Talk:Women in chess

Quantitative research presenting women in chess
I went through some academic publications looking for whatever anyone has written about women in chess. I used Google Scholar and PubMed, both of which have certain bias including favoritism for digitized work, recent work, and quantitative research. Someone objected to the inclusion of this content in the article and removed it. I restored it. Is anyone willing to comment on the appropriateness of this content in the article?

My reasons for including it are that
 * this is a perspective from reliable expert sources
 * the content I collected reflects this perspective
 * this content is not omitting other identified sources

Thoughts?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:27, 12 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I removed it because of WP:UNDUE weight. An article about women in chess should primarily discuss the history of women in chess, not why there are differences between men and women in chess. You have more sentences on differences between men and women than the number of chess players mentioned in the article. In general, you should start with history sources, not Google Scholar or academic publications. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Judging from the lack of accuracy in the rest of the article, I would assume that you are not very familiar with women in chess. And I doubt the information presented in the "Research" section adequately summarizes the sub-topic of that section either. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Deleted content - special:diff/993816821/993817758
 * In your edit summary you asked for another sports article which presents research. See Female_bodybuilding.
 * If it matters, I know nothing about women in chess. I just looked for sources and summarized them here. I invite anyone to do better.
 * I requested additional comment from Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  18:04, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Came here from NPOVNB. In my opinion the material is WP:DUE and is well sourced. The statement "An article about women in chess should primarily discuss the history of women in chess, not why there are differences between men and women in chess." is, in my opinion, not based upon any Wikipedia policy. Compare Women in STEM fields.
 * What I would like to see if sources can be found for it is what percentage of all rated chess players are women, and the percentages in each of classes listed at [ https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-rating-classes ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Women in science would be the science counterpart to this page, not Women in STEM fields, and the main part of that article is a history section. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 20:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Though, Women in pick your favorite sport would be a better example. The main parts of all of these pages are the history section and the competition structure. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 20:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't be a better example because in most professional sports other than chess, competitions are gender-segregated. You shouldn't be removing stuff because of undue weight on the day a years-overdue article with a very broad scope is created. You should be adding stuff that's missing. — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:13, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What a bizarre notion that research into the causes of difference in chess playing strength between men and women would not be appropriate for this article. It's entirely appropriate as part of this article.  In time the other sections will grow more rapidly than this one will making this a smaller percentage of the whole, but it will always belong here.  If it becomes sufficiently large it could be spun off into its own page, but I suspect that won't happen any time soon.  05:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What a bizarre notion that research into the causes of difference in chess playing strength between men and women would not be appropriate for this article. It's entirely appropriate as part of this article.  In time the other sections will grow more rapidly than this one will making this a smaller percentage of the whole, but it will always belong here.  If it becomes sufficiently large it could be spun off into its own page, but I suspect that won't happen any time soon.  05:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Problem tag - neutrality
A reviewer posted a problem tag claiming that this content lacks neutrality and is missing information. Will anyone share comments on the problems? Furthermore, can anyone suggest a source of information which we could use and cite to correct this?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:31, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I am going to remove the tag. Per WP:WTRMT #6. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Biological differences by gender
There are two issues to possibly discuss -
 * 1) to what extent do biological differences between male and female result in different chess play?
 * 2) Regardless of any existing biological differences, there seems to be a history of commentary that gender differences exist. Should this article address that and if so how?

One reviewer removed a comment about this.
 * special:diff/993809946/993810330

What if anything should this Wikipedia article say?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:44, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I looked more. Besides the content in the research section above, here are more sources addressing this concept.
 *  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  18:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 *  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  18:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 *  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  18:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Size comparison
This is a new article, so the comparison is unfair, but just look at how large Women in WWE is. I think we could do with more on notable woman players. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:24, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

More sources
I was looking for good content about women in chess in general. Aside from this kind of content, there is a lot more available content about particular individuals. I have not reviewed that.

All of this content is digital. I did look for books and did not immediately find one.

