Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 12

Existing articles on weak players
Biaina Geragousian: Local girls champion of 2004, rated 2000. Should there not be a limit? Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * There are no formal guidelines for notability of chess players beyond WP:BIO, but generally I would call anyone with a GM title or a national chess championship (general championship that is, not age-based or gender-based) notable since those achievements have been enough to earn a person a mention in paper encyclopedias. Going lower than that is in my opinion a bit iffy, for example I am not entirely sure how IMs should be treated. For the article you cited, I think it is below most notability standards. The tournaments mentioned in the article are for the women's section which is not as strong as the open (not men's) section. (I (with Elo rating 1267) have played against girls with similar achievements (played in international girl's championships) and drawn, and I have a kind of personal notability standard, not supported by any policy, and totally original research, that anyone who I've drawn or defeated in chess are non-notable.) Sjakkalle (Check!)  11:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I do not think she is notable. Also, the fact that there are no references should push us to consider the statements made are false, and then there is nothing left that shows any notability, which would mean deletion. I just hesitate between PROD and AfD. SyG (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A rating of 2000 is notable if you are young enough, but she is 20. And she was in the bottom half of the Junior Championship.  Not notable enough, in my opinion.  Bubba73 (talk), 21:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's WP:PROD material. In it's current wording and contents I can't see how it's a notable topic. SunCreator (talk) 22:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete for the same reasons I argued at Articles for deletion/Catherine Lip - a national junior chess champion fails the guidelines at WP:BIO, particularly this part: "Participation in and in most cases winning individual tournaments, except the most prestigious events, does not make non-athletic competitors notable. This includes, but is not limited to, poker, bridge, chess, Magic:The Gathering, Starcraft, etc.". Peter Ballard (talk) 09:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Please do not continue to be selective with just that text which is misleading but instead read the whole of WP:BIO. If we apply just that above text the majority of Grandmaster are not notable and can also be deleted. SunCreator (talk) 09:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, because GMs participate at the top level (which is also explained in WP:BIO), national junior champions (unless they go on to significant senior achievements) do not. Peter Ballard (talk) 10:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I do think a lot of grandmasters are not notable (for a general encyclopedy, of course), but I know I am a bit strict in this opinion, so I am not gonna push for it. SyG (talk) 10:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A 7-year-old rated 2005 would be notable. A 20-year-old with that rating is not. Hell, I had a higher rating at age 20. I agree with Peter Ballard that the Catherine Lip precedent indicates that this article should be deleted. As I recall, Ms. Lip's age was comparable, and her rating a little higher (2080 or so). Krakatoa (talk) 11:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding GMs, Store norske leksikon has individual articles on Magnus Carlsen, Simen Agdestein, Rune Djurhuus, Jonathan Tisdall and Einar Gausel. Carlsen and Agdestein are arguably more notable than an average GM (Carlsen for being a chess prodigy, Agdestein for being a professional football player as well), but for Tisdall, Gausel, and Djurhuus, they were deemed notable for an encyclopedia by virtue of being grandmasters. With precedence from a paper encyclopedia, I would therefore argue that all GMs are notable for being GMs. Other Norwegian players with individual articles are Svein Johannessen and Olaf Barda, and both of them received an IM title, but no GM title, but their notability is probably tied more to the national chess championships they won, rather than the IM title. Also, the SNL article on "chess" has a list of all Norwegian IMs and GMs as well, so everyone with one of those titles gets a mention on a list, if not a full article, in that paper encyclopedia, and Wikipedia should definitely not be more restrictive than that.


 * Regarding national junior champions, that is more borderline. How would you judge the notability of the reigning Norwegian Cadet Champion, who has received substantial coverage in non-chess media (e.g. ) and the front cover in the bimonthly Norwegian chess magazine ? From media coverage, I would guess notability standards are met, even with a FIDE rating of 2066. She does not pass the "anyone losing to Sjakkalle is not notable" test (round 3, KM 2004), though in fairness I should point out that she was very young then, and she got her revenge less than a year later. Sjakkalle  (Check!)  06:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have problems with this "substantial media coverage" argument. The two examples you offer look to me like the chess column in the paper, not mainstream non-chess media coverage. In any case, not all media coverage makes a person notable. Often local newspapers have articles on junior champions (in any sport, not just chess), as a "local interest" story. To me, that just doesn't make a person notable enough for an encyclopedia. That's why I think that, except for the truly exceptional prodigies, it is better to wait for significant senior achievements. And I think that's reflected in WP:BIO's guideline that amateur athletes generally need to compete at the highest level to be notable. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is a pretty good observation. Nettavisen is mainstream media, but the notability generated from the chess section of this online newspaper is at best a bit iffy. There will not be any verifiability problems if an article is written with that as a source, but WP:BIO passage is debatable. (Reasonable arguments can be made either way.) However, people like GMs and national champions who have received a separate article in a paper encyclopedia are, by any reasonable definition, "encyclopedic". Sjakkalle (Check!)  11:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

