The most active forum was classF averaging just under 2 posts per day.

The average forum was utilized under 0.6 posts per day since the last forum rotation (Monday Dec 29).

The main page, however, on Jan-3 had 11 posts of useful analysis on one given day.

Everything has declined as the game went on. The forum assistants all quit (except for 3 who still do their job) and the forum hosts don't do the bare-minimum analysis any more (1 still does) and the summarizing committee everyone on it has quit.

I try to be an encourager and help people feel the "team feeling" as best as I can. The main page has even slowed down to where people can discuss analysis without getting flooded with off-topic and tangent conversations, as was seen during the Yury and GMT games.

What are your thoughts? Don't you see this as a problem? We have 7 people on this team who have not yet tired out or worked themselves exhausted and quit.

I partly blame the smaller team size, and I partly blame the 2-day voting, and somewhat blame the runaway voting (although this has been successfully mitigated away when necessary).

The Umansky game gives me hope, since GMAN seems happy with a draw. We gave him a chance to enter a complicated position but he is just on Rybka3 autopilot. Umansky, as kwid mentioned in the forum, plays with a style more human and less technical.

We need a way to make the forums what they used to be. To pump some fresh life into them, and that starts with motivating the forum hosts to do some bare minimum analysis on their own forums. We have enough volunteers to only accept those willing to put in 1 hour of work, per rotation. I also urge you to not assign forums that are doomed to receive no attention. Last game you said you were concerned about some moves not receiving sufficient attention. That's another good source of improvement.

Whatever ideas you have, you can count me in to be a town-crier. I have tried very hard to help the analysis tree and DPLeo's list gain acceptance, and I have successfully been able to harass the team when necessary to control the runaway voting.

While I don't agree with all you said, you do make some good points. I encourage you to take part in the pre-game organizational discussion which I will initiate soon, here in my forum.

Part 1:

<What organizational steps have already been taken to prepare the team for two simultaneous games?>

I recognized that it would not be possible for me to serve as Forum Coordinator in two games at the same time. Therefore, I recruited and trained <hms123> as a second Forum Coordinator. He will serve as FC for the rest of the GMAN2 game. I will serve as FC for the Umansky game. <zanshin>, who is also capable to fill in as a FC, prefers to serve in a support role. He will assist <hms123>. One of my objectives will be to recruit and train another backup FC. If I am successful, then the team will have at least four members who can serve as FC.

I have been in touch with <RV>. He assures me that he will be able to run and report on deep-ply analysis for two simultaneous games. Also, we have determined that <jepflast> can host two separate Analysis Trees.

<Do we have enough forum hosts for two games?>

Probably not. We can delay the onset of the temporary forums in the Umansky game (we probably do not need forums at Move 4) but it is likely that we will have forums in place for both games at the same time. My goal will be to recruit additional premium members to host forums. New recruits will be given a choice to do so only temporarily until GMAN2 is over, or to become part of the permanent rotation. If I am unable to recruit additional hosts, then we will have to decide how to best allocate the existing group (eight, at this point).

<How has the forum host(ess) experience been during GMAN2?>

After the GMT game, we lost a forum host due to burnout. This individual has not posted in over 4 months. For GMAN2, I attempted to minimize the chance of that happening again. I did two things: 1) I attempted to recruit forum assistants, and 2) I determined that every forum host would have periodic breaks. The forum assistant idea flopped for the most part, but I did follow through with the periodic breaks for each forum host. I kept careful track of forum host activity. I am very interested in how the forum hosts from GMAN2 rate their experience.

<Have I found the right balance in refraining from assigning forums which are likely to be ignored?>

<Do we typically have the right number of forums?>

I continue to shoot for 4-6 forums at any given time. Occasionally, the situation demands more than six, but I never have fewer than four.

