King Me: The Online Museum of Checkers History

I'll admit I don't know much about checkers, aside from what colors are represented on the board.  That's probably because I don't really have the patience to play slow games - heck, I don't even like puzzles because they take too long.  So it would be nice to have a museum at my fingertips that could explain the game and its history in a format that would allow me to choose how much I want to learn.  So I'm sorry to report that although it tries very hard to be helpful, the Online Museum of Checkers History doesn't even come close to fulfilling that desire.

The online museum started as a way to save the contents of the International Checker Hall of Fame, which burned to the ground five years ago.  It seems that this site is the work of a few dedicated fans, with contributions from several players.  It's a noble effort, but the execution of the online museum leaves a lot to be desired.  Many pages are way too long and contain mountains of text in various sizes, colors, and fonts.  There's an abundance of all-caps typing and ellipses, which makes you very unwilling to read more than a few words.  Combined with scrolling text and some very weird graphics, the online museum resembles one of those long-lost Geosites personal webpages.

Some of the galleries on the museum are informative, like the images of old game boards and rosters of players from tournaments past.  I also find it interesting that the museum's administrators are trying to crowdsource its content by asking visitors to submit images and artifacts.  But the information is hard to glean from the terrible formatting, and in some cases I'm not even sure it's reliable.  In the Timeline section, for example, there are plenty of events whose date is listed only as "???" - which is not just unhelpful but also unprofessional.

I admire the creators of the Online Museum of Checkers History for their dedication to rebuilding a physical museum into a new format, and for soliciting the expertise of their fellow players in creating content.  Their effort, though, has produced a mish-mash of words, text, and dubious information.  I can imagine that a checkers enthusiast would enjoy this museum, but not many others could say the same.  So until this site makes some serious changes, I would recommend finding your checkers information somewhere else.


Online Musuem of Checkers History
Website:  www.online-museum-of-checkers-history.com

From the Great Beyond: The Museum of Talking Boards

And what, you're probably asking, is a talking board?  It's a category of games that includes Ouija Boards and all other game boards that purport to answer any question we ask of them.  As a child I was told that these types of games were tools of the devil, so I know next to nothing about them.  And while I maintain a healthy skepticism about the power of these games, it was interesting to learn about them, even from an obviously biased source.

The introductory screen of the Museum of Talking Boards is rather off-putting, because it consists of a large block of text with only one link to the museum's content.  You have to navigate through the museum's site map to find everything on the website, and many of the sections here are also word-dense.  You might not want to read everything, but you can glean plenty of interesting nuggets of information.  There's Ouija Board lore, for example, as well as a history of talking boards in the movies and a description of their "therapeutic" uses.

The best section of the museum is the gallery of boards.  Here you can find images of dozens of boards from the past, each with information on when it was made and the company that manufactured it.  For some of the boards you can view larger images along with a more detailed description.  This section is nice because it not only illustrates the museum's content but also places these boards in a historical context.

I wish, though, that the museum was more objective.  I guess it's almost inevitable that a museum devoted to Ouija Boards would slant in favor of their supposed powers, and indeed this one believes in them so much that there it includes information on how to use and care for talking boards.  The only nod to disbelief is an article on automatism (the idea that unconscious hand motions control the board's message indicator) and how it stacks up to the ideas of spiritualists.

So although the Museum of Talking Boards is quite interesting and can help answer some questions for those of use who are unfamiliar with talking boards, I wouldn't recommend it for those seeking concrete answers.  Psychologists have addressed automatism and its relation to our subconscious in countless research studies.  Those might make a nice companion to viewing this museum, bringing together a history of modern spiritualism with a rational explanation of how talking boards work.

Museum of Talking Boards
Wensite:  www.museumoftalkingboards.com