Here is an idea to write 500 to 700 words on your favorite player, chess
anecdote or event. The subject needn't be American, and this need not be an
encyclopedic entry - but something to show the flavor of the life and times
of a chessplayer - or even of a chess idea, as below.

After recent criticisms here in these newsgroups - some of which are valid,
but some include preferences which do not increase the sense of anything
over anything else, and are merely personal preference, my opinion to
objectify a little of what might be included for any subject is to canvas a
few ideas here first. This at least demonstrates what is essential fact from
personal preference - and might help achieve some proportions.

Many websites provide small or large biographical extracts on players, often
written by just one or people - and necessarily their own view of things. By
opening up the subject of writing to the chess public, this allows more
variety of comment than of singular reviewers - and also can be attempted in
parts, without first having to write the whole thing - eg, a very active
player's career might be covered in 10 to 15 year periods, and a writer
could chose their own decade.

All work may be amended for errors, and all are subject to editorial audit.
[I am not the editor.]

I thought of a few possibilities and suggested that Koltanowski is certainly
one, but how about Hans Berliner?

I even think it would be even interesting to know about such
collaborationists as -just for example- Kampars and Tejler [who wrote an
early monograph spanning games from about 1950-1970 on the Blackmar-Diemer
Gambit, which in some variations (4...B-B4) becomes the Vienna Defense].

Readership for such material is very large in terms of unique site hits, and
this is also a relatively secure means to establish player and event records
which can be adjusted, but not completely destroyed because people didn't
like parts of them [for good, and for bad reasons, but uncritically], as
recently witnessed on Wikipedia.

Chessville wishes to make sensible alterations which improve the worth of
each piece, and is not looking for perfect writing [which does not exist!]
but a solid essay, and will amend but otherwise protect your work from
vandalism.

Find the link at www.chessville.com to Chessville Vignettes, or perhaps run
a few ideas up the flagpole in these newsgroup if you want some reaction and
feedback.

Phil Innes
Business Manager, Chessville

Although you may think otherwise, Phil, I think there are some
possibiities:

1. There must be an editorial board. Altthough everyone who hope to
write a cognet sentence hopes you will not be their editor, this isn't
assurance enough. If I was of a mind to do this, I wouldn't do it
without such oversight. I would want experts to make my material as
good as possible, as it is supposed to exist in academic and textbook
publication.

2. You have to have a classification system, a taxonomy of sorts. If
you want to know about Kampars and Tejler, they should be included in
the suthor's section, else you'll be doing the same thing you criticize
poor Neil of: seeing B players as worthy of chess history. Probably a
section for the whole BDG Gemeinde needs to be there.

Perhaps Rob needs to develop the taxonomy so he can see how real
history and research is done. Of course, a 2027 completion date will
probably limit the project.

3. You can't seriously expect that anyone who considers him or herself
competent in the subject to do this for nada. At least a weekly book
prize for the best essay would encourage people to submit. You really
do get what you pay for.

4. You and Rob do not seem to have set any examples by submitting
material yourself. This increases the notion that you just want people
to do your homework for you and make your site better, at no cost to
you.

5. A serious site would also comission pieces from well-known history
authors as well. If I did decide to write about my experience in the
BDG Gemeinde, for example(I played in a few of their postal tournaments
and knew some of the members; I wouldn't call myself a member in the
strict sense), I would feel better if someone else covered Diemer,
someone well-known for expertise in the man's personal history.

6. For authors, who have written books on these topics (witness the
recent Spielmann book), a small vignette might give some *positive*
advertising, but only so long as the site is seen as authoritative. Is
it?

6. I can find this same type of information more reliably, by doing a
proper Internet search. The 3 1/2 essays you have don't look that
interesting, and contain no new information along with the
inaccuracies.

All I really hear is crickets chirping at the Chessville vignette site.
I know you will take this wrong, but I don't see how submitting
vignettes is in anyone's best interest at this time, and given what you
have, the evidence seems to bear me out. Your "just try it approach,"
echoed by Rob, just doesn't cut it. Sure I could. But as one of the
good ole boys here will remind me, he could also haul rocks in his new
Corvette. Not likely to happen.

A chessplayer should be able to plan. I see very little planning, and a
lot of wish chess being played, in the implementation of the vignettes.
When you were competing for the almost-an-IM title, didn't you spend a
good deal of time preparing for your tournaments?

everyone who hope to... cognet?

Sigh.... or does it simply mean editorial oversight is even more
important? Is 8 10 or is 10 8?

On Jan 25, 8:11 am, "SBD" wrote:
Although you may think otherwise, Phil, I think there are some
possibiities:

1. There must be an editorial board. Altthough everyone who hope to
write a cognet sentence hopes you will not be their editor, this isn't
assurance enough. If I was of a mind to do this, I wouldn't do it
without such oversight. I would want experts to make my material as
good as possible, as it is supposed to exist in academic and textbook
publication.

