FIBS Board backgammon forum

Back on this board since ages, I was amazed at looking back to the traces of the endless discussions about the Italians-play-each-other system ban.
No, no, don't be afraid: I'm not going to raise the specific issue again...

I just want to start from that issue to make a point about the subject's implications, which appear to be enormous. Let me start with some facts: this below is the list of the most discussed subjects of all times in this FibsBoard's section, the ones referring to the Italian-ban marked with >> :

   - Merry Christmas   (10219 total readers, last comment posted in December, 2004)
   - Community or snakepit? (8783, August 2005)
   - Match Triple_X vs deuce  (6015, September 2004)   
   - Mini-Matches, To be or not to be? (4560, October 2005)
   - I'm triple_X and this is my life  (3591, September 2004)
   - Fibsboard  (2974, February 2007)
   >> FIBS Free Italian players campaign (2874   October, 2007)
   >> stupid FIBS rule  (2716, April 2005)
   >> What's happened on Fibs?  (2605, February 2005)
   >> Preventing Italians to play each other  (2604, December 2006)

It jumps out that among the 10 more discussed and viewed topics of all times 4 refer to the Italian-ban issue. On a deeper analysis, it's worth considering that the first discussion was merely a "Merry Christmas" greetings' exchange (so, the high score in views doesn't really account for the subject's importance), and that the last of the Italian-Ban related discussions was the only to be commented up to just a couple of months ago (the others being closed after a short while, years before).

Adding up the views' count, we find out that the total for the 4 Italian-Ban discussions is 10799, out of a grand total of 46941 (36722 if we exclude the 2004 Xmas greetings): that makes it a 23% (or, 29%) relative relevance score!

These figures are impressive. Consider, in addition to that, that the ban is probably the only single reason that has driven away from FIBS a consistent number of players, and certainly the only one that has gained visibility and interest among such a vast number of persons who, after all, are not even directly affected. In fact, we Italians occasionally or regularly visiting FIBS are very few, not more than a few dozens (as you may know, BackGammon is not so popular in Italy as it is in anglo-saxon and eastern societies). Instead, many of the most courageus advocates of the ban's removal are non-Italians who, strictly speaking, are not suffering any slightest limitation in enjoying Fibs.

So, why is this issue so **** important?

My opinion is that the ban, in its very nature, touches one of the deepest nerves of what free, open communities (and the internet more in general) are about. Let any question about its necessity, justification or effectiveness, the ban is basically a generalized discrimination act. In a way, it's like a bartender saying "This pub was created to be open to everybody. But, somebody wearing sneakers has repeatedly left muddy footprints in my lounge: since I can't identify the guy, we won't serve anybody with sneakers. We know that you wearing snekers have no ties to the guy, nor you can do anything about that, but this is the only solution I could find. Sorry" (I regret to remark that the "sorry" part is something I didn't see much paralleled in our Fibs' story).

The fact a community's rules and administration are by definition arbitrary and discreptional (something that has been proposed by many as an explanation or even as a justification for the ban) is immaterial: it's obvious that none can claim to be "entitled" to have access to Fibs on any basis. But it's also obvious that the evidence that a discreptional, arbitrary process that entitles different participation rights to some or some others for reasons independent from their own behaviour is EXACTLY the issue that deserves attention. Therefore, saying that "the ban is justified becouse Fibs is something Patti governs" is only a different way to reformulate the same issue with different words, and doesn't explain anything.

I am perfectly aware of the many reasons Patti has given for her decisions. They have been well and extensively explained. I don't know much about managing a service on the internet, so I can't say if the ban is the only effective method to contrast the problems some folks may have caused. I am surprised that the Fibs' limit on Italian IPs is the only measure of this kind that I ever got to know about (and I guess that similar problems must affect other services similar to Fibs). But, since Patti is not Microsoft or Google Inc., we assume that she does her job generously and with limited resources, basically on a volunteer basis. I can therefore understand that she hasn't found other feasible, less discriminating ways to overcome these problems, and sure I'm not going to blame her for that. I thus take it for given (take, not accept or endorse) we'll have to cope with the ban for a long, long time.

And this, dear friends, is the very fundamental point: a thing like Fibs, created and maintained on a free and non-profit basis, is sadly fragile and weak. Once it has been threatened by a jerk, it couldn't avoid to revert to choices and actions that appear to be incoherent with it's own founding principles. Sad, but true.
I guess that I myself could do nothing but closing a forum on the web, if I realized that I am helplessly unable to cope with an idiot hacker flooding it with unacceptable contents.

