Waking Sleeping Dogs

In addition to all the active chess blogs which I read, I keep a list of over 250 inactive blogs in Bloglines just in case they start posting again. It turns out that in the month of January, over 20 of these inactive blogs have published their first new post in a while. In most cases, the topic was the same ... the death of Bobby Fischer. Apparently, this historical event served as wake up call to many who had a chess blog in the past; though now I suspect, most of these blogs will roll over and go back to sleep again.

The envelope, please

DK hands out his chess blogger awards for 2007

Can't say I saw this coming

Hard to believe, but apparently the Chess Blog Carnival is now a source of controversy.

In a recent post, Chess Tyro writes that the most recent addition of the Carnival ... "left a sour taste in my mouth and make[s] me question, perhaps unfairly, whether the coordinator’s original intention was really as noble as he made it out to be..."

He lists three major complaints:

1. "...an internet money-making scheme that has a big fat zero relation to chess..." was included
   
   
2. "...no editorial work [was] done..."
   
   
3. The Carnival was "...posted in a newly created discussion forum known to be owned by a currently controversial chess personality that the coordinator seems to be closely associated with..."

While Chess Tyro thinks something nefarious is going on, I'm inclined to believe that most of this can be explained by lack of effort and attention to detail on the part of this month's Carnival editor. Although, in Jack's defense, it's not as if any of us offered to take on the task.

Chess Blog Carnival - The Sequel

It has been up for about a week, so I would imagine that most of you have already come across the second edition of the Chess Blog Carnival at Samurai Chess. Nevertheless, Jack Lemoine asked me to give it a plug and I'm happy to do so.

The US Chess League Blogosphere

In one of her recent US Chess League recap articles, Chess Life Online's Jennifer Shahade wrote:

Each year, the USCL's popularity grows. This year's highlights include an explosive USCL blogosphere, (way too many to list here...

Well, I'm up for the challenge!

Let's start with some taxonomy -- I've broken USCL blogs down into two major categories:

1. Affiliated - Blogs that are written by and/or represent specific teams, players or USCL officials
   
   
2. Unaffiliated - Independent blogs which provide coverage of the league and/or specific teams. Unaffiliated blogs come in two flavors -- blogs which are dedicated exclusively to USCL coverage and general (chess) blogs which include coverage of the league

In addition to blogs, there are a few websites which cover the USCL. In the past, the commissioner has used the term "blog" fairly loosely. Therefore, I'm uncertain whether any of these will be eligible for the USCL Blogger of the Year award.

Affiliated - Team Blogs

Carolina Cobras Blog - Some photos and an annotated game, but no new posts since 9/13

New Jersey Knockouts - Offers live blogging of Knockout matches, annotated games and player profiles

San Francisco Mechanics - Last year, this was a very active blog with many entertaining posts. They've been somewhat less active in 2007. Since it's been proved that blogging coverage is a prerequisite for success in the league, this might explain their average results so far

Seattle Sluggers - Inside scoop from Sluggers' players and Manager Eddie Chang. You'll find even more Sluggers talk at the Northwest Chess Forum

Tennessee Tempo - Here you'll learn that making jokes about the Tempo's misfortunes is unprofessional, but spewing personal attacks at bloggers and fans isn't

Affiliated - Player Blogs

Johnny B's Chess Connection - Dallas' IM John Bartholomew provides weekly reports on the team's matches in his general chess blog

Shakmaty Bereolos - FM Peter Bereolos is a long time chess blogger and player for the Tennessee Tempo. In the past he has annotated his league games and this season he has started live blogging Tempo matches

USCL news and gossip - It's hard to know where to place New York Knights alternate Liz Vicary's blog. She has mostly focused on generating humor from the dark and seamy side of the league, but has received the most reaction from a fight she picked with a Boston Blitz reporter over her game with NM Chris (is Awesome) Williams

Affiliated - USCL Official Blogs

This category might be a bit of a misnomer since it has never been completely clear what Arun Sharma and Ron Young's relationship with the league is. Nevertheless, last year they were referred to as "official prognosticators", so until I learn otherwise that's what I'm going with.