2. You have to have a classification system, a taxonomy of sorts. If
you want to know about Kampars and Tejler, they should be included in
the suthor's section, else you'll be doing the same thing you criticize
poor Neil of: seeing B players as worthy of chess history. Probably a
section for the whole BDG Gemeinde needs to be there.

Perhaps Rob needs to develop the taxonomy so he can see how real
history and research is done. Of course, a 2027 completion date will
probably limit the project.

3. You can't seriously expect that anyone who considers him or herself
competent in the subject to do this for nada. At least a weekly book
prize for the best essay would encourage people to submit. You really
do get what you pay for.

4. You and Rob do not seem to have set any examples by submitting
material yourself. This increases the notion that you just want people
to do your homework for you and make your site better, at no cost to
you.

5. A serious site would also comission pieces from well-known history
authors as well. If I did decide to write about my experience in the
BDG Gemeinde, for example(I played in a few of their postal tournaments
and knew some of the members; I wouldn't call myself a member in the
strict sense), I would feel better if someone else covered Diemer,
someone well-known for expertise in the man's personal history.

6. For authors, who have written books on these topics (witness the
recent Spielmann book), a small vignette might give some *positive*
advertising, but only so long as the site is seen as authoritative. Is
it?

6. I can find this same type of information more reliably, by doing a
proper Internet search. The 3 1/2 essays you have don't look that
interesting, and contain no new information along with the
inaccuracies.

All I really hear is crickets chirping at the Chessville vignette site.
I know you will take this wrong, but I don't see how submitting
vignettes is in anyone's best interest at this time, and given what you
have, the evidence seems to bear me out. Your "just try it approach,"
echoed by Rob, just doesn't cut it. Sure I could. But as one of the
good ole boys here will remind me, he could also haul rocks in his new
Corvette. Not likely to happen.

A chessplayer should be able to plan. I see very little planning, and a
lot of wish chess being played, in the implementation of the vignettes.
When you were competing for the almost-an-IM title, didn't you spend a
good deal of time preparing for your tournaments?

Chess One wrote:
Here is an idea to write 500 to 700 words on your favorite player,
chess anecdote or event. The subject needn't be American, and this
need not be an encyclopedic entry - but something to show the flavor
of the life and times of a chessplayer - or even of a chess idea, as
below.

Why bother re-implementing Wikipedia? Any site designed along these
lines will have all of the disadvantages of Wikipedia (any idiot can
write any rubbish about anything) and none of the advantages (wide
coverage and a large readership that corrects the most egregious
errors).


Dave.

--
David Richerby Impossible Microsoft Beer (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a refreshing lager that's really
hard to use but it can't exist!

"SBD" wrote in message
oups.com...


Although you may think otherwise, Phil, I think there are some
possibiities:

1. There must be an editorial board. Altthough everyone who hope to
write a cognet sentence

And here is the problem, when cogent is cognent, who is cogitating on
cognac? But your point noted.

hopes you will not be their editor, this isn't
assurance enough. If I was of a mind to do this, I wouldn't do it
without such oversight. I would want experts to make my material as
good as possible, as it is supposed to exist in academic and textbook
publication.

Ah. Then you describe a different market with different technology and with
differing axioms. At least typos on the web can be corrected - and the
general sense of this series is simple; to have people write materials which
are sufficient to orient people to the main facts of a players carear - or
the wherewithall of an event. If they wish to google for wider references or
substantial texts, this too is possible.

But even such safeguards as you suggest do not avert the mess which was the
last Kingpin - which was 2 years in the making.

2. You have to have a classification system, a taxonomy of sorts. If
you want to know about Kampars and Tejler, they should be included in
the suthor's section, else you'll be doing the same thing you criticize
poor Neil of: seeing B players as worthy of chess history. Probably a
section for the whole BDG Gemeinde needs to be there.

I agree - though to protect my example somewhat, it is more their work on
the Blackmar-Diemer, and its 20 year run which I would instance.

Perhaps Rob needs to develop the taxonomy so he can see how real
history and research is done. Of course, a 2027 completion date will
probably limit the project.

But I find this sort of commentary trite. After all, if you can write to me
to express your need for "a cognet sentence" as an intended criticism, what
I see are people calling for standards they cannot themselves perform! Quod
erat demonstrandum!

3. You can't seriously expect that anyone who considers him or herself
competent in the subject to do this for nada. At least a weekly book
prize for the best essay would encourage people to submit. You really
do get what you pay for.

The issue of Kingpin again refutes your sense of things.

4. You and Rob do not seem to have set any examples by submitting
material yourself. This increases the notion that you just want people
to do your homework for you and make your site better, at no cost to
you.

Did you say you would like to sponsor the column?