<How helpful has the Analysis Tree been to the team? How can it be improved?>

I am very grateful to <jepflast> for the work he has done for the team. Some dislike the tree and some think it is misnamed, but I believe the majority view is that the AT is helpful. Some believe it is VERY helpful. Suggestions to improve the features of the AT should be directed to <jepflast>, but it would be appropriate to discuss here how to better manage and utilize the AT. Not all of our analysts post their lines to the AT. This is unfortunate. We should continue to encourage team members to use the AT. But I think we also need to recruit someone whose only job will be to scour the main page and the forums, and post lines to the AT which have not been posted. It would be extremely helpful to the team if members could view the AT, confident that ALL ideas that have been discussed by the team are represented on the tree.

<Can we revive the idea of having a Summarizing Committee?>

I certainly understand the amount of work that goes into summaries. During GMAN2, we established such a committee. It had three members and we were trying to recruit a fourth. I had high hopes that with multiple people working at it that we would have regular summaries (a summary every time it was our move and the choice was not obvious). Alas, one committee member disappeared, one was too busy and the other one burned out. Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can revive this idea?

<What should we do about the Computer Pool Forum? We lost <rinus> and <Waitaka> has limited time to spend on chess.>

I think this forum provided a valuable service. I should try to recruit a few team members who would be willing to run engine analysis on requested moves and lines.

<What other ideas are there for improving the team's organizational effectiveness?>

2.) If all the analysis we make would be entered into the tree, it would be IMMENSELY useful. It is _the_ natural way of ordering chess move analysis, not the linear way which we are restricted to in the forum. The need for summaries would basically disappear if we had a fully populated analysis tree.

My decreased participation in the analysis is due to other reasons notably the attitude of certain members of the team

I guess I do not have the thickest skin around

If we were all as well organized as you many of our other worries would go away, good job!

The Forum systems appear to work better if they are assigned to very active analysts, otherwise they do not attract much attention.

I like the idea of forum assistants, but once again they must have shown to be very active. Dedicated analysts assigned to forums is also a good idea although tough to maintain if certain forums keep getting second class assignments which cannot be prevented.

You might consider a main line forum, this might assist in maintaining a running summary. Some would argue that this is merely Rybka and <RV> but not necessarily as shown in this game.

A *contrarian* forum would also be interesting, to keep and maintain the attention of analysts like <Hugin>, <Dan>, and others who relish in exploring alternatives and who I believe are very useful despite their rants.

There is always a fine line between organization and bureaucracy, however, the development of a *model* forum for forum hosts should also be considered. Some consistency within the forums would also assist our summarization efforts, especially in how lines are posted and commented. These would, of course, just be recommendations, however, good suggestions will be adopted by the good analysts.

If you decide you wish to tackle the last one, I will help in the design.

I don't mind being the teammate who encourages individuals to act in the best interests of the team. We have let ourselves settle into a comfortable operation. We need to stay dynamic and continually adjust to the ever-changing composition of the team. Forum use during the Yury game and the GMT game averaged between 2.5 and 3.5 posts per forum per day. >

Position: Temporary Forum Assistants (need 24)
Held by: <hms123>, <crawfb5>, <Hootey>, <truefriends>, <DaringSpeculator>, <kieranchez>, need 18 more>

We can not ignore the blatant failures and sweep them under the rug.

Deep breath's post on page 24 on here is more accurate now than ever.

I'll finish this post once I have had time to write it.

For starters...

<<temporary forum assistants: 24 needed> these people will help the forum hosts with their duties and includes the following tasks...>

and <the summarizing committee>

These were both bad ideas. Volunteers are not disposable. Volunteers should have meaningful positions, not "5th wheel" positions. Everyone needs to be important, and its awful to think that you give people jobs like <town crier: announces stuff on the main page>.

Too many great volunteers have quit because the organizational hierarchy is ineffecient, wasteful, and full of bloat.

Over the last few months, I have removed most of the useless junk off of the sticky that was attracting less than one post per month of use.

I feel kwid's frustration. The team has no leadership. This organizational structure is suited for a 600 person team and 3-day voting.

What works for a 600 person team and 3-day voting does not work for a 60 (active) person team and 2-day voting.

