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84 Spaces Contest. 84 Spaces Contest begins![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Would it be possible to extend the submission deadline?
Paul E. Newton wrote on Tue, Aug 6, 2002 04:31 PM UTC:I for one am not a programmer. I bought the full version of Zillions of Games and I planned to put my entry into a Zillions format. I ran into the problem, however, that the learning curve to be able to implement the game in Zillions format was far too steep for the amount of time I had. I, for one, intend to play test the various games before I 'pass judgement' on them, since I think it is the only way that one can be able to judge with any fairness at all, even if it means I have to construct a makeshift board to do so...
don't worry about not being a programmer. there's enough zillions programmers that the 84 square contest entries should be taken care of w/o much problem. (i'm not a zillions programmer either, unless you count the diagram-maker). for those who don't have zillions, there's a lot of good webpages on chessvariants.com on practical ways to construct your own sets.
Speaking as a fellow entrant: Given the unusual circumstances surrounding the submission and posting process, I think Tony's request is more than fair, and suggest that Fergus consider approving it.
Paul E. Newton wrote on Tue, Aug 6, 2002 08:09 PM UTC:I (also an entrant) do not see how the entry deadline has anything to do with getting the entries posted. They are two separate issues altogether. I think we can all understand the difficulties that Fergus has been through (and is currently going through) and I don't think that anyone wants to place any additional pressure on him. If it were suggested that the period for evaluation, comment and judging be extended, based on the delays in getting the entries posted, so that we still have a six-month period for evaluation and voting prior to the final judging, now to me, that would make sense and perhaps take some pressure off of Fergus...
I agree with Paul, the entry deadline and when they're posted by fergus afterwards are two completely unrelated issues. and if you're really interested in fairness, to say that extending the deadline for certain people can hardly be considered fair - people who submit later will simply gain extra time to playtest and improve their game, while those of us who made an extra effort to make the deadline may not have been looking at our game for the past week because we considered the deadline closed. my feeling is that if you can't come up with a chess variant in 7 months (the amount of time available to submit), then you can wait til next year's contest. i'm sure there'll be more coming.
I have a slight concern that because nothing about the contest was being posted for so long, some people may have thought that the contest itself was on hold, and hence not sent in their entries. If that is the case, then it would, I think, be unfair to disallow them to submit those entries.
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As an aside, none of this affects me personally as I decided I've won enough contests here of late, and are only sending in non-competing entries.
Paul E. Newton wrote on Wed, Aug 7, 2002 02:08 PM UTC:Even though no entries were posted, there was never any indication on the page that the contest itself was delayed or postponed. So I agree with Ben, allowing people to submit after the deadline would be unfair to those who have held to the deadline.
I started moving later than I expected I would, because of delays in the refurbishing of my new apartment. In the meantime, my nephew, Christopher Turner Duniho, was born August 2nd. This kept me preoccupied during the delay. Shortly after that, I began moving stuff into my new apartment while work was still being done on refurbishing it. It is now almost completely refurbished, and I expect to set up my computer desk and move over my computer soon. If there are no more delays in refurbishing the apartment, I should be doing that this evening. I hope to get all the entries up this week after I have my computer up in my new apartment.
David Howe wrote on Fri, Sep 6, 2002 02:15 PM UTC:I have been attempting to contact Fergus, but so far I haven't had any response. I will continue trying, so stay tuned.
I guess Fergus must be pretty busy, as he would be starting a teaching job, so I'm wondering about possible work-arounds. What would the other contestants say to this: could we all agree to a certain date, and on that date we each go to the Yahoo! Chess Variants group and post a message describing our entry. I suppose we could also upload ZRF's to the file-download section, if we have them (or even HTML's). That way we could all start evaluating the games, and get a headstart for that great day when they appear here.
William Overington wrote on Sat, Sep 14, 2002 10:53 AM UTC:Two points. Firstly, if, and only if, the organizers of the www.chessvariants.com website agree to a work-around, I am generally agreeable to a work-around, though subject to my second point. Secondly, I am unwilling to post details of my two entries to a Yahoo group as Yahoo groups have rules about intellectual property rights in postings and what 'you' will be doing with your own intellectual property rights in posting to a Yahoo group. I am happy with the rules about intellectual property rights as stated in the 84 Spaces Contest rules, but I am certainly not going to post my entries to a Yahoo group. I wonder why Yahoo groups is suggested at all. Surely a thread on this www.chessvariants.com website could be started. As I feel that the permission of the organizers of the www.chessvariants.com website should be a necessary enabling permission of publishing our entries before the official publication, if that permission were forthcoming then perhaps it could be accompanied by a permission to post entries in posts to this website.
