MikesGuns, Heartbreak Kid, and Jaydon will serve as OzChess' first elected moderators until 30 June 2010. Congratulations gentlemen!

Well done to everyone who participated in such a historical moment

Why are the usernames Alex Toolsie, Black Wolf and MOZ listed in the Elected Moderators usergroup when they were not elected as Moderators.

Also why is MOZ in the Super Moderators group. After all as he is in the Administrators group being in the Super Moderators group serves no purpose.

Why are the usernames Alex Toolsie, Black Wolf and MOZ listed in the Elected Moderators usergroup when they were not elected as Moderators.

Also why is MOZ in the Super Moderators group. After all as he is in the Administrators group being in the Super Moderators group serves no purpose.

Obviously it is nothing more than a mistake. Yet you point out the mistake by using a question. That technique is accusitiorty.
"Sit boy sit. It's only the postman, dog."



"What do you smell boy? Ay? Smell a rat? Do ya?"

SWEET WEEPING JESUS ON THE CROSS ! Can someone please control that dog. Obviously he is bored out of his brain. Give him some toys, take him out for a walk, get him a bitch.

... the final election was basically a rubber-stamp process for two incumbents and a clearly willing third candidate (who, intriguingly, outpolled both incumbents) and with or without Alex's legion of stuffups I think the final outcome would have been much the same.

It appears as though the chief complainer about our elections has now, to his credit, endorsed the final result of the OzChess elections.

I think it's time for the full-role call of procedural and other blunders made by Alex in his role as returning officer for their recent mushroom-mod election. If I ever make one-fifth as many errors in any election I ever run you are all cordially invited to shoot me and invoice my estate for the cost of the bullets.

Note that this only includes blunders made from the time the election process was commenced; blunders in proposed design before that are excluded.

1. Failing to find and appoint a neutral and likely-to-be-competent returning officer instead of himself.

2. Failing to define and announce the voting system at the time of the original call for nominations.

3. Failing to close nominations at the advertised date for close of nominations (30 Nov).

4. Failing to declare Heartbreak Kid elected unopposed to one of the three positions (a by-election would then be held for the other two) as the only candidate to submit a valid and serious nomination by that announced date.

5. Claiming to support transparency, but failing to absolutely ensure it by ensuring posters voted with identifiable accounts, rather than having identifiable posters vote using hydras.

6. Creating a potential loophole through which a poster could vote multiply using multiple hydras provided they did not vote using their main account. This necessitated a rule change.

7. Using number of posts as a criteria for screening the voting roll, while ignoring that shoutbox users are also policed by moderators.

8. Preventing a voter from voting whose accounts, containing more than ten posts, had been deleted through what Alex publicly stated was error by his own staff.

9. Justifying the above prevention on the grounds of posters being impacted by the actions of site staff although actually it was the severity of threats of a member of site staff that had caused that poster's reluctance to make 10 posts in the first place.

10. Failing to ascertain that all nominated candidates indeed wished to serve. This was a very major error contributing to later "withdrawals" and resulting in a spurious appearance of competition that actually did not exist.

11. Scratching a nominated "candidate" on the grounds of them not being a voter although (i) nowhere near all elections require that a candidate be entitled to vote to stand* (ii) that candidate's supposed standing as a non-voter was a direct consequence of the actions of a staff member.

12. Demonstrating bias and lack of due impartiality by twice endorsing a candidate and implying that that candidate would be elected.

13. Publishing a clearly untrue interpretation of the impact of rule 4 on deleted hydra accounts.

14. Making numerous false public statements downplaying the past history of banning on the forum and overstating the likely power of the "elected moderators" during the ballot period, thus again distorting the culture of discussion surrounding the ballot he was conducting.

15. Failing to include Ninja in the original poll.

16. Failing to randomise the ballot positions thus giving the incumbents (who were placed first) an unfair advantage. This error occurred repeatedly and was only fixed on the final poll.

17. Failing to immediately restart the poll following the first withdrawal. Lengthy argument was necessary to convince him it was necessary to do so.