General notability guidelines for chess players
If this has not been done before... following on from the above discussion, I'd like to suggest the following (flexible) guidelines for notability, which I think constitute a fair reading of WP:BIO:
 * The general rule is that to qualify a player should be a GM, WGM, or national (men's or women's) champion;
 * old-time players of GM strength, before the GM title existed (or when it was much harder to attain), may also qualify;
 * Well-known chess authors who are not GMs (John L. Watson comes to mind) also qualify;
 * As a general rule, winners of junior championships do not qualify (just as they do not in other sports, I believe), but exceptional juniors do. By "exceptional" I guess I mean performances which generate reasonable press (even if only within the chess community), and have people talking about them as a future strong GM. e.g. there were Chessbase stories (and a WP article) on Parimarjan Negi before he obtained the GM title. Peter Ballard (talk) 12:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * For the moment I am not completely convinced we need such a categorisation. Why not stick to something simple like: "if someone has received extensive coverage in reliable secondary sources, he is notable. Otherwise he is not." ? SyG (talk) 18:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with SyG's statement above. SunCreator (talk) 11:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I just thought some general guidelines might save having the same arguments over and over in future. But if there's no enthusiasm to discuss this, I'll drop it. Peter Ballard (talk) 10:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Your guide seems sensible to me. BTW I don't believe extensive coverage is needed, just non-trivial. Pawnkingthree (talk) 10:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Peter - I think guidelines are definitely helpful, as it must be agonising for occasional, or newby contributors to have their works deleted. For instance, someone unfamiliar with the nuances of chess titles might easily imagine that a biography of someone titled International Master would easily qualify, but not necessarily so. Therefore, posting this kind of advice on the Project Page (if we can all agree some content) may help avoid wasted effort. Regarding those (non-juniors) who are ostensibly known for playing the game, I feel there is a split between old and modern times, in that there are a great many people these days who can afford to play and compete in the many Open tournaments around. Consequently, I think '(W)GM-only' (or national champion) is probably the only workable rule. In terms of players from yesteryear, I would be a little more flexible. There was a sizeable, but limited number of players (and I think User:Mibelz corners the market here) who were on the circuit, whose lives have been documented in a minor capacity and whose names have appeared in the crosstables of important tournaments. They may not all have been GM equivalents, but it would be churlish to refuse to acknowledge them. With juniors, I think you have it just about right - it's difficult to be too prescriptive, because it is, at the end of the day, a subjective assessment of whether the player has the news coverage, results and rating potential to suggest they will become a GM. Of course, this should be an easy task where they have just won any of the World / European / Asian etc. youth or junior events. I guess we also have to consider non-players and so I would suggest broadening your acknowledgement of 'authors' to include noted trainers, engine programmers, theorists, benefactors and the like. As it happens, in many cases they will be authors as well. There is an overall parent category 'Chess Biographies', where a few of these people have, rightly or wrongly, now been listed. Brittle heaven (talk) 11:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think Peter's guideline is good. The only thing I would criticize is that WGM title is in fact inferior than the IM title. --Jisis (talk) 12:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It shouldn't matter whether player is male or female, so player should be GM. If you want WGMs, too, you should also take IMs. Lab-oratory (talk) 12:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The determining factor is notability, not playing strength. For chess notability, the ratings threshold is lower for women than for men. Whether that means setting the bar at WGM or something else is open to debate. Peter Ballard (talk) 12:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The Women's titles are a bit of a tough when determining notability. I'll try to summarize what I figure to be the major arguments in the "Are WGMs more notable than IMs?" question
 * WGMs are more notable than IMs because the top level of women's chess are often well-covered championships.
 * WGMs are more notable than IMs because women who hold both titles are usually titled with "WGM" rather than "IM".
 * WGMs are more notable than IMs because there are far fewer WGMs than IMs (or GMs for that matter).
 * WGMs are more notable than IMs because WGMs represent the top level of women's chess which is itself of public interest, while IMs are generally not the top level anything.
 * WGMs are not more notable than IMs because the rating requirements for the IM title is higher than for the WGM title.
 * WGMs are not more notable than IMs because neither gender has an inherent advantage in chess unlike athletic competitions, and granting WGMs more notability than IMs is a gender-bias in our coverage.
 * There are probably more arguments on both sides of the debate, but I can say that saying "WGM=>Notable" is not going to increase our number of chess bios by all that much. Sjakkalle (Check!)  13:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Are WGMs notable if unimportant IMs are beating them more or less? --Jisis (talk) 19:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * "WGMs are more notable than IMs because WGMs represent the top level of women's chess" No, the top level of women's chess is occupied by real GMs who happen to be women, of whom there were 11 as of late 2006: see The whole concept of "women's chess" offends me. Unless one subscribes to the view attributed to Fischer in 1964 -- that "women are all weakies" -- I fail to see why there should be such a thing as a "Woman Grandmaster" title.  As the Polgars, Humpy Koneru, Kosteniuk, Gaprindashvili et al. have shown, women can compete successfully with men -- as anyone not a sexist would expect. Can you imagine the outcry if FIDE instituted titles like "Black Grandmaster" and "Hispanic Grandmaster" with ratings several hundred points below "regular" GMs? Krakatoa (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, when I said "top level" I was thinking about the typical national, not international level. I completely agree with your being offended by the concept of women's chess, because neither gender has an inherent advantage in this game. Sjakkalle (Check!)  06:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Notability is a minefield. I sympathise with the desire to spare newbie editors the pain of seeing their contributions deleted. But:
 * Newbie editors don't know about WP:NOTABILITY, let alone WikiProject-specific variants of it ("What's a Wikiproject?").
 * Notability depends on point of view. For example some promising kid may be notable to Indians. There are about 1 billion of Indians (I'm not sure whether India's population has overtaken China's), and Indians do a lot of publishing in English. Some day they will pour into en.wkipedia and want to create articles on subjects that are genuinely notable to them. If someone thinks a topic is sufficiently notable to for them to do the work of producing a Start-class article that's WP:NPOV and complies with WP:BIO, it probably is. To take a chess example, Jonathan Penrose is pretty insignificant in world terms but notable in England (he beat Tal, for goodness sake!). If we don't have an Indian equivalent, we will soon enough - Anand's world title will see to that. Philcha (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