US Chess League News - Arun Sharma provides predictions and weekly qualitative power rankings, while Greg Shahade posts the Game of the Week articles here

FM Ron Young's USCL Predictions - Just what it says

Unaffiliated - Dedicated USCL Blogs

A Carolina Cobras Fan - This fan hasn't had anything to say since September 1st

USCL ChessCenter - OrangeKing offers predictions, qualitative power rankings and his own version of the MVP award rankings

USCL Groupies - From the same writer as A Carolina Cobras Fan, this blogs purports to focus on "trash talk" and "cute guys." I guess she couldn't find too many, since she stopped posting

Unaffiliated - General (Chess) Blogs

BlueEyedRook - Provides on-site coverage of the Philadelphia Inventors

Bionic Lime Thoughts - Another blog which is hard to classify since it is written by the individual behind the New Jersey Knockouts blog -- perhaps we should consider it "Semi-affiliated." The tart, green one is the brains behind the completely misnamed Famous Original Power Rankings

Boylston Chess Club Weblog - BCC Weblog has been providing independent coverage of the Boston Blitz since the very beginning, often to the chagrin of the players and Manager Matt Phelps

JG's Master Quest - JG obliterated the official USCL prognosticators in 2006, but is having a tougher go of it this year

The Kenilworthian - One of the finest chess blogs in the 'sphere, Michael is covering the New Jersey Knockouts this year

The pHtest - Author Paul Hoffman has been sharing the ups and (mostly) downs of the New York Knights

Websites

Boston Blitz - The Blitz have certainly set the standard for team websites; you'll find bios, articles, games, photos, video interviews with players and a live feed of one game a week

Chess Life Online - Provides weekly articles recapping league action

Queens Pioneers - Fairly light content so far, but give them time -- they are an expansion team, after all.

United States Chess League - The official league website

**********

No post at BCC Weblog about the chess blogosphere would be complete without a discussion on cross-linking. As you may have noticed, all of the blogs mentioned above are linked on the sidebar. Most are listed under "US Chess League Coverage" -- (w) indicates a website and (u) denotes that the site covers topics other than the USCL. I left long-time residents of the sidebar like BlueEyedRook and The Kenilworthian where they were and in this case used (u) to indicate that they were general chess blogs that also cover the USCL.

It is linking like this across a set of related blogs which creates and fosters a sense of community. For readers, it creates a useful supplement to the article listings at official league website. So what do you say USCL bloggers? Why not add a list of USCL blogs to your sidebar today.

BCC Weblog provides independent coverage of the United States Chess League. It is not affiliated with the USCL or the Boston Blitz.

Where is the ferris wheel and merry-go-round?

Thanks to the efforts of Jack Lemoine, the first Chess Blog Carnival has taken place. The carnival is quite similar to the "Around the Blogosphere" posts which you often see here, at About Chess, and at other chess blogs. The main difference is that individual bloggers get to submit their own favorite pieces, instead of leaving the editorial decision making to the blogger writing the post. Avid chess blog readers will probably be familiar with most of the blogs and posts which are mentioned, but even I found a blog which wasn't in my listings.

My understanding is that the carnival will be repeated periodically on different chess blogs. Whether this concept has legs, we'll see over time; however, for now, this looks like a good way for newer chess blogs and those without a strong established readership to get exposure to a broader audience.

I Give Up!!

I was browsing Technorati the other day and discovered that there are over 100 new chess blogs which I don't currently have listed here at BCC Weblog. All this activity occurred in just the past 4 weeks or so. Quite simply, chess blogging continues to grow at an exponential rate.

While I have endeavored to maintain the most complete listing of chess blogs on the web, this explosion has stretched my capability to do so to the limit. My current process for maintaining this list requires simultaneously updating the Other chess blogs post, a set of RSS feeds in Bloglines, and a separate Excel spreadsheet which I use to maintain last post dates. This has become too cumbersome and has to change.

As a result, I am announcing a major change to how the chess blog listings will be handled here. On the sidebar under Chess Blogs, you will notice a new link "More Chess Blogs." This link will take you directly to my Bloglines blogroll of active chess blogs. While this change will greatly simplify the administrative work required to maintain the list, it comes with several downsides for readers:

1. All of the Other chess blogs are not as easily scan-able as they were in the listing post. You will need to drill down into sub-folders and, in general, use more clicks than were required before.
   
   
2. There is much less categorization than before. For example, foreign language chess blogs are no longer grouped by language and categories like Commercial and Podcasts are no more. I could have created sub-folders for all these distinctions but it would have made the listings cumbersome and increased the on-going work for me.
   
