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Mejvik
Senior Member
Username: Mejvik
Post Number: 235
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 04:44 am: | 
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You commited the worst possible action on FICS and deserve the worst punisment, at least to set an example...I hope u never get unbanned.
If you think you tricked FICS you are wrong. You worked for free and got nothing from it...not even the respect of having done a good job.
Personaly I dont think it is a problem with personal info on the net...If people like to have info on me...go ahead and waste your time(good if it is at least a bit tricky so it is a bit more time consuming...that way we keep the morons from doing something that would be harmful)...besides I am much more afraid of the real world.
Finnaly this was not a very clever way to prove that "nobody" knew about this story...now everyone knows...
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Fermy
Senior Member
Username: Fermy
Post Number: 142
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 05:16 am: |
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I give permission to post my comment file. |
Mori (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 12:31 pm: |
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Fermy -- Be careful Santa Claus is watching.
Seipman -- You still haven't told us who you were...why create this topic to begin with if you didn't plan on revealing the account? |
gorgo4gotpswd (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 02:46 pm: |
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ill tell you in private, mori, just look me up on fics |
Daysleeper (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 03:46 pm: |
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sAnTA Seipman?!
Fics admins leaked his name years ago. Daysleeper. |
Knighttour
Moderator
Username: Knighttour
Post Number: 389
Registered: 10-2000
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 04:36 pm: |
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AcademiaNut(*)'s response on the FICS Forum:
http://www.ficsforum.net/messages/5/971.html |
Fermy
Senior Member
Username: Fermy
Post Number: 143
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 05:27 am: |
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I've tried to post the reply on the FICS forum, but since they have censorship system in place I'll repost here to make sure that it's not edited.
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My post is more of an open letter to Chessty, in case I'll miss the town meeting.
Current admin system on FICS is anachronism. AcademiaNut writes: admins are chosen carefully for their honesty and trustworthiness, and the vast majority of us simply would never lie in a comment file. We follow the rules and therefore it's not necessary to lie. Essentially, the system functions on this assumption. This assumption is fundamentally flawed.
There are some honest and trustworthy admins and there are some that are not. There were admins in the past that should have never been admins (Kossy, Binford, Gpace and Seipman come to mind) and there WILL be such admins in the future. No vetting process will ensure that only honest and trustworthy people etner the admin corps. People will find a way to beat the system (see Seipman---Daysleeper). In addition, there is no way you can predict how X will act in the position of perceived power before X is actually put in that position.
Personally, I believe that the percentage of "good" and "bad" people in admins is roughly the same as in general FICS population. Moreover, people are not black and white. Sometimes generally honest people act dishonestly, sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes they lack communication skills and sometimes they just had a crappy day and overreact. The bottom line is that people are not ideal and make mistakes and admins are not exceptions.
Any society faces similar problems. Democracy is the best government type that humanity currently knows. It's the best not because of some moral issue, but because it's the most efficient type. The vast majority of the leading world countries are democracies. Historically, dictatorships worked for relatively short term and then miserably collapsed. The reason of the success of democracy is that it does not make unreasonable assumptions about people in power. Instead, it implements the system of checks and ballances that does not let people in control to lose the plot.
Don't kid yourself, a comment file is the FICS analog of a police record. In democratic society, a person has the right to see his police record because it's the important part of checks and ballances mechanism. One can argue till the cows come home that there are reason not to disclose this sensitive information. The point is that a society at large already debated that for ages and came to conclusion that disclosing it is the less evil. This works in society and it will work on FICS, there is no need to invent the bycicle.
I suppose, the real worry is that opening the comment file will lead to the endless discussions and user complaints. This is not so. You only need to setup effective sanction and appeal procedure. For example, user X spams channel 24.
1. Admin Y bans user X and makes the following record: User X spammed the channel 24 with 100 tells in 1 second from IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Banned for 1 month.
