User talk:FrankEldonDixon

Notability guidelines for organizations
Hello, Frank--

You created several new pages about organizations. You may want to check out the relevant notability guidelines. Cheers, JChap2007 20:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Golden Gaels
Thanks for the changes in the Golden Gaels article: I didn't modify anything in the first paragraph in my edit, so I missed the capitalization errors that were already there. Also, thanks for fixing my "dcan" typo! - RogueNine

Edit summary
I have noted that you often edit without an edit summary. Please do your best to always fill in the summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Even a short summary is better than no summary. An edit summary is even more important if you delete any text; otherwise, people may think you're being sneaky. Also, mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important; add "and misc." to cover the other change(s). Thanks! -SpuriousQ 18:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Chess biographies
Thanks for your nice work on chess bios. It's much appreciated. 24.177.112.146 07:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded! Just read the article on Reuben Fine and added a couple of cites. Nevadaone (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

References / Citations
Hi Frank. I really appreciate the excellent work you've done in chess-related articles. But please use citations or references wherever possible, especially for little-known facts (like your recent comment that Botvinnik largely devised the FIDE cycle system), or things that could reasonably be called matters of opinion (like the comments Bronstein's opening repertoire). I can be a hard habit to get into but believe me, it helps in the long run. At least once I've had to go an deleted a "fact" I inserted because I couldn't find the reference. Also there's a lot of "facts" on Wikipedia which are just plain wrong; adding citations helps checkers to verify or ascertain stuff. Rocksong 03:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Rocksong!! I wish I was in Australia right now; it is in the middle of the Canadian winter. Thanks for the kind words; they are appreciated. The information about Botvinnik's influence on the FIDE World Championship cycle design is mostly from Bronstein's book "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Botvinnik was not only a world-class player, but he was the favourite of the Soviet chess establishment, and he had a huge amount of influence. This became clear from the early 1940s, when Botvinnik played badly in the 1940 Soviet Championship, yet was able to get a new tournament organized for the top players, the 1941 Absolute Championship, which he won. Botvinnik was seen as the best hope to claim the World Championship for the Soviet Union; the world champion at that time, Alexander Alekhine, was of course a renegade Russian of noble background who had fled his homeland for good in 1920 following the revolution. Botvinnik was very privileged during the war, when he was able to play private matches in comfortable conditions far from the front. Of course, he was an engineer, and he contributed his skills to the war effort in that way. Then, when the war finished, Botvinnik was able to go to the first big tournament, at Groningen 1946, along with Smyslov, but Keres was not sent, because of political problems (see the Keres article). Keres might very well have won, had he gone, and hence outshone Botvinnik. Keres was an Estonian, not a Russian. Then, the Soviet Chess Organization joined FIDE in 1947, and almost immediately they were able to impose their program on the other nations. FIDE accepted the Soviet proposal in 1947 (this is noted in the introduction to Botvinnik's book on his best games, volume 2, covering 1947-70; Batsford published it in the early 1970s). The proposal had been largely put together by Botvinnik, who had been frustrated in his own attempts to get a world title match with Alekhine in the early 1940s, because of the war and because of Alekhine's ducking challenges from other players. Botvinnik wanted an established structure, and in fact the FIDE system was a big improvement, since it mandated the champion to face his toughest challenger every three years. Bronstein is actually quite bitter about Botvinnik's influence, and he has some valid points. Bronstein criticizes the holding of the World Championship tournament of 1948 BEFORE the Interzonal of that same year, instead of in the reverse order, since the top players from the 1938 era were seeded in (not Fine, who declined), except for Smyslov, who had become prominent in the meantime. Other top players of 1948, such as Najdorf, Boleslavsky, and Bronstein himself, who had come up in the war years, had to go through the 1948 Interzonal stage, and then the Candidates' tournament of 1950, while Botvinnik, who won the 1948 tournament against a strong but reduced field, composed of players against whom he had substantial experience, was sitting home in Moscow, waiting for his challenger to be determined. Bronstein is almost saying that if he had had a chance in 1948 at the World title, he might have won then, and he has a point, since his style was new, very sharp and tactical, and tough to deal with. The extra time allowed Botvinnik to come to grips with it, and he drew the match in 1951. The point on Bronstein's openings in the 1951 match is also from the introduction to Botvinnik's second book and from Bronstein's own book; Bronstein wrote that he surprised Botvinnik by playing the openings that Botvinnik himself liked to play. This can be a powerful psychological strategy as well, taken up by various strong players throughout chess history. Bronstein changed his repertoire prior to the match, and this threw Botvinnik off; Botvinnik hadn't played competitively for three years since winning in 1948, and he likely prepared for the lines that Bronstein had played earlier. Boleslavsky assisted Bronstein in 1951, as Bronstein writes. Fischer did the same thing prior to his 1972 match with Spassky; he played many variations for the first time in his life, to avoid Spassky's preparation. He won the match convincingly. Cheers from Kingston, Ontario, Canada. FrankEldonDixon 1132 p.m., GMT+5, February 26th, 2007.