   
3. Chess blogs without RSS feeds will no longer be listed anywhere, unless they are on the sidebar.
   
   
4. I'm no longer listing Inactive blogs. It just isn't worth the effort since I can't imagine there are too many readers who spend their time reading older, shut down blogs.
   
   
5. My new approach will make it more difficult to identify Other chess blogs which become Inactive. As such, I will go through this exercise much less frequently and possibly not at all. As a result, over time the "Other" categories will include a growing number of Inactive blogs.

Obviously, I don't consider this situation to be ideal, but the alternative is to give up on maintaining the listings (which may ultimately prove to be necessary if the explosion of new blogs continues).

I will continue to maintain, monitor and prune the sidebar as I have done in the past and it should remain constantly up-to-date. Therefore, blogs on the sidebar will be substantially more accessible and current than those in the Other categories. Given this, I thought it might be time to run a sidebar fire sale. Do you want to have your blog listed on the sidebar of BCC Weblog? For an unlimited time, the price has been reduced from $0 to absolutely FREE!

This blog follows a "Give and Get" policy (you can read more about it here). Linking BCC Weblog on your blog gets you a link here. To jump start this process, I went through the Other chess blogs listings and identified 16 high quality chess blogs which include a list of chess blogs, but do not currently link here. I have temporarily added them to the sidebar under the "Candidates" heading. In the next few weeks, if they add a link to BCC Weblog, I'll secure them a permanent spot on the sidebar. Otherwise, there will be no hard feelings, but they will be sent back to reside with the unwashed masses in the Other listings.

The current candidates are: The Back Rank, BCM Chess, Become a Chess Expert, Blog of a Chess Nut, Burning Castles, caught in the fire, Checkmate, ChessExpress, Gila Chess Patzer, Hardcore Pawnography, Knight Skewer, Mida's Chess Corner, Patzer's Corner, The pHtest, SonOfPearl's Chess Blog, and Strong Among the Weak. Don't fret if your blog is not listed here. You too, can secure your spot by linking to this blog. Just let me know that you did so by e-mail or by leaving a comment on this post.

Easy for who?

Most everyone knows that I'm a big advocate of linking and cross-linking across the chess blogosphere. Nevertheless, I ran across this post at Knight of Chess Academy, a commercial blog which is somewhat surreptitious about the fact that it is a commercial blog, that rubbed me the wrong way. The author describes "the easy way you must follow if you want to exchange link[s] with me" - a six step process!

No thanks, I'll pass.

Transforming the Chess Blogosphere

DK's essay project on chess bloggers is well underway with nine completed to date (seven bloggers and two wildcard topics). Those hoping for inside dirt and scandal are sure to be disappointed. Instead, what we have is... well, to be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure exactly what we have. Words like interesting, baffling, enlightening, off-beat, thought-provoking, twisted, or captivating simply don't capture the essence of the essays.

They remind me of watching an art film and leaving the theatre thinking, "What the heck was that about?", and then continuing to ponder the ideas presented for days on end. Somehow, DK has this amazing ability to capture deep insights into people he knows only through this virtual realm. He wraps these perceptions in literary allusion and mystery and reveals them to the reader only with time and contemplation.

The essays themselves are not the complete story. Many of DK's comments on the essays are worthy pieces of writing in themselves. Without revealing any specifics, let me just say that his discussion on seeking truth over playing the game and paying a price for it, struck a deep and powerful chord with me.

Get yourself a large cup of tea, sit back in a comfortable chair and start the excursion. Then, give it a few days to sink in...

• Prolegema to Any Future Chess Blogger Community, or Kant Help it (featuring Temposchlucker, Blue Devil Knight and Wormwood)


• Prolegema, or Kant Help it: Wahrheit, Grand Patzer, Part II


• Prolegema, or Kant Help it: Chessdog Part III


• Prolegema, or Kant Help it: WFMU, Part IV


• Prolegema: The Blue Devil Dialogues. Chess Relearner, or How I did Strunk and White: Essay Nine

Headlines, Headlines, Headlines

Too many items, not enough time for individual posts. Vacations take such an incredible toll on bloggers...

Monokroussos retires again? - In a recent post, Dennis says that "blogging has become stale and a chore." I feel that way myself sometimes, though not at the moment. It never seems to take that long before the itch returns. It will be interesting to see how long he stays away this time. A new campaign, J'adoube?

