Chess magazines' coverage of chess literature scandals

[Paul McKeown]

Jonathan,

On this point I would agree with you. If you want to make the point of plagiarism, then a copy of the two works side by side is necessary. I would hope that the various laws regarding copyright would allow that usage as a fair one.

However, I just find the issue dull as dishwater. There have been greater dishonesties, if that is what they are, in the chess world. Surely, it would be better to keep one's powder dry?

[Jonathan Bryant]

The Streatham blog just bores on ....

Indeed we do Paul.

As for leadership positions, Ray was rather involved with Sheffield wasn’t he? Also, he is the Times Chess correspondent which strikes me as quite an important position in the chess world for various reasons. Also he pitched up at the Oxbridge match - which is what kicked this whole thing off in the first place.

Not such a shrinking violet, perhaps.

Edit: Oh, we cross, posted...

However, I just find the issue dull as dishwater. There have been greater dishonesties, if that is what they are, in the chess world. Surely, it would be better to keep one's powder dry?

You’re surely not alone Paul. Many of our fellow chessers have been kind enough to avail me of this opinion - both face to face and via the internet. Also, I quite agree that you’re right about ‘greater dishonesties’.

I refer you back to the ‘we write about what interests us’ line that we take.

It doesn’t please me that you’re bored, but I’m afraid that’s always the risk with us. On the upside, at least it’s free of charge at the point of use.

[Paul McKeown]

Keene is never going to have any further leadership positions within the ECF

Two of the last three ECF Presidents have at least entertained the idea as a possibility.

And what stopped them? One can only surmise that they were told in no uncertain terms by longstanding board and council members to drop the whole ridiculous idea.

[Paul McKeown]

the refusal to acknowledge that RDK is a proven plagiarist

I don't recollect anyone having said that here. You will have to remind me.

[Paul McKeown]

As for leadership positions, Ray was rather involved with Sheffield wasn’t he?

Did he have a leadership position?

Also, he is the Times Chess correspondent which strikes me as quite an important position in the chess world for various reasons.

True.

Also he pitched up at the Oxbridge match

He's been doing that since he was (presumably) an honest striver. It would be hard to ban him. What would be the legally enforceable reason?

which is what kicked this whole thing off in the first place.

Errr, bo**ocks.

Not such a shrinking violet, perhaps.

No one has said he was, have they?

[Jonathan Bryant]

the refusal to acknowledge that RDK is a proven plagiarist

I don't recollect anyone having said that here. You will have to remind me.

I didn’t mean to suggest that anybody has said something along the lines of “The case against Ray has never been proven” or “You are wrong. Ray has never been proved to be a plagiarist.” This would obviously be a difficult position to maintain, after all.

I was thinking more along the lines of what’s not said. E.g. not saying, “Yes, Ray’s been found to be a plagiarist in the past <insert comment about the evidence presented recently>, but you are obsessed with him and what’s more you are a hypocrite.” Instead, making no reference to past proven case, no comment on the evidence presented recently and just jumping to the last bit.


We’ve cross posted again.

So I’ll just say that I was only trying to present the argument as to why Ray Keene remains of interest. And I *do* think that it was the Oxbridge match thread which sparked this most recent flurry of posts on the subject at hand.

And with that, I must offer you a Peter Williams-esque ‘it’s time for my tea’.

[Paul McKeown]

And with that, I must offer you a Peter Williams-esque ‘it’s time for my tea’.

Well, enjoy it, Jonathan. That is sincerely meant.

[Roger de Coverly]

And I *do* think that it was the Oxbridge match thread which sparked this most recent flurry of posts on the subject at hand.

It certainly was. You know who had been pictured alongside officials, sponsors and the ex-ECF President. That might not have been enough to set things off, had not someone compared the relative lack of publicity for the BUCA championship to the relative excess for the Oxbridge match. That in turn prompted a comment about a low standard of journalism, to which journalists objected and then someone mentioned the lack of comment in the magazines about material seemingly coped from MGP .... .

[Paul McKeown]

And I *do* think that it was the Oxbridge match thread which sparked this most recent flurry of posts on the subject at hand.

It certainly was. You know who had been pictured alongside officials, sponsors and the ex-ECF President. That might not have been enough to set things off, had not someone compared the relative lack of publicity for the BUCA championship to the relative excess for the Oxbridge match. That in turn prompted a comment about a low standard of journalism, to which journalists objected and then someone mentioned the lack of comment in the magazines about material seemingly coped from MGP .... .

