As I mentioned before, I will continue to push for positive changes within the USCF. We have to work hard to regain the credibility and respectability for this federation. We must also conduct business with honesty and integrity instead of destructive politics.
I am glad to say that the board and the USCF management have finally taken actions to protect the integrity of the USCF. A current board member is temporarily suspended for a week from posting on the USCF forum. One of the reasons is the board member violated the Acceptable Usage Guidelines for the USCF Forum because it referenced a confidential matter that you had knowledge of only as a member of the Executive Board. This has been the common practice for some board members in the past.
Board members from time to time receive confidential information and it is their duty to keep it confidential. They have to display a high level of professionalism! Unfortunately, they do not. They think everything is about chess politics. It is not! Too many leaks took place in the past for destructive political purpose. Their actions and behavior drove away sponsors and supporters.
This is a very good start! The bottom line is it is a wakeup call to these destructive politicians. I am sure many more big changes will come! The USCF should not be about politics or personal ego. It is about serving the chess community and doing the right things for ALL the members. One way or another, they will get this message.
Thank you for all your support! Together, we WILL make a BIG difference!
I’m a member of the USCF but only play at my local club. Please continue to work to clean things up – this must be the only national chess organization which cannot even hold its own national championship.
Thank you and keep at it!
This is great news! I hope you’ll succeed in cleaning up this federation! You’ll have my vote. Your team will get my vote too.
The Notices of Disciplinary Action have been posted in the Announcements section of the USCF forums.
Bravo, but I see no real effect. Sloan can’t post to the forum for a week. So what? Marinello can’t post for 24 hours, but even that’s being held up due to appeal. Big deal…
I just hope that the scum are somewhat shamed by having their sliminess revealed.
I’m reminded of an ironic sign I once saw on the wall of a doctor’s office:
“If you have any issues of a confidential nature, please let us know.”
Susan, you’re the only one so far to push hard for reform. You and your team have our support. It’s time to oust these slimeballs. These board members should resign immediately. Shame on them!
Bravo! It’s about time! I hope both will be muzzled for a long time the next time they do this.
Yes, I agree that the disciplinary actions are steps in the right direction. But there are several things to clarify. One Board Member is appealing her sanction. That is her right and we should respect the appeals process. I would expect the right to appeal to continue during a Polgar Administration.
But after the appeals are exhausted and a final decision rendered, then what?
This is where things are falling apart right now over at the USCF. The administration of any organization does not only need to make rules; they need to enforce them, too. This point is so vital, and yet so simple to understand that I am amazed that the people over at the USCF forums can’t seem to grasp it.
I’ve written and written about the importance of enforcement and yet nobody seems to understand. I’ve tried to tackle the subject from every angle that I could think of. Still no go. You just don’t use surrogates to circumvent a ban. It is so simple!
What troubles me most is that a candidate who may be a potential member of Susan’s ticket is supporting the other side on this. Everybody seems to be clueless on this vital matter. I hope that we can grasp the big picture here. It will not be enough for Susan to enact a bunch of reforms in order to clean up the USCF; she’s going to have to see to it that her reforms are enforced, too.
I’ve given up trying to get this across on the USCF forums. But this is a different place and a different audience. So, I’m going to attempt one more time. I’m going to use a novel approach. I don’t mean to shock; I mean to show what’s at stake with these bans and how the USCF presently is implementing them.
Two posts are going to follow this one.
Sam Blown didn’t really write the above post. In fact there is no such person as Sam Blown. I just made that all up.
But what if he had? Wouldn’t Susan be right to delete it? (In fact, maybe she did – I’d say the call is fifty-fifty.)
But in addition to sanctioning Sam, shouldn’t she sanction me, too? – If this had been real, I mean and not just an illustrative device. And what would you, Susan’s fans, think of her if she failed to enforce her rules?
And if she had imposed some kind of temporary ban on me – say one week – shouldn’t you expect me to go away and not come back until my penalty period had expired? And even then, shouldn’t I only be allowed back on if I agreed to obey her rules in the future?
Aren’t these questions simple? They sure seem so to me.
The big picture point of all of this is that she can have all the political election victories; she can win all of the Boardroom votes; she can enact all of her policies and rules; but if she can’t get people to enforce those policies and rules, it will all be for nothing.
And now I’m going to let go of this. If people STILL can’t see the evil of allowing surrogates to circumvent bans, then there’s nothing more I can say. The well is dry.
I do not know the exact policy of the USCF. Therefore, I cannot comment on it. In addition, I do not want to undermine the current EB members.
However, Mr. Sloan is banned from this blog and all my blogs. In addition, people who post on his behalf will also have their messages deleted.
It is not a political decision. It is a professional decision. Other places may allow unfortunate conducts like his but not on my blog.
He was given countless chances to change and he has refused to behave himself. He has no ability to tell the truth. He has no ability to be civil. He has no ability to conduct himself professionally. He has repeatedly violated countless rules and regulations.
Lies and personal attacks will not be tolerated by me. If he wishes to do that, he can go to rec.games or other similar forums.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
Yes, Susan, thank you. My point here is that isn’t this how the USCF ought to be run, too. How can it ever be cleaned up if it is not?
I respect your need to not undermine the current leaders on this. But if and when you take over, you simply must implement the same policy over the USCF against lying and hurting that you’ve implemented here.
Jack all of us are awake on this issue now. We all are going to support Susan. Together with all the good people we will make it work.
My focus right now is on the election. I simply want to get Susan elected. Then after the election Susan can work on the problems every day. Nothing else makes sense.
I really believe there is no one else who can make a change so I am 100% supportive of Susan with no reservations.
Susan I just want to say congratulations on making the first positive dent in the USCF that I have witnessed. Nice going. I know once you are elected many more positive actions will be taken. I have great hopes for the future of USCF under your guidance. Keep up the good work.
It really does not matter that this is for one day or one week. What is great is that it is happening. As a sailor might say. They put a warning shot across the deck and the other boat paid attention.
It’s like having your picture taken while you are standing in front of a new Boeing 777 on the runway, or an expensive, exotic old sports car parked in an upscale parking lot, and captioning the photo:
“Look at my new ride!”
Most of us here in the trenches could care less about petty USCF politics. The reason I am supporting Susan’s candidacy is because of all the work she does on a daily basis promoting chess in general and supporting scholastic chess.
As some of you may know, I’m a regular poster on the USCF forums and find myself opposing Sam Sloan quite often. But I believe that to be fair I should make a couple of comments.
While I agree that Mr. Sloan’s suspension was called for (long overdue), I am less sure about that of Beatriz. To some extent, I believe that after Mr. Sloan made his comment, that her following comment did not reveal any new confidential information. I don’t think she thought (or intended) that her comment was revealing confidential information.
I also don’t think that the one, single message copied from Mr. Sloan was necessarily an attempt to get around the ban. Mr. Sloan’s message (from his newsgroup, I believe) was about the ban and he claimed it was unjustified. When this issue was being discussed on the USCF Forums, it was only natural that somebody would quote Mr. Sloan’s view. The material he quoted (in it’s entirety) was relevant to the discussion. Over the past couple of days this hasn’t been repeated, AFAIK.