2. User Y automatically receives the following e-mail: you have been banned by Y. Y added the following record to your comment file: "User X spammed the channel 24 with 100 tells in 1 second from IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Banned for 1 month. He also called me a mutherfucking goat". You can appeal this decision by writing to abuse@freechess.org in the next 72 hours. If you don't appeal in the allotted time, the record and the decision will stay. If you complain and lose appeal, it will be recorded in your file as well.
3. Admin X sends the log of the channel to the abuse committee.
4. If user decides to complain to abuse, he sends his log there (otherwise the admins log is deemed valid). If the appeal is successful, the sanction and the record are erased, otherwise the record "appeal to abuse denied" is added to the comment file. Finally, the committee might uphold the ban, but change the record. For example, it may decide to drop "mutherfucking goat" part, because it can not be verified.
5. If logs match, the committee makes the decision based on log. If logs don't match, the committee interviews people who were in the channel at the time and makes the decision.
In reality such transparent procedure will prevent many endless discussions in channel 2 and bad feelings too. Most of all, it will save admins time and give the users the sense that justice prevails. The argument that admins might get harassed does not cut here. To avoid that, admins are allowed to have duplicate accounts.
People will argue that FICS is not a democracy and that FICS adminstrators don't have to act according to the rules of democratic society. This is true, they don't have to. However, I suppose they want FICS to succeed. To do this FICS has to have an effective government and history already proved that democratic government and policies are the most effective in the long run. Hence, it's the way to go.
Handling of the abuse issues is only part of the problem. I'm saying that current admin structure is the thing of the past. All admins can do more or less the same things. For example, an admin that is responsible for FICS website also polices channels and has access to registration records. This is ineffective, because this means that your webmaster also has to have communication skills and a clean record. If the admin system were more flexible, you could have had Seipman doing the help files, WITHOUT the access to personal records. In return, he would have had legal duplicate accounts. That's a win-win situation.
One might argue that FICS is already very well run. This is not so, and the recent debacle of the Anniversary tourney just highlights that. What does that have to do with the issue at hand? Simple. The tournament was poorly organized, because the admin in charge (by the way one of the better ones) acted irresposibly. He also explained to me that he didn't want to run it in the first place, but there was nobody else that would. If FICS were run as democratic society, that debacle would not have happened, as you would have had a greater choice for the person in charge. Also, the person in charge would have had more pressure to perform his duty properly. Checks and ballances.
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One of the unrelated issues. FICS should stop collecting names of the registered members. It serves no purpose whatsoever as you cannot verify that supplied info is correct. I can call myself Mamua Babua or Dick Bush and it will pass. It can potentially lead to harm though. For example, I can see the scenario when some poor bastard gives his real name and some psycho infiltrates admin ranks. Then this poor bastard plays the psycho admin and says something that freaks the psycho out. Psycho finds out the location of the poor bastard based on his IP, finds his address in the local directory, drives to his place and cuts him into small pieces. Scary?
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guest (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 07:05 am: |
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He? |
Kingwalker
Senior Member
Username: Kingwalker
Post Number: 151
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 04:43 pm: |
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What would happen if "i get banned" while i'm travelling and I don't connect to KNOW that I was banned? By the time I'm back, i would NOT been able to report it to abuse??
and re the cutting of an admin... as long as they don't feed it to me.. (alla Hannibal)  |
Mori (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 09:12 pm: |
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Fermy has some points, but honestly most of the above essay is pretty sensationalist. First of all, to say that the general admin population and the general fics population are equivalent is bogus. The admins are in a position of responsibility and the regular ficsers aren't; that's the difference. In order to become an admin, the person must desire that position of responsibility from personal motivation. Maybe they just like being in a position of power or maybe they just liked wearing the color yellow when they were crossing guards at age 7, who knows? The point is they realize that by becoming an admin, part of their fics experience involves maintaining the smooth running of the server which a regular user does not have.
