BREAKING NEWS

Ehab is out of the CBC

Read all about it:

http://forums.chatterboxchallenge.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=379&p=1061#p1061

An 8pla.net exclusive report

One focus of the probe, according to a source close to the Investigation: Alice CBC Disqualification told 8pla.net exclusively that Ehab is out, placed on administrative leave, and will not be involved in the 2011 CBC.

Here’s the announcement of Ehab:

http://forums.chatterboxchallenge.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=398

And interesting public fight between Wendell Cowart, the founder of the CBC and Ehab who has been running the CBC for three year.

What’s the future of CBC? Will it be replaced? Who will host the CBC after 2010?

And what’s the future of the Turing Test? Why don’t we have contests that are growing every year: more particpants, better quality and higher prices? Will the alternatives take their role?

In my opinion, I think the CBC has a bright future.
Although not a Turing Test, it does serve an important
purpose in the Chatbot community.  Namely, it supports
Message Mode over the web, which may be considered
an alternative to Turing’s ideal Character Mode.

@ 8-man: Last year David Levy speeched during the Loebner Prize. He talked about contests in his ‘other’ area: the world of computer chess. These contest attracted many participants who returned each and every year improving their chatbots.

I haven’t been around that long, but I’ve the impression that there is only a small and consistent group of people and it is not really growing. Do you agree on this? And if so: do you have a explanation as well?

@Erwin: 

We are at the dawn of a new chatbot era in Web 3.0…
Now that the chatbot era in Web 2.0 is ending.

( I think you are very fortunate to have started chatbots.org during this exciting time. )

8pla.net EXCLUSIVE Interview:

We have a few interview questions for Ehab we hope he will kindly answer:

1. What do you want members to remember about Administrator Ehab?
 
2. Do you think it was fair to fire you without letting you resign?
 
3. Where the circumstances surrounding your termination,
related to the now infamous Mitsuku’s accuser?
 
4. Was Mitsuku’s accuser another CBC contestant?
 
5. Will you really stop webhosting the CBC forum ?
 
6. What can we expect to see from Ehab in the future?
Thank you former CBC Adminitrator Ehab for joining us on 8pla.net News.
 
 
 
 
Ehab, our guest of honour, graciously responds in our interview:

Regarding your questions:

1. I want members to remember my work and my effort in improving this

contest in 1 year only since 2009. The contest originally started in

2001 by Wendell and the contest didn’t get technical improvements until

2008 since I took the ownership.
 
2. Of course, that’s not fair. Take me out of the equation, it’s

logically the organizer should have been notified that Wendell is

willing to take control because of failure in judging the contest

according to his outdated rules. In fact, if he just asked me politely

and showed his points, I’d be very happy to leave the contest for him

and that for the following reason:
 
   a. I wasn’t asking to manage the contest in the first place! I asked only for technical development.
 
   b.  Judging is a real pain, consumes a lot of time and effort. When

some bots is malfuntion, when some Judges own Macs and there is desktop

chatbots work on Windows platform only, when you set the questions and

rules to manage the round, when you collect scores, when you log chat

scripts and got more overloaded when there is chatbots doesn’t support

copying and pasting so you have to write chat transcripts letter by

letter.

Instead he just fired me, and just before firing me, he sent me an e-

mail asking something (I’ll not mention what he has asked for) that

could have really affect the scores and violates the privacy of the

judges and contest’s rules. So I refused his demands, then I’m

surprised of his e-mail tell me that I’m out. Even this and I took as a

resignation after finishing the current running contest and then he

insisted on firing me as you’ve seen in the resignation topic.
 
3. There is a relation, but I’m not going to tell who is the accuser

to save my word given to him and because he helped me to discover Alice

clone which is already stated in CBC rules. It doesn’t matter if I’m

with the CBC rules or not, I’ve to follow this outdated rule since it’s

written and the decision taken is fair since there is a rule about

that.
 
4. Yes
 
5. CBC will be totally out of my control, including forums, hosting

and technical support. And I’m just waiting the domain transfer process

completed. So I’ll keep my host until the transfer is done and Wendell

point the domain to his host.
 
6. I’ve already received offers and upcoming projects, not to mention

that I’m already working on many projects, some are related to

InfraDrive and others related to some clients. So firing me, just give

me more time to give my other work. I don’t know what the future is

bearing, but of course I’ll not leave chatbots’ science because of an

irresponsible decision taken by the owner. So I’m open for any

suggestions may serve the community and will be willing to help

anytime.

Thanks to you 8pla, and to all botmasters whether they are supporting me or not.

8-man, our running journalist . Waiting for your first video interviews