Right up front when the Zine went into production, I said that the retreat issues might get skipped every so often, so there's no blame as such to be laid, but I wanted to waste the first section of this "About The Pouch" article by saying that a skipped issue is more your fault than it is mine. In fact -- and I didn't mean to go off on this tangent, but here I go -- The Zine can only exist with articles, and if I don't get any articles, there can be no Zine.
I can't write every article myself. If you like The Pouch, if you like The Zine, if you like the Hobby, get involved! It doesn't take much time or effort and you'll be helping the hobby a lot. As Simon Szykman discusses elsewhere in this issue, now is the time when the Pouch's delivery medium -- the Internet -- is growing fastest. We know that there are already literally thousands of readers of The Zine and The Pouch. So why, when it is issue publication time, are there so few authors represented? Why do we find it necessary to republish game broadcasts and rec.games.diplomacy postings? You tell me.
In fact, like Bruce Reiff, a leading light in the postal hobby, says (also elsewhere in this issue) -- it is lamentable that it often seems to be "the same names" contributing to the Pouch. This is not to say that I don't realize or appreciate the many new authors who have joined the group of Pouch contributors (indeed, there are three more this issue), but the number seems somehow smaller than I would think it would be.
I am probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but this molehill actually became a fair-sized mound when the Fall 1996 Retreat issue of the Zine was skipped. Knowing that there are a scant three months remaining before the publication of the next (Spring 1997 Movement) issue, I hope you'll forgive me for perhaps taking a harsher line in hopes that we can prevent another skipped issue for a while.
I myself must confess that I was only tangentially aware of postal Diplomacy when I first learned the game face-to-face, and when I -- years later -- discovered e-mail play; I had never played by mail and knew nothing of that part of the hobby.
Publishing The Pouch changed all that -- I began to receive postal zines in my mail, I started corresponding with their publishers, and I ended up traveling to Columbus to participate in the World Championships where I came to know what the face-to-face hobby is all about at the highest level. As a result, I have become acquainted with a great number of names from the postal and face-to-face hobbies, and have learned a lot about their histories. I agree that this small bit of knowledge can go a long way to humble one, and that every true hobbyist should have an appreciation for the hobby's history.
Imagine, then, my surprise when I was informed that, for my humble work, I was
being considered for the Don Miller Memorial Award for Meritorious Service
to the Diplomacy Hobby. This so soon after I'd even become aware that the
existing hobby had even been organized so well that there even was such
an award (and a whole host of others). Imagine how that surprise doubled or
tripled when I was told that I had actually won the award!
Winning the Don Miller Award is a tremendous honor, and I hope those in the postal world who nominated me and all who voted for me know that I truly consider myself quite the least in the group of winners of this prestigious award.
Still I confess that I thought having my name published in the various postal zines as the 1996 winner was it. To my great shock, I actually received an extremely nice engraved plaque in the mail. The organization of the existing hobby surprised and humbled me yet again.
I would like to remedy this, and have proposed that the PBEM "sub-hobby" create for itself a set of awards, just as the postal hobby did so long ago. Ken Lowe, who created the Internet judge -- among so many others -- deserves an immortal place in the annals of hobby history.
I don't want to overstate the "controversy;" indeed, no one was questioning my eligibility or even my humble qualifications, and I want to commend the postal hobby for not being "provincial" and for nominating and voting for me. With this in mind, I also don't want the proposal to create a set of PBEM awards to sound provincial either -- from a "PBEM only, let's keep the PBM'ers out" point of view.
Rather, my admittedly limited understanding of the awards suggests to me that the Don Miller Award seems to be a general award which can be given to the single person who has done the most for the hobby (be it one or more of the sub-hobbies), while others of the heretofore PBM awards may be, by their definition, more suited to postal play only. Similarly, there are awards in the face-to-face community (the World Dip Cup, for instance) which are suited to that sub-hobby alone. All I propose is that a similar set of awards be created for the PBEM hobby.
It is my hope that the establishment of such a set of awards does not divide the sub-hobbies in any way. As Simon Szykman says, The Pouch is meant as a vehicle for bringing the sub-hobbies together. I myself am a testament to the fact that it can do just that. Our current FTF World Champion, Pitt Crandlemire -- who entered the hobby as a PBEM'er, got involved with the Pouch, accompanied me and Simon to World DipCon, and who now is an active postal player and even a sub-zine publisher -- is perhaps the very best example.
For all the commonality and history that the sub-hobbies share and should share, the fact remains that the three sub-hobbies are in fact sufficiently different to warrant three separate awards sets. Beyond this, however, I hope that The Pouch can continue to provide incentive for players from all sub-hobbies to involve themselves in each of the others.
So look for more information in thes pages and elsewhere on the formation of a set of PBEM awards. I myself have given some small amount of thought to the topic, and would suggest that, like the postal hobby has done, the PBEM awards be permanently named after the founders of the hobby (such as, for example, Ken Lowe), and that a group of awards be granted en masse to those who "would have won" in years past.
If so, maybe you can tell us what the first known mention of The Pouch by the Japanese press says. This appeared in the November, 1996 issue of the Japanese edition of MacUser magazine. I hope it doesn't speak too ill of us!
If you can read what it says, drop me a line and give me the translation. Your help will be appreciated and acknowledged. You should know that I am not even sure if this is the only part of the page that talks about The Pouch. I found this paragraph below a screen shot of the front page of The Pouch, but there is a lot more text on the same magazine page, both preceding and following the screen shot.
Manus Hand, Publisher
(manus@manushand.com)
If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the mail address above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.
