Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gothic chess


 * 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. Whether to also create a (probably protected) redirect can be decided separately.  Sandstein  21:39, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Gothic chess

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Chess variant, there appears to be heavy COI editing both on the main page and in the talk archives, including what appears to be some kind of legal threat. This page is subject to intense edit warring, consensus is needed as to whether this should be kept or deleted. My view is to delete main and all subpages/talk, then redirect to Capablanca chess. I am also nominating the following related pages because it appears to be a fork/mirror article:

Cheers, Polyamorph (talk) 20:25, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete and salt This article is a magnet for contentious edits including legal threats.  As per what I wrote back in 2016, here are the sources which mention Gothic Chess:


 * http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/gothicchess.html This was a five sentence mention back in 2009. It's now a fairly long write up, with an entire section about the expired patent. Is this a reliable source?
 * There are four Chessville links in the archives, but the domain was bought by a cybersquatter, so the source was not reliable: http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/ComputerWorldChampionships.htm http://www.chessville.com/gothicchess/gothicchessintro.htm http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/miniatures.htm http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/TacticalArtwork.htm (These links are not available at archive.org, but archive.is [with the codes dQHm 1az3z HtOE1 and nFVqQ] has them; all of the articles were written by Gothic Chess's inventor, so they are not third party sources)
 * There were two mentions in local newspapers which are currently only available in the web archive (and archive.is with the codes 4L2vd and NzMH2): 1) http://web.archive.org/web/20080129132825/http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080119_Fischer_started_reign_with_a_win_in_Phila_.html This is a one sentence mention 2) http://web.archive.org/web/20081204111208/http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292006/entertainment/bobby__tolya_may_be_game_for_gothic_entertainment_andy_soltis.htm This is a fairly long mention of Gothic Chess in a questionable source, about four paragraphs long -- however, it only used Gothic Chess's inventor as a source, since there is no independent source which verified the inventor's supposed meeting with Bobby Fischer or the financial backing this match supposedly had.
 * The inventor of Gothic Chess did write an article about it in an academic journal: This isn't a third-party source independent of the subject.
 * There was a lot of noise about it on various discussion boards online, mainly threads started by the inventor. I will leave only one example: http://www.chessatwork.com/forum/only-chess/fischer-v-karpov.54078/page-5 shows the Gothic Chess inventor making an unverified claim that over 5,000 people went to a Gothic Chess tournament in 2005; the discussion quickly degenerated and by page 10 said Gothic Chess inventor was making legal threats. This claim, and all other online forum discussion of Gothic Chess, does not constitute information coming from a reliable source.
 * So, the only third party reliable sources we had were a passing mention in one local newspaper article, and a four paragraph mention in another article from a questionable source. I don't think that's enough to keep an article here -- but I also think it deserves a passing mention in the Capablanca Chess article.
 * Also, as a warning, based on the editing patterns this article has had: Do not attempt to use sockpuppet accounts to stack the vote If there are lot of keep votes come from suspiciously similar accounts, I (or someone else) will request a sockpuppet investigation. Just to clarify (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 21:20, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 21:20, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Delete and salt The chess variation doesn't seem notable enough for its own. and it's already mentioned on a chess variations article. Which seems like enough. Plus, there's the whole article recreation, edit warring, and threats thing. Which doesn't bode well for it. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:18, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Capablanca chess (this has basically been the case for a while if one disregards the periodic redirect wars). Pichpich (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2020 (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.