Boylston Chess Club
Thanks for the mention on your site. Yes, I too was downhearted to discover today that my site didn't win--though, like you, I saw the writing on the wall.
I agree with your suggestions for changing the categories at CJA to reflect the increased importance of online chess journalism. Institutions of all sorts, though, are like large ships at sea: it takes them time to change course.
The chess blogging revolution that your site helped spark is really only about two years old. Though some weblogs may date to about 1999, there were really not more than a handful until 2003-2004 and the majority that I have tracked were started this year or even in the last four months! (When was "Rapid Chess Improvement" published, for instance?) Blogs in general have only recently become mainstream: remember that the word "blog" was "word of the year" in 2004!
I think it would be the best thing for CJA itself, though, to acknowledge the vibrant online world and the growing chess blogosphere. Maybe you and I and other new members of the organization can help make that happen.
Better luck next year!
Mike
Mike - Thanks for your thoughts. To be honest, in spite of the title of my post I'm not downhearted at all. Five other entries in my category didn't even get a mention. Obviously it is hard to imagine that a piece on a local club championship tournament could compete with coverage of the U.S. Championship. At the same time, the judges must have seen some merit in my project.
Congratulations! I'm proud of you.
Yes. The reputation of our historian is the reputation of the Knights.
Sorry to focus on the downside! Of course "congratulations" are in order. I thought your 2004 Boylston Chess Club Championship blog was wonderful and I'm glad you were able to get some recognition for all of your hard work. It was one of the sites that inspired my own club championship pages:
http://www.kenilworthchessclub.o...cles/kccc-2005/
In my initial comment I was concurring that it is unfortunate there are not awards designed for such web publications. After all, as you point out, if your blog had not been converted to print there would have been no way for the CJA to acknowledge it.
It occurs to me that some traditionalists resist acknowledging web publications because they view them as ephemeral: "give them an award one day and you might find them gone the next." Print media, meanwhile, they see as lasting. It might not be read by more than a few people, but it can be stored away in a library for future generations... With the Web Archive and other ways of preserving electronic media, the web now appears just as permanent. And there is no question that it is read by more people. I think an award for "best blog" and "best club website" and "best tournament website" are among those I'd suggest. I don't think we're ready yet for awards in different categories of blogs.
Let's get a petition going...
Congrats DG!
Well done.
Mig, Redman, Heisman, uh huh; Kavalek, Shabazz, Nunn, sure; DG...
Nice company 
I hope your efforts will recieve proper satisfaction. And I bet you have more readers then a bunch of those bigheads 
Best regards
I hope I'm not too late to chime in here. It's been a while since I've perused these parts. The CJA awards is a topic that I feel strongly about.
(Congratulations, DG, on the Hon. Men.)
The CJA awards need to be modified in more ways than one. Not only do they need more catagories for online journalism, they need to eliminate older, less popluar catagories; change is way overdue. They also need to create a more liberal nominations process. For years, I've lobbyed to open the CJA nominations process, to eliminate the entry fee requirement. Simply put, I believe that any CJA member should be allowed to nominate multiple pieces of work for free, not just the one piece of work per entry fee, like the current rule. Let each list of open nominations be whittled to a shortlist like they do with other literary prizes. I've written about this in detail in the June, 2004 issue of the Chess Journalist.
http://chessjournalism.org/pdf/c...pdf/
cjjun04.pdf
(see page 7)
The CJA awards can be made into something great. Not to take anything away from the winners, but until then, winning a CJA award is more like winning first place in the class C section rather than in the Open section.
Howard Goldowsky
By the way, I have decided to boycott nominating myself for a CJA award until the nominations process improves. The only reason I won an award this year is because Mark Donlon nominated me via Chess Horizons, as well.
I'd also like to point out that, despite my protest, I still support the CJA, and showed this support by volunteering to judge the "Best Interview" and "Best Human Interest" catagories this year.
Howard Goldowsky
Wow! So using Howard's formulation, my honorable mention is equivalent to having a good tournament in the Class C section at the Foxwoods Open but falling a 1/2 point shy of the money. Now, I really am down-hearted.
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