I just happened to notice some extremely negative remarks on Wikipedia
about Eric Schiller posted by somebody who obviously does not like
him. Naturally, I suspected Taylor Kingston aka Edward Winter, who is
known to attack Schiller among others.

So, I revised the Eric Schiller page, taking out all the negative
stuff. Within minutes, this same person but them all back in. Then,
checking the history, I could see that this has happened several times
before.

Accordingly, I have requested that this negative poster be banned from
Wikipedia. Any other suggestions?

Here is what I wrote, just now, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Eric_Schiller

Talk:Eric Schiller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I strongly object to the negative remarks made by Camembert on the
Eric Schiller biography. In the first place, Camembert is not a chess
player, or at least this name is unknown to chess. In addition, it can
seen by his remarks about Judit Polgar that he knows nothing about
chess or about her. It is further objectional that somebody can use a
fake name to attack somebody on Wikipedia.

What I am objecting to is the following remarks by Camembert, "Many of
them have received scathing reviews: reviewing for the Chess Cafe,
Carsten Hansen said Schiller's tome on the Frankenstein-Dracula
Variation of the Vienna Game was "by far THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER
SEEN" [1], while Tony Miles' famous review of Unorthodox Chess
Openings for Kingpin consisted of two words: "Utter crap."

I revised Schiller's biography and within just a few minutes Camembert
put this all back in. I feel that he should be banned and blacklisted
from Wikipedia for this.

The fact is that Eric Schiller has written more than one hundred
published books on chess and dozens of published articles in academic
publications on Linguistics. If he were such a bad writer as Camembert
claims, nobody would buy his books and no publisher would publish
them. In addition, the authors of the two negative reviews which
Camembert cites were political oponents of Schiller (one of whom is
now dead), so it is simply wrong to cite them.

I request that Camembert who knows nothing of which he speaks be
banned from Wikipedia.

I appreciate you sticking up for Schiller, but the paragraph you obkect to:

What I am objecting to is the following remarks by Camembert, "Many of
them have received scathing reviews: reviewing for the Chess Cafe,
Carsten Hansen said Schiller's tome on the Frankenstein-Dracula
Variation of the Vienna Game was "by far THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER
SEEN" [1], while Tony Miles' famous review of Unorthodox Chess
Openings for Kingpin consisted of two words: "Utter crap."

....is in fact entirely correct. I suppose you are saying that there should
be no mention of those two reviews. But for many of us that is what Schiller
is most famous for.

Schiller has written more good books than he is generally given credit
for, but Alan O'Brien's remark is rather fair.

Ten years or so ago, I remember making some deprecating remark about a
Schiller book (don't remember which one) which IMO was not good at all.
The next time I ran in to Eric, I felt obliged to reference the remark
and apologize: he good-naturedly said, "Don't worry, I'm used to it."

Schiller gave a scathing but just review of my recent play he
http://tinyurl.com/dagjx

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 06:07:00 GMT, "Alan OBrien"
wrote:

I appreciate you sticking up for Schiller, but the paragraph you obkect to:

What I am objecting to is the following remarks by Camembert, "Many of
them have received scathing reviews: reviewing for the Chess Cafe,
Carsten Hansen said Schiller's tome on the Frankenstein-Dracula
Variation of the Vienna Game was "by far THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER
SEEN" [1], while Tony Miles' famous review of Unorthodox Chess
Openings for Kingpin consisted of two words: "Utter crap."

...is in fact entirely correct. I suppose you are saying that there should
be no mention of those two reviews. But for many of us that is what Schiller
is most famous for.


On 30 Aug 2005 23:29:31 -0700, "
wrote:

Schiller has written more good books than he is generally given credit
for, but Alan O'Brien's remark is rather fair.

Ten years or so ago, I remember making some deprecating remark about a
Schiller book (don't remember which one) which IMO was not good at all.
The next time I ran in to Eric, I felt obliged to reference the remark
and apologize: he good-naturedly said, "Don't worry, I'm used to it."