GA-review of Alexander Alekhine
The GA-review of Alexander Alekhine has started. Please come on the Talk page of the article and see if you can help, so that we get one more article recognised as a good one by the Wikipedia community! SyG (talk) 20:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The GA review wil resume on 26 May. There are still several points that lack refs. Please help! Philcha (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The article Alexander Alekhine has been listed as a Good article! That means the number of chess articles of good quality (FA-class, GA-class and A-class) has reached 7! Surely not an impressive total "per se", but every small step counts. Thanks first to Philcha for his tremendous work on the structure, the references and many other points. Thanks also to the other members of the WikiProject Chess who have taken part in the GA review by working on the article, notably Krakatoa, Mibelz, Pawnkingthree and Gimmetrow. SyG (talk) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Many thanks also to:
 * SyG for clearing up many of the points that arose during the review, including a lot of citations.
 * Quale for doing the vast majority of the grunt-work of converting Alexander Alekhine's detailed results to tables, which left the text free for more interesting stuff. Philcha (talk) 11:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Interregnum of World Chess Champions - proposed merge
In Jan 2008 there was a proposal to merge this into the World Chess Championship. There was extensive debate at Talk:Interregnum of World Chess Champions until late April 2008, but nothing since. I suggest the "merger proposed - please discuss" tag should be removed. Philcha (talk) 14:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