I think the point of contention between users and admins has always been Fermy the fact that 'crossing the line' behaviour-wise has always been viewed differently by both parties. For example, many of the admins that got on the users' 'shit list' got there because they had no qualms about meting out punishment that was from a humanitarian point of view unjustified, even if technically it was in the rule book. Of course I'm not completely informed, but I think if any admin repeatedly imposed sanctions that went against server policy they would quickly be discovered and removed. Therefore I don't think the 'abuse of power' argument is justified; it's a question of differing perspective of admin and user, severity of sanction, and willingness to sanction that come into play in the moral question of which admins are good and which are bad. Just one point to support Fermy's argument however, is the fact that many of the server policies are enforced selectively these days...ie behavior, or people that a certain admin doesn't like get sanctioned but other behaviour isn't. I won't mention any names but I think several admins these days are guilty of this. For example one time I remember reading a very innuendo filled adult conversation in channel 50, yet as soon as I wrote f*ck to the channel(spelled as is) I was given a 'last warning' type of response. When I asked why when i didn't even write the word correctly, the response was 'yes but your meaning was clear'...well what about all the fucking innuendos that had been going on for 10 minutes? Apparently some geekatron telling 50 "I really wanna mate you Chessty" or "I love eating gorilla sausage for dinner" is just fine but as soon as a swear word pops in the mix its time to call in the cavalry.
As for disclosing user comment files, I think you are missing one critical point, and that is that there is a lot of sensitive information regarding who did the sanctioning, who informed the admins of the misbehaviour etc. To ignore the importance of this is irresponsible on your part. If a user looks at their file and sees such and such user reported them or such and such admin wrote this or that, they might choose to for example log in with a thousand guests and spam that person off of fics...its happened before. Or if both involved were bughouse players, that person might get hate channel tells for months etc. I think an alternative for the admins would be to disclose comment files that have all information regarding specific people involved removed.
Finally I agree with you that requiring personal information at registration is pointless...I don't see how it assists the admins in performing their duties and therefore should be removed as a requirement. |
Mori (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 09:46 pm: |
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TownMeetings(*)(2): as you most are aware, we have a huge dupe problem
TownMeetings(*)(2): this can be largely attributed to the rogue admin
There Seip I guess u r famous |
Knighttour
Moderator
Username: Knighttour
Post Number: 390
Registered: 10-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 01:33 am: |
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I missed the town meeting while studying for a final exam. If anyone has a log of it they would be willing to send me, please send me a message on FICS. Thanks. |
Marv
Senior Member
Username: Marv
Post Number: 316
Registered: 09-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 01:39 am: |
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Unfortunately i missd it too since it was scheduled for 3am Central European Time. A log posted either here or on FICSForum would be helpful. |
Fermy
Senior Member
Username: Fermy
Post Number: 144
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 03:35 am: |
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Well, I don't see anything sensationalist in my post.
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Difference between user's and admin's perspective has nothing to do with my argument. Society already figured one important principle: people in control should be accountable for their actions to people. Not just to other people in control, but to all people. That way society functions better. The same thing applies to chess server.
Once you understood the above principle, the answer to the comment file debate becomes obvious. Police records contain much more sensitive info, yet they are disclosed.
Now about the specifics of the comment files. First of all, handles of the users can be commented out of comment files. Secondly, sanctioned users already know which admin imposed the sanction, so that's a non-issue. Knowing what exact comment a particular admin has left is the whole point of the disclosing files.
To summarize, the exact implementation of the comment file disclosure is another debate, there are many possible solutions. |
guest (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 09:29 am: |
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people in control of a game server need to be accountable for their actions? give it a rest, fermi. |
Fermy
Senior Member
Username: Fermy
Post Number: 145
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 02:24 pm: |
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Actually, even people in control of toilet paper need to be accountable for their actions. Now, should I write an essay why or it's more or less clear with toilet paper? |
Knighttour
Moderator
Username: Knighttour
Post Number: 391
Registered: 10-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 03:45 pm: |
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http://www.freechess.org/Townmeeting.html |
Mejvik
Senior Member
Username: Mejvik
Post Number: 237
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 07:45 am: |
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First of all...