 Blue Rasberry  (talk)  21:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * data
 * get rid of women's titles
 * general history
 * medieval women in chess
 * gender difference
 * countering bias
 * general history
 * medieval women in chess
 * gender difference
 * countering bias
 * medieval women in chess
 * gender difference
 * countering bias
 * gender difference
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * countering bias
 * Thanks, I read these (about gender difference) and the ones that were being cited in the article, and it was very helpful (and unusual) to have all this research done for me. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Copying from List of female chess players
I see that someone has copied some material from List of female chess players. That's great, but see WP:COPYWITHIN. Unless the edit summary of the copy mentions where the material is copied from, there's no way for readers to figure out who assembled all this material and/or where it came from. The citations are all there, I guess, and that's better than nothing, but normally one wants to see which Wikipedia editors worked on an article.

Can someone suggest a good way to fix this? Bruce leverett (talk) 01:16, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The material from List of female chess players properly belongs in this article, rather than its original place. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, shoulda been done long ago. But I can't go back and fix the edit summary where the guy shoveled those 11K bytes into this article, can I?  Maybe I should make a null edit and mention in the edit summary that those sections came from List of female chess players?  Bruce leverett (talk) 14:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes. If you can identify in your edit summary the specific edit in question, that would be ideal. --JBL (talk) 17:03, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Article state
Edit: Since someone removed my cleanup tag's reason parameter, here it is unaltered:
 * needs massive improvement to meet basic standards: incomplete, biased, missing attribution, duplicated content, unclear scope, you name it. Basically, at present it's a random collection of topics rather than a coherent article, and with so many significant omissions it's arguably more misleading than encyclopedic. CapnZapp (talk) 10:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Article currently reads as a hodge-podge, basically bringing everything and anything related to "women" + "chess". It makes for a poor Wikipedia article.

History of women in chess: just lifted from other Wiki article with no attempt to centralize and integrate. For instance, the history/timeline of women in chess should only appear in ONE article, with the other(s) linking to it, summarizing it or both.

Women's chess competitions: this barely qualifies as a stub, leaving out crucial info. Either develop into quality or remove. Honestly, this comes across as a way of saying "develop me please" but starting with crap as a way of compelling development is not the way to go.

Reasons for gender differences in chess: those "various reasons" need to be summarized and discussed. Just linking to places where you can learn more - is the opposite of what Wikipedia is about!

Culture: everything I said about the article applies doubly for this section.

Entire article should be draftified until ready for public consumption. This also sends the signal it's not cool to basically cobble together something by taking stuff from other articles - draftifying means "no, this is shite - but the idea is sound, so put in real effort and we'll talk".

CapnZapp (talk) 16:14, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * It is true that the "History of women in chess" section, and the timeline, were copied straight from List of female chess players. I did not do this myself, but I suggested it.  The editor who did it also tried to delete that material from List of female chess players, but another experienced editor protested, and so right now there are two copies.  That's not good, but I do not know what the "correct" procedure would be.  I believe that that material was misplaced in List of female chess players -- people would not naturally look for it there; whereas it is right at home in Women in chess.  Bruce leverett (talk) 17:24, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I think that the idea of moving the "History of women in chess" section, including the timeline, into a separate article, was sound. I am disappointed that there was an objection to removing the copied material from where it used to be, List of female chess players.  I think that would have been correct.  I would like to hear from other editors about this, particularly any that raised the objection.


 * I do not have an easy suggestion for the "Women's chess competitions" section. Most national women's championships are covered, in English Wikipedia, by the articles about the corresponding national non-gender-specific championships.  U.S. Women's Chess Championship is an exception.  There is also Women's Chess Olympiad, and Women's World Chess Championship, and various articles about WWC's from specific years.  It would be handy if the reader at least click through, from this article, to those other existing articles, but perhaps there should just be a category for this?