I'll share a few ideas, depending on which items of my criticism are shared by the whole team. If I'm the only one who thinks this way, then my apologies and I'll just sit happy with the fact that at least we have a data-tree which I always wanted.

So this cub believes in getting rid of bloat, and downsizing the bureacracy to serve our team's needs, not our team's "cool ideas".

I think we will do fine with only analysis forums in the sticky plus one "forum headquarters" which can contain the full massive list of everyone's pet forums.

Our team has lost focus on chess analysis. The forum systems is about chess analysis. When we will up the sticky with bloat, we give the wrong impression to people who click on the sticky.

Forum headquarters to be the top item of the sticky, and only 3-4 analysis forums on the sticky. Everything else moved to the forum header on "forum headquarters".

By the way, if anybody wants to see the "old sticky" with an extra 20 sections including all the dead forums (yes there were still lots of stuff in the sticky where the volunteer had quit but his pet forum still remained accessible).

We need to kick off the discussion by at least recognizing that over half of the ideas that we rolled into motion, have failed and/or the volunteer responsible for it has quit.

We can not allow ourselves to become wikipedia and try to grow and grow and grow and have Kutztown become like the Jimbo Wales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimbo_...

We need to stick to the core focus. We are a CC team, and our central drive needs to be chess analysis. If we value kwid or whatthefat as a 5th wheel, and just occasionally deviate from Rybka when necessary, then our team will slowly lose more and more of its best members.

We need to care about analysis as much as they do. CC is different than OTB and is different than wikipedia. We need to refocus on the most important concept. Analysis and lots of it.

< Deep Breath Aug-06-08: Our Sticky is bloated with outdated and obsolete links. Users should find quick and fresh links. (e.g. Click on Mr Spock's forum to see a message saying he's not doing anything in the forum for this game) Silly!

This appears disorganized, is dysfunctional and might prevent some useful members from volunteering. Let's clean it up.

I also think you might want to ask some of the veterans why they appear to be participating less. If you want to learn, you may have to ask direct questions and be ready to listen to some unpleasant answers. Maybe not. In any case, now would be a good time and we need those members of the team.

Of course, as discussed in previous games, our team is organic, changing constantly. We need our new members too.

I agree that summarizing is important. It's such a big job that you will have trouble finding anyone who wants to do it who will last very long. This requires an assigned group.

I think that d sounds interesting. The team is organic. Make the analysis forums organic. Appoint a "task force". Consider rotating the members of each task force at some point. Consider rotating the assigned forums among each task force member. (Don't do it every move necessarily but when a significant change in the assignment changes.)

As a forum host, I can say that it is fun ---sometimes. Sometimes I am quite busy and then the GM moves early which forces me to drop everything to do some analysis. It's great when teammates join in and help. It is dispiriting to see no one leaving any comment about analysis you (and. I hope, others) worked long and hard on. Also, it is VERY rude for someone to leave a big analysis in the main forum and not bother to post it in the assigned forum. Thankfully, some other team members have copied messages over --sometimes. The forum system seems to waning for some reason.

The constant drumbeat of assignments can wear anyone out.

Finally, there needs to be some policing of the main forum. There is too much junk there. If the signal to noise ratio gets too low nobody will read it. I know I often don't. Maybe someone should be assigned to point new comers or violators to the rules. Right now that eventually happens but maybe it could be better. An assigned social forum would be good too. (Maybe CG.com can give the team an extra forum or assign someone's forum?)

Don't get me wrong. if someone has contributed many useful messages of analysis, then a few fun messages is ok. But, members who provide no analysis just posting junk messages should not be.

RE: Karpova Voting

Maybe the votes should be in her forum and not the main forum? Maybe only her summaries should be posted?

What does everyone think?

Please post your ideas. > PLEASE! no more pet forums or pet ideas.

