ReneDescartes wrote on 01/17/21 at 00:05:59:
Finally, though hope to support my position vigorously with reasoning and examples, sometimes including your own words, none of my language is ever meant to make light of either you or the importance of a just result--in this or in anything else.
Thank you. I respect your views at all times. It's the internet, misunderstandings happen. I take things the wrong way at least as often as anybody else does. I went for a long walk afterwards, probably it would have been better to do that before my post.
ReneDescartes wrote on 01/17/21 at 00:05:59:
an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 01/12/21 at 21:02:21:
In cases of independent writing the words themselves are the only possible evidence. As a matter of course the words themselves would be considered decisive.
I didn't labor the point before, but that you somehow thought matching passages should be the only possible evidence of plagiarism illustrates my point.
By "independent writing" I meant a book or article outside of the classroom setting, as opposed to an assigned essay or test for a course (which would be "dependent"). It was clear in my own head but not as written here. Sorry about that.
ReneDescartes wrote on 01/17/21 at 00:05:59:
When I said "it's not a murder case," I meant not that justice is in any way unimportant here, but only that where the nature of the crime is different--here it is in the creation of abstract patterns (my very next sentence)--the type of evidence required may be different as well. My purpose was to reinforce the analogy to plagiarism, where we do allow ex post facto pattern-matching evidence (for that is what parallel passages are) to carry the day uncorroborated if the pattern match is extremely unlikely to have occurred by chance.
And I thought I answered this. In my view the analogy is different enough that accepting
ex post facto matching as decisive in one case does not imply accepting it in the other case.
In terms of injustice, I don't think someone being convicted when they didn't actually do the deed is
necessarily unjust, although in the cases that come to light it almost always is. But it might just be extremely bad luck. To demonstrate injustice, we would need to find something like:
- the law was not enforced equally;
- evidence was fabricated or ignored;
- due process was violated;
- the law as written was stacked against them.
On the flip side, I think it's possible for a person to be convicted and
they actually did it, and yet it was still unjust for one of the reasons above. It's just a lot harder to get upset about a case like that. (Off topic: This I think is a poison in the USA criminal justice system, i.e. well they're a criminal, even if maybe they should be acquitted in this case, probably they should be convicted of something else, so
bends law here.)
I think FIDE is going to take the position it's not a criminal case at all, but is governed by contract law instead. Whether such a contract is binding is a thorny issue and probably differs by jurisdiction. Similarly the online sites cite the Terms and Conditions, saying "you did not adhere to our fair play guidelines" or similar language. They are very careful about that! Most players are going to gloss over these paragraphs, thinking "I'm not a cheater, I don't need to pay attention to that part". And if someone is sanctioned per the contract, most outside observers are going to make the substitution:
"broke the fair play guidelines" ==> "convicted of cheating".