 * I agree that the "Reasons for gender differences in chess" section needs summary and discussion, and the "Culture" section looks like a hodge podge (not worse, however, than existing articles like Chess piece or Board game). Well, time's a-wastin'.  The Queen's Gambit is on everybody's lips, and this article is basically a hasty response to a fast-developing interest in chess.  Can't get the toothpaste back in the tube.  Bruce leverett (talk) 18:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT. See the sources above. Less discussion and more action. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:57, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What does that mean, User:Bilorv? That just because some random Wikipedian throws a garbage can onto the street I'm getting the job of cleaning up the mess? Actually I voluntarily accepted the job of cleaning up the mess - obviously not by doing the work other editors clearly weren't arsed to do, but instead by sending it back to the draft stage, hiding the embarrassment from public view and putting the onus on further improvement squarely where it belongs - on the editor who decided to just lift random pieces from other existing articles without attribution or any sense of what makes a good cohesive article. That's my contribution. You want more, you fix it yourself. CapnZapp (talk) 10:51, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Bruce, no, the overall idea to discuss women in chess is a great one. I don't consider putting it back into draft being an attempt at getting the toothpaste back in the tube. It would have been an appropriate grading of this particular effort, not an indictment of the general idea. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 11:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You seem to have confused "constructive" for "inordinately rude" in the phrase "constructive criticism". — Bilorv ( talk ) 12:02, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Multiple issues
First off, I couldn't immediately see how to retain the talksection link, so if anyone can make that happen (pointing the cleanup tag to ) that'd be great.

Then, because readers are much less informed by a message that says "this article needs various improvements" than specific issues like incomplete, biased, missing attribution, duplicated content, unclear scope etc the only way forward is to do what I initially didn't want to do: add the specific cleanup tags. But here they are:


 * cleanup rewrite Since I couldn't get the cleanup tag's reason parameter to show when inside the multiple issues envelope, I switched to cleanup rewrite. This basically says it all, except since it can't convey specific points it is not helpful on its own. It basically summarizes the below into a general message the article isn't ready for general consumption without a heavy disclaimer, and cleanup rewrite is the heaviest (and most appropriate) disclaimer of them all.
 * copy edit I am focusing on the cohesion part here (the grammar and spelling is fine) - this article is just a jumble of info, thus it needs to be copy-edited for cohesion as the template message says
 * duplication This article needs a serious discussion about what its scope is, and what other articles should be impacted
 * trivia Until we have a discussion about what parts are important and what parts are only thrown in here for good measure, I'm considering this to be essentially trivia
 * improve lead I am going to be bold here and assume everyone understands this tag...
 * generalize Not just one, but yeah - this article comes across as just a copy paste of snippted unrelated in any other way than women + chess. An encyclopedia-worthy article will have a continuous discussion where each included snippet falls naturally in line
 * unfocused If there ever was an article deserving of this tag, this would be it. Just because something involves women and chess does not mean there's a natural connection, and not every snippet needs to be in this article
 * coatrack I'm specifically using the tag's language "place undue weight on a particular aspect rather than the subject as a whole" to point to the serious problem where the existence of this article suggests a completeness and full overview that just doesn't exist at present. This article should have been kept out of article space until it is more leading than misleading so to speak. I am not using the tag to suggest there's an agenda or conspiracy here; just that the article has not yet reached a basic level of competence.
 * undue weight Obviously, by only including select (read random) snippets, undue weight is certainly placed on those snippets. Basically, there's so much more to women in chess than this article suggests.

CapnZapp (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Pretty much all of this can be attributed to the problematic IP editor 100.11.62.135 (User:Dante8) - see Sockpuppet_investigations/Dante8/Archive. My suggestion - apply WP:TNT and restore the article to the state it was in before this editor got a hold of it. Subsequent "good" edits may then be restored on a case by case basis. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 16:11, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Getting started
This article may one day be ready to be one of the "Women in Society" series. See for example Women in music. I do not know how one becomes a part of that series, but in any case, this article is not big enough yet.

I noticed that Women in space exists and is interesting, but is not part of that series.

I looked at those articles as possible models to emulate in organizing this article. I have come around to agreeing with another editor who did not like the "timeline" style. Such a collection of tidbits is not what our readers are looking for.

I am not certain of the value of a separate "History" section. Not all the articles I am looking at have one; sometimes history is distributed through the whole article, as in Women artists and Women in music. I plan to write a few words about the first women's international tournament (London, 1897) in the "Women's chess competitions" section. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The history and timeline sections are not merely "less than ideal", they are very poor. People keep saying WP:SOFIXIT, but nobody is actually motivated to fix it, because it's such a horrible mishmash of poorly sourced random trivia with no coherent narrative, like Bill Wall only worse. It is not a good basis for building and evolving an article. Far better to start a history section anew and gradually evolve it. By the way the history and timeline text was created by a banned sock puppeteer. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

It's awkward. The original of this article, as created by User:Blue Rasberry, was little more than a stub. I do not know what plans he might have had for it. There are different directions it could be going; who should decide among them?

