Site review - The Game Is Afoot

Following my list of chess history sites...

Chess History on the Web
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Weeks/Chs-hist/chs-hist.htm

...the next site to be reviewed is...

The Game Is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://www.pstat.ucsb.edu/%7ecarlson/chess/

...which features some well written articles about grandmasters of
the past. It's a small site, but it's always been a favorite because
Crandall has produced some quality material.

When I started to prepare this article, I discovered a blocking
problem -- error message 'Not Found : The requested URL was not found
on this server'. This message can mean that a site has been
reorganized and that a page has a new address. This time I was unable
to locate any of the pages on the www.pstat.ucsb.edu domain.
Sometimes sites disappear temporarily, but a few days later, the
problem was still there. The site was gone.

Switching to Google, I found the pages were still in the Google
cache. If you're not familiar with this useful resource, it's
described at...

Google Special Search Features
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#cached

...I know from past experience that when a site disappears, its pages
remain in the Google cache for a limited time only. This is
undoubtedly the time it takes Google to return to the site for
reindexing.

---

Now I had a decision to make for this review:-
1) Forget about the site and move on to the next address in my list;
2) Review the pages from the Google cache; or
3) Reconstruct the site from the cache.

'1) Forget about the site' : A month ago in...

Chess History on the Web (2001 no.19)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/message/9

...I looked at the Schachgeschichte site, which features German
language biographies of the world champions, of unsuccessful
challengers for the championship title, and of a few other great
grandmasters of the past. As part of the review, I conducted a search
for similar English language sites, but concluded that 'I still
haven't found a site with biographical material on all [the] world
champions'.

While Crandall's pages don't cover all of the world champions, it is
still one of the few English language sites with good biographical
material about chess grandmasters. I didn't want to forget about it.

'2) Review the pages in the Google cache' : I rejected this choice
because it seemed shallow. Why write about something which will soon
disappear? In fact, Crandall's pages are no longer available in the
cache.

'3) Reconstruct the site' : I had a big problem here -- I didn't know
who is the legal owner of the copyright. This seems to be the right
place to explain that Terry Crandall died last year. I suppose that
his pages, which were hosted by the University of California at Santa
Barbara, were removed during routine housekeeping. Universities often
remove Web pages belonging to former students and faculty who are no
longer associated with the institution. The material is then lost,
usually forever.

I sent an email message to the contact address mentioned on
Crandall's main page. I hoped to find out more information about
possible heirs, but I received no response. I then bit the bullet and
decided to preserve without permission his grandmaster biographies on
one of my own Web domains. The results are at...

The Game Is Afoot by Terry Crandall
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01k01/index.htm

...This is not an exact copy of Crandall's site. First, I preserved
only the biographies; other non-biographical pages are no longer
linked in my replica. Second, the Google cache includes only the HTML
text source of a page; graphics and images are not saved, so it is
not possible to recreate the original layout exactly. If you want to
see what Crandall's pages really looked like, most of the biographies
are also available at...

masterBios
http://www.jaced.com/htm/c/cbios/cbios_philidor.htm

...which seems to use Crandall's original layout.

I'm not sure that I made a good decision when I created a partial
copy of the site. I'd be interested in any comments on the copyright
issues involved here. If I ever discover that 'The Game Is Afoot' has
moved from UCSB to another host, I'll redirect my pages to the
official site.

I'll finish with an excerpt from a page which I haven't preserved. It
was written by one of Crandall's close friends and gives some insight
into his reasons for constructing the site...

'Terry Crandall was born January 17, 1955 in Pasadena, California at
7:50 a.m. He died on August 11, 2000 in Vancouver, Washington USA.
Over the 18 years I have known Terry, he was always fascinated with
those who had left their mark in history, whether it was famous chess
champions, classical composers, cartoonists or scientists. He had a
deep admiration for those who achieved great heights of
accomplishment. For the past few years I had the honor of helping
Terry author this chess site and can tell you that he always put
together new aspects of the site with the greatest care. His aim in
constructing the chess site was to write down his personal
impressions of great chess champions in history so that the young,
especially his young son, might be exposed to their fascinating
personalities and awesome achievements. All of the biographies were
designed to be understood by any age; even by those who do not play
chess.

'--- Claudia Carlson'

...I'm not going to say any more in this review. The biographies,
which cover world champions Morphy (unofficial), Lasker, Capablanca,
Alekhine, and Tal -- plus Najdorf, Niemzowitsch, Philidor, Pillsbury,
Reshevsky, Reti, Rubinstein, Sultan Khan, Tarrasch, and Tartakower --
speak for themselves.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

The Chess History discussion group
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at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/messages

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