Why? What were my words that made you think about that?

Of course, I am

Markovich

about 

"I don't really think that a collaborative project could work on that basis, do you?  In principle, there would have to be some sort of eventual dissemination, even if we worked in a private environment.  Or perhaps not, but I don't know that it would be very interesting to many people to work on something that would only ever be used by the members of the group"

I mentioned that I had this project of mine BEFORE we spoke about this big project of ours. 
I agree that such an approach does not work for this
project of ours.
Anyway, I think that all of us have our set of analysis 
and you can also see my own "private" project as my set of analysis on variations that I like most.
Anyway, sooner or later I would dessiminate them here which is I usually do.

But I notice that many times, we reply on the fly.
Meaning that sometimes, we are analising fast because we are having a group brainstorm ( exchanging posts on a variation). However, I notice that doing this quietly and with your own time, Icould have done it better.
However, there is a drawback to this quiet approach
which I hate a lot and which is the setup cost or more appropriate, the setup time. Suppose I post something here. Then, someone else posts a reply 
a few weeks later and then we have the setup time problem. I dont remember what I did earlier (I dont mean what is written down) and, my mind needs to come back to the earlier variation in order to remember previous thoughts to make a reasonable reply. Alternatively, i dont do it an dthere were a few
threads here where I think I still could have helped.

About
"But dear chessfriend, what really is your interest in producing a set of variations that never gets shared?  To spring surprises on people?  Do you play at a level where your expect your opponents to be that well booked up?

I spent the whole year working a lot on research papers on matters such as Network Optimization, to make them publishable and going to conferences to make MY work known. And getting mad when the reviews are not taht positive and so on.
So, for me Chess is an hobby and although I like to disseminate what I know (mainly if it is something that disagrees with past opinions),
I would not die less happy if I go to grave with a refutation of the Alekhine and forgot to tell the chess friends.

About

"I don't know that I like the idea of handing out assignments.  For the short run I think we should just do what we like to do, which is analyze interesting variations.  For the same reason I don't especially like the idea of people working in isolation.  Most of our fun here has come though interactive analysis"

well, i was referring to trying to find a rather small group of people that would start by collecting all the material posted here on a given variation which then would be the starting work for all the people to include new ideas (or even making corrections),
some interesting, to me, or lines which go back a few years

for instance, independent of all of this discussion,
I had in mind, still have, but not sure when I have the time to finish this, to make a collection of some of the analysis we posted here plus several extra analysis I did afterwords on the lines of the 4PA
which are as follows (no particular order): 9...Qd7 

i) 10. Be2 OOO 11.  OO Bg4 12. c5 (yes, we did a lot of analysis with Kam and Stephan on the line with Ng5 which, as far as I remember, killed a variation - but this i yet not my main priorities) and here my main idea is simply to collect our past discussions - 
I still remember we had one position where White had two bishops for a Queen and appeared to be OK) 

ii) 11....Kb8 collect what we did here plus some (a lot ?) more I did after that 

iii) 11 ...f6 which is given as bad but I still want to do it

Let me emphasize that these projects were supposed to be private with no idea of dissemination, unless to some friends which might be interested, but most of all, the interest in doing this is only about being able to collect my own thoughts

on the other hand, this is a bit vacuous since i dont see when I will have the time for this aqn dthese are not topycal lines

Of course this does not mean that there are not other interesting variations to me, manly in the 4. Nf3 line which should be topical

Markovich

I agree that this might be interesting. However, let me give you some ideas, provide some queries and provide some "objections" (for lack of a better term").

i) We must see what is the main aim of this project.
Would it be to collect what has been posted here (I would say that some lines and variations would benefit a lot by having all of these posts put together)
Or would we add something new (or try to add something new)

ii)As you said, is it about random lines (the lines that have collected more here and here "more" is used
with a qualitative meaning and not necessarily with a quantitative meaning) or should we try to do a repertoire of the type "if you want to Play the Alekhine them play this" - and here I imagine that the few of us might already start disagreeing.

iii) I also think that in order to make this work, it should probably not to do this in a very democratic way. I would suggest that we might choose someone (you !?) who assign tasks based on a overview of past posts to some of us. This is important becasue it amkie sense to assign people to variations that they have postedbefore and show some knowledge. Of course this may lead to conflicts and to open variations.

iv) iii) might be a problem since as Stephan said some of us may be selfish and not want to spend time on´
noninteresting lines for the assigned person - this might be caused for several reasons like lack of time
and when someone has time he/she woul rather spend time with the lines that he/she likes.

v) lack of time (as laready mentione dbefore) may be a problem sinc ewe may have two people working together at different speeds - this does not mean that ine is always is faster than the other, it simply means that that different sppends may lead to some delay

vi) I also think that person or persons assigned to a variation should finish it, or at least finish a big version, before others start to interfere, otherwise this would become a mess

vii) Finally, is this worth the effort? Would it work?
I think that having all of these email posts have been quite interesting to me but do we need to write a "book" on it? Couldn't conflicts happen? Like "you did this but forgot about my post where I have given this alternate line" - "i did not include this alternate line, becasue mine was better"

Well, just a few thoughts

Markovich wrote on 12/17/09 at 14:08:12:

Stephan who? 
I am very busy at the moment, will think about it. Alekhine's Defence has always interested me, but rather 4P and historical or strange lines, not what you prefer, I fear. And what I do usually has a selfish goal: an article in Kaissiber. - As an experiment, it certainly sounds interesting. One of the problems is to develop rules and standards, for citations, sources etc.

Markovich

Sure, why not?

thanks for inviting me in

well, this exchange between Markovich and Tony Ro
was very "interesting" - I couldn't get a word

one more thing - going back to what slate this morning, I read Burguess note in the Alekhine book and he says "it was therefore a pleasure to incorporate additional material and games that appeared after the manuscript was submitted for translation, together with some extra references and corrections to standard theory from my own sources"

so going back to my critics posted before, i wonder whether one of the positive things about the book that I mentioned before, the very recent games included in the book, were not due to this "additional material".
and, I have also mentioned not topical lines in several of the main games, where recent an dmore topical  material was briefly. was this also due to these editorial modifications?
included in side lines 

TonyRo wrote on 12/16/09 at 16:11:54:


I think we should start out with Google docs, it's just a whole lot more convenient and straightforward, particularly for anyone who hasn't used a version control system.

Why don't I take ownership for setting something up?  I have some pgn files about the Four Pawns Attack that I could put up for starters.  We need some sort of directory structure, something like:

I. Modern System

    A. Old Main Line

    B. Flohr Variation

    C. Alburt Variation

    D. Kengis Variation

    E. Miles Variation

    F. 4...Nc6

    G. 4...Nb6

And so forth.  Wow, the Modern looks like a major project in itself.