Remember the big fuss brought up because someone asked a general question about a game in progress last week? The thread has since been deleted, but I sent feedback because there was a lot of disagreement as to whether or not it was acceptable to ask general questions about games in progress. The admin's reply is consistent with what I expected.
Here's the question:
Hello,
I'm hoping to clear up a controversy which has been discussed in great detail in the fora. Consider the following hypothetical situation:
A player opens a thread asking whether, with perfect play from both sides, it is possible to win a particular endgame. An arbitrary example would be whether or not it is possible to win an endgame where one side has a king and queen while the other has a king and knight. He also adds that he has a game in progress in which only those pieces are present on the board. He does not, however, ask about any particular postion, or the position in his game, but rather only about any ending with those pieces on the board.
Is it acceptable for another member to inform him that in general, such a position is won for the side with more material (in our arbitrary example, the king and queen,) or would such information constitute third party assistance?
Obviously, asking about the particular position in his game would be unacceptable, but I was under the impression that it was acceptable to ask general questions about general postions.
I would appreciate an answer, as variations of the aforementioned situation occur relatively frequently, and it would be nice to know whether it is OK to answer.
Thanks,
Savielly
...And the answer:
Dear Savielly,
Thank you for your recent feedback.
It is acceptable to ask general questions such as the one you mention as this information is easily obtain just from searching Wikipedia, for example.
If a position is posted as a reference point that is the same (or incredibly similar to) a position that is currently underway in one of the poster's active games then that is not acceptable.
Please let me know if I can help further,
Regards,
-Chris
I hope we can all resist the urge to attack posters who have done nothing wrong in the future. 😕