18. Restarting the poll with an incorrect closing date of 28 Dec instead of 31 Dec.

19. Instead of learning from the first withdrawal that there might be unwilling candidates in the field, carrying on with a field of candidates whose willingness was unclear in many cases.

20. Limiting his options through an unsound declaration that no further restarts would occur in the case of future withdrawals.

21. Digging in on 20 when a further withdrawal did occur thus creating an absurd situation in which one withdrawal after the start of polling led to a restart while a second did not, for no better reason than that he said so and couldn't be bothered running his election properly.

22. Failing to place the ballot order above suspicion (given that he had endorsed a candidate) by having the draw for ballot positions conducted neutrally.

23. Violating a free and fair electoral debate culture by allowing Bill Gletsos to be banned on spurious and obscure grounds during the election period.

24. Violating a free and fair electoral debate culture by allowing Boris's posts to be temporarily "disappeared" during the election period.

25. Failing to provide transparency concerning the interest level of those "candidates" who had not publicly accepted their nominations. An assurance should have been provided at the start of voting concerning whether these candidates were definitely interested.

26. Rejecting a claim that there was inadequate evidence of willingness to stand by several candidates as "bogus" when it was not only clearly true but further vindicated by a subsequent withdrawal.

Having noted all those (and there are a few others that could be advanced there too), the question is: do they all make any difference to the outcome?

One issue in that regard arises from Alex's improper veto of my potential candidacy. If I was allowed to run, had accepted nomination and had chosen and been allowed to campaign actively and in a free and fair manner without being banned or edited by firegoat or Alex (ie if pigs had been flapping vigorously across the sky), then nobody can know what might have happened. That said I do not know whether I would have accepted such a nomination had it been offered to me, and if I had been elected a para-constitutional crisis would probably have arisen more or less immediately. :lol:

Apart from that, given the lack of public interest shown by "candidates" Lakshman, Axiom and Ninja, the final election was basically a rubber-stamp process for two incumbents and a clearly willing third candidate (who, intriguingly, outpolled both incumbents) and with or without Alex's legion of stuffups I think the final outcome would have been much the same.

The "opposition" faced by the winning candidates was strictly token (a bit like one-party-state elections where one candidate makes little effort) and all the results really showed is that the voters generally preferred to elect those willing to be mods over those whose willingness was unclear. No surprises there and not very much of a mandate! (Nothing against those appointed really since none of this is their fault.)

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* I have a further comment to make on this. Alex at the time made the following claims:

No Australian citizen who cannot vote has the right to stand for election - basically this means prisoners/inmates. The reverse is also true.

All Australian citizens who can vote, can also stand for public office (unless they hold other citizenships as well).

I pointed out that this was not an applicable metaphor but it is further worth pointing out that Alex is wrong about all of this anyway:

* A person does not need to be on the electoral roll to stand as a candidate. It is sufficient to be qualified to become an elector whether one is actually on the roll or not. (S163(c)(i)). The requirement of becoming an elector on the Toolbox is having made ten posts. No qualification is required to make ten posts there, anyone can do it if they choose, therefore Alex's own chosen analogy shows that I should not have been unilaterally rejected as a potential "candidate".

* State and Territory members of parliament are entitled to vote, but are not entitled to be nominated unless they resign their seats in time. (S164 Commonwealth Electoral Act).

* Dual citizenship (a barrier to entry to federal parliament) is not the only other thing that prevents a person who is entitled to vote from being entitled to be elected; holding an office of profit under the Crown is another (S44 constitution) and there are several others.

Shame there's no Court of Disputed Returns. :lol:

... the final election was basically a rubber-stamp process for two incumbents and a clearly willing third candidate (who, intriguingly, outpolled both incumbents) and with or without Alex's legion of stuffups I think the final outcome would have been much the same.

Girls attract boys.

more girls playing chess = many more boys playing chess

The above posts just highlights KB's skewered priorities, I can't understand his intense interest in this site. It seems obscessional along with Bill's interest. Bill, I have nothing against you even you bar me sometimes, but as Matt said "Mate, turn off your computer and get a life."

He obviously does not believe in the whole election process, so it is better not to respond. And they will always want to have the last word and they are always correct - so dont waste your precious breath talking to them.