I think it is really good that your realname is required. It tends to make people behave better and the psycho busllshit is just paranoia. Personly I make more enemies irl then online and I am much more afraid of those since they usually live closer to me. It can actually help the polis if they have a name (assuming you have been killed)...anyways I only see benefits of having your real name.
Seipman is obviously not reliable and for that reason he can not be an admin. I wouldnt hire him if I owned FICS...
Since it take substantially much more time to write a file then to control it there might be a need for non admins to write those. Having a "Written by" in the end of each helpfile should be enough.
Regarding the abuse of admin power and improper use I think a solid policy is whats needed. You could have a few channels with less severe rules but if the idea is to have a server without any foul language I think the policy should be strict. No f*ck or that kind of off stuff.
Any verbal assult on server representatives (admins, TM, SR etc) should be treated as an assult on a police officer in service.
You will always get poor admins but not much to do about that more then to let time take its toll. Just have clear rules and follow those.
Anyways I am kind of between hangover and drunk now so its time to play some bug. |
Knighttour
Moderator
Username: Knighttour
Post Number: 393
Registered: 10-2000
| | Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 12:33 pm: |
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That's ridiculous. I don't think the level of discourse on FICS should be reduced to that fit for a 6 year old. Use your tolerance filter. Admins should grow a skin. |
blasphemy (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 06:37 pm: |
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kt you can't take anything Mejvik just said seriously. He was drunk. He said real name would help the police when you've been killed. God, by the time that happens wtf does it matter. :P And the request for real name is very stupid as it is not verfied on fics. Anyone can make any shit up.
verbal assault treated as an assult on a police officer in service?! are you kidding?? police irl get verbally abused all the time. They don't throw people into jail for that. What are you on Mejvik? I think it is much more than alcohol. |
Seipman -- (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 08:39 pm: |
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Without getting into the issue too much right now, I just wanted to set a few things straight on this Cinco de Mayo, which if you may recall, is now 7 years to the day that fpawn resigned in humiliation from the admin ranks after his infamous sex log made its way onto Flesh's website.
1. It's been posted that I tried to blackmail FICS into getting my account back recently. What really happened was that I asked the head admin if I could be allowed back in to play bughouse since a long time had passed and since the issue no longer seemed to be such a hot topic. Chessty and I had a conversation where we traded point and counterpoint and didn't really get anywhere. Eventually, she stated, as has been stated before, that she believed I had already leaked all the comment files and personal information, etc. to everyone, even though it hadn't surfaced on Bug Board or really any other public forum. I suggested that nobody could keep secrets with any leaks in the past and why would this time be different, but she didn't buy it.
This is the point where I basically said, if I'm not going to get my account back, and if I'm already considered guilty of spreading all of this stuff, then why not just go ahead and do it? If they are convinced it's already been done and are counting it against me, then why not go ahead and have fun and do it? They've already given me the punishment.
2. Please realize that AcademiaNut does not represent the old guard of horrible admins such as Binford, Kossy, fpawn, Friar, DAV, Len, pgv, and others who have been known to put their own personal agendas against certain people above that of being fair admins. As often happens, it's one of the fair admins who, for whatever reason, sticks up for the ones many of us have had problems with in the past. From all I know, AcademiaNut is a good admin, and during my time as an admin and SR, he was a very good volunteer at FICS.
3. One of the first things I looked for in my comment file was for the day when I was removed as a TM (back in 1997 with Seipman). fpawn removed me after what he said was profanity in channel 24. He was looking for a "last straw", and it appeared in my comment file. When I became an admin, I checked my comment file, and the comment posted by Friar on that day in 1997 was fake. What I suspected was confirmed. Besides me knowing what I said or did not say, it turned out that the channel 24 tell supposedly copied to my file was not in the FICS format for channel 24 tells.
