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So, far I am hearing odd little items such as '8x8 Chess will be laughed
at' presumable in the not too distant future. - Actually this is a
possibility if the human race decreases in IQ, every exercise of the mind
will be laughed at! 
And forcing chess variant designers to follow standards dictated by
someone or others - *something I as a designer will never do*, 
So how exactly did 8x8 chess evolve? BY PLAYING! 
Instead of wasting this time arguing about forcing others to do things,
why not just organize more tournaments, play more chess variants and see
what comes out of that. With enough people, people will naturally
gravitate towards a few chess variants. 
We have a great tournament going on right now in which each player has 2
favorite variants to play against the others. This has taken a backseat to
this useless discussion. Why were not all the parties involved in this
tournament? 
One thing to note: the chess playing community is very large and  not
interested in ANY chess variant at this point. Feel free to post this Next
Chess idea at any chess forum to see what response you get. Perhaps, this
post is intended for ortho chess sites - it must be - it does not concern
chess variants - as the most important support for chess variants is not
mentioned: PLAYING them! 

However, I do see some benefits to what Rich is doing - probably on the
way to an excellent categorization and possible promotion of chess
variants - both of which alone are good points for IAGO.