 * Thanks for all that! But I hope you haven't misunderstood me: what you should do is insert references (Bronstein's book or whatever) in the article itself. Note that, although most Wikipedia references are to web pages, references to archaic things like books are OK too. e.g. there are a few in Comparing top chess players throughout history. Rocksong 11:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Origins of GM Title
In the Salo Flohr article, you say FIDE first awarded GM titles in 1949, not 1950. I assume you're using a source for that... if so, would you be able to correct the information at Grandmaster (chess)? (citing your source, of course). Rocksong 03:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The 1949 date is given in Bronstein's book in an article there by Smyslov, who was one of the first recipients of the GM title at that time. I could check the FIDE history at their site, to see if I can confirm it. User:FrankEldonDixon, 5 March 2007, 10:46 p.m., GMT + 5

Let's stay with 1950 as the official year of the introduction of FIDE GM titles. I examined a number of sites on the web, which all said 1950. The FIDE site itself doesn't have the information, at least not that I could find. It may be that Smyslov is wrong. In any case, it really isn't that significant, one year or the other. If we stay with 1950, then that avoids a lot of changes to other articles. Perhaps someone else will comprehensively prove 1949, so let's wait for that. User:FrankEldonDixon, 5 March 2007, 11:40 p.m., GMT + 5

Furman
Hello. Your article Semion Furman duplicates Semen Furman, written much earlier. Did you know that? Could you take best of these articles, write into one of them (supppose yours, much longer) and make redirect from the other? Best wishes pjahr 19:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I did spot this, and was wondering how to proceed. I will do it in the next few days. But, I am a little unclear on the redirect method. Please advise. Cheers frankeldondixon 4:06 p.m., GMT +5, 10 April 2007.