That's one theory. Another is that it's just the latest episode in a long-standing campaign, which many find causes and exacerbates toothache in the arse. Get some new material, for Pete's sake. Or move on.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Jonathan B.

My ref to closing down a mag is that is the path they will be on if they
start looking for and chasing the scandals.
They just have to get one wrong and that will be it.

Not buying a mag because you don't like what is not in it....er....OK.
Or is it because they don't support your quest....?

Have you ever submitted a piece to either mags with the stuff you want in it?

As for receiving anonymous hate mail and threats of violence as a reprisal for
something that you have written. Then I'm not up for that. That is shocking.

I pulled the name Rotherham out of the air. I don't know if they have a 3rd team.
Actually I've just checked. There is a Rotherham Juniors Chess Club.
Just read a report where a player declined a draw v Barnsley C. C. and then blundered and lost.

(I must find that blunder, some have Keanophobia, I have Bllundererseekus.)

Barnsley have a lad called Ron Atkinson playing for them.
These juniors should be on the cover of the mag with their 8 games noted up by an IM or GM.

These kids are the future. Not hounding a 66 year old man with a dodgy memory.

The totally ridiculous thing about this whole affair is I could take 60 games you played,
add my name to each one and print the book. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
And yet if I write

1.e4 Ng8
1.e4 Rb8
1.e4 Qh8
1.e4 checkmate.

That is a poem. That is now copyright. It's a farce. No wonder I'm laughing.

I have just seen the link:

http://keenipedia.com/.

Incredible.

But you guys are looking in the wrong place. (Britian). This bit.

“I work for an enormous number of magazines all over the world. I scribble it out in longhand....”

In other countries, I'm pretty sure the USA is one, they do jail for plagiarism.
That is why I made it clear 'In the UK' in my last piece.

You can take him out circulation [a pun] and leave CHESS and BCM intact.

Can I get a mention on:

http://keenipedia.com/keenenumber/

Because I find it funny. Put me down as a 5.

[John Saunders]

I’ve assisted Justin in investigating the plagiarism and recycling carried out by Ray Keene. We’ve looked at just about all of his columns published in The Times from 2011 onwards. We’ve looked at about 80% of his columns in The Spectator going back to early 2001. In total we’ve examined more than 1,500 columns and found 140 examples of plagiarism (with more than 130 since the start of 2011) and several hundred examples of recycling. Ten consecutive Times columns, running from 1 June 2013 to 12 June 2013, contained plagiarised text. Most of the plagiarism we've found is of Kasparov’s My Great Predecessors series (though other authors have also been plagiarised). We’ve found that a quarter of the annotated games (37 of 148) in Part I of My Great Predecessors have been plagiarised.

This is some record. But plagiarism isn’t all that Ray Keene has done. Far from it. For further information see: http://keenipedia.com/.

Why is stuff like this allowed to happen? And could there be reasons - other than those given by John Saunders - why Keene’s activities go unreported in the mainstream chess media? Might vested interests play a part?

Tell me about Keenipedia, Angus. Do you happen to know who is behind it? As far as I can see there is no named author. So it can be dismissed as cowardly tittle tattle. A sort of overblown poisoned pen letter. People are named as cronies, etc, for no more reason than that they once happened to be in the same room as RDK

Vested interests. What did you have in mind? But do be careful how you word your reply as there's a nasty d-word which m'learned friend takes more seriously than the p-word. Of course, you've no evidence of it - nor could you have as it is mere flatulence. Speculation. A conspiracy theory. Attention-seeking tittle-tattle.

What I think we have established in this thread is that S&B have a poor grasp of facts and publishing law. The plagiarism business is not your business but that of the copyright owners. We've established that you are attacking RDK because you've got some axe to grind with him, not because you're particularly bothered about plagiarism (because you appear not to have investigated any other people who might be doing it). And we've established that you yourselves are infringing copyright.

This whole S&B campaign comes across as muckraking journalism. The sort of stuff that the Daily Mail and the News of the World peddle in order to titillate their readership. The reason the print chess media don't touch it is because it's boring crap. Justin and you are beginning to remind me of Edward Winter, except that you're not as clever at it as he is. You leave all sorts of silly flaws in your arguments and allow the charge of double standards to be laid at your door. Geoff Chandler burst the balloon of your pomposity in the space of one post.

The kindest thing I can say about you is that you are naive. You haven't a clue about the day-to-day job of running a chess business. You're like a bunch of idealistic sixth-formers who think they know all the answers but actually you haven't a clue what is involved in the real work of the chess industry. You've been rumbled and it's just impossible to take you seriously any more.