Women in music is organized by different professions, e.g. songwriters, instrumental performers, etc; within some categories there are subcategories for, for example, genre. Does it make sense for Women in chess to be organized that way? Would readers be interested in it? We have an article about Jacqueline Piatigorsky, who was notable mainly as the patron of the Piatigorsky Cup tournaments, and there are writers and teachers who are notable. Naturally, the first people who pop into my head are the strong players, because I'm a player, but casual Wikipedia readers might be looking for different things from what I would look for.

Women artists is organized by historical eras; some categories have subcategories for different types of art (painting, sculpture, photography, theatrical design, etc.). This reminds me that perhaps I should wonder if there are women who are notable as problem or endgame composers. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:56, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the harshness of MaxBrowne2's assessment of the history section, but I do respect that opinion. This is the first time that women in chess has had an article in the 15 years that I've been here, and since the article isn't even two months old I'm willing to allow a lot more time for it to mature.  I think nearly every item in the section would be included in a future better article, and if that is so then the question in my view is whether it would be easier to get to that better future starting from scratch.  Unless the content is truly rotten, my experience is that often articles have better outcomes if they are allowed to grow rather than being repeatedly pruned back to stubs.  Not every article springs fully formed from the head of Zeus like u|Krakatoa's best work.
 * With regard to Bruce's question about how to structure the article, my inclination would be to give it time to germinate and see where natural growth might take it. It's possible that it would develop more quickly if it was planned using the waterfall model, but Max has complained that the article isn't being improved now and I personally don't see any reason to expect that trying to force it in a specific direction here at the outset would accelerate its improvement.  We still need someone willing to put some time into improving the article, and I think the chances of finding such an editor might increase if we don't predetermine the kinds of contributions we will accept.  (We already went through that with one editor insisting that this article absolutely cannot discuss the differences between the chess play of men and women.)  But if you or any other editors have an idea how the article should be structured and then do the work, then in my opinion you earn the right to strongly influence the article structure.  Every editor should have a voice, but I think the people who do the work on an article deserve a greater say.
 * As a final thought, if you think low quality of the history or timeline sections are spreading some kind of stench throughout the article that is actually discouraging editors from working on it, the content could be moved to a standalone timeline of women in chess article. I moved the section to the end of the article in the hope that even those who don't like it would find the start of the article not less attractive than it was before, but if you think my attempt was not successful, you could move it to a new standalone page. Quale (talk) 07:04, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Can't speak for other editors, but the current mishmash and multiple duplications in the history and timeline sections certainly discourages me from working on the article. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Importance to WP:Chess
I see that there has been some edit warring over the "Importance" classification of this article to WP:Chess. Let's take it to the talk page, though it's already there.

If the "Importance" classification is our way of saying "Please somebody work on this", then, high importance seems reasonable. When an article goes from random to "Good", as happened recently with Aleksandra Goryachkina, it often happens because one person got behind it and pushed hard. If these classifications are supposed to help us recruit people to work on an article, then this one certainly needs some recruiting. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Intrinsically the article is of minor importance. The fact that the topic doesn't even have an entry in print reference works such as The Oxford Companion to Chess is evidence of this. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 03:30, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for starting the discussion, Bruce leverett. As more background: MaxBrowne2 has (repeatedly) re-rated it Mid-importance while both myself and rated it Top-importance. Why would the topic need to have an entry in "print reference works such as The Oxford Companion to Chess"? I'm sure such references have entries about Polgár (or rather, each of the three of them), Menchik, Yifan et al. We've seen that there are plenty of academic works specifically about the topic here and higher importances have been used whenever I've seen them on Wikipedia to indicate how significant a subfield of the WikiProject's scope is. This topic is Top-importance because it has in its scope all individual notable female chess players and studies of gender differences in chess and the reasons behind this along with some of the most notable tournaments (e.g. the Women's World Championship). I agree with Bruce leverett's good points as well.  I saw MaxBrowne2's edit summary reads "we may wish it were otherwise, but women have played only a minor role in the history and development of chess". We're not comparing "Women in chess" to "Men in chess", so this comment isn't really relevant. We're comparing "Women in chess" to, as examples, (the High-importance articles) Harry Nelson Pillsbury and World Chess Championship 2012 and Zukertort Opening and Opera Game. If Judit Polgár is High-importance then it makes no logistical sense to have a larger topic which includes her rated Mid-importance. — Bilorv ( talk ) 09:40, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * can I take the silence to mean that there will not be an objection if I reinstate the Top-importance description? Otherwise, do you have any thoughts on my comment? — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This assumption is not valid. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 21:29, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * When three people have expressed disagreement, you don't have veto power. You need to engage in discussion or the status quo, and the majority-weight opinion, is the one with the most consensus. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Only
Your point about the previous "only" is well taken. I would be willing to reorganize the sentence about Polgar so that that adverb could be removed.