Furman
Frank - Hi there - as pjahr wrote to me also, I have merged everything into Semyon Furman - should work for all recognised redirects. Nice article by the way. - Brittle heaven 23:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Lev aronin/ Lev Aronin
Just a small thing, but I think the (very good, by the way) article at Lev aronin should be at Lev Aronin, as the surname should be capitalized. Flowerpotman talk-wot I've done 23:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Notable games
Hi Frank and thank you for your work for our chess project! - I write you because of the Notable games section - I think that sometimes you add too many such games. Of course almost all decisive games of great masters are notable in some sense, but in this general encyclopedia, we cannot overload articles with too many of them - we are not a chess database. Moreover - and this is much more important - WP:EL, an important guideline, says "Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum...". Happy editing,--Ioannes Pragensis 07:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous link
Thank you for your recent edit to E Vasiukov. Your edit included one or more links to the page Russian, which is a disambiguation page. This type of page is intended to direct users to more specific topics. Ordinarily we try to avoid creating links to disambiguation pages, since it is preferable to link directly to the specific topic relevant to the context. You can help Wikipedia by revising the links you added to E Vasiukov to refer directly to the most relevant topic. (This message was generated by an automatic process; if you believe it to be in error, please accept our apologies and report the error to help us improve this feature.) --Russ (talk) 18:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The ambiguity is that Russian may refer to a language, an ethnic group, or the citizens of a particular republic. I assume in this context you probably meant the last, so you would want to change Russian to Russian . --Russ (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing Soviet chess players
I've created a section on the WikiProject chess talk page to discuss how we should categorize Soviet chess players within Category:Chess players by nationality. Since you have been a prolific contributor to our chess biographers, I invite you to weigh in with your views at WT:CHESS if you like. Quale 05:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Reuben Fine
Re: Reuben Fine "Material was sourced as it was written" does not meet Wikipedia requirements. Your work on chess bios is great, but the sources must actually be put on the article page, typically in the References or Notes section. Mentioning the sources in the edit summaries is not sufficient. The edit summaries aren't part of the article, and good references should include page numbers and enough information for the reference to be identified precisely. See Vladimir Kramnik for an example of what that can look like. WP:CITE has information on how to provide references for Wikipedia articles. Quale 16:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Chess writers
I see you've been adding Category:American authors to some articles. Please note that this category does not actually exist; it is only a redirect to Category:American writers. So the tag you should be adding is Category:American writers, if not some more specific tag like Category:American non-fiction writers.

Also note that there is a Category:Chess writers that you can add articles to if appropriate. (It is not yet large enough to have been subdivided, so there isn't a specific "American chess writers" category.) --Paul A 02:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's necessary to add "He was also a chess writer" to the lead article chess players, unless they were/are particularly notable for it. Nearly every chess player supplements his/her income by writing. In the body of the article it is fine, but the lead should summarise their main achievements. Also, if it's not in the body then it definitely should not be in the lead. Peter Ballard 01:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Canadian Open Chess Championship
Thanks for fixing several typos I made when converting the list to a table in Canadian Open Chess Championship. I saw one of them, but you fixed it before I got to it. You also found several other more serious typos that I hadn't spotted yet. Quale 02:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for converting this list to a table; it looks much better now. Cheers, FrankEldonDixon, 15 October 2007, 1017 p.m. (GMT+5) ````

Wikiproject chess
Hi, You have done some great chess contributions lately. Could I invite you to join the WikiProject Chess? Especially the talk page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chess is good to have on your watch list. It is a place where people ask chess related questions and discuss the overall consistency of the chess articles. On another point, could you, if you create a new chess related article, add it to the list of chess topics? This is a page containing all chess topics. The link "related changes" on that page shows all recent changes to all chess articles (provided that the article is in the list). This makes it very useful for others to monitor recent changes (including spam) in the chess articles. Happy editing! Voorlandt 11:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. I am very honored to be asked to join the WikiProject Chess group, and I accept your invitation. I will see if my recent Canadian Open Chess Championship article has been added to the chess topics list, and my other recent articles as well. I have several areas of interest in chess writing for wiki: 1) better documentation of important Canadian chess figures (I am Canadian); 2) improving existing biography articles on wiki; concentrating on players who have largely finished their careers, but also on some current players, for example Vassily Ivanchuk, for which the current English article is well below the standard needed for such an outstanding player; but I will leave most of the current coverage to others, if that is OK; 3) expanding the biography range to include important but so far non-covered players; 4) looking more at "Grandmasters without the title" themes; 5) improving my referencing for articles I already contributed to. Another area of interest for me is looking to make points in order to upgrade the "importance" aspect for certain key chess figures, for example, Korchnoi from High to Top; Bronstein from High to Top, Keres from High to Top, Rubinstein from High to Top, Tarrasch from High to Top, Zukertort from High to Top, Reshevsky from High to Top, Najdorf from High to Top, Portisch from Mid to High, and so forth. My reasoning is that Korchnoi, Bronstein, Keres, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Zukertort, Reshevsky, and Najdorf all have reasonable claims to have been the strongest players in the world at certain times, although they did not become World Champion. Circumstances, such as wars, insufficient financial backing for matches, favouritism, and other political elements, intervened with these players, rather than their chess strength. Also, all of those players made very important contributions outside their playing achievements, which is another aspect for increasing their importance rankings. Portisch played in eight Candidates Tournaments, and won a large number of elite events, over a long career span; he is more than the mid-range figure he is currently credited with being. Another idea I have is to document important "Chess Controversies" into a separate article. So, I have enjoyed immensely my contributions so far, and look forward to doing much more, and improving the quality of my work as I gain more experience. Cheers, FrankEldonDixon, Kingston, Canada, 1406, GMT+5, Wed. Oct. 24, 2007 FrankEldonDixon 18:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC).