World Chess Championship - more sources; "official / unofficial" is broken
In the course of researching for articles about individual "world number ones" I've found enough sources about "world champion" to push the historical account back to the mid-1840s, plus a lot of other sources for the rest of the 19th century. The trouble is that using it would:
 * Add a good 50% to the general history part of the article (not counting the sketches of top players). It might be necessary to trim the sketches of top players quite severely.
 * The additional material IMO shows that the "official / unofficial" distinction is misleading and logically indefensible (Talk:World Chess Championship includes some of the paradoxes when the "official / unofficial" distinction meets the sources I've found). That will have knock-on effects, notably on Wilhelm Steinitz. Please comment at Talk:World Chess Championship. If there are no convincing objections I will start revising in 2 weeks. Philcha (talk) 14:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I've started updating this. There's now a debate at Talk:World Chess Championship about how it's developing. If you have an opinion, please state it there. Philcha (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Detailed playing results as tables
Alexander Alekhine was the first article in which we tried presenting detailed results as tables, because previously the results made most of the the text an indigestible catalogue of results. After the GA review of Alexander Alekhine, Nikki  311  suggested it might be a good idea to split the results tables inot a separate "List of .." article, as Alexander Alekhine is currently 93 KB.

I've since tried result tables in Howard Staunton (60 KB), Wilhelm Steinitz (60 KB) and Adolf Anderssen (35 KB), who played chess in the mid to late 19th century, when opportunities for formal competition were much less frequent. IMO comparing Howard Staunton, Wilhelm Steinitz and Adolf Anderssen suggests the amount of text is the most significant influence on length: Staunton and Steinitz were controversial and historically important (like Alekhine), so there was a lot of text to write; Anderssen was simply a nice guy who was world #1 for most of 15 years.

My own feelings are: a consistent format would be helpful to readers; it might be good to see how tables in the same article work out for 1 or 2 other mid to late 20th century players, to see if the same format works in modern conditions, where a GM can play 6 strong tournaments per year. Since producing such tables is not a fun job, I suggest the least laborious way to check whether result tables work for modern players is to see how many tournmants, matches and Olympiads, etc. were played by various modern players - e.g. whose first formal competition (including junior events, etc.) was after 1970 and who are now regarded as retired. A table would be a good way to summarise the results of such a survey, here's a table for the data, starting with a summary for Alekhine, who is the baseline. (the "signature" column will prevent SignBot from complaining and messing up the data). Of the numbers, "Total events" is the most important for the impact on article length.


 * I definitely agree that putting Alekhine's results in a table did a lot for the quality of the article, because when the results are in the text it quickly becomes extremely unlively and boring to read. Your analysis seems to imply that putting the tables in a separate article would not significantly diminish the weight (in kB) of the article, hence for the moment I do not see a reason to create a separate article anymore (am I missing something ?). I think the table format should work for most players, maybe for the most active ones we just have to change the text size ? SyG (talk) 18:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe hide/show option could be used if there seems to be too many results for a player? Lab-oratory (talk) 18:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * My reasoning was that if we found a more recent player who played e.g. 200 events in his career (Alekhine played 126) we might need to re-think.
 * Does anyone know how to create and delete sub-pages, so I can actually see what the weight (KB) of Alekhine's tables is? That would be more accurate than my arm-waving analysis that the text is the major factor in the weight of an article.
 * A hide/show option would reduce the visible size of an article, but not its download weight (KB). Philcha (talk) 19:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. I just meant that if the wikitable is disturbing large it can be hidden. I dont think that kilobytes matter anything. Lab-oratory (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * KBs don't matter for readers who are using broadband, but there's a guidline somewhere (IIRC an offshoot of WP:Accessibility) that says we should consider wireless users and users in places where telecoms facilties are poorer. Philcha (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I just realised Karpov would be a good test case, as he's had a 35-year career at the top and, unlike some hyper-durable 19th century players (e.g. Blackburne), had the opportunity to compete as often as he wanted throughout his career. Then I got lucky: Mark Weeks' Karpov's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record has a similar tabular format to the one used in Alexander Alekhine (although slightly less detailed), and my browser tells me Week's Karpov page is a little under 7KB. Even making a very pessimistic allowance for the greater detail of the format used in Alexander Alekhine, I think it's very unlikely that result tables for Karpov would significantly exceed 10 KB. I therefore have no reservations about using the tabular format for the results of recent top-class players. Philcha (talk) 12:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge K
K-value and K Factor (chess) are up for merging into Elo rating system, but I'm not sure there is anything in those articles worth merging. Should they be deleted instead? Bubba73 (talk), 14:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * What about a redirect? Easier than merging or deleting.Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you think there is anything in those two articles worth merging? Bubba73 (talk), 17:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The things about K-value and K-factor are already explained rather well in Elo rating system, so probably the two articles are worthless. SyG (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It might be better to just WP:PROD them, then. Bubba73 (talk), 21:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I have PRODed them. SyG (talk) 21:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The PROD was removed on K Factor (chess). Shall we proceed with a delete/merge?  Bubba73 (talk), 00:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

possible linkspam
There has been some possible linkspam by User:Anik103. Look at the user's contributions and see what you think. Bubba73 (talk), 02:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree it is linkspam. However for some articles like Henri Rinck, the article is just a stub so the link could actually help the reader, so I am a bit relunctant to delete all his contributions. Of course, on the other hand, Wikipedia is not Google... SyG (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

