Life In 19x19

not everyone is delighted by the EGF's CEGO and after reading hints here and there i finally got hold of Catalin Taranu's open letter with his objections, that moved him to candidate for the EGF presidency.

i agree with his points on transparency and it is unfortunate that his letter remained (to my knowledge) pretty much obscure itself.

I had been baffled by the absence of an invitation to Ondrej Silt. Does anyone know why he was banned?

Edit: some details about the ban - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... FeCfGL-rFY

From that post quantumf linked to (for lazy people who don't want to click links):

Martin Stiassny wrote:Since November 2013 Ondrej Silt is a “persona non grata” in Korea, for KBA (Korean Baduk Association) and KABA (Korean Amateur Baduk Association), on all their activities in Korea connected with Go. The reason for this reaction of the Korean Go-organisations is Ondrej’s behaviour during his last participation in the Korean Prime Minister’s Cup in October 2013. This punishment starts at once, unlimited. [...]
Korean officials waited on an excusion-mail of Ondrej. [...]
In the meantime we got the official confirmation from Korea that they are still waiting on the apologizing letter from Ondrej. The reduction from lifetime to only two years was an option linked to this excusion. As Korea hasn’t got any e-mail or spoken apologizing from Ondrej the lifetime punishment is still valid.

So basically, a lot of go associations say Ondrej behaved inappropriately and in a punishable way, yet Ondrej himself didn't feel like he owed anyone an apology?
(This is a slight conjecture here based on him not apologizing by the time of the above post.)

Seems very problematic to speculate in this case with so little information available, yet I totally feel like speculating because of all the secrecy.

I heard it was something like he smashed up his (complimentary) hotel room (whilst drunk?).

Uberdude wrote:I heard it was something like he smashed up his (complimentary) hotel room (whilst drunk?).

And he seriously does not think this is something that he needs to apologize for? Better yet - pay for *and* apologize for?...

Remember this is just hearsay and there may have been more to the circumstances. I'm not saying this justifies smashing up your room, but there could have been mitigating factors, e.g. (pure speculation) someone cheated against him in the tournament and got away with it.

It sounds as if the EGF issued a second penalty. Supposing this is so, it raises two questions:

1) Should anybody ever be punished twice for the same action?

2) Has any EGF rule been violated, so that a penalty by the EGF can be justified?

***

Mariya is mentioned to belong to "European Professionals, certified (members) by (of) KBA". Who is Mariya?

Catalin mentioned transparency in his open letter.
Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't know what happened,
not being in Europe at all. What happened at "the hotel" ?

Uberdude wrote:Remember this is just hearsay and there may have been more to the circumstances. I'm not saying this justifies smashing up your room, but there could have been mitigating factors, e.g. (pure speculation) someone cheated against him in the tournament and got away with it.

I would not see that as "mitigating circumstances."

But point taken.
I am not speculating, just saying: if *this* was what happened, I am amazed that anybody would think apologies are not needed.
And even if there were "mitigating circumstances" - and I cannot really imagine what would mitigate a smashing of a complimentary hotel room - apologies are always a good form, especially towards future or potential sponsors and organizers. Otherwise, you are just burning bridges - which is pretty much what has happened - and you got what you signed up for.

RobertJasiek wrote:It sounds as if the EGF issued a second penalty. Supposing this is so, it raises two questions:

1) Should anybody ever be punished twice for the same action?

This is not double punishment. This is single punishment from both relevant organizations.

RobertJasiek wrote:2) Has any EGF rule been violated, so that a penalty by the EGF can be justified?

No clue what really happened, so no clue. But I guess there are many behaviors which do not really violate any federation rules and which still can be "punishable." Showing blatant disrespect, smashing hotel room, drunkenness in public, whatever.

I remember a few situations I witnessed which screamed for some kind of official punishment, even though I don't think any formal federation rules were violated. The most prominent was probably the Wimmer mess in Hamburg 1988 (and I seem to remember there was a punishment dished out, at least from the side of the hotel and possibly organizers.)

I guess it all hinges on what exactly happened.

PS>
And speaking of "transparency" I am not sure where it stands in this particular issue. On one hand, it would be nice to know what happened and what is he being punished for. On the other hand, whatever he did, dragging his name through mud by making it all public might not serve any valid purpose - he got punished, end of story. But then - maybe mud and public humiliation might deter others from such behavior in future. But then - this also touches on the trust people might have with the federation ruling body. DO you trust the punishment was just and appropriate, or do you suspect a big conspiracy and would rather have it all in the open?

All in all, interesting situation.
I would love to know more details, but its idle curiosity only, at least for the moment.

Ondrej Silt's punishment is probably the least interesting part of the letter. When the agenda for the EGF's AGM is published, along with the usual attached business items, we will know more about Catalin's ideas and motivation.

Personally, I do believe that communication is a problem in the EGF, as is participation. Specifically around CEGO, I think there is certainly less communication, clarity, and publicity than everyone would like. This open letter was already published openly on 2 national forums, but others complain they haven't heard of it. The flow of communication is systematically interrupted like this, and needs to be improved for the EGF to gain in stature. Maybe an election will change things for the better?

Javaness2 wrote:Ondrej Silt's punishment is probably the least interesting part of the letter.

Indeed, sorry for focusing on this. To be fair, smashing up a hotel room (or whatever it was) is a little more "juicy" than vague allegations of political or financial motivations of the CEGO sponsorship system. I don't really know how we can discuss this (beyond what has already been discussed) unless further information comes to light.

Javaness2 wrote:Personally, I do believe that communication is a problem in the EGF, as is participation. Specifically around CEGO, I think there is certainly less communication, clarity, and publicity than everyone would like. This open letter was already published openly on 2 national forums, but others complain they haven't heard of it. The flow of communication is systematically interrupted like this, and needs to be improved for the EGF to gain in stature. Maybe an election will change things for the better?

Does the EGF have a press officer?

Javaness2 wrote:Ondrej Silt's punishment is probably the least interesting part of the letter. When the agenda for the EGF's AGM is published, along with the usual attached business items, we will know more about Catalin's ideas and motivation.

Personally, I do believe that communication is a problem in the EGF, as is participation. Specifically around CEGO, I think there is certainly less communication, clarity, and publicity than everyone would like. This open letter was already published openly on 2 national forums, but others complain they haven't heard of it. The flow of communication is systematically interrupted like this, and needs to be improved for the EGF to gain in stature. Maybe an election will change things for the better?

Where did Catalin originally send this open letter? I kinda guessed it must have been on the egf-members mailing list (was that so?).

I agree that EGF has lack of communication in general. But Catalin's open letter is not a an EGF communication, is it? If I want to reach people I would post my message to multiple places, and encourage people to relay it. I would post it on the EGF forum at least. In that sense it is Catalin's failure to communicate rather than EGF's shortcoming. But maybe Catalin targets board members of European associations, and not the general European public, so he might have reached his audience.

Does everybody know there is a relatively new EGF forum? http://www.eurogofed.org/forum/index.php

It is probably unsurprising that we can read nothing about all this there.


Regards, Tom