Actually, I couldn't care less about the plagiarism issue. RDK is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. It was simply a convenient subject to wade into to demonstrate how ridiculous you are. I'm much more concerned about the litany of other vicious attacks you've launched against other people, in particular the willing volunteers of the chess world, on this forum and elsewhere. The people I admire in the chess world are the people who do useful things. People who organise tournaments, run chess teams, sponsor competitions , administer federations and do the innumerable, positive things that have to be done to make chess work. Of course, I also admire chess players themselves who entertain us with their enterprising play. I admire people who run chess businesses, and keep respectable chess publications going under pressure from the internet outlets. I admire people who seek out and secure sponsorship for chess. (Actually, I don't just respect the above, I look up to many of them as they are doing things that I as a chess scribbler don't have the capacity to do.)

The people I don't admire are the perennial knockers and critics, the overgrown schoolboys who have contributed next to nothing positive to the chess community, who sit at home composing knocking copy. Attention-seekers, ardent for some desperate glory. Those people really make my blood boil.

No doubt one of the S&B floggers will nitpick what I have written, or compare it with my oeuvre over the past 15 years, seeking to demonstrate my own double standards. I'll save you the bother. Yes, my own record is not unblemished. I've written knocking copy before, in the past, when I was as young and stupid as you guys. Nick Faulks and others come on here occasionally and remind me of my past sins. I'll take criticism from guys like Nick as I respect him and his positive contributions to the chess world. But I'm afraid I won't take it from the S&B floggers.

[Roger de Coverly]

The people I don't admire are the perennial knockers and critics, the overgrown schoolboys who have contributed next to nothing positive to the chess community, who sit at home composing knocking copy. Attention-seekers, ardent for some desperate glory. Those people really make my blood boil.

This has to include those who write about chess rather than play it. When was the last time the more sarcastic writers on the magazine Chess went head to head with a GM in a Rook ending?

[John McKenna]

Paul McKeown>... I don't think this tedious regurgitation of minutiae is the way to proceed, though. Keene is never going to have any further leadership positions within the ECF, following Tony Miles's accusations, which have been accepted as, prima facie, plausible by the chess community in England...<

This part of the thread goes straight to the heart of the matter - at least as far as I am concerned - it's Keene, the critic and member of the establishment club, versus Miles, the representative of the Bohemian artists guild.

It goes way back - think of the 9th Marquess of Queensbury v. Oscar Wilde, for example - and is not really any different to the recent Short-Paulson personality clash. Apart from the duration that is.

Paul wrote - Keene is never going to have any further leadership positions within the ECF.
RDK seems to be able to lead from outside the ECF and probably can exert more influence and wield more power than any individual member of the ECF currently can - both in the chess and the wider world.

Paul also wrote - accusations, which have been accepted as... plausible by the chess community in England...
Yes, however, the problem is that the English "chess community" accepts a lot of things - just like the long-suffering public - but that does not make everything right. What are the consequences of this particular general acceptance?

The result of these individual bitter personality battles is that they rally supporters and opponents who then engage in a struggle - often along class, cultural and political dividing lines - that can continue long after the original dichotomy, even after the original protagonists are gone, sometimes.

[Jonathan Bryant]

And with that, I must offer you a Peter Williams-esque ‘it’s time for my tea’.

Well, enjoy it, Jonathan. That is sincerely meant.

I did and I would have taken it that way, thank you.


It was me who took the debate about chess journalism and added RDK to it. Since it was I can assure you of my motive. Chess journalism is a long-standing interest of mine. Journalism in general for that matter, but chess journalism in particular in this instance.

So the question was raised about the interest in the oxbridge match compared to other things - a question that I find of interest but not massively so - and then the issue of chess journalism was raised as a result. My contribution to that subject was to point out the curiosity that RDK might be getting a mention in the mag as attending the Varsity match but not a single line written about the plagiarism stuff. It seemed (and seems) like an odd set of priorities to me and the perfect example of chess journalism failing to be journalism.

That’s my primary interest. In truth I’ve had next to nothing to do with the plagiarism series. I did find one example, but Geoff will be delighted to know I stumbled across that by accident when looking for chess analysis. I certainly didn’t go looking for it.

[Paul McKeown]

The result of these individual bitter personality battles is that they rally supporters and opponents who then engage in a struggle - often along class, cultural and political dividing lines - that can continue long after the original dichotomy, even after the original protagonists are gone sometimes.

Holy Cosmos, Robin!

You'll have to carry out an in depth classification of class, cultural and politics by debater, to enlighten us, then.