GA review of First-move advantage in chess
The GA-review of First-move advantage in chess has (finally) started! Due to a new procedure for GA reviews it is not taking place on the Talk page of the article but here. Please come by and see if you can hep! SyG (talk) 19:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The review has been successful and now the article is has been recognised as a "Good article" (it was already an A-class article). Thanks mostly to Krakatoa for having written this tremendous article, probably one of the most idiosyncratic we have in this WikiProject. Besides two "Featured articles", we now have five "Good articles", two of them being also A-class. SyG (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Centralised image gallery
I suggest we keep an image gallery at a sub-page of WikiProject Chess, with a link to it on WikiProject Chess. That will give us a single, easily-found repository of images for use in articles. We could start by moving World Chess Championship/Gallery to the sub-page. Or perhaps qwe should look ahead and have different gallery sub-pages for e.g. players from different periods, game poisiotns, opening variations and problems and endgame studies. Philcha (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There is Category:Chess images (and its subcategories), unfortunately, it does only list images from the english wikipedia, and does not include the chess images from commons. It would be nice to have one page displaying all pictures. Voorlandt (talk) 16:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure how we can introduce the Commons images, but I agree, it would be good if it can be done. As I see it, the short term goal is to get together a palette of images for use in the ongoing development of world championship history articles, including the individual WC matches and biographical articles of the combatants, without falling foul of orphaned image removal. Brittle heaven (talk) 17:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Brittle heaven posted this on my Talk page, and I think it's important enough to be considered by WikiProject Chess:
 * Hi - thinking about this some more, there are some real issues with copyright that I'm not sure can be overcome, but would welcome your opinion, as I'm not an expert. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic here, but my understanding is that fair-use images are restricted to use in namespace articles only; in other words, an image's 'fair use rationale' template would only cover its use in the main subject's article (typical example - my Sandbox). Looking at the Non-free content policy, it seems that the use of fair-use images is unlikely to be acceptable in other articles, including galleries. Unfortunately, that probably means that the only useful, legitimate gallery is the world champs section at Commons, which is very limited in choice. I do not want to enter any more edit wars over image copyrights as they take up too much time, so I'm now planning to revert to plan A - paste a few additional images into the Mikhail Botvinnik article and leave it to you or others re-arrange them as any changes occur. Of course any non-Commons images discarded in that process will be orphan-deleted after a few days, but it seems that this is the game we all have to play, regrettably. I guess if there was a burning desire to use a non-free image in an article such as World Chess Championship, then a secondary 'fair-use rationale' template could be added to the image file, arguing a case for its fair use in that specific additional article in the context of a direct discussion over that person's WC tenure or an important WC match in which they were a main player etc. From experience, if it's well argued, that could work, but you could also expect an occasional challenge, bot deletion or edit war. Incidentally, I have also located one or two images of Petrosian, Euwe and Capablanca (I think!), so in time I'll add those to the relevant biographies, if there is no other way forward. Brittle heaven (talk) 11:18, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We might be able to get round this by using 2 formats for entries in the gallery:
 * Full image if public domain / free
 * For non-free images, brief text description and wiki-link to article in which it's used.
 * BTW the gallery idea should not be limited to photos and similar. I think it should also contain useful diagrams, many of which were created by Wikipedia editors. And any other non-text content that should be available for re-use. Philcha (talk) 11:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds interesting. We should precise, however, what is the purpose of the library compared to the overall databases already available (and better maintained) at Wikimedia Commons. SyG (talk) 18:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ease of finding stuff. Image names are not easy to search, so we'd be dependent on the image page's containing a description that spells the name the same way as the person searching does. Look at all the spellings of Alexander Alekhine's name for an example of the problems this can cause. Aron Nimzovich and Mikhail Chigorin are pretty variable too. There's other stuff that might be even harder to find in a text search, e.g. the plaque in honour of Wilhelm Steinitz. Philcha (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That is correct, the search bar is a mess. On the other hand, you can search by category, e.g. there is a category for chess. SyG (talk) 11:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point. But the category needs a lot of work, for example Category:World_chess_champions is nearly empty. To make it easily accessible it be useful to have a link in WikiProject Chess, perhaps as part of a "Resources" section which should be in a prominent place.
 * Would that remove the risk that potentially useful images may be deleted as orphans? Philcha (talk) 11:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Staunton and Anderssen articles
Would it be worth trying to get Howard Staunton and Adolf Anderssen to GA? Philcha (talk) 10:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As a first step, you could nominate them for A-class at WikiProject Chess/Review if you wish. SyG (talk) 11:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Chess diagrams with moves
I'd like chessplayer articles to show more samples of their play because that's why we have articles about them and it makes a change from endless mugshots. The difficulty is where to put the continuations: if we put them in the main text, it disrupts the flow; if we put them in the captions, the diagrams get longer and and spill into the next section; if we put them in footnotes the reader has to jump backwards and forwards, or show the footnoote in a separate window / tab and flip between these.