Yes I know, I've been tagged - I'm trying to decide whether I should be happy with BDK for giving me an easy topic to post about or whether I should be pissed at him for telling me what I have to write about. I'll decide after I write the post -- which will take a few days, so bear with me. The Kenilworthian tagged me; I wonder who will be next.

First mover advantage is a powerful thing - In response to BDK's cautionary note, let me say that 1) the more the merrier and 2) I'm feeling more than secure in my role.

Africa, a hotbed of chess controversy - The Kenyan Chess Blog has been reporting on the inside dealings involved in the selection of the Kenyan team (here also), as well as the Ugandan teams' inability to attend the All-Africa games due to lack of government funding. It seems like chess federations in Africa are using FIDE as their model for openness, good governance, financial accountability and operational effectiveness.

Haunstrup returns - Joshua Haunstrup has resurrected his blog after a long hiatus with two games he played at the Boylston Chess Club -- a loss against Dan Schmidt in the October 2006 Thursday Night Swiss and a win against Alexander Paphitis in the 2006 Spring Open.

Chess Bloggers leveraging public relations professionals - Who knew that breaking into the chess blogosphere required the use of professional PR? I received this e-mail from Sara Walsh, who identifies herself as the Press Liason for Dr. Mark Ginsburg:

Seventh Rank Associates
Dr. Mark Ginsburg
Editor of http://nezhmet.wordpress.com
mark@seventhrank.com

Sara Walsh
Press Liaison http://nezhmet.wordpress.com
princesschess@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE

Born to the Fischer era, Dr. Mark Ginsburg was one of many talented teens making the junior rounds in the 1970s. Dr. Mark Ginsburg received his International Master title in 1982 from FIDE, the World Chess Organization headed at that time by GM Fridrik Olafsson. He won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship twice, in 1988 and 1990, before that venerable Carnegie Hall institution sadly went the way of the dodo. His peak rating was 2578 in 1992, putting him 28th in the USA. His specialty is opening innovation.

Mark's undergraduate degree was from Princeton (Biology) and did graduate work at NYU, culminating in a Ph.D. in Information Systems. He is the author or co-author of two programming textbooks and numerous peer-reviewed articles on groupware, digital libraries, and e-business strategy. As for chess, his writings have appeared in "Chess Life" and he was the technical editor for GM Joel Benjamin's magazine "Chess Chow" in the early 1990s.

Using his skills as a writer and storyteller, he is now bringing to life his chess career of over three decades with enlivening anecdotes and wild games. IM Mark Ginsburg's new website is http://nezhmet.wordpress.com. From his 1974 game as a 15 year old against the great GM Bent Larsen to his more recent adventures in the 2007 National Open, these games come alive with his wit and banter rather then lengthy computer annotations. Print them out or bring a board to the computer, playing along with the games, you'll share the joys and heartaches of the moves he makes.

Macauley Peterson's favorite chess musician is Macauley Peterson - It didn't do that much for me, but as you'll see from the e-mail below, he went to great lengths to make sure you didn't miss it. You have to admire his tenacity.

From: "Macauley Peterson"
To: "Mark Crother", "SusanPolgar", "Peter Doggers", "Jennifer Shahade", "bccadmin"
Subject: Macauley's "Today In Dortmund" -- Chess FM intro
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:11:34 -0400

The first day of ICC's Chess.FM webcast coverage of the Dortmund super-tournament started a little differently from the rest. But you wouldn't know it from the ICC Chess.FM OnDemand replay. Ostensibly due to "sound quality issues" my intro was cut from the archived show. Yes, I know it was unorthodox, and clearly a little silly, but I hope some people were amused at least, and to that end I'm pleased to present the way the June 23rd show REALLY started…

http://www.macauleypeterson.com/WP/?p=46

Cheers,
Macauley

BCC Weblog crosses 100,000 visitors mark - Now, that was a nice number to come home to.

This and $1.50 will buy me a cup of coffee

Chessdom has just published an interview with my favorite chess blogger. Me!

We discussed BCC Weblog, the Chess Blogosphere, the Knights Errant, Chess Clubs in the States, the US Chess League, and much more.

Chessdom: What are the motives behind one's decision to start a chess blog?

DG: One things for sure, it’s not for the money or the girls....

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be reposting some of the questions and answers here.

