Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/California Chess Congress of 1858


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Delete. Keilana|Parlez ici 17:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

California Chess Congress of 1858

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

The notability of this chess tournament is not explained in the article. This article has been tagged for notability since September 2007 but noone has given some useful references or some explanations for notability. According to the discussions taking place at WikiProject Chess the most important chess tournaments are notable (e.g. Linares chess tournament) but it has to be assessed with explicit arguments. SyG (talk) 09:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) undecided To those unfamiliar with chess, I guess we need to know why we even need to know this. How often does a Chess Congress take place and what does it all mean? - love2tun —Preceding unsigned comment added by Love2run (talk • contribs) 10:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I suspect this congress may be something like "the first chess congress in USA" or something similar, but this has to be clearly stated, explained and referenced in the lead of the article. SyG (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete, try as I might, I can't find anything to indicate why this particular tournament is notable. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, so I can strike this out if I'm wrong.  Lankiveil (talk) 11:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC).
 * Delete – Could find no information on this particular event. Shoessss |  Chat  13:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree, no clue from the article about why this is significant. First chess tournament in California, maybe?  None of the participants seem to have articles of their own except for the host.  Even among fans of chess history (I'm sure there are some), it doesn't seem that it would be that historical. Mandsford (talk) 16:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It is in fact one of the earliest (maybe around eight or ten) chess tournaments worldwide, and one of the earliest recorded events in American chess history. Maybe a shorter article (without the games) would be sufficient. --DaQuirin (talk) 12:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree with the reasons above. Unfortuantely, it also doesn't include any particularly notable players on the main world stage. Also, if this congress was historically unimportant, then this article has to be deleted. Otherwise, there is justification for putting every single chess congress in the world on Wikipedia, which is obviously ludicrous. Andy4226uk (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep after editing to show the notability more clearly and remove the extraneous detail. Personally, i think a chess tournament there on that early date is intrinsically notable and worth an article, as wuld be any other documented article of the first signs of civilization.DGG (talk) 01:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment – you state that: “…on that early date is intrinsically notable“. Isn’t that a bit of a supposition?  I believed the first chess match was a bit before this timeframe of 1858, say about 1,900 years before.  In addition, I believe that the start of civilization was a tad before 1858.  The criteria that has been used again and again, here at Wikipedia, for an article to be included, is that there are reliable, verifiable and creditable sources.  Sorry to say, I have not seen that concerning this article.  Shoessss |  Chat  03:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as sources go, the article says that the Congress was reported in the May 1858 issue of The Chess Monthly. (This isn't recorded in a references section so it isn't as easy to find as it should be, but it is in the second paragraph of the article.)  This is a reliable source. On the other hand, I don't think it is necessarily sufficient to demonstrate that the topic is encyclopedic. The first international chess tournament was London 1851.  The California Chess Congress of 1858 wasn't international and local chess tournaments had undoubtedly been held earlier, even in the U.S.  (Although neither here nor there, chess isn't quite 1,900 years old.  See Origin of chess.)  Quale (talk) 05:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Although someone must have worked hard typing all this, it's basically just a list of moves. --andreasegde (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Undecided If this was the first formal chess tournament held in the USA then it is notable. I just want to know or see the reason this is notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.186.235.52 (talk) 04:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.