4. With regards to the large FICS-run town meeting resulting from the start of this thread, perhaps it's not people's personal information coming out on Bug Board that should be concerning to them, but instead details regarding other more damaging information. Such as the time an unreg was harrassing me as Seipman, and I finally had the ability to check the unreg's IP address with my admin account, and it turned out to be another admin. Or the time that I traded information to yet another admin for my comment file and 3 others, well before I ever became an admin myself. Or yet further details about that infamous fpawn sex log.
Stay tuned. |
Seipman -- (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 09:38 pm: |
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Just noticed that the Hacked Timeseal thread has resurfaced. It's an interesting read for anyone who has followed this thread. And even though it's already interesting, maybe it might be even more interesting to see a supplement to that thread: the heated discussion being posted on the admin e-mail list regarding that very topic at that time. |
cday (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 05:58 am: |
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I am starting to think Seipman was Female. If you were you deserve an oscar. It is the only admin that fits the seipman equation. |
DAYSLEEPER (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
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cday, it's already been well established that his handle was Daysleeper. It was posted on this thread and in the townmeeting log. Not to mention many knew about yet years ago when this happened. |
guest (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 04:37 pm: |
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Seipman -- are you going to do it yet (post admins' comment files I mean)? Because I am beginning to suspect that you don't really have anything interesting, and are just using this place to seek some attention. And I am not the only one who believes so. Get serious dude, or get lost.
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Seipman -- (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 09:06 pm: |
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When did I ever say I was going to post admins' comment files? Also, there's no need to worry about attention with FICS admins running town meetings.
But yes, now that gilly and the Hacked Timeseal thread are back, tomorrow I will be ready to post what was going on behinds the scenes at that time. Posted by tomorrow will be e-mails from admins to the admin listserv. The only work that needs to be done now is editing the e-mail headers to better conform with Bug Board regulations. E-mail content will be posted in UNEDITED FORM. Instead of waiting until all headers are updated and then trying to post all related e-mails at once, I think I will start posting after each is prepared to get the process started as soon as possible. |
Mori (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, May 07, 2005 - 06:24 am: |
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hmm sounds like ancient history but maybe some propogandists will use it on this forum for their own agendas. |
iamfpawn (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 04:54 pm: |
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Ahh the good old days. I'm oLd ScHoOl now? I'm not *that* old--31 a few days ago. I don't even remember all the things that happened. Maybe it is better that way.
Life as an ICC admin is so much easier than FICS, in part because of multiple extra tools to deal with dupes and abusers. I don't recall the last time I had to ban someone--it certainly wasn't 2005! I spend most of my time as an admin answering the hundreds of questions that ICC gets.
The only disadvantage of ICC is that the bughouse sucks. My bug skills have deteriorated to the point that my top chess students own me. Oh well. Maybe Seipman can give me lessons. LOL!
I don't care what Seipman posts from the 1997-98 era, if anything at all. I'm certainly not afraid of anything. More than anything, I'm curious. Maybe I can have a good laugh with Friar someday! (He still plays on FICS.) Anyways, Seipman has my permission to post all or nothing (but please not some edited subset).
One fact that I do want to set straight. My resignation email on May 5, 1998 gave two reasons for resigning as FICS admin: <1> I was upset with the leadership style of head admin TheDane. I felt he was trying to please everyone at the expense of getting nothing done. I had expressed that opinion for several months prior to May 5. <2> I was upset that the admin list had been compromised and emails intended to be private were being released, either intentionally or unknowingly. One such email was the infamous "sex log." Since no FICS admin chose to take responsibility and the loss of privacy was no big deal to TheDane, I had to quit. I must say, that was the best choice I ever made on FICS!
I am free! I am free! I am free at last! |
Linuso
Advanced Member
Username: Linuso
Post Number: 39
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 03:35 am: |
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My best moment in life was when I quitted I$$ and joined FICS back in 98. |
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