Schiller gave a scathing but just review of my recent play he
http://tinyurl.com/dagjx

Yes. I am saying that those two quotes from negative reviews should
not be included in any encyclopedia article. It would be perfectly OK
to add External Links to those negative reviews, However, if you read
an article in Encyclopedia Britannica, would you expect to find the
words "THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER SEEN" and "Utter crap"?

An encyclopedia article should deal in facts, not opinions. Calling a
Schiller book "Utter crap" is clearly an opinion. This comment should
be removed from Wikipedia.

If such a comment appears in a book review or in a newsgroup such as
rec.games.chess.politics, that is a different matter altogether,
because the expression of personal opinions is called for there. You
will notice that I have not complained about the more than one hundred
personal attacks Bill Brock has directed towards me on
rec.games.chess.politics, but I did object when Bill Brock attacked me
on Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Another pont is that Eric Schiller writes his books to be read by 1500
players. His purpose is to entertain and to teach a little about chess
while doing so. His book about the Frankenstein-Dracula Variation of
the Vienna Game is a perfect example. It is filled with quotes and
spoofs from Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
Naturally, a grandmaster like Miles or a FIDE Master like Hansen will
not like such a book, but Schiller knows that they were not going to
buy his book anyway. Schiller books are popular with lower-level
players, and that is his intended audience.

I am also annoyed at the name "Frankenstein-Dracula
Variation" of the Vienna Game. I looked this up and discovered that
this is an opening I have been playing for Black since the early
1960s. I played the black side of this opening to defeat master Don
Sutherland in the 1964 Northern California Championship at the
Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. Who gave anybody the right to
rename this old opening the Frankenstein-Dracula Variation of the
Vienna Game?

By the way, is "Alan OBrien" the same person as Camembert?

Sam Sloan

Sam Sloan wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 06:07:00 GMT, "Alan OBrien"
wrote:

I appreciate you sticking up for Schiller, but the paragraph you obkect to:

What I am objecting to is the following remarks by Camembert, "Many of
them have received scathing reviews: reviewing for the Chess Cafe,
Carsten Hansen said Schiller's tome on the Frankenstein-Dracula
Variation of the Vienna Game was "by far THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER
SEEN" [1], while Tony Miles' famous review of Unorthodox Chess
Openings for Kingpin consisted of two words: "Utter crap."

...is in fact entirely correct. I suppose you are saying that there should
be no mention of those two reviews. But for many of us that is what Schiller
is most famous for.


Yes. I am saying that those two quotes from negative reviews should
not be included in any encyclopedia article. It would be perfectly OK
to add External Links to those negative reviews, However, if you read
an article in Encyclopedia Britannica, would you expect to find the
words "THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER SEEN" and "Utter crap"?

If they are of use to the article writer, yes. Would you leave the
"Upstart crow" remarks out of the Shakespeare article because they are
uncomplimentary?

An encyclopedia article should deal in facts, not opinions. Calling a
Schiller book "Utter crap" is clearly an opinion. This comment should
be removed from Wikipedia.

The comment was the late Tony Miles's opinion of a Schiller book, but
his describing the book that way is a fact. If the author of the
article wishes to make the point that Schiller has a horrible
reputation as a writer, then quoting reviews is proper. Without a
citation to some source that helped the writer form an opinion, we are
left with Innes-style history, where every point is argued by force of
assertion.

Sam Sloan wrote:
I just happened to notice some extremely negative remarks on Wikipedia
about Eric Schiller posted by somebody who obviously does not like
him. Naturally, I suspected Taylor Kingston aka Edward Winter, who is
known to attack Schiller among others.

I have never posted anything on Wikipedia. Also I have never
"attacked" Eric Schiller. I have reviewed two of his books, one on the
Von Henig-Schara Gambit for my club newsletter about 8 years ago, and
more recently "Learn From Bobby Fischer's Games" for ChessCafe.com
(www.chesscafe.com/text/review462.pdf). Both books were dreadful, and I
said so -- but that is a comment on the books, not on Schiller as a
person.

