Active Board Governors - This Past Week ( Sept. 2 - 9 )

[Bob Armstrong]

There are many ways for governors to be " active ". One key way is to visit the CFC Discussion Forums on a regular basis ( Governors' Discussion Board; members' CFC Chess Chat Forum ). This shows that they are interested in current issues raised by executive, other governors and by members, and posting indicates their willingness to dialogue on these issues.

Here are the governors who have visited the Boards in the past week ( Sept. 2 - 9 ), and many of them, from my observations, seem to have visited multiple times during the week ( though our stats calculators do not capture this information - only their " most recent visit " ):

Executive:

Bob Gillanders - President/Ont.
Mark Dutton - Vice-President/ BC
Fred McKim - Treasurer/PEI
Michael Barron - Youth Coordinator/Ont./GTCL

Non-Officer Governors:

Bob Armstrong - Ont./GTCL
Ilia Bluvshtein - Ont/GTCL
Chris Field - Ont./GTCL
Nikolay Noritsyn - Ont./GTCL
Vladimir Birarov - Ont./GTCL
Egis Zeromskis - Ont./GTCL
Aris Marghetis - Ont./EOCA
Gordon Ritchie - Ont./EOCA
Garland Best - Ont./EOCA
Ellen Nadeau - Ont./NOCL
Michael von Keitz - Ont./SWOCL/OCA President
Simon Ong - Alta
Vlad Rekhson - Alta.
Ken Craft - New Brunswick
Ken Einarsson - Manitoba
Paul Leblanc - BC
David Lavin - Past President/Ont.
Chris Mallon - Past President/Ont.
Phil Haley - Life Governor/Ont.
Halldor Palsson - Life Governor/Ont.
Valer Eugen Damien - Can. Correspondence Chess Assoc./BC

This is a total of 25 governors ( 17 from Ontario ) out of 59 ( or over 42% ) who have monitored at least one board once during the week. This is a modest increase from the past, and tends to show that governors are slightly more active in this regard than in the past year, when attendance was more around the 33% mark over the course of a week. This is a good sign of CFC health ( though it would be nice if we could get the governors to come at the 50% level in the near future ).

I have had the odd governor ( a very small minority ) complain to me about the taking of " attendance " in this fashion. I disagree. The Governors/members should know who the active governors are, and this is one component of measurement. This is especially needed, since the last proposal for a governors' " activity rule " got voted down at the Toronto July AGM, so we have no formal monitoring mechanism.

I e-mail this post to all governors, so those who do not make use of the Boards on a regular weekly basis, may be encouraged to do so.

Bob

P.S. Some editing corrections were made at 11:28 AM Today.

[Gordon Ritchie]

Without intending to do so, I ran a bit of an experiment recently, posting identical notices on ChessTalk and the CFC general discussion board about the upcoming visits of Nigel Short and Alexei Shirov to Ottawa. On the CFC board, the notice was viewed 61 times. On ChessTalk, 802.

[Kerry Liles]

Without intending to do so, I ran a bit of an experiment recently, posting identical notices on ChessTalk and the CFC general discussion board about the upcoming visits of Nigel Short and Alexei Shirov to Ottawa. On the CFC board, the notice was viewed 61 times. On ChessTalk, 802.

No doubt, but if you had mentioned in the Title that Short and Shirov were also going to debate Global Warming issues, there would have been 1000 more views on Chesstalk...

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Bob, you should take more care producing the list and making conclusions. You have omitted at least two persons. ;)

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Egis:

I assume you mean you and Chris - yes, I sometimes forget because neither of you, as Board Administrators, show up on the " Members' List " feature.

I'll edit the correction into my post.

Bob

[Fred McKim]

Without intending to do so, I ran a bit of an experiment recently, posting identical notices on ChessTalk and the CFC general discussion board about the upcoming visits of Nigel Short and Alexei Shirov to Ottawa. On the CFC board, the notice was viewed 61 times. On ChessTalk, 802.

