28 February 2020

FIDE's Media and Fair Play Commissions 2019

Continuing with last week's post on FIDE Commissions 2020, there are three more commissions I want to follow up. All were identified in another recent post, Spectating the 90th FIDE Congress?, along with references to the previous post on each:-

  • 2019-01-10: FIDE's Journalist Commission 2018
  • 2019-01-17: FIDE's 'Anti-Cheating' / 'Fair Play' Commission 2018
  • 2019-01-24: FIDE's Ethics Commission 2018

Taking them in order, in FIDE's Journalist Commission 2018 (January 2019), I summarized,

The future of the CCJ [Commission of Chess Journalists] is not clear. [...] Later this year, when I report on the 90th Congress, perhaps there will be nothing to say on the topic.

And so it is -- the commission has disappeared into the sunset. It leaves a legacy with 09. Media Regulations (handbook.fide.com), which now might never be maintained. As for FIDE's 'Anti-Cheating' / 'Fair Play' Commission 2018 (January 2019), I noted in that post,

One of the most important FIDE commissions guiding chess in the 21st century is undoubtedly the group responsible for overseeing the increasing use of computers to cheat.

The 'Spectating' post mentioned 'Annex 5.9 Fair Play Commission report (FPL)'. The report's introduction says, 'Activities in which the Commission was engaged for 2019 including any major achievements'.

On top of being unsigned and undated, the report doesn't mention the name of its issuing commission. It doesn't even use the term 'Fair Play' anywhere in the document. It starts with a section headed 'The investigation of ongoing cases', then lists four cases without any further details (just 'confidential Excel file is attached'). The last section, titled 'Feedback on what can be done differently to improve the effectiveness of the commission in its service to FIDE', says,

The very urgent question on screening tool is not yet solved yet. Financial and organisational question with prof. Kenneth Reagan [sic: 'Regan'] are not settled yet. So de facto the statistical analysis as such is not yet considered as reliable proof and thus more evidence are needed, for example, confession (as in Rausis case). Such a situation puts the work of the whole Commission on the edge.

I'll interpret that last phrase as 'on the edge' of the cliff. It looks like we can't expect much from this commission in the future. Good thing they didn't waste resources creating a web site.

I'll leave the Ethics Commission for another post.

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