Chess Bloggers Exposed

dk has already fired a couple of warning shots (see the last part of this post and the first part of this one). He's planning a tell-all series on the lives of 15 chess bloggers. What dirt has he dug up? Whose reputations will be damaged and destroyed? How will readers respond once they learn about the dark underbelly of the chess blogosphere? It's all supposed to begin as soon as Tuesday.

Watch out fellow bloggers!

DG wins with eighteen to spare!

Read Mark's gracious concession post. The 1972 Fischer - Spassky World Championship match souvenir will make a fine addition to the Boylston Chess Foundation archives.

Related Post: Collecting on a bet

Collecting on a bet

In my post "How many chess blogs are there anyway?" I laid out the following proposition:

..."In the next two hours, I bet I can find 5 chess blogs you've never seen before." Any takers?

While most of the chess blog reading community didn't seem interested in taking me up on it, About Chess' Mark Weeks decided to play:

You're on. I'll trust you to use only two hours, and you'll trust me when I say whether I've seen them or not. My database has 275 entries, of which 127 were active in the last six months. Please give me a heads-up when you're ready. - Mark

Now, I had originally proposed this as a bar bet, so I wasn't really anticipating going up against one of the few other individuals in the entire world who actively maintains a list of chess blogs. Therefore, this needs to be viewed as probably the sternest possible test of my proposition. I nevertheless gladly accept the challenge in the spirit of "if it's not hard, it's not worth doing."

As Mark points out, trust is key to this exercise. On my side, I will actually complete the exercise live on BCC Weblog. I will list new chess blog finds at the bottom of this post and include the elapsed time starting at 0 and going to 120 minutes. If you are so inclined, you can keep checking back in real time to make sure I don't add anything after the two hours have elapsed. For Mark's part, he publishes his chess blog database on the web for all to see. While it may not be perfectly up to date and while he may have come across other chess blogs which he didn't list for one reason or another, he will need a compelling explanation if he claims to have seen all the blogs I find yet not have them in his list. All that being said, I have every reason to believe that this exercise will be pursued on the up-and-up by both sides. I'm sure Mark agrees.

Mark added one more stipulation to the challenge:

P.S. I'll accept no more than one blog not written in English!

Now I'm not sure why we ought to be discriminating against non-English chess bloggers, but since I don't have any other takers I'll gladly accept his conditions. Should I come across more than one non-English blog I will list them below, but recognize that only one can count towards the quota of five.

What are the stakes? That's not been discussed, though after I win I'm sure Mark will come up with an appropriate prize. Am I feeling a bit cocky? I'm absolutely brimming with confidence that I will prevail. In fact, I'd be surprised if I even need to use the second hour (I sure hope I don't end up eating these words!).

Keep checking back; I'll be starting soon...

Starting now!

I wanna get better at chess! (3)

Hypermodernity Chess Blog (7)

Snodland Chess Club (9)

Chess Opening for Blitz!!! (11)

Diary of an Itinerant Chess Player (13)

That's five in thirteen minutes, but I'm going to keep on going in case Mark has seen any of these before.

Mida's chess corner (16)

Chess In Canada's Capital (17)

Abend's Chess Blog (18)

World Chess Championship Blog (19) - Actually Mark will know of this one since it is his. Apparently he started it last month.

Chess Apocalypse Now (23)

Dan's Correspondence Chess Blog (24)

CHESS COACH , ajedrez a la orden (26) - Spanish

Bangladesh Chess (27)

Eastern New York Chess Association (28)

Jerry Chess (29)

VICKI chess engine (33)

Zeb Fortman II Chess Blog (34)

Fischer Random Chess Email Club (36)

The Chess-ucation of Raths (38)

Chess Monographs (39)

FCPL Chess News (41)

Chess Tiger Chess Rimau - World Chess Entertainment (44)

Chess by Andy (46)

Texas Chess Association (47)

MagicMadness' Chess Blog (55)

Chessalicious (58)

OK, that's an hour. I'm calling it now with 60 minutes to spare. Mark, do I have at least five you haven't seen before? Let me know what I've won :)

Talking Patzer Talk

To be honest, it is sometimes difficult to find chess at Chess Patzer Theories. However, that doesn't mean there isn't any interesting information there -- especially if you like moblogging technology and/or Malaysian street food. A few of Andrew's recent posts caught my eye.

