lamford, on 2013-October-25, 06:31, said:
IAnd I had no answer to my more serious claim that this thread should not have continued if the case was referred to the L&E. Trial by media is to be avoided. It seems now that arguing with a moderator is as well, although I can find no such prohibition in the rules; no doubt blackshoe will paste a link to it.
It seemed to me that some people had assumed, from Robin's statement that he couldn't comment on the actual case (which was not, as far as I can tell, referenced in the OP) , that it had been referred to the L&E. I admit I went along with the assumption, but I don't know if that's actually the case or not.
There is no formal rule against arguing with moderators, at least not in this forum. It does seem to me to be common sense, though. Much like the idea that one shouldn't argue with the director at one's table - although that
is a formal rule. Note that I'm not saying you can't express disagreement with a moderator's position, but perhaps a better way to do that is to start a new and general thread.
We try generally to err on the side of caution in moderating these forums. We don't want to stifle discussion of the bridge-legal or bridge-playing merits of cases, but we don't want to embarrass players, either, nor do we want to allow discussion of cases which are are still pending in some sense (appeals, L&E hearings, whatever) since that may prejudice the proceedings, particularly when posters and readers here are likely to be involved in some capacity. This is less a problem in the ACBL, given our geographic spread and size, but the EBU tournament community strikes me as relatively small, and with the advent of online posting of results it's just that much easier to identify who the players were in particular cases. I don't think a link to a hand record should be a problem, but we should not be discussing what Joe Blow did, or that a ruling was against (or for) him. From the perspective of this forum, whose purpose is to discuss the practical and legal aspects of table rulings and appeals, pinpointing whodunit is really not relevant. As has been said, of course, if someone wants to identify
himself as the perpetrator, that's fine, but otherwise no mention of names or direct pointing out that someone can be identified should be made. IOW if someone goes to a linked hand record, and from that identifies that Joe Blow was the "guilty" party, there's not much we can do about that, but don't bring attention to it here.
Part of the problem here is that the thread started out, I think, as a hypothetical discussion, albeit one based on an actual case. Then someone pinpointed the likely actual case, someone else recused himself from discussion of it, and here we are. If folks want to continue discussing the original scenario, I have no problem with that, but I think we'd best leave the actual Autumn Congress case be now that the cat is out of the bag, at least until we find out whether there is action pending on it.