Category sorts
I've noticed you've posted a question about category sorts on several talk pages (Talk:Chuck Diebert, Talk:Murray Turnbull, Talk:Ken Whyld, and I think at least one other one some time ago). I explained what's happening and how to fix it at Talk:Ken Whyld. Quale 00:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Jack Nicklaus
Hi FrankEldonDixon Thanks for your work on Jack Nicklaus, especially on adding the list of books and media. I know in your edit summary you said that you sourced this information from the Nicklaus.com website, but I can't find the actual URL to reference it properly. If it isn't too much trouble could you give me the link(s) that you used on my talk page? Any other references you used and where you used them throughout the article would be greatly appreciated as well. And by all means, you could just do it yourself. Thanks for contributing! Grover (talk) 01:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of David L. Humphreys
A tag has been placed on David L. Humphreys requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.  Pump me  up  04:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Jean Chrétien
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Bowell and Abbott
Hi, I just wanted to let you know that Bowell and Abbott are not "Right Honourable", just "Honourable". I don't know why that is, it just is! Adam Bishop (talk) 21:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

King Doctorate
I recently posted this on the William Lyon Mackenzie King talk page - it may be of interest to you and you may have information helpful for me:


 * I notice that someone has recently changed the remark about King being the first Canadian PM to hold a Ph.D. to being the second.


 * But is it clear that King actually earned his Ph.D. at all? After all, the Ph.D. is not listed among his postnomial letters.  And it would appear to me from his biography at the Canadian Dictionary of Biography Online that he left his doctoral programme at Harvard without finishing his Ph.D. in order to become Deputy Minister of Labour.


 * If no one can provide proof that King actually finished his Ph.D., I'll delete the reference to him having completed his doctorate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam sk (talk • contribs) 05:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your question. Harvard University gave King a doctorate in economics a few years after he physically left that university. He may have had work pending to complete his doctorate when he left Harvard, and completed it later on. The date of the degree was apparently 1908, by which time King had already been serving for several years as a civil servant in the post Deputy Minister of Labour. King first became an MP in 1908, and also in that year was appointed as the first Cabinet Minister of Labour. Both George Bowering's book "Egotists and Autocrats" and Bruce Hutchison's book "The Incredible Canadian" specify this information. I believe that Bowering (incorrectly) wrote that King was the first Canadian PM to earn a doctorate, likely not knowing about Abbott's Doctor of Laws, as I didn't until earlier this week. Hutchison, who knew King well, notes that King, while he was PM, occasionally reminded his younger colleagues that he had earned the Harvard PhD as a way of establishing the strength of his opinion on economic and financial issues. Regards, User:FrankEldonDixon, January 31, 2008, 17:47, GMT+5 FrankEldonDixon (talk) 22:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Alexander Alekhine
Great updates to Alekhine and other chess biographies. I like your addition about Alekhine's falsified game scores. Ever since I read what Winter wrote about that I thought it deserved a mention. Of course Winter is a fan of Capablanca and that may color his view of Alekhine a bit, but he does seem to be scrupulous in his historical research. Quale (talk) 23:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments! I want to get a better accuracy on the reference pages for Denker and Parr, to improve quite a few references on various chess bios, but my copy of that book is on loan right now! I also will reference the Kotov work on Alekhine a bit better, and get the url on Winter's work on Alekhine's 'tricks' at Sabadell 1945. It deserves to be referenced precisely, since Mr. Winter is the tops! Recently I've been busy on non-chess editing primarily, with a lot of Canadian news work and work on Canadian PMs, but will be getting back to more chess work in the weeks ahead. I have more to come of interest on Lasker as well. One thing on Capablanca: he apparently worked behind the scenes to keep Lasker out of New York 1927! (perhaps afraid of being upstaged as he was at New York 1924. But I need to tie this down; I think it's somewhere in Winter's work. This is similar to his dirty tricks re. Charles Jaffe, over the accusation of Jaffe throwing the game to Marshall at Havana 1913, which was almost certainly false. Capa then banned Jaffe from events he was himself playing in.)