First, he came clean about doing paid sponsored posts for PayPerPost. I've been fairly hesitant about over commercializing this blog, something that certainly can't be said for Chess Patzer Theories. For example, I waited over a year before putting Google ads up here and have tried to make them relatively unobtrusive (which is good for the readers, though not so good for earnings). Nevertheless, every dollar helps our struggling foundation and if PayPerPost is really as easy and (relatively) lucrative as Andrew suggests then it might be worth a look.

Next, he mentions Alexa website popularity ratings and includes rankings for several chess sites and blogs. I can see another installment of my "Measuring the Chess Blogosphere" series on the horizon.

Finally, there is this cryptic post which suggests that his blog is in its final days. At first I thought it might be an April Fool's Day joke, but the post is dated April 2nd. Who knows if they even have the April Fool's tradition in Malaysia? In any case, Andrew promises "Reason and explanation tomorrow." Whatever happens, I certainly hope he doesn't plan on shutting down ChessPublisher.

Hundreds of channels - no monthly fee

Forever is a long time, so you never know (see The Chess Mind for a specific example).

In any case, at Chess for Blood, Patrick's closing post uses cable television as a means for describing several chess blogs:

I trimmed my links to the right because I think that blogs are like TV channels-- you only need a few, and you don't even really need those. The Kenilworthian is like The Learning Channel with all its erudite commentary, Blue Devil is like PBS for his academic treatises on piece activity, EmilyChess is like the Disney Channel for her kid-friendly enthusiasm. Boylston is perhaps like C-SPAN for noting news with varying degrees of relevance. Jim West is like AMC, American Movie Classics, because his articles are old but not outdated. There are also other chessblog channels like the Cartoon Network, depending on your taste.

In a follow-up comment, BDK suggested that Chess for Blood was like SpikeTV. I suppose Susan Polgar is like Biography (well, Autobiography actually) and Chess News and Events is like CNN Headline News. Any other suggestions?

How many chess blogs are there anyway?

I'd been meaning to get to this topic for quite awhile, but with all the caption contests, chess poems, USCL expansion news, Wamala updates, chess pie recipes and obscure references only marginally related to chess, who can find the time?

This story begins at the end of December on Susan Polgar's blog where she posted "The chess blogging boom." Susan wrote:

If you go to google and type "Chess Blog", about 2,130,000 items come up. If you type "Chess Blogs", about 1,760,000 items come up!

Those are of course staggering numbers, but just like the discussion of how many chess players there are in the world, rational thought and rigorous analysis can be brought to bear. So when one of Susan's anonymous commenters said, "I'm amazed that there are so many chess blogs", I thought it would be helpful to provide some clarity on the issue. I wrote:

Don't confuse the number of Google hits with the number of chess blogs. Many of the pages Google is listing probably don't even have the two words next to each other.

I would estimate that there are about 250-350 active chess blogs (where active = at least one post in the last 30 days).

Mr. Anonymous would have none of it:

"Don't confuse the number of Google hits with the number of chess blogs."

I believe Susan more than you.

It was all I could do to stop laughing. For this guy, Susan Polgar was the oracle of all truth and knowledge. It was posted on her blog so it must be true. To be fair, Mr. Anonymous would have no reason to know who I am, but had he done just a bit of research (e.g., checked my blogger profile and clicked over to this blog) he would have realized that I'm probably one of a very small handful of people on the entire planet who is in a good position to try and answer the question in the title of this post. Besides, anyone with a rudimentary understanding of search engines would realize that they are not a particularly useful tool for measuring things like the number of chess blogs. I posted a response to that effect:

"I believe Susan more than you."

Then I'm sorry to say that you would be wrong. As a test, go to say page 30 of the Google results for chess blogs and randomly click on one of the listings. Odds are it will not be a chess blog.

Thankfully, both Susan and another commenter came to my defense.

I didn't think much more about this encounter until Mark Weeks continued the discussion at Chess for All Ages:

A post titled The chess blogging boom ... caught my eye because it showed some typical confusion about counts on Google searches. A comment by DG ... corrected the misunderstanding and continued, 'I would estimate that there are about 250-350 active chess blogs...'

This number seemed high to me. I typically count about 75 blogs updated in the previous month plus another 40 active in the past six months. Since DG usually knows what he is talking about, I'll have to compare the BCC blogroll with my database of blogs.