5. A serious site would also comission pieces from well-known history
authors as well. If I did decide to write about my experience in the
BDG Gemeinde, for example(I played in a few of their postal tournaments
and knew some of the members; I wouldn't call myself a member in the
strict sense), I would feel better if someone else covered Diemer,
someone well-known for expertise in the man's personal history.

Sure.

6. For authors, who have written books on these topics (witness the
recent Spielmann book), a small vignette might give some *positive*
advertising, but only so long as the site is seen as authoritative. Is
it?

It is egalitarian as all heck, and people like that! Large numbers of people
who have no more trouble over an occassional typo as I had with your
'cognent' - people are generous to the sense of things, and don't fuss
trivial errors.

6. I can find this same type of information more reliably, by doing a
proper Internet search. The 3 1/2 essays you have don't look that
interesting, and contain no new information along with the
inaccuracies.

I am sure you are welcome to do so! After all, a Vignette is a necessarily
abbreviated bio, a snap shot. I wrote 30,000 words back and forth with
Adorjan on smaller issues than are contained above - and he is a passably
good writer, with better than most insights into the game.

All I really hear is crickets chirping at the Chessville vignette site.
I know you will take this wrong, but I don't see how submitting
vignettes is in anyone's best interest at this time, and given what you
have, the evidence seems to bear me out. Your "just try it approach,"
echoed by Rob, just doesn't cut it. Sure I could. But as one of the
good ole boys here will remind me, he could also haul rocks in his new
Corvette. Not likely to happen.

As you like it! And maybe CL pays you for your work, which is good if you
can get it. But I don't think you are so typical, and besides, you might
want to observe your own writing for all that bag of tropes, since they sure
don't cut nuthin neither

I take the amount of somewhat inarticulate demurrer from people who write
about chess as seriously as a mixed matador.

A chessplayer should be able to plan. I see very little planning, and a
lot of wish chess being played, in the implementation of the vignettes.
When you were competing for the almost-an-IM title, didn't you spend a
good deal of time preparing for your tournaments?

No no no! A combination of a German shrink girlfriend who can't fix her own
VW, and lots of healthy outside hiking and yodelling in the mountains, does
the trick! Only people who specualte on how it is to play, need suppose
anything --see, as handsome a tautology as you will read all day.

Cordially, Phil Innes

"David Richerby" wrote in message
...
Chess One wrote:
Here is an idea to write 500 to 700 words on your favorite player,
chess anecdote or event. The subject needn't be American, and this
need not be an encyclopedic entry - but something to show the flavor
of the life and times of a chessplayer - or even of a chess idea, as
below.

Why bother re-implementing Wikipedia?

Because, as mentioned some dozen times, Wiki is subject to vandalism and
destructive behaviors - and much chess material there has not been amended
to better sense, but simply eliminated.

This also happened by actions which were themselves uncivil, and lacking
respect for chess - to wit, some cove who is self-admittedly pointless,
circulated false-Slaon messages to scandalise Wiki activitsts, and all the
Sloan material was eliminated, rather than amended to any new and better
sense.

While I would agree that it is better to admit faults than wait for
perfectly 'cognet' writing or the second coming of the Perfect Ones, this is
in fact the editor's intent. But this is /not/ what happens at Wikipedia.

Any site designed along these
lines will have all of the disadvantages of Wikipedia (any idiot can
write any rubbish about anything)

Even this?
But to take you seriously, true enough! Though why suppose material which
can be amended to be rubbish at all? That surely would include the majority
of chess writing. That is a key difference between Chessville Vignettes and
with Wiki, since factionalism threw out Wiki's baby with the mixed metaphor.

and none of the advantages (wide
coverage and a large readership that corrects the most egregious
errors).

We have a widening gyre of chess fans, many of whom are quite vocal on our
egregiousness.

I don't personally know if the opinions of subfusc bi-sexual cross-dressing
southern Pacific purple mollusc curators, has a lot of reviviscent value to
the life and times of Paul Morphy. Not so many of them seem to offer their
opinions at chess sites.

Phil

Dave.

--
David Richerby Impossible Microsoft Beer (TM):
it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a refreshing lager that's
really
hard to use but it can't exist!

On Jan 25, 12:27 pm, "Chess One" wrote:
"David Richerby" wrote in .. .

Chess One wrote:
Here is an idea to write 500 to 700 words on your favorite player,
chess anecdote or event. The subject needn't be American, and this
need not be an encyclopedic entry - but something to show the flavor
of the life and times of a chessplayer - or even of a chess idea, as
below.

Why bother re-implementing Wikipedia?Because, as mentioned some dozen times, Wiki is subject to vandalism and
destructive behaviors - and much chess material there has not been amended
to better sense, but simply eliminated.

This also happened by actions which were themselves uncivil, and lacking
respect for chess - to wit, some cove who is self-admittedly pointless,
circulated false-Slaon messages to scandalise Wiki activitsts, and all the
Sloan material was eliminated, rather than amended to any new and better
sense.