On 30 Aug 2005 23:29:31 -0700, "
wrote:

Schiller has written more good books than he is generally given credit
for, but Alan O'Brien's remark is rather fair.

He has written some awful books but then on the other hand he has
written a good book now and then. His " Complete defense to Queen
Pawn openings " is a very good book. Very good book on the Tarrasch.
One of his best I think.

EZoto

The Historian wrote:
If they are of use to the article writer, yes. Would you leave the
"Upstart crow" remarks out of the Shakespeare article because they are
uncomplimentary?

This is interesting, I didn't knoe that Sam knows Shakespeare. I wonder
if he is Oxfordian?

Of course, Robert Greene was the very first writer who said that
William Shakespeare was an "upstart crow" in Greene's book, Groatsworth
of Wit (1592).

Where can I read Sam's article?

Lance

"Liam Too" wrote in message
ups.com...
The Historian wrote:
If they are of use to the article writer, yes. Would you leave the
"Upstart crow" remarks out of the Shakespeare article because they are
uncomplimentary?

This is interesting, I didn't knoe that Sam knows Shakespeare. I wonder
if he is Oxfordian?

Of course, Robert Greene was the very first writer who said that
William Shakespeare was an "upstart crow" in Greene's book, Groatsworth
of Wit (1592).

He literally 'did not say' that Lance, it is rather that this is the
inference we now receive. One of the writers of the following text wrote
with an investigator [Schoenbaum] on the subject before his death.

Its rather like those much quoted Latin authorities, who were far from
accurate and given to more than a little invention, progressively lying
about greater and greater things, to the extent of reporting completely
unattended events and plagiarising other, even less reliable, opinion. Not
to mention commentaries on Greats and the opposite sex, an orientation of
attention scarecely visited in their own lives.

These following snippets are far from conclusive to any point of certainty -
but they do abolish the unthinking and received worth of what we should
understand - and this is as chronic a condition in literary history as it is
is chess

Cordially, Phil Innes

" Here is part of S. Schoenbaum's answer to the question:

"With Greene we cannot always separate fact from fiction in the
fantasias he composed on autobiographical themes, or the legend made of
him by his contemporaries. The pattern of his career - necessarily
pieced together from the testimony of biased witnesses - assumes the
lineaments of archetype. [...]

"But Greene's career holds more than an exemplary interest. In the
_Groatsworth of Wit_ he makes the first unmistakable reference we have
to Shakespeare in London."

Comment.

Through correspondence with him in the last two or three years before
his death, I was left with an impression of Schoenbaum as a Shakespeare
scholar who, as it were, didn't love Shakspere less, but loved Truth
more.

Witness his above comments on Greene.

"Fiction"?

"Fantasias"?

"Legend"?

"Archetype"?

Why on earth do Schoenbaum's peers construe Robert Greene's comments on
the "upstart crow" as to-be-taken-at-face-value gospel truth with
respect to the Stratfordian - a "fiction", a "fantasia", a "legend", an
"archtype."

In my view, the brief answer is this:

IF the Stratfordian of record is cut from the same cloth as Greene,
THEN Schoenbaum's peers are clueless as to how "he" should be
construed.

And, rather than admit it, they fake understanding which isn't there."


Where can I read Sam's article?

Lance

Chess One wrote:
He literally 'did not say' that Lance, it is rather that this is the
inference we now receive. One of the writers of the following text wrote
with an investigator [Schoenbaum] on the subject before his death.

And the debate continues...

"Yes trust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes
he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you:
and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the
onely Shake-scene in a countrey." --Robert Greene in Groatsworth of Wit

J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare
writes: "The Groatsworth of Wit was published very soon after the
unfortunate writer's decease, that is to say, it appeared towards the
end of September, 1592; and it is clear that one portion of it had been
composed under the influence of a profound jealousy of Shakespeare.
Greene is addressing his fellow-dramatists, and speaking of the actors
of their plays, thus introduces his satirical observations on the
author of the Third Part of Henry the Sixth, with a travesty of the
line above mentioned...'" (I, 100)