I'll still play on Fibs, as I did for almost 7 years now. To some extent, I'm happy that the attacks that Patti contrasts with the ban came from Italy: at least the ban is affecting a minor part of the total community, and we Italians are so few that playing only with others is only a relative limitation. I fear that if a similar proble arose from German or British IPs, a contrast action like the one imposed on Italians might result in mining the very existence of Fibs. So, let's hope that the jerk does not move to the US!

Thanks, once again, for your attention. I'll be glad to consider your opinions. I wish that some geek better involved with TCP-IP things could help Patti to find a better aimed, effective measure against threats originating from Italian IPs. When that will happen, I promise I'll call all the Italian friends I know to come back to Fibs.

Bye folks,
MagoWiz

Quote from: MagoWiz on December 11, 2007, 03:30:27 PM
Back on this board since ages, I was amazed at looking back to the traces of the endless discussions about the Italians-play-each-other system ban.
No, no, don't be afraid: I'm not going to raise the specific issue again...

I just want to start from that issue to make a point about the subject's implications, which appear to be enormous. Let me start with some facts: this below is the list of the most discussed subjects of all times in this FibsBoard's section, the ones referring to the Italian-ban marked with >> :

   - Merry Christmas   (10219 total readers, last comment posted in December, 2004)
   
Ummmm..... there are only 3633 FIBSboard members.  That post was read 341 times.  Not quite sure where you came up with 10219 total readers.

Quote from: maria on December 11, 2007, 05:04:00 PM

   - Merry Christmas   (10219 total readers, last comment posted in December, 2004)
   
Ummmm..... there are only 3633 FIBSboard members.  That post was read 341 times.  Not quite sure where you came up with 10219 total readers.

Just open the forum's section's discussions listing, then click twice on the "views" column header to sort by that field in descending order and tah-dahh.. there are the top scoring topics and their figures. It's the forum's software that counts individual views and those are the results it yields, referred to all posts in the discussion (not only to the first one).


Thanks for examining the issue!

Quote from: MagoWiz on December 11, 2007, 03:30:27 PM
Let me start with some facts: this below is the list of the most discussed subjects of all times in this FibsBoard's section, the ones referring to the Italian-ban marked with >> :

   - Merry Christmas   (10219 total readers, last comment posted in December, 2004)
   - Community or snakepit? (8783, August 2005)
   - Match Triple_X vs deuce  (6015, September 2004)   
   - Mini-Matches, To be or not to be? (4560, October 2005)
   - I'm triple_X and this is my life  (3591, September 2004)
   - Fibsboard  (2974, February 2007)
   >> FIBS Free Italian players campaign (2874   October, 2007)
   >> stupid FIBS rule  (2716, April 2005)
   >> What's happened on Fibs?  (2605, February 2005)
   >> Preventing Italians to play each other  (2604, December 2006)

You list is very incomplete:

FIBS Party 2007: read 5029 times
European FIBS Party 2006: read 6337 times
FIBS Party Deutschland 2005: read 7337 times

You better update your statistics before you make any conclusions 

Hardy 

Ok, let me write that again...
  "this below is the list of the most discussed subjects of all times in this FibsBoard's section"
My english may be poor, but I guess that the above suggests quite clearly that: 1) I refer to the FibsBoard and 2)specifically to THIS section, aka "GeneralChitChat".... If you will be so kind to try, you'll see that the listing I propose is cut-and-pasted from FibsBoard, with just the lines data shortened to remove immaterial information.
I hope that's enough for the statistics, which weren't really the key point that I meant to raise... ;-)

Maybe it's not so bad to spank the whole class for the indiscretions of a lone perpetrator. Even judges do it sometimes.. 

Judge Removed Over Cell Phone Jailing
Nov 27, 2007

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) ââ,¬â€ A sign in Niagara Falls' city court warns that cell phones and pagers must be turned off. Folks there believe it. On Tuesday, a judge was bounced from the bench for jailing 46 people after none would own up to a cell phone that began ringing during his court session.

Judge Robert Restaino "snapped" and "engaged in what can only be described as two hours of inexplicable madness" during the March 2005 session, Raoul Felder, chairman of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, wrote in the decision to remove the judge.

Restaino, who became a full-time judge in 2002 after serving part-time since 1996, was hearing domestic violence cases when a phone rang.

"Everyone is going to jail," the judge said. "Every single person is gong to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now. If anybody believes I'm kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going."

When no one came forward, the judge ordered the group into custody and they were taken by police to the city jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells. Fourteen people who could not post bail were shackled and bused to the Niagara County Jail in Lockport, a 30-minute drive away.

Later in the afternoon, after being told reporters were calling, the judge ordered the defendants released.

The judge told the state panel he was under stress in his personal life.

I wish the whole internet would stop and help me with my issues.
That's why I paid the big bucks for this computer afterall!!
Hey, is this mic on?