<<How has the forum host(ess) experience been during GMAN2?>

2009 let's bring back the fun and focus our game-plan around the analysts and the analysis

Also teammates: don't be afraid to speak up; and don't think i'm an admin or anything. Just a 24 something trying to give a thrust of encouragement to make sweeping changes and make the environment more facilitative and catering to people like kwid and whatthefat, so that they have a reason to stick around and teach the rest of us a thing or two about CC

All I have to give to the team is being the sick-call guy for the sticky. I hope whoever reads my posts knows that I have full respect for the amount of hard work that goes into these games. Dohtasmont and Kutztown are irreplaceable. It is <soooooo much tough work> and in these kinds of team decisions, there is no "right/wrong" way to do things. Only trial-and-error can guage how well an idea goes over.

Also, I think a smaller forum set will make the game more enjoyable. The main page is no longer swamped with as much off topic stuff as was the case in GMAN1 and GMT and GMYS. Its quite fostering to hold discussions on the busiest page of our game--the main page.

(the threat of Bxb5 Nxb5 was repeated in the forums constantly this game that somehow the GM was going to sacrafice a whole piece on a queenside pawn. not a kingside pawn or anything to worry about. but the threat was > then the actual execution of the threat. another example was we allowed his knight to sit on d4 for over 11 moves. where it constantly threatened Nxe6. again the threat > caused computers to panic and pick moves that did'nt forward our position.)

the format of the Kasparov vs World match back in 99... where they had 4 human commentarys on msn. I think was a more interesting for the casual voter to read and make a informed voting decision.

If we could somehow incoperate
4 human team captains

I think it would make the team stronger in the opening.stages of the game especially.

this way we're not so rybka dependent, or playing reactionary computer chess.

I feel in some ways Rybka has hindered the progress of chess in this last game.

we had a drop off in the active human ideas because of a voting block of a 100 rybkas. if you look at the moves in this last game.

how many of you would activate your king with Kg7 in a real game of chess vs a GM ? If you had no computer. and just looked at the board.

the GM just attacked our knight with his bishop. would you first reaction be to play Kg7 ?

<If we could somehow incoperate 4 human team captains > I could name whatthefat & kwid as definite candidates, that is if we can't afford to hire Irina Krush as our team coach.

I think there is a forum feeling that my move can't win. so they either back the winner.. or they are disinfranchised with the game.

If you go thru the moves that we played in the GMAN game.. without a computer.. how many of our moves would you agree with in a blitz match with a Grandmaster.

not trying to discredit rybka in anyway.. its a very smart chess computer program.

but the game is for the humans. not the computers to decide.

Can you beat a GrandMaster ?

that's what the sign outside says..
it does'nt say can Rybka at 28 ply equalize a position vs a GM with humans cherrypicking its moves.

Let's give the humans another shot at playing a nice game of chess.

nothing wrong with using computers.. but let's keep the WOPR.. at Norad.. and Keep the keys with the humans..

I feel safer that way..

< kwid: Re: Forums activity review.

This may be a good time to discuss the reasons for the apparent lack of interests in our forum system.

Could it be that Ryka's line postings at the main forum together with RV,s deep ply projections has reduced the need for other forums?

If I try to answer this question as unbiased as possible it is affirmative. This team has accepted Rybka's superiority over human calculations and for the time being with good reasons. Therefor RV,s forum serves as the foundation for all our queries and our individual lines derived from our ever faster engines are more or less always in agreement with RV's projections.

If this is true we are on auto pilot controlled by RYKA where the outcome of a game is already decided in the opening stage of the game.

Therefor it is safe to assume that any deviation from Rybka's suggested move will come from our most influential members capable of obtainig consensus for a majority vote.

For such a system it may well be best to discuss deviations in one forum only. Any presented suggestions have to rival Rybka's mainline and thus should be verified by all on the main forum otherwise it may get hidden in one of the dedicated forums and not visible until voting time with a possible adverse effect. >

Rybka 3 is stronger than the past versions and Rybka 4 will certainly be even stronger. We can't sit idly by and let our strongest silicon teammate become increasingly influential to the point where we have to devote a single forum to get permission from the silicon overmind to deviate from its evaluation of the position.