I've found a way to present the continuation in a "show"/"hide" box in the diagram's caption. Here's the code for the sample diagram's caption (goes in the last section of Template:Chess diagram): Notes:
 * Template:Hidden provides better formatting capability than Template:Show hide box, from which I could not get a decent result.
 * Must use the "header" keyword. If the header and content are plain text, Template:Hidden assumes that the first plaint-text param is the header and the 2nd is the content. But here the header is not plain text, so "header" is required and I've also used "content" just to be safe.
 *  (HTML paragraph tag) creates an inner box for the header text, enabling it to do 2 things:
 * "margin-right:8em;" makes the header text stop 8 chars short of the right-hand edge, leaving space for "show"/"hide".
 * "height=auto" makes the header text's box expand to allow multiple lines if needed.
 * closes the inner box containing the header text, and is required.
 * "headercss=height:auto;" makes the outer header box expand to allow multiple lines if needed - otherwise there's a risk that a multiline HTML paragraph tag (inner box containing header text) will overspill the outer header box and break the layout.
 * fw1=normal shows the header text in normal font. The default is fw1=bold.

I have not yet found a way to reduce the gap between the top of the caption and the bottom of the diagram. If we use diagrams with hidden continuations, we should also consider creating a wrapper template that hides the messy coding so that one simply specifies: bold / normal font for the header text; left / centre alignment for the header text; the header and content text. A wrapper may also make internationalisation easier, as "show"/"hide" may be longer in other languages, so the header text's right margin would have to increase. What does the team think? Philcha (talk) 10:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That looks very useful - as well as tidying the article, avoiding overlaps etc., it also allows the reader to guess the solution before revealing the answer (vis-á-vis Find The Winning Moves in CHESS magazine). Brittle heaven (talk) 10:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, this format looks very good, and might really help with the page layout. I think we should implement this method in articles needing it. Artichoker[talk] 14:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I like it too. Bubba73 (talk), 14:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In my browser, the word "Show" is very small and I had a hard time to find what to do with the diagram. Should be more striking.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 15:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Is that better? I've also increased the hidden content's font-size and line-spacing, and slightly reduced the line-spacing of the header. The code is now:


 * Philcha (talk) 16:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it possible for you to just increase the size of [show]? I think the smaller font for the title and hidden content would be better. Artichoker[talk] 16:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In my browser they appear the same size as the main article text (first example, modified after Ioannes Pragensis's comment), which I prefer. However here's another example with smaller caption text, so everyone can compare them. Philcha (talk) 17:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting, because in my browser it appeared as a larger-than-normal font-size. In this newest one, the font-size is displayed as normal size on my browser. Artichoker[talk] 18:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Which browser? It may be an issue about different browsers' default style sheets. However I can live with the 2nd example's font sizes and, if others like it, I'd be happy to make it the standard. Philcha (talk) 10:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I've produced a template Template:HiddenMultiLine which acts as an easy-to-use wrapper, hiding all the messy stuff needed to  make Template:Hidden do what's needed. The coding to produce the caption for the diagram on the right is: I've changed the default alignment of the always-visible text to "left" as I think that's OK for competitive games and and probably better for e.g. opening variations, problems, etc. Philcha (talk) 12:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

