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#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
A Traditional Source or a Zine?
DIR By: James
Date: November 21, 2021, 10:25 am
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There have been many chess problem books and magazines in the
past and present. These days we also have websites dedicated to
chess problems.
The Hopper is yet another source of chess problem information.
Is it (like a book) a collection of problems or a textbook on
themes or genres? Or, being more like a periodical, should it
behave like a magazine with originals and articles, and news
about awards and events? Well, with our limited resources, we
cannot compete with other sources. We’ll need to be different,
to provide variety if nothing else.
Source of Originals
============
How does the typical chess problem magazine operate when
publishing originals? It reaches out to composers to receive
submissions from them. Then someone judges problems published in
the magazine over usually a one-year period. These are divided
into the traditional sections (and sometimes further subdivided
too).
It may sound cool that one’s publication is unearthing original
stuff that has never previously appeared in print or digitally,
but it is hard work to follow tradition and do the same. The
familiar difficulties of attracting too few submissions or
receiving a plethora of banal offerings would be too much of a
burden. (And a judge would need to be found...) Many magazines
do this anyway.
Hopper for Articles
============
While The Hopper should not contain regular columns for
originals, this does not mean it should not contain any
originals. Articles should be its lifeblood, and someone who
writes an article is welcome to include originals in it.
Articles present chess problems in words, not just notation. We
should use these to attract people. Given that we’re electronic,
these should not be too long; we know what a strain it is to the
eyes to read too much on a screen.
News Source
========
News about chess problems in your part of the world would be
something peculiar to you. If your countryman Tan Ah Kow or Fred
Bloggs receives some obscure award that would generally be
forgotten by the rest of the world, there is no harm in letting
it appear in your publication. Also, even something as ordinary
as the problems we showed each other at PLQ could be preserved
in the annals of the Singapore chess problemists. Given that we
dominate the international Zoom meetings, we should report those
too.
The traditional type of news – WFCC meeting, FIDE album
submission, tourney announcements and awards – can be found
elsewhere, and need not be mentioned or linked.
Zine
===
A zine is (typically) a publication of a single individual. This
means it is pretty much individualised. We should see ourselves
as another of these, and can provide the sort of specialised or
possibly idiosyncratic content that traditional sources cannot.
The difficulty is that there are several people involved, thus
needing a compromise. No two chess problemists are the same.
Fortunately we don’t yet need to find a compromise between our
4E71 fanatic and a deeply serious traditionalist.
Given the type of people we have, we should not rule out
publication of some fantasy story in which a knight upgrades
himself to a nightrider, then overcomes psychological barriers
to save the world from the evil one.
So, what should we do?
===============
I suggest:
•
•
educational.
•
•
•
•
#Post#: 24--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Traditional Source or a Zine?
DIR By: Laska
Date: November 29, 2021, 8:41 pm
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James,
We still seem to differ on this originals question, and I think
we should address it.
You are concerned about a "burden" if the number of problems
does not match your own chosen expectation of the number of
problems you feel we ought to publish. You suggest then cutting
down so only "1 or 2" originals are published.
I want to see a bunch of good originals published, but I'm not
worried if people don't send us stuff. The solution to me is
straightforward. We have an online magazine, so there is no set
number of problems we need to publish. And we have no fixed
schedule for publication. If we can let go of any expectation of
the number of problems which we must publish then the burden
goes away.
I completely agree we don't want to publish second-rate or
boring stuff. The ability to reject is important. This is also
helped if we have no constraint on the number of originals that
we must publish. Online publishing removes that constraint to a
large extent.
In Greek mythology, there is the story of a villain called
Procrustes, eventually killed by the hero Theseus. See
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes.
Hence the term
"Procrustean" which means an unnecessary standard that one has
to measure up or down to. Having a Procrustean measure for this
magazine's content is exactly what I wish to avoid.
Maybe we can talk about this on Friday? :)
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