5A-2 Discussion items - Suspension of player Francesco Tarditi of France

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

I think most clear thinking voting members can agree that we cannot allow individuals who want to take pictures of young underage girls and women under the table at CFC tournaments to do that. If we become aware of that after the fact we need to make sure it cannot happen again. The charges are extraordinary and require a strong response. The circumstances as explained to me can only be described as criminal behaviour though he has fled the country in the middle of his school year and is unlikely to face a trial over this. He is not in Canada at the moment and is unlikely to return however he is somewhere and apparently he does not see his actions as being wrong and what happened when he was discovered as being an over reaction. This is just the second step in a process that must reach into FIDE and into online communities.

The board is entitled to take actions in the best interest of chess in Canada. This is our response to this strange situation. There is no exact bylaw that can apply to this. You have a board of directors to deal with situations when the rules are unclear. We have dealt with it and the circumstances. You can register your approval, disapproval or abstain from either in respect to the board actions.

You wrote while ago (like a month)

https://www.chesscanada.info/forum/s...lay-violations
Francesco Tarditi whose CFC ID is 177944 and FIDE ID is 373104530 is hereby suspended from participating as a player or spectator in Chess Federation of Canada sanctioned or rated Canadian chess tournaments indefinitely by a vote of the CFC board of directors. Mr. Tarditi was an FQE member. and we have informed the FQE of this case and we will inform FIDE as well. We received a disturbing report that this person has engaged in inappropriate behaviour and alleged criminal acts as a spectator at a CFC rated tournament in 2023 including the surreptitious inappropriate photography of young women without consent and with at least one girl being a minor. Inappropriate pictures were taken under a table without consent either with a camera or cell phone and were seen on his cell phone by an official of the Concordia University Chess Club. The police have been involved. Mr. Tarditi who was in Canada on a student visa has apparently left the country. If or when Mr. Tarditi presents himself inside Canada we will hold a hearing to review the evidence and hear from the witnesses to his actions. This suspension is in effect immediately. It can only be lifted by a future action of the board of directors or the voting members of the CFC.

Thus what the point of this motion? Any voting member tries to lift up the suspension?

Just for formality, the motion has no mover nor seconder.
Is it just a poll?

[Christopher Mallon]

Technical question, would it be possible to actually change his rating indicator to read BAN or something like that, so it's instantly obvious? Or will that break the pairings software? Might be worth an experiment. This isn't the first, nor will it be the last suspension the CFC has to issue. Thankfully it doesn't come up TOO often.

What is the actual motion we are voting on?

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Technical question, would it be possible to actually change his rating indicator to read BAN or something like that, so it's instantly obvious? Or will that break the pairings software? Might be worth an experiment. This isn't the first, nor will it be the last suspension the CFC has to issue. Thankfully it doesn't come up TOO often.

What is the actual motion we are voting on?

1. The CFC board of directors have suspended Francesco Tarditi of France for violations of safe play. Mr. Tarditi can request a hearing on the suspension if and when he returns to Canada and deals with the police investigation in a satisfactory manner.

With regard to the suspension of Francesco Tarditi of France:

Option A: I agree with the board decision in this matter
Option B: I disagree with the board decision in this matter
Option C: Abstain

There is no end date specified for the suspension. If we do not act on this we are complicit in allowing his behaviour to continue.

[Don Parakin]

Technical question, would it be possible to actually change his rating indicator to read BAN or something like that, so it's instantly obvious? ...

Technical answer: In the current 25+ year old rating system the rating indicator field is of type integer so cannot (easily) indicate that the member is banned (and I personally do not want to touch any of this old code). A quick & dirty option is to simply append the string "(BANNED)" to the member's last name. Bob G could do this in JustGo. The way things are currently built an extract from JustGo is done to update the ratings system (an MS-Access app), then the ratings are run, then another extract from the ratings system is done to update chess.ca and tdlist.txt. So, the updated last name would flow through to being public (without any code changes). "(BANNED)" would appear on his own ratings page as well as on the crosstables of every CFC tournament he played in.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Technical answer: In the current 25+ year old rating system the rating indicator field is of type integer so cannot (easily) indicate that the member is banned (and I personally do not want to touch any of this old code). A quick & dirty option is to simply append the string "(BANNED)" to the member's last name. Bob G could do this in JustGo. The way things are currently built an extract from JustGo is done to update the ratings system (an MS-Access app), then the ratings are run, then another extract from the ratings system is done to update chess.ca and tdlist.txt. So, the updated last name would flow through to being public (without any code changes). "(BANNED)" would appear on his own ratings page as well as on the crosstables of every CFC tournament he played in.

I thought something like that would be the best way forward until we have new systems in place.

[Aris Marghetis]

Technical answer: In the current 25+ year old rating system the rating indicator field is of type integer so cannot (easily) indicate that the member is banned (and I personally do not want to touch any of this old code). A quick & dirty option is to simply append the string "(BANNED)" to the member's last name. Bob G could do this in JustGo. The way things are currently built an extract from JustGo is done to update the ratings system (an MS-Access app), then the ratings are run, then another extract from the ratings system is done to update chess.ca and tdlist.txt. So, the updated last name would flow through to being public (without any code changes). "(BANNED)" would appear on his own ratings page as well as on the crosstables of every CFC tournament he played in.

Thanks to Chris and Don for these ideas. I also fully support anything that can help-protect Organizers-Arbiters and of course tournament participants. Thumb-up.