Respectfully, I refer you to the post I wrote above about <Alexander Alekhine's> cg.com bio.

I propose nothing more, and nothing less, for <Ray Keene's> bio or any other bio of any player who has "dirty laundry facts" in their history.

Given that these are historical facts, simply ignoring them is a form of whitewashing history.

We don't pretend Alekhine didn't write the Nazi articles, nor should we pretend Ray isn't an active serial plagiarizer.

Certainly plagiarizing is a much less objectionable offense, so I don't quite understand the fuss. I think the difference here is that Ray is an active member with administrative control over his player page. I don't think any player should have such control over his/her player page, for the precise reason that they can muzzle factual and legitimate criticism of such activities as unrepentant serial plagiarizing, in this particular case.

I'm sure Ray can take it. But that's neither here nor there- when we write history, we don't leave out facts to be "polite" to historical figures, and we shouldn't leave out facts because a publisher or a webmaster feels some kind of personal obligation to protect a given historical chess figure.

Do do so is to write "Soviet style" history.

I'd prefer we weren't constrained to that style of history writing at this website.

I don't feel safe writing chess history at a site where that's happening.

Here is a game page: Tarrasch vs Lasker, 1908

User: Candide1966 had posted on this page:

Dec-03-13, Candide1966: Korchnoi's annotations to this game have been plagiarized. See http://streathambrixtonchess.blogsp...

This post was deleted by Daniel on the grounds of being "off topic" or "attacking another user"?

Nope not good enough. Wrong in fact.

The link provides irrefutable evidence that Ray Keene plagiarized Viktor Korchnoi's annotations to this game.

Now here's why that's a big problem for Cg.com, and why the post should never have been deleted- because of this possibility:

In the future, a member sees the annotations "by Ray Keene" in his newspaper column (documented in the link provided) and then submits the annotations to Cg.com.

The annotations are duly added to the game page as "Annotations by Ray Keene."

Now, what's wrong with this picture?

The value, and very much on topic nature of <Conrad1966's> post becomes clear.

If the post had been let stand- as it should have been- then the hypothetical future contributor to the page- the fellow or lass who wanted to add "Ray's" annotations to the game- would have had a chance to see <Conrad1966's> post, and look at the evidence in the link proving beyond shadow of a doubt that "Ray's" annotations are actually those of Viktor Korchnoi.

The potential future contributor then would have a chance to say "Oh- these are not actually Ray's annotations. I better not submit them to this game page under Ray's name."

If those annotations were submitted to this game page under Ray's name, then this site would have a significant factual error on the game page.

<Conrad1966's> post would have had a chance to prevent such an error.

Now, given the fact that many games at Cg.com have annotations listed under Ray's name, and given the fact that Ray's plagiarism has a longstanding history, the possibility of such a hypothetical error is not minute.

That post should never have been deleted from the game page.

This website has to decide once and for all- does it really care about facts or not. Does it really care if the database is accurate or not.

Will this site risk the accuracy of the database for the sake of mollifying or protecting a high profile active Grandmaster at this site.

This expanded inclusion comes at a price, however. As the members become more invested in the content of the site because of their roles in its provision, they also expect that you will take their views on certain issues into account. In the current discussion, that means putting the emphasis on historical accuracy. I believe that this current controversy is reflective of the progress that the site has made from a small start-up to an important part of the chess scene. In order to maintain this progress, I believe that the site needs to recognize its larger role and to recognize that it is in transition. Further, I believe that most members understand that you run a business and are respectful of that fact.

Your continuing challenge is to manage that transition successfully. To me, that means letting us help. Although, I do not have the same enthusiasm for chess history that many others have, I do find that their work and discussions have piqued my interest more than I should have thought.

Actually, what am I saying? We do have a way to find that out. We could award the prize to the first person who conducted a search for"Tarasenko" in one of our search engines.

<I want to know if you are taking money from <Ray Keene> in exchange for keeping the factual documentation of his plagiarism off your website.

I want an answer and I want it in public.>

We've never received a dime from GM Keene for anything at all. He has sent us some nice copies of his books, a huge pile of photocopied game scores, and he contributes annually to our Holiday Present Hunt. However, everything done between GM Keene and Chessgames has been strictly quid pro quo--money has never entered into our relationship.

I object to having you say we are "keeping factual documentation" off our website.

There are two broad categories this can be grouped into: kibitzing, and biographies.

First, biographies:

When the biography section was new, we were afraid that people would turn it into what Wikipedia calls "edit wars"—where people post things on (e.g.) Fischer's page to paint Bobby as a lunatic, while others would go the Kasparov's page and make him seem like a criminal, and so forth. Of course, this can all be done very easily and with 100% verifiable factual documentation to back it up. So it's not a question of whether certain allegations are indeed true, but rather what weight they have in the overall picture of a person's career.

To try to control this, we inserted this guideline in our Biographer Manual: <Stick to the facts, and don't mention anything uncertain, opinionated, or controversial. For example, do not assert that Alekhine was an alcoholic, or that Morphy had a fetish for ladies' shoes>.

It may seem naive to say "nothing controversial" but bear in mind that this same document proclaims <For most players, one or two short paragraphs is the ideal length. For extremely important players, three paragraphs may be required.>

Clearly that document needs updating, as things have changed a lot since then. If Alekhine actually had a 3 paragraph biography, it would indeed be inappropriate to mention alcoholism, Nazi ties, conspiracy theories regarding his death, etc. However, today Alekhine's biography is well beyond 20 paragraphs long. If it didn't mention alcoholism whatsoever, it would be an omission.

A guiding light in this process is the Wikipedia article on "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe.... If you've never seen that, give it a look over; it's a very interesting read.

Now, regarding kibitzing:

<User: Candide1966 had posted on this page: … This post was deleted by Daniel on the grounds of being "off topic" or "attacking another user"? Nope not good enough. Wrong in fact.>

About the specific case of <Candide1966>: it is our belief that this individual registered a new account a few days prior, which was placed on probation. When you avoid a probation by registering a new account, all bets are off. The second wave of posts were scarcely read at all as we concluded they were a sockpuppet of a recently banned member. The individual in question is invited to contact us at chess@chessgames.com about restoring their account.

I wasn't going to ask since it isn't any of my business, but as you're speaking of it already-- from the kibitzing on this game page I long ago thought you must have been kicking <GM Keene> a bit of scratch here or there:

S J Hutchings vs Keene, 1975

Thanks so much for answering my questions and addressing my concerns in such a specific and detailed fashion.

I really appreciate that, and speaking for myself I'm quite relieved to read your answer and explanation.

If I try to (for example) quote <cu8sfan> on klu #32...

<cu8sfan: I was going through all the games of Game Collection: Jonathan Rowson: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins>.

...the punctuation at the end ends up <outside> the pointy brackets, even though I didn't put it there. However, it remains colored as if it were inside the pointies.

No. Let me try it:

<My favorite book collection is Game Collection: Jonathan Rowson: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins>.

<If so, it seems like BS to delete negative material about a GM for being "off-topic" on other pages. There needs to be <some> place to express negative thoughts about a GM, free from censorship, right?> I know what you mean, but the purpose of GM self-monitoring is not to prevent normal discussion. We can see what GMs delete so if there was a feeling that was going on, let us know and we could look into it. From what I can see, most of our resident GMs have the patience of saints and almost never delete comments.