Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Hans Gerber is suspended--thanks for your understanding

Author: Amir Ban

Date: 16:13:13 06/29/00

Go up one level in this thread


On June 29, 2000 at 18:52:26, Pete R. wrote:

>On June 29, 2000 at 18:32:02, Amir Ban wrote:
>
>>On June 29, 2000 at 17:30:24, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>
>>>We (the moderators) have been getting a lot of user feedback regarding Hans
>>>Gerber. This afternoon, we finally decided to (temporarily) suspend him. The
>>>process took so long because of disagreements between moderators, his reluctance
>>>to identify himself, etc. I apologize for the "delayed reaction" and hope that
>>>our action appropriately addresses everybody's complaints.
>>>
>>>-Tom
>>
>>I admit that I've not been following the controversy around Hans very closely,
>>but from what I read I didn't see anything wrong or extraordinary about him.
>>
>>To set the minds of all of us at rest that you are not engaged in senseless
>>bullying, can you explain why this happened ?
>>
>>Amir
>
>I'm sure the moderators can explain.  However since I am certainly one of the
>users who provided feedback, here is my quick take.  I'm personally convinced
>that this person claiming to be a Hans Gerber was none other than Rolf Tueschen,
>an individual who delighted in singlehandedly dragging the
>rec.games.chess.computers newsgroup into the toilet.  He was clearly obsessed
>with Dr. Hyatt, and would bring up the same issues over and over and over no
>matter how many times they were addressed.  Whenever someone new would join in,
>not knowing the prior history, he had a new victim to help perpetuate endless
>mayhem.  Ultimately his purpose was just to entertain himself by fomenting these
>endless discussions by making sure no topic ever came to a resolution. I stopped
>reading r.g.c.c. a long time ago, but I imagine through killfiling and
>complaints to t-online.de he finally went into hiding.  Since he is obsessed
>with Hyatt and probably other computer chess figures, it makes sense that he
>would lurk here to monitor things.  He apparently felt bold enough to begin
>posting here, though his style was immediately identified by a number of people.
>If you followed his postings here you could see that pattern of always twisting
>the discussion so that nothing could ever be distilled into a concrete point,
>among other telltale signs such as his feeling that computer chess people are
>nothing compared to "real" chess players, etc.  Having been identified, it was
>entirely predictable that he would then proclaim innocence by badgering the
>moderators, even ask for retribution against his nemesis Bob Hyatt if he could
>hopefully fool the moderators with a fake I.D. (in his dreams), and finally even
>try to go over their heads.  He was sure to get banned eventually anyway since
>it would quickly become obvious that his goal was to cause problems here, but
>asking him for proof of I.D. was a quick way to flush him out. I applaud the
>moderators for taking swift action in this case, believe me you would have to
>look at the r.g.c.c. archives to begin to appreciate what calculated trolling
>this guy was into.

I understand.

I'm very much familiar with Rolf Tueschen and his style, or more exactly the
style he displayed on r.g.c.c. 2-3 years ago.

His CCC account was closed by the original group of CCC founders-moderators.

When I was moderating this forum we reviewed the decision to ban him, and
decided to invite him back, for two reasons: first, the reason given for banning
him was not in the charter, second, his style on r.g.c.c. improved very much and
we felt that it is suitable for CCC.

He was reinstated and invited to join. AFAIK he didn't. AFAIK he's still welcome
here.

So I don't think that suspicion that someone is Rolf Tueschen is in itself a
reason for taking action against a poster.

Regarding your description of Hans Gerber's style, I know of some posters here
in good standing that have the same description. That's not a serious reason to
ban anyone.

Amir



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.