Yahoo, here, whatever, I'm just anxious to read about the entries and play them. I suggest another venue because (presumably) these pages would have posted them by now if they were able to, and we don't know how long the wait will be. I don't see why we'd need anyone's permission to post material we wrote ourselves. Nor would posting it on Yahoo compromise our right to our work, since Yahoo can't legally claim proprietary rights over material that someone else composed. Copyright doesn't work like that. You can REGISTER a copyright on someone else's work -- sure, the copyright office will be glad to take your registration fee and put your material on file -- but if the author can prove it's his work, your copyright would have no force.
David Howe wrote on Sat, Sep 14, 2002 06:46 PM UTC:I have emailed Fergus and did get a reply. Unfortunately, he cannot put much time at all into running the contest or even keeping contestants informed about his plans. So stay tuned, it may be that someone else will be running the contest.
William Overington wrote on Mon, Sep 16, 2002 06:58 AM UTC:I write to respond to some of the comments made by Mark Thompson. >I don't see why we'd need anyone's permission to post material we wrote ourselves. My thinking was that such publication, if done without permission, could possibly lead to disqualification from the 84 Spaces Contest. >Nor would posting it on Yahoo compromise our right to our work, since Yahoo can't legally claim proprietary rights over material that someone else composed. My concern with the rules of Yahoo groups is that those rules, in the Terms of Service document, state that posting grants an intellectual property rights license to Yahoo. The wording is complicated. In the event of my wishing to license some intellectual property rights of something which I have invented to a manufacturer or to a magazine, I do not wish to have the complication of licences to Yahoo being part of the equation, so I will not post my ideas to a Yahoo group. I am, however, entirely willing to post my entries in this forum if the owners of the www.chessvariants.com website, who are holding the contest, agree that all entrants may post their entries in this forum. However, that is my own view. It is entirely possible that some entrants might feel that they do not wish to post their entry or entries anywhere prior to their entry or entries being published by the organizer of the competition. Indeed, some of them might feel that such prior publication of other entries would be unfair. This is, I suggest, not a matter of a majority of entrants deciding the issue, for even if a majority agree to something I feel that it should not be done if that agreement would violate the rights under the rules of the contest of even one person.
I agree. Any departure from the contest format would have to be unanimous.
I wish that someone else within chessvariants.com could take it upon him(her)self to publish the games. Once that is done there ain't much work with the contest for quite some time. The rest of the site are very active and new material comes up every now and then, I really whish part would be as active. I understand Fergus, sometimes one just doesn't have the time, strenght´or motivation to follow some things through and sometimes it's just plain impossible. I just wish that someone could help him out. -=Tomas=-
Can anyone at least give us a rough count? Are there about 10 entries, about 20, about 40? Maybe even an exact count?
David Howe wrote on Sun, Sep 22, 2002 05:02 PM UTC:I have been attempting to contact Fergus, but it appears as if he is being completely unresponsive. Either that, or he isn't getting my emails. Consequently, we have decided that Hans will run the contest with the rest of the editors helping to publish the submissions.
<p>Anyone who submitted an entry for the contest: <b>please resubmit your entry to our editors email address</b> (which can be found <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/feedback.html'>here</a>). We will <b>only</b> be accepting entries that were submitted to Fergus by the contest's deadline date.
<p>We apologize for the way this contest was handled and ask your continued patience while we play catch-up and get the contest back on track.
David has been emailing me at my ZZN email account, and ZZN recently stopped POP3 use for free email accounts. So the email he was sending me was not being downloaded with Eudora. I finally read and replied to some of it tonight when I logged into this email account on the web.
📝Hans Bodlaender wrote on Mon, Sep 23, 2002 07:20 AM UTC:The running of the contest will be taken over by me, with help of other editors of the Chess Variant Pages. Please resubmit your games again; they will be added soon. I also decided to extend the deadline for submitting games till November 30, 2002.
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A change is also that we plan to have the contest decided by a qualified judge. Email us if you have questions about the contest.
Did anybody get inspired to write an Orwellian _1984_-themed entry? Just curious.
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