Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chess championship

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was Keep. Deathphoenix 15:20, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Chess championship
Wikipedia is not a game server. This is a neat idea community-building, de-stressing idea, but that can and should happen on a fun-and-games WikiCity. The Wikipedia: namespace is intended for instructions, advice, policy, and related discussions. Unrelated items simply become clutter here. -- Beland 03:01, 19 May 2005 (UTC) For those interested, as of this counting, there are 40 votes to keep (5 indicating strong keep), 6 votes to delete (not including the original post), 3 votes to Transwiki, 2 votes to move to userspace, and 1 vote to compromise. Linuxbeak | Desk 16:34, May 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * Super Strong Keep. Hmwordock53
 * 21:47, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, of course. Wikipedia need not be all business all the time. &mdash; Dan | Talk 03:11, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this vote should be merged with Votes for deletion/Mornington Crescent Championship. &mdash; Dan | Talk 03:26, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. As pointed out above, we do have the department of fun. Seems harmless to me. ESkog 03:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. No, no, no, NO! Linuxbeak | Desk 03:14, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep -- AlexR 03:16, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep; looks harmless; helps the sense of community. Besides I haven't gotten to play yet. Antandrus  (talk)  03:16, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Harmless fun banned on Wikipedia all the sudden? Ghost Freeman | Talk 03:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, were a developer complaining about the load or something there wouldn't be a debate. Gmaxwell 03:18, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Harmless community fun in the spirit of Wikifun and the various silly listings of Wikipedians. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * KEEP. But I just won Round 1! User:Luigi30 (&Upsilon;&sigma;&eta;&rho; &tau;&alpha;&lambda;&kappa; &#923;&#965;&#951;&#947;&#951;&#923;) 03:26, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, time-wasting, use of huge resources as observers run analysis programs on their home supercomputers (participants of course aren't allowed to), promotion of violence and trash-talking on Wikipedia, humiliation of editors. Wait, I'm one of the worst offenders. Change vote to Keep.-gadfium 03:30, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * More seriously, we do need to accept that there are limits on how much we can use Wikipedia's resources for non-encylopedic activities. I recall when I was a newbie here that there was a Wikichess game on User:Lir's talk page, and another user argued that a precendent had been set which allowed her to have WikiSex on her talk page. Obviously I think that WikiChess is okay, so long as the people who are involved with it are also productive editors, but where do we draw the line?-gadfium 04:25, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. I respect Beland's principles, but I think a little clutter is okay. FreplySpang (talk) 03:41, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. User hasn't presented reasons these listings match the deletion criteria. Demi T/C 03:49, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Keep Wikifun, all those reasons above. Also, if we delete this, how will I be able to participate in the next chess tournament? ;) Eric119 03:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, harmless fun. Rhobite 03:55, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. This objection should have been raised before we started the tournament.  Now that we're well under way, of course I'm in favor of keeping it.  However, if space at Wikipedia is terribly limited for this, maybe there's a different WikiSite where we can move the whole tournament.  Next time around, maybe we can start in a WikiSite where there is more "space" (i. e., memory) available?  Maybe WikiNews???  H Padleckas 04:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * If there was an issue with space or memory, we would have already heard about it. There is no problem. Linuxbeak | Desk 04:12, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. Why the hell not?  Kelly Martin 04:19, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Sholtar 04:23, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is part of WP:FUN, part of the community-building programs at Wikipedia. Beland, if you have an issue with this, please contribute to the relative talk pages, not VFD. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I respectfully dissent with the above. Delete, I don't see how this advances encyclopedia-writing. Gazpacho 05:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * It doesn't advance encyclopedia writing. It advances the Wikipedia community.  Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia, and thus activities such as this are not only permissible, they are benificial. Sholtar 05:16, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. &#12288;Wikipedia is a community as well!--Jondel 06:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep: in the spirit of "we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist", this is unquestionably a valuable way to acertain a high standard among our editor who edit chess-related articles. (what, WP:don't twist quotations to make a point ? :) ) Rama 06:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Of course, we should not use Wikipedia as the Internet Chess club, but all of those playing in this tournament are productive users all round. Let's allow some fun and remember WP:IAR. Sjakkalle 07:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep or transwiki. I'd like to point out that we did discuss this issue before the tournament started: Wikipedia talk:Chess championship. I see Beland's point and I agree with it in principle, but on the other hand, precedent is only what we make of it. Does this mean Wikipedia will now freely host non-encyclopedia activities of all kinds? Of course not. Is it a better idea, a priori, to do this somewhere other than Wikipedia? Probably. We can still discuss that to our hearts' content, but if you ask me whether to delete this right now, I must answer no. JRM · Talk 07:25, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Keep. You are just bitter because you could not sign up in time! Sam Hocevar 07:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Move to userspace.  &rarr;I&ntilde;g&#333;lemo&larr;   talk  07:27, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Keep. From the top of the Community Portal - "Together we are building an encyclopedia and a wiki community." --the wub (talk) 08:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. While I do have some deletionist tendencies, I see no harm in this (plus, I'm involved). Other games are played on Wikipedia as well--is it some sort of crime to organize a championship? Jonathan Christensen 08:24, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep -- harmless fun. We're allowed to have that here, aren't we? - Longhair | Talk 08:58, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep -- I can't believe people are asking this, of course keep! A better community means better articles - PLUS the tournament helps procure stuff to write about (various chess positions) in articles - all the games are recorded for posterity - with the uses of the templates, etc. -- Natalinasmpf 09:36, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. I suppose that concensus at this point is keep, but I'll throw in my vote aswell. As JRM says, we did discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Chess championship, and my argument is the same here as it is there! This is for the wikipedia community, this is a place where we can interact and do something that isn't necessarily related to article writing and RFCs and vandal-fighting. Life in wikipedia can be fun too you know, and thats what we strive for! Lets WP:IAR and just play some chess! Gkhan 10:06, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. The Wikipedia: namespace is not merely for policy and discussions, but rather for a variety of meta-articles; see BJAODN, Unusual aticles, &c.  Now an unused or inappropriate game page, on the other hand, might be better moved to a section of WP:FUN or its talk page, for discussion.  +sj  +  10:25, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * When all you have is a template, everything becomes a meta-template translusion problem. Surely it would be easier for you guys to set some Yahoo! Games accounts and play each other, and just record the results here? Pcb21| Pete 13:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * This would be impractical, seeing that the participants are located all over the world. Playing on yahoo would not work, as it's in real-time. Plus, to have it located off of the wiki servers, let alone Wikipedia, would completely extinguish the purpose: to build positive relationships between active editors and to have fun while doing it. Linuxbeak | Desk 13:17, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Linuxbeak is making a strong argument here: the purpose is not "to go and play chess with others somewhere"; that, indeed, could be done anywhere and with anyone. The goal is to have fun with your fellow editors&mdash;like a LAN party after hours at the office. Except for setting precedent, which is trivially guarded against, and offending those people who don't want to see it on the pure principle of the thing, this is really not harming anyone, and benefitting quite a few. We could conceivably move these things to somewhere else&mdash;Wikicities or Meta spring to mind&mdash;but too far away from the wiki and it loses its purpose. Strictly speaking, user talk pages shouldn't exist either&mdash;anything you cannot say on an article talk page is not directly benefitting articles, after all. But talk pages are very obviously indirectly beneficial. This is just drawing suspicious stares because it's too indirect for some. Yes, the encyclopedia always comes first&mdash;but that doesn't mean it's the only thing we can ever focus on. JRM · Talk 17:56, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Meta - Keep the project space on Wikipedia for the encyclopedia project and move community-building activities to Meta. Besides, maybe some members from other project might want to get involved. -- Netoholic @ 15:45, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Things like this show the community in Wikipedia and are only good for bringing in new contributors. Hedley 16:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Rook 10. Failing that, keep. This is a new phenominon, to be sure, but I think if this wiki is going to survive in the long run, then we need to ensure we have a strong community, not just a strong infrastructure. --InShaneee 16:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to autofellatio. Barring that, keep :) – ugen64 16:15, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. We catalouge other chess championships. What gives anyone the right to say that the two Fool's mates that we've already had in this champoionship isn't worthy of the wiki pages? The side point of this is that people can see games that ordinary people play, and learn how things such as the notation, the opening moves, and the game endings relate to each other. I'm a chess player, yet this has still been a learning experence for me. It shouldn't be taken away from others. NeoThermic 16:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, for most of the above reasons. Daniel 16:59, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Either keep this, or eradicate silly stuff like nihilartikels etc. from the userspace. By which I meantersay, keep, wtf?. --Bishonen | talk 19:44, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, club person that proposed the VfD with Google cluebat and a cluebyfour. Extra points for style and form. Project2501a 20:51, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment, given how overwelmingly huge VfD is getting, should items in the Wikipedia namespace be dealt with somewhere else func (talk) 20:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I'm just grateful it's not somehow in the main article namespace. :-/ Community-building is important, but I think Wikipedians should be wary of its purpose as some sort of "online club" eclipsing its mission as an encyclopedia. --Tabor 22:18, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep --jacobolus (t) 22:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I realise it's pointless voting delete when there are already so many keep votes, but I really can't agree to this being kept in the project namespace. It has nothing to do with the project, which is supposed to be about building an encyclopedia. There are already over 100 archives of the Wikifun page. Having dozens of these chess and other games pages is getting out of hand now. Angela. 