PS I've just found that "cite web" works OK in both caption/header and content, and have updated the sample diagram. The nice thing is that "cite web" allows a tag in its "title" parameter, so you can split the caption into separate lines for players and event. I left the listed coding as-is to avoid making it harder to understand the first time you see it. Philcha (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Review of Howard Staunton and Adolf Anderssen
The articles Howard Staunton and Adolf Anderssen are now listed for review at WikiProject Chess/Review. Please come by to review the articles, suggest improvements and give your opinion of their quality! SyG (talk) 12:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Important history articles on the Web, e.g. Winter's
It's been bugging me for a while that some important sources for chess history, notably Winter's, are Web-based and therefore will go offline some day, and this would seriously undermine several chess-related articles - and of course we'll get no warning until it happens. I've experimented with including in footnotes references to the original documents cited by chess history Web pages, but now I've come across 2 real show-stoppers - How Capablanca Became World Champion and Capablanca’s Reply to Lasker both contian a huge amount of information about Lasker's abdication in favour of Capa, and the first one also says a clause in the 1913 agreement between Dr Lasker and Rubinstein said the title would pass to Rubinstein if Lasker abdicated; and both cite so many original sources that a mere list of them would be be far too long for a footnote and might be similar in size to a fair-sized Wikipedia article.

I know there's a Web archive somewhere, but relying on that is just putting off the inevitable - it might run out of funds, or start purging older entries, etc.

The best idea I can come up with at present is to create one of more sub-pages (of Emanuel Lasker in this instance) and paste into them the excerpts that Winter cites, with none of Winter's comments. This would probably avoid infringement of Winter's copyrights in many cases, but would leave some outstanding issues including:
 * Copyright claims of the original publishers. Could we maintain that, since they've been diplayed on Winter's Web pages for a few years, they are fair game?
 * Winter's translations of non-English content.

I've used Winter as a leading example, but he is not the only chess historian whose work is published mainly on the Web and who cites sources that would be difficult to trace if the pages went offline - the articles of Trevor Kingston, Tim Harding and Jeremy Spinrad at Chesscafe come to mind.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Philcha (talk) 18:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I noted the problem of sources going away as being a problem for Wikipedia in general and I brought up the discussion at the Village Pump. No one seemed to care.  Bubba73 (talk), 18:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Source materials can go to, but as you note, copyright will often be a problem. Just the fact that something has been available on another website for an extended amount of time probably won't be enough.  Letters that have been published in newspapers are probably fair game, but also as you note translations will be a problem as this involves a new copyright on the translation even if the original source is unencumbered.  About Winter specifically, a lot of his website material does eventually end up in book form as he publishes compilations from time to time.  (Unfortunately these books are rather expensive.)  If a source is available both in print and on the web I think it is best to point to both in the references. Quale (talk) 19:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I've done my best with the tortuous negotiations for the 1921 Lasker-Capabanca match, on which Winter quotes extensively from a large number of sources. I've named in a footnote what I hope is the most useful subset of the original sources cited by Winter. To keep the size of the footnote down I've been very selective with the original sources cited in the footnote and with the corresponding points in the Emanuel Lasker article. Please check it out against Winter and comment at Talk:Emanuel Lasker Philcha (talk) 00:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just found that all parts of Kmoch's "Grandmasters I Have Known", formerly available at chesscafe.com, are giving 404s. IIRC the "Alekhine" instalment is cited in Alexander Alekhine. I didn't expect my concern to be justified quite so soon. Philcha (talk) 12:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is a problem, but as long as we include access dates in our web references, if a link disappears, we can at least show that at the time we wrote the article, the source was there. Incidentally, you might find WP:DEADREF useful.Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * But if a link is gone, that makes a problem with Verifiability. Bubba73 (talk), 14:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The GMs I Have Known series are now in PDFs. Try  http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch01.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch02.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch03.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch04.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch05.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch06.pdf, http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch07.pdf, and http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch08.pdf. Quale (talk) 14:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Quale! Google can't have got round to updating its index when I posted (12:10, 6 June 2008). One of these will fix a hole in Alexander Alekhine and another will be useful for Emanuel Lasker. I'll have to check other ChessCafe .TXT pages occasionally in case they've been converted to PDF, especially the one containing Howard Staunton's obituary. Philcha (talk) 12:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no immediate solution to the problem of websites disappearing (after all, Wikipedia could disappear as well...). This is one reason for which Wikipedia policy requests that only stable and reliable websites are cited, as