything else chess players like to talk about
A smattering of sample posts: IM Andrew Martin's argument that games adjourned or adjudicated should not be submitted for grading; in the ECF Matters forum, the thread called ECF Matters; a humdinger of a dispute between Charles W. Wood and John Saunders that starts out of the blue here; and on the lighter side, When is it bad manners to play silly openings? But there's much more besides. The Index is here, where you'll also find a button to register yourself to post. The only downside I can think of is that there is no facility to post chess diagrams, and there is no play-through board available with which to post games, although one is promised for the future.

What do you think?

No comments: