[jonottawa]

We could post it here, but I think there would be a bunch of disruptive posts, which would lessen its effectiveness (I don't know if deliberately sabotaging a petition thread would violate Uday's edict or not, would it?)

Ideally each comment would just say

Joe Blow ACBL# Atlanta, GA

or whatever... and each person would post only once (if at all.)

I could host it on my blog (and delete disruptive comments) but that wouldn't be my preference.

I don't know where Justin is on this, maybe he could revive his blog for a day for this.

[jdonn]

Definitely not in a blog, just somewhere 'out there' on the internet, where it is no more confrontational than need be. I have seen those things a number of times, but I have no idea how to make it (such that people can sign, and then see the signatures of others, but not remove signatures or alter things).

[geller]

I have a different proposal:
(1) The USBF BOD and VCW each pick one person who is fully authorized to represent them.
(2) These people meet face to face without any lawyers (or other people) present.
(3) The representatives of the two sides agree not to leave the meeting room until a deal has been reached.

[jonottawa]

Ya, I guess one problem with having it here is that there are surely some people here who prefer to remain anonymous (to keep their real life identity private,) even though they would be happy to sign a petition. I can always stick something up on my blog for those people if we don't figure out a better alternative.

Anyway, if you want to start a petition thread Josh, be my guest. It'll probably get more signatures if you host it. Otherwise I'll wait a few hours (midnight my time, which is in 6 hours) to see if Fred is willing to sign on or what changes he would propose and then post one.

I don't think it should have a poll. It should just have the wording of the petition, instructions, and a polite request for no disruption.

[mike777]

geller, on Nov 17 2007, 07:04 PM, said:

I have a different proposal:
(1) The USBF BOD and VCW each pick one person who is fully authorized to represent them.
(2) These people meet face to face without any lawyers (or other people) present.
(3) The representatives of the two sides agree not to leave the meeting room until a deal has been reached.

You do know that most of the people involved are lawyers, in real life. Do you really expect them to just turn off.

[fred]

Much better - I am sure more people would sign Josh's petition than a copy of Hrothgar's letter as (which should be expected since Josh was actually trying to write a petition as opposed to a letter). But there is still a big problem for me (which I have said over and over again):

None of us knows enough about the facts to pass judgment on the post-Shanghai actions of either the Venice Cup Team or the USBF.

Of course I agree with Josh that the punishment should fit the crime, but there is more to it than that for me. For example, the Venice Cup Team scored some points with me by (from what I have heard) sending an unsolicited letter of apology shortly after they got home from Shanghai. But the lost some points with me by (from what I have heard) getting some high profile lawyer to write a threatening letter to the USBF. To me that constitutes a declaration of war after which I could understand the USBF taking whatever action they thought was necessary to defend themselves. But maybe the war declaration was taken in response to some other equally provocative action that the USBF took first which has not made it to the rumor mill yet.

Meanwhile the USBF scored some points with me for (from what I heard) the way they handled the early part of what happened, but they lost some points with me for (from what I heard) the calls-for-blood that some of their officials are supposedly seeking regardless of the level of remorse shown by the Venice Cup Team.

I have actually communicated with people on both the Venice Cup Team and the USBF Boards (neither side is particularly fond of me these days). I have heard both sides of the story, but I still don't claim to know enough to pass judgment concerning the seriousness of the "crime" let alone what an appropriate "punishment" (if any) there should be.

Finally I believe it is still the case (as Jan Martel pointed out several days ago) that no actual punishment has been made yet. I am not sure why the long list of possible punishments was made in the first place or how it was leaked to the public, but it is entirely possible that none of these things will come to pass after the official hearing in San Francisco.

I would just as soon not get involved in any more critiques of other draft petitions. If such a petition goes beyond the draft stage and if I agree with the wording then of course I will sign it, but whether or not people decide to circulate a petition should not depend on whether or not they expect me (or anyone else) to sign it.

Both the Venice Cup Team and the USBF already know me and they already know what I think. If you feel like you want to introduce yourselves to them and tell them what you think, by all means do so, but it shouldn't matter if I happen to agree with you or not.

If this petition will ever exist it is going to be yours (collectively) not mine.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jonottawa]

fred, on Nov 17 2007, 10:33 PM, said:

I thought Hrothgar's letter was quite good in several respects, but I would not personally sign a petition that was based on his letter without some very serious editing. I doubt Hrothgar himself would be willing to sign the petition after I was done with my edits.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Okay Fred, I thought you indicated a theoretical willingness to sign a petition here but I guess I misunderstood you.

Josh, if you want to go ahead and start a thread that's fine. You probably should credit Hrothgar too.

Otherwise I'll pull the trigger in 5 or 6 hours.

[Fluffy]

mike777, on Nov 16 2007, 09:48 PM, said:

Again it would help if you specify exactly how the USBF is handling it. Thank you.
It makes it easier to decide to be for or against it then.

After reading a lot, this is te only thing that makes sense to me on this post.

[jtfanclub]

jdonn, on Nov 17 2007, 05:58 PM, said:

We, the undersigned, are writing this petition to respectably request that the USBF ceases its attempts to punish members of the Venice Cup team.

I'm not even sure that's *possible*.

It may be that if the USBF did not discipline the Venice Cup team that the WBF would displine either the team or the USBF.

Or it may not be. It's tough to tell.

You're a member of the USBF, right, jdonn? Wanna run for the Board of Directors? I'll bet you win....

[mrdct]

jonottawa, on Nov 17 2007, 06:39 PM, said:

Should it be open to everyone or just ACBL members?

Nothing to do with me, but surely the only people that the USBF should be listening to are their active membership. If you want to influence what they are doing, become a paid-up active paid-up member.

[jdonn]

I don't think the forums are a good place to actually start it, it should be out on the internet. The forums have (relatively speaking) a very small membership. There are thousands of ACBL members who aren't even BBO members that should have access. I think word of mouth would really get it out.

Fred is right that it wouldn't really have a point unless we were sure we knew the facts. But I (and probably some or many others of us) know a lot more than is being posted here that I'm just avoiding talking about. Anyway the letter sent from Falk definitely occured, so even if the USBF hasn't technically levied a punishment yet, that would only be because their "offer" for a "less harsh" punishment was not accepted.

[jonottawa]

Alright, I'm registering on ipetitions.com (who knew there was such a thing?) and I'll keep you posted.

Do you agree with the wording change I proposed or do you like what you'd already written? Once we post the petition, I'd rather not change the wording, even a little (duh.)

Nobody knows all the facts. Sometimes you have to act on imperfect information. I believe I know enough of the facts to proceed. You can't stay in the tank forever.

[jdonn]

Make whatever change you feel appropriate, I think changing "taken" near the end to "considered" is probably wise.

[mrdct]

jonottawa, on Nov 17 2007, 10:27 PM, said:

Alright, I'm registering on ipetitions.com (who knew there was such a thing?) and I'll keep you posted.

I just gave ipetitions.com a test drive signing some women's petition to have her dog released from the pound. The worrying thing is that after you "sign" the petition it takes you to a page where you indicate how much money you want to donate to ipetitions.com (options ranging from US$2 to US$100) and if you don't tick one of the options (of which zero isn't one) it then takes you straight to your paypal acccount (which most people who have bought anything on Ebay would have) with a US$10 donation all set up for you to enter your password. Time will only tell if they are going to use my email address to spam me.

btw, it looks like someone has beaten you to it as there is a "We Didn't Vote for Bush" petition already up on the site that was created on 14 Nov:

http://www.ipetition...NotVoteforBush/

[jonottawa]

The donation thing is cheesy, but it doesn't stop you from signing. By the time you get to the donation screen you've already signed.

It's not ideal, but I think it's better than hosting it here.

As for the email spam problem, most people have an email address they use in situations like this (for me it's my hotmail account, which is loaded with spam and I use almost exclusively when I need to provide an email address to sign up for something.) I have no idea if these people will send spam or not. Emails are not publicly displayed, however, if that's a concern.

[cherdano]

mrdct, on Nov 17 2007, 09:59 PM, said:

btw, it looks like someone has beaten you to it as there is a "We Didn't Vote for Bush" petition already up on the site that was created on 14 Nov:

http://www.ipetition...NotVoteforBush/

That's a very good example for a horrible and counter-productive petition.

[jonottawa]

Alright, it's up and running. Let me know if anyone has any problems.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/USBFVen...Team/index.html

I regret the inconvenient screen begging for money, but just click on back or close the window because by the time you get to that screen you've already signed the petition.

Any English majors here? Is 'ceases' right or is 'cease' right.

Cease sounds better, but ceases seems like it's right.

"We, the undersigned, are writing this petition to respectably request that the USBF ceases its attempts to punish members of the USA1 Venice Cup team."

[han]

OK, signed it.

[jonottawa]

Thanks Han, it was getting pretty lonely there.