Now, on another matter: I have a fairly major scandal I have been working on cracking for some time, I am getting ready to pull the plug, and am prepared to offer wikipedia early access to this as it breaks in the media. How should I go about doing this!? User:FrankEldonDixon, 18:47, 8 February 2008 FrankEldonDixon (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC) (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I don't really have any good advice with that sort of thing. I think that the Original Research prohibition makes it difficult to debut anything in Wikipedia, as really it has to appear somewhere else before it goes into an article so that it can be cited with the proverbial Reliable Sources.  Anyway, I think your chess bio edits have really improved the articles, and when we get the page numbers in for the references that will make it even better.  I've thought about ordering Denker's book, and your cites have made it sound even more appealing.  Sorcerers Apprentice is another fine book.  I'm sad that Bronstein is no longer with us (and Keres thirty years earlier).  I'm sure they both had fascinating tales they took to the grave. Quale (talk) 03:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Charles Jaffe
Hello! During your major update of this article you added a part that I think is unclear:

"Chajes defeated Capablanca with the Black pieces in this tournament. In 1913, Chajes took 4th at New York (Quadrangular; Marshall won). In 1913, he lost a match to Capablanca at New York by 0.5-2.5. In that same year, he won matches in New York against Mieses and Oscar Chajes."

Did you mean Chajes or Jaffe? Both played in the same tournaments.

Could you please check the source that you used?

Thank you! --YoavD (talk) 06:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your question. This is a bit confusing, I realize.

As far as I can remember, I added this sentence to this part of the article: "Chajes defeated Capablanca with the Black pieces in this tournament." I know this is true, since this game can be found on any number of online games databases, including www.chessgames.com.

The tricky part is that there were several distinct Master tournaments held in New York in 1913, involving many of the same players. It is therefore quite problematic to keep them all straight, especially when records are sketchy from nearly 100 years ago.

I am quite certain that the rest of the paragraph which you cite was already present in this article, when I added to the article. I don't know the source of the other information, although good places to check are www.chessmetrics.com (the Charles Jaffe player file), and the work by Jeremy Gaige, which consists of a very comprehensive index of players and tournaments. This work by Gaige may not be searchable online, however. I'll have a look at chessmetrics, then post again when I find out more.

Cheers! --FrankEldonDixon, 17:48, GMT+5, 19 February 2008 (UTC) FrankEldonDixon (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Update: Chessmetrics.com, the Charles Jaffe player file, has the New York 1913 (Quadrangular) result. But it does not have the three matches from 1913 quoted in the article.

Cheers! --FrankEldonDixon, 20:45, GMT+5, 19 February 2008 (UTC) FrankEldonDixon (talk) 01:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Natalia Zhukova
Thank you for this! —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChessCreator (talk • contribs) 02:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Alexander Kevitz
Thanks for your great chess contributions! Just a little comment, to have the references show up, simply type

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Proposed deletion of William Kaplan


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