While I would agree that it is better to admit faults than wait for
perfectly 'cognet' writing or the second coming of the Perfect Ones, this is
in fact the editor's intent. But this is /not/ what happens at Wikipedia.

Any site designed along these
lines will have all of the disadvantages of Wikipedia (any idiot can
write any rubbish about anything)Even this?
But to take you seriously, true enough! Though why suppose material which
can be amended to be rubbish at all? That surely would include the majority
of chess writing. That is a key difference between Chessville Vignettes and
with Wiki, since factionalism threw out Wiki's baby with the mixed metaphor.

and none of the advantages (wide
coverage and a large readership that corrects the most egregious
errors).We have a widening gyre of chess fans, many of whom are quite vocal on our
egregiousness.

I don't personally know if the opinions of subfusc bi-sexual cross-dressing
southern Pacific purple mollusc curators, has a lot of reviviscent value to
the life and times of Paul Morphy. Not so many of them seem to offer their
opinions at chess sites.

Phil



Dave.

--
David Richerby Impossible Microsoft Beer (TM):
it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a refreshing lager that's
really
hard to use but it can't exist!- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

It amazes me . People are so predictible. They resent change because
they were not the instigators of the change. They need to embrace the
technology. There will probably come a time when many of these
writers/antagonists will be pleading to have their work seen.I
understand the Chessville may have seen a substantial increase in
traffic over the last several weeks. One may draw a conclusing as to
why.One thing we can rule out though, it didn't increase because any of
these famous writers submitted anything. Perhaps thier lack of support
has been a blessing!
Rob

People are so predictible. They resent change because
they were not the instigators of the change. They need to embrace the
technology. There will probably come a time when many of these
writers/antagonists will be pleading to have their work seen.I
understand the Chessville may have seen a substantial increase in
traffic over the last several weeks. One may draw a conclusing as to
why.One thing we can rule out though, it didn't increase because any of
these famous writers submitted anything. Perhaps thier lack of support
has been a blessing!

Rob Mitchell should consider another possible explanation for any
purported increase in traffic: more search "hits" from the inclusion of
new material from reader participation. In other words, a quantitative
improvement in traffic which is anything but a confirmation of the Web
site's recent quality change (if any). But it is possible that people
are first reading about the site here, and then clicking any links they
may find here to zip over to Chessville. That would seem to indicate
that including clickable links here is a good way to drive traffic to
the
site -- but nothing more. By the way, your theory that traffic did not
improve because none of the famous posters here contributed anything
is hardly fair to IM Innes; first of all, he is only famous here; and
secondly, he is the one who came up with this idea in the first place!
Must he be expected to also contribute material on account of his
fame? That's asking a bit much, I think. In the future, please limit
your critical attacks on those who have fame, but who, unlike IM
Innes, did not already do more than their fair share for this project.
Sheesh -- the man virtually drips with envy of IM Innes' rgc fame.

-- help bot

"help bot" wrote in message
oups.com...

People are so predictible. They resent change because
they were not the instigators of the change. They need to embrace the
technology. There will probably come a time when many of these
writers/antagonists will be pleading to have their work seen.I
understand the Chessville may have seen a substantial increase in
traffic over the last several weeks. One may draw a conclusing as to
why.One thing we can rule out though, it didn't increase because any of
these famous writers submitted anything. Perhaps thier lack of support
has been a blessing!

RESENTMENT REVISITED

Rob Mitchell should consider another possible explanation for any
purported increase in traffic:

Some nice advice by Greg Kennedy, who is as ever confident in telling others
what to do

more search "hits" from the inclusion of
new material from reader participation. In other words, a quantitative
improvement in traffic which is anything but a confirmation of the Web
site's recent quality change (if any).

Yes, if... why not offer advice first, then speculate if its necessary?

But it is possible that people
are first reading about the site here, and then clicking any links they
may find here to zip over to Chessville.

That would hardly account for an increase of 1,000 uniques per day

That would seem to indicate
that including clickable links here is a good way to drive traffic to
the
site -- but nothing more. By the way, your theory that traffic did not
improve because none of the famous posters here contributed anything
is hardly fair to IM Innes; first of all, he is only famous here; and
secondly, he is the one who came up with this idea in the first place!

Having offered advice on what others should do, then wondering if the
premise were true, Kenedy ends on a supposition which is untrue.

Must he be expected to also contribute material on account of his
fame? That's asking a bit much, I think. In the future, please limit
your critical attacks on those who have fame, but who, unlike IM
Innes, did not already do more than their fair share for this project.
Sheesh -- the man virtually drips with envy of IM Innes' rgc fame.

This contribution to chess writing can be seen for what it is, or rather,
what it is not. And it isn't.

PI

-- help bot