[Retros] Fwd: Proof game promotion task

[Kevin Begley]

Good point, Tom!

What I find even more mysterious, is how we allow these awards to become
permanent fixtures upon our problems...
Why do we provide some unknown judge with free text space (above our
problem), to forever tag (or leave empty) our own work?

Every time I see a composer's personal collection, I wonder: why the awards
were included.
Carrying water for such a failed system only suggests, to me, some level of
complicity.

Even the best judge will often overlook a good problem, to reward a bad
one... it happens all the time...
I will concede that the author's opinion is not necessarily any better --
all the benefits of first-hand experience are rarely enough to compensate
for lost objectivity...
The point is, I'm really only interested to learn the composer's opinion...
I want to view their collection, as they see it -- not some lightly censored
database screendump.

We shouldn't have to wonder whether a personal collection refers to the
awards (or to the art).

And, rarely does anybody present their works (even a fraction of them) as
legitimate problems (to be solved, by humans).
It calls me to question their motivation, and to worry they've lost the
meaning...

Sometimes, I think the larger community has lost all perspective for the
beauty of this artform.

If not the artists, then, who will undo the injustices of a system which
appears incapable to distinguish beauty from its backside?
Why follow this sacred river, if it leads us all down to a sunless sea?


On 5/16/10, pastmaker at aol.com <pastmaker at aol.com> wrote:


> But the selection and application of the criteria  to which Andrey refers

> will present exactly the same issues --  which criteria are the right ones?

> what is their respective weight? etc.) as are presented by the current

> subjective application of unknown criteria.

>

> I have never understood why the problems published in a journal are

> involved in an informal tourney.  It was a surprise to me when I first sent

> a composition to a journal decades ago, and I still find it mysterious.

>

> Tom Volet

>

>  -----Original Message-----

> From: afretro <afretro at yandex.ru>

> To: The Retrograde Analysis Mailing List <retros at janko.at>

> Sent: Tue, May 11, 2010 9:11 pm

> Subject: Re: [Retros] Fwd: Proof game promotion task

>

>  Dear friends,

> As we all know, in a democratic society any citizen has the right to a fair

> trial. I know it's an unrealistic dream, but wouldn't it be nice if each

> (retro) composer had a right to a fair (i.e. strict criteria based)

> assessment of his/her problems in composing tourneys?

> The fairness of any voting-based ranking can be disputed for a variety of

> reasons. For example just a day and a half ago I encountered (form a second

> time, actually) a list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time." In the Top

> 10 of that list, 7 albums are from the 60s and 3 from the 70s, in particular

> 3 albums date back to 1966. Who will refer to that ranking as a fairer one,

> compared to the Probleemblad millennium ranking?

> As to the judge assessing the length record as being worth a mere 2.5

> points, it was actually NOT Plaksin.

> Thank you so much for your interested comments on the PG 57.5. They brought

> back a host of memories. May I assure you that the composing process did

> involve a multitude of "subtleties" of various sorts.

> Yours,

> Andrey

>

> 11.05.10, 23:07, "Kevin Begley" <kevinjbegley at gmail.com>:

>

> err, Dombrovskis' #2 -- I think it was tied with Lacny's #2...

>

> For #3, I think they had Loyd's Steintz Gambit, tied with something...

> I'm not sure I agree with that choice.

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