01:36, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep -Frazzydee|&#9997; 01:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete: Or transwiki to Wikicities. --Larus.r 10:20, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - this is no worse than Wikistory and that's not up for vfd! A few areas of distraaction are good for Wikistress etc. Brookie: A collector of little brown things 15:38, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikistory is the item right above this one on the VfD page, I think? Or am I misreading a joke? --Tabor 21:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete agree with user:Angela. If a Wikipedian wants to play chess with me then let me know on Yahoo! Messenger. My userid is andrieskd Andries 20:27, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. --Neutralitytalk 20:57, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. If this was to be deleted, it would be setting an example for anything 'fun', including the million pool, Wikistory, Wikistress images and BJAODN. It would be a statement, to outsiders, that Wikipedians are old grumpy folk who don't believe in 'fun'. Hedley 21:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Transwiki. It's a cool idea, but this namespace is an encyclopedia. -- Scimitar
 * Delete, totally unrelated to the encyclopedia. Please note that this grumpy old codger supports such "fun" activities as April Fool's jokes on Wikipedia and has no objections to Wikifun, because both of these relate in some way to the encyclopedia. But Wikichess and any other activities that have no connection whatsoever to Wikipedia, where the wiki is just being used to pursue other interests, don't belong here. The right place for this is actually Wikicities. --Michael Snow 01:27, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: How is it not related to the encyclopedia? You realise that the games played out during the tournament will provide good examples about chess concepts, right? Especially when later tournaments will move on into variants. It has connection to Wikipedia in the idea that also, thus strengthens the community with all the organisation taking place and that moving to WikiCities would defeat the entire purpose. -- Natalinasmpf 03:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Using the games as examples of chess concepts in the articles about chess would violate the policy that we keep all meta-activity out of the encyclopedia itself, a rule that is if anything even stricter than any general restrictions on activity unrelated to the encyclopedia. --Michael Snow 04:32, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Compromise: First, we have to distinguish between Wikipedia-related games (which have always been OK) and non-Wikipedia-related ones. A few non-Wikipedia-related games in the Wikipedia: namespace are fine. What could become a problem, I think, is that the Sandbox is presently an incubator for these things. I suggest getting rid of the game-related subpages. When all games have to be created in the Wikipedia: namespace or User: namespace, the threshold for starting new ones will be increased. The problem is that once a game has a certain number of players, it will be virtually impossible to get rid of it, as all those who play will vote to keep it, and many of those who'd like to try it will do so as well. I hope we are all in agreement that game-related activity on Wikipedia should be limited.--Eloquence* 02:51, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Move to a special page Something like this guy's userpage of another similar page to preserve the integrity  of the encyclopedia articles. MGStone 02:52, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment - but the its related to Wikipedia as the events taken here will provide information to contribute directly back to the chess articles, provide vital examples or demonstration of the concepts, etc. -- Natalinasmpf 03:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * please note that the encyclopedia is financed with donated money. How are we going to explain this to the donators? Andries 11:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Are the donators against community building activities? -- Natalinasmpf 14:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a cheap shot to me. Do you want me to calculate the amount of money it costs us to host and serve just these pages? I'm sure the players could pay for it themselves. Shall I also offer a few estimates as to how much it costs us to host all those silly, gimmicky user pages people put up, and the amount of time and storage wasted on talk page messages not immediately related to the encyclopedia? Can we fine people who engage in personal attacks, trollery, petty feuds and edit wars for wasting donated money? If we're going to talk money, where's the end to it? JRM · Talk 14:35, 2005 May 21 (UTC)
 * Very very very cheap shot. if someone is donating into a free (as in liberty) software/content project, they know what they donate into! FREE BEER FOR THE DEVELOPERS AND EDITORS! :D (This comment added by Project2501a Demi T/C 19:25, 2005 May 21 (UTC) )


 * Strong keep. Yet ANOTHER mindless nomination to, and misuse of, VfD. This is in the private namespace. It is community building (for a Wiki is just as strong as its community ties) and is educational. --Oldak Quill 18:47, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. Every company I've ever worked for (and I've worked for quite a few) sponsored social activities on company time, with company resources and often directly on the company's dime. If we were a traditional encyclopedia, the editors would be getting together to gab, have contests, celebrate birthdays, etc., and this is no different. Actually, the difference is that the cost to the site is far less than in these other scenarios. Demi T/C 18:57, 2005 May 21 (UTC)
 * Comment: At the request of Luigi30, I've moved what used to be the Games Wikicity to Gameinfo, leaving Games free for anyone wanting a wiki on which to play games. Angela. 05:15, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: Consensus seems to have been reached - can we wrap this up? -- Natalinasmpf 00:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, strongly agree w Demi. Sam Spade 11:22, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.