[Retros] Building a complete and friendly retro library

[Pastmaker at aol.com]

Dear colleagues, 

I would strongly advise against any "best of" listings in a database.  It is 
entirely subjective no matter what we may like to think, and therefore 
pointless.  But it is also harmful to a discipline.  

Even the "records" we keep (not subjective - - except, of course, as to which 
records are worth maintaining) are often problematic, the interest in those 
statistics causing compositions to be misinterpreted as task efforts.  For 
example, I have frequently had comments about the number of retroscreens in a 
composition, which had nothing to do with the point of the composition (the 
number, per se, never having been of any interest to this composer).  I know that 
this proclivity to develop statistics has also disturbed other composers.

Imagine a central database of online literature with a list of the N best 
books ever written, or a database of art with a list of the K best paintings.  
But perhaps I am a hopeless antique, and such things already exist.

Please don't do it with chess compositions.

Thomas Volet






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