It occurred to me that I needed to provide some explanation and the methodology behind my estimate. Here goes: While I maintain a database of all the blogs listed on BCC Weblog and continuously update their active/inactive status, I do not assume that I have a complete list of all chess blogs at any point in time. Why? Because new chess blogs are created everyday and on any given day if I want to find a few new ones I have several surefire ways of doing so. In fact, I could probably win a few bar bets with the following proposition, "In the next two hours, I bet I can find 5 chess blogs you've never seen before." Any takers?

OK, so if my database isn't complete then I need to estimate how much of the total universe of chess blogs it likely represents. I put boundaries on the problem -- it seems to me unlikely that there are 50% more chess blogs than I have in the database (i.e., I have found only about 2 of every 3), but reasonably possible that I'm short by 20% (i.e., I've found close to 4 of every five). One can certainly quibble with my estimates, but I think they are plausible.

Now at the time of Susan Polgar's original post I had ~ 220 active chess blogs listed. 220 + 20% = 264 and + 50% = 330, so that's how I came up with the 250-350 estimate I used in my comment.

Where do we stand today? I currently have 243 active chess blogs in the listings. Using the 20-50% methodology results in a current estimate of ~ 290-365.

Mark also suggested that another difference between his list and mine might be that he only tracks English language chess blogs. Certainly non-English blogs (and here I mean the language, not blogs written by people with good dental hygiene :) ) do constitute a sizable part of my database. Of the current 243 active chess blogs, 86 are not written in English while 157 are.

And lest you think we're finally done with this discussion, 10 days later Mark wrote a follow-up post on the topic which included the following:

How do I know when an inactive blog is reactivated? I don't. I trust that someone maintaining an active blog will post a welcome back message or refer to one of the newest posts in a dialog.

I have a solution for this problem. In Bloglines I keep a folder of RSS feeds for all the Inactive chess blogs. If they start up again, their posts pop up immediately. However, I wait until they've posted at least twice in 30 days before moving them back to Active status.

Anyone still awake?

Couldn't say it better myself

I've written several times about the development of community within the blogosphere, particularly when trying to promote cross-linking. In the chess blogosphere there is no better example of this than the Knights Errant, still growing and evolving more than two years after Don and Sancho started their lonely quest.

Now, Samurai Pawn poignantly articulates the value of this community and the impact it has had on him.

Rabbits! Everywhere Rabbits!

The Knights Errant have certainly been breeding like bunnies as of late and a post by CelticDeath sent me in the literary direction of John Updike (see my comment).

I've been thinking about how the blogging experience of our newest friends differs from that of the old-timers (sort of amazing that having a 4-6 month old blog in this community makes you an old-timer!?). Don and Sancho, do you remember how exciting it was to receive your first few comments from someone other than each other? Nowadays the newcomers are showered with feedback from the beginning. In some ways it's a reverse Ponzi scheme. Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. I just think it's interesting how the point in time in which you join the circle affects your experience and perceptions.

On a related note, I'm interested in what's been driving the explosive growth of the Chess Blogosphere in general and the Knights in particular since the beginning of February. To that end, I have a question for those of you who have joined recently: Did you read the blogs of the Knights and then decide to create your own or did you start your blog and only later discover the existence of the Knights?

For now, let's move on to introductions:

• Fussy Lizard has been mentioned here before, but now that he has his own blog the designation "Silent Knight" may not be completely appropriate. It seems like we should stick with Don's "dub" unless he thinks otherwise; if for some reason we need to change at a later date one possibility might be the "Cold-Blooded Knight".
  
  
• Next up is Yet Another Patzer, our second knight from outside North America. For our Argentinean friend I'll try another poor attempt at humor - "The International Knight of Mystery."
  
  
• Finally, give a welcome to King of the Spill. I'm all out of good names at the moment (and bad ones, for that matter), so we'll put this responsibility on hold for now (of course, your suggestions are always welcome).

P.S. - I'm now absolutely certain that CelticDeath was given the appropriate appellation. The spell checker wants to change his name to "cultist."

P.P.S. - Another rabbit ... It turns out that Chris Kilgore at Adventures in Georgia Tournament Chess is also a La Mazian.

To coin a phrase

In writing a disclaimer regarding his blog, Pete Wright uses the phrase "blog chess" to refer to the need to consider the external reactions/ramifications of what one chooses to publish.

I don't like to play blog chess, where I have to assess whether something I do or say on my blog will cause this person to do this, which in turn means I can do that, and so on.