From: John Stryker <johns <at> INTERACCESS <dot> COM>
Date: 25 may 1998
Subject: Re: The Fraudulent "Ishi Press" web site

If I may offer some non-shogi comments on this current burning issue:

1) Sam Sloan has been done wrong by various individuals in this Ishi
Press matter.  I'm glad to know this as a consumer.  I'd rather find
out via a two-sentence pointer to the many web pages Sam has created
on this topic than find the whole saga in my email in-box.  Let's
work on this.

2) Sam has put some photos of "Shogi girls" on the web.  I'm glad to
know this as well.  A very short pointer to the web page would have
sufficed here also.  If worded gently enough it might have avoided
the flame war we had as well, something I definitely could have done
without.  Many women would have been offended by that whole thing,
and that represents half of the potential shogi-playing population.

3) Sam has had a few posts boasting about the number of "hits" his
web pages are getting.  This I couldn't give a d*mn about, and I
couldn't imagine anyone else caring about.  Other than Sam.

4) I'm not going to pick sides on this issue of Sam Sloan being "more
qualified" or "having done more for shogi" than Pieter Stouten.
Suffice to say that if it wasn't for Pieter Stouten I would never have
heard of Sam Sloan, Reijer's web page, the various telnet and web
servers, or many other things.  He's why you are reading this right
now.

Sam, I welcome your contributions to shogi and to this list.  To the
extent that your input is not 100% on topic with this list (as
specified in the charter) please lead me there via a URL on the web,
or point me to a USENET post in a general games group
(rec.games.board perhaps).  Please let this settle down so we can all
get back to shogi.

Pieter, I have always been grateful for (even awed by) your
administration of this list.  Please don't give it up; I don't know
if a replacement could come close to the job you are doing.  That
having been said, please give Sam a little room here to see if we can
all get along.  Occasional one-line pointers to web pages shouldn't
kill the signal-to-noise ratio too much.  Please, Sam, I said
OCCASIONAL.  When you have news.  Shogi-related news.

Ninety percent of what I know about the game of shogi, and ninety-
nine percent of what I know about the culture of shogi, I owe to this
list and Pieter.  I'd bet your numbers are similar to mine.

Let's all get along, and get back to Shogi.  I've got to improve my
rating.
John Stryker
johns <at> interaccess <dot> com