A while back I when I started boardgamerspastime.com I had aspirations to bring another boardgaming related website to the internet. I mean, as a serious gamer who loves all things boardgame-related, I asked the question "Can you really have too much of a good thing?" I had always liked reading about strategies for playing games and couldn't find any sites that concentrated on this and, therefore, couldn't find much more than scattered strategy discussions on the internet. So I went ahead and created the site hoping that users would visit it and provide strategy hints for their favorite games. They did not. Basically, I wrote all the tips and transplanted (by way of cut and paste from rec.games.board) the tips of others. After over 150 entries and seemingly almost no interest from others I dropped the idea and basically converted the site into an internet billboard for my game club. I mean www.boardgamegeek.com is king when it comes to boardgaming related websites. I wasn't looking to compete with them, only to bring a new facet to the boardgaming community. Over the next couple years, I began pondering (on occasion) what to make of www.boardgamerspastime.com. I didn't want to put myself in the position of having to be the sole author of all content -- that's more work than I currently have the time to take on, but I wouldn't mind maintaining or moderating a community-updated site. When it comes to the internet one thing reigns supreme over everything else: content. The thing all of us web readers seeks out most is interesting content. And this is where my idea begins. From week to week, I get on the Net and surf it for interesting material related to my interests, one of them being boardgaming. I find that dozens of searches and many clicks later I am disappointed, finding much of the same old content and not much new. I would love for there to be a source, a master list of all new boardgames related content, that I could visit and use to make better use of my time online. Now here's where my pitch comes. What kind of interest would YOU have in a site that serves as a publicly maintained blog summarizing the latest boardgames related content? If I were to create this site, would YOU be willing to post the links to the latest boardgaming news, articles, game releases, etc.? Each posting would basically require a URL address and a short description of the link. I would of course create a very simple easy-to-use public interface. Again, the key here is public participation. While I do have the time to create and maintain the site I cannot spend dozens of hours a week on an activity that doesn't pay the bills. (I applaud the BGG webmasters who are apparently very devoted to their amazing site.) My goal here is to offer something useful to the boardgaming community. I value your feedback. Even more I value your honest assessment as to whether the chore of logging any new boardgame content that you notice seems like too much work for the proposed payoff of a community boardgaming news blog. I know that with a little work from a lot of users the site can make searching out the latest boardgaming news a breeze. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 5 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com