The issue is that "only" is passing judgment in a way that's inappropriate. Given the small proportion of chess players who are women, is one woman in the world's top ten a small number or a large number? Likewise is three women in the world's top 100 small or large? These questions are what Gobet and Wei-Ji Ma are trying to answer, and as editors, we aren't supposed to supply the answers ourselves. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Quite simply, you are wrong. Virtually no one thinks that 3 out of 100 is not a very small number. Do you have a source that says otherwise? The observation that this is a small number is not an opinion. Mukogodo (talk) 21:25, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I am quite astonished by your reply. I am inclined to think it is a large number.  The argument advanced in the sources I mentioned is that the number of high-achieving women in chess should be compared with the total number of women in chess.  If you disagree with those sources, you should find sources you like better, and try to refrain from giving your own conclusions. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe you are better at math than I am, but if 1/16th of rated (German) chess players are women (from the article), then one would expect ~6 women in the top 100 (all else being equal), even if you believe that these ratios explain all of the difference. So why do you think that 3 is a large number? Mukogodo (talk) 21:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * All else isn't equal. For example, in the Jan 2023 rating list, the 16284 titled male players have an average age of about 45 years compared to the average age 39 for all 362,144 rated men.  The 4063 titled women have an average age of about 35 years, but the 43,373 rated women have an average age around 26 years.  On average the men have more than a decade more experience than the women.  Almost 37% of the rated women are juniors (under age 20) compared to only 19% of the men.  I'm sure there's a lot more that could be gleaned from the ratings data, but it's irrelevant to Wikipedia unless we can cite a reliable source.  Quale (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Bruce is correct for two reasons. First, you (Mukogodo) seem to believe that it is self evident to anyone that 3/100 is a small number.  If that is true then we should allow the readers to draw that conclusion themselves.  There is no need for Wikipedia to editorialize; simply state the (referenced) facts and let the readers decide for themselves whether the number is small, or large, or unremarkable.  Second, WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, and WP:UNDO prohibit this kind of editorializing anyway.  If 3/100 is surprisingly small and we claim that has some particular significance, then we must cite a WP:RS.   Absent such a source, we must not use Wikipedia's editorial voice to make such a claim.  Quale (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Lead section
"This article is about the participation of women in chess and its culture" is self-evident from the title of the article. Please provide a better lead than the one you reverted. Thanks, Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I am thinking of something comparable to the lead of Women in Music. A problem is that the lead is supposed to be a summary of what's in the article, but we don't have a whole lot in the article right now.  But, gotta start somewhere. Bruce leverett (talk) 23:03, 5 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I started typing "Historically, chess has been a male dominated game..." and then I stopped myself. I don't want to be a mansplaner, and I honestly can't think of a good intro to the article. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 19:43, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * When I looked more closely at Women in Music, I realized that it is 70 pages printed, so perhaps I should look around for another model to emulate. History of women's rowing might be such a model, though it is a little short. Women in Music also has a link to "Women in society sidebar" which links to some other articles, some of which might be useful comparisons. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:27, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Chess Coaching
In the Chess Coaching section, the phrase "men's Division I chess team" is used twice. The word "men's" is an error, because the teams were open to both sexes -- I will fix that. But what I don't know is, does "Division I" make sense? I thought Divisions were an NCAA thing, and college chess doesn't have them yet. Am I out of date on this? Bruce leverett (talk) 05:42, 2 December 2023 (UTC)