Gordon: To a certain extent you are comparing apples and oranges.

As of lunch time today (Thursday) your post here at the CFC site has been up for 5 days and was viewed 62 times.

At Chesstalk your post has been up 10 days and had 8 fairly randomly placed replies. There were 831 views, but how many people came back and re-viewed to see the replies.

So my argument is that the volume is not 13 to 1, but perhaps more like 4 or 5 to 1, which seems to be a more accurate figure (if you measure the number of members who visit each site daily).

That's my two cents worth in support of the CFC Discussion board :D

[Ken Craft]

Bob: Are we going to be treated to weekly versions of this theme?
Fred: Gordon is correct on this one.

[Kerry Liles]

Bob: Are we going to be treated to weekly versions of this theme?
Fred: Gordon is correct on this one.

Are you asking Bob that because you find the information valuable, or are you implying that it should NOT be posted? That is not quite clear (to me).

I am guessing that Fred might enjoy the explanation why Gordon is correct... the number of views doesn't differentiate between viewers or re-viewers as far as I know, so Fred might have a valid point...

[Fred McKim]

Fred: Gordon is correct on this one.

I often check the number of daily viewers at the CFC Discussion Board and ChessTalk. I haven't checked this out for a couple of weeks, but as of 2:03pm Atlantic time today (Thursday), there were 26 visitors here and 68 at ChessTalk. Typically the ratios were more like 4-1 (in ChessTalk's favour).

We've had a lot of good content here recently like the Barcelona and Nuremberg tournament commentaries. I'm sure the CFC Website RFP proposal and replies will top 1000 views.

Of course any disagreements between governors can't hurt traffic either ;)

[Ken Craft]

Kerry: I don't see the point of Bob giving weekly updates on Governor activity.
Gordon is correct in that Chesstalk is more popular than the CFC forums. i have not hidden my believe that the CFC public forums are unnneccesary.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

i have not hidden my believe that the CFC public forums are unnneccesary.

Ken, where could I post a message saying the one of the bookstores in Toronto has Fischer's 60 games for 10$? (at that moment there were 4 pcs., the newest edition. There were more chess discounted books as well) Larry probably will ban me forever :D Here, Chris might be more tolerant, but who knows :D

[Kerry Liles]

Kerry: I don't see the point of Bob giving weekly updates on Governor activity.
Gordon is correct in that Chesstalk is more popular than the CFC forums. i have not hidden my believe that the CFC public forums are unnneccesary.

Thanks for the clarifications Ken.

Since I am no longer a governor, I am afraid I do not care whether he posts the info or not, but I can see some Governors may feel slighted by the posts where their name is conspicuously absent - especially since it is a binary score without regard to any other circumstances that may have led to the absence (vacation, illness, business commitments, family emergency etc)

I am not sure posting the information will really encourage any more participation... I guess we will see.

I too wonder about the value of the CFC board (and sometimes I wonder about the value of CT -but for different reasons: trolls, off-topic, ad hominem attacks etc)

Perhaps the two boards need to exist for yin/yang balance... but that is inconvenient at times.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Ken:

I have no intention of weekly updates. But from time to time I think they serve a purpose of highlighting some of the more active governors ( in this one way ) and giving them a bit of credit for it.

And although I know you are not particularly favourable to the CFC members' Chess Chat Forum, a core group of governors and members do now use it, on CFC issues in particular. And I think it is legitimate to ask governors to come regularly to see what issues are being raised by other governors and members. We are not in a popularity race with the CMA board. Our board is being adequately used for our purposes, and the fact that it is not as used as ChessTalk, is not an argument that governors need not come here.

Bob

[Ken Craft]

There is a thin line between encouraging Governors and bullying Governors.
In essence, you are subtling pressure Governors to line up behind your point of view that the CFC public forums are necessary. I certainly do not want my visiting of this site to be seen as endorsing that position. As well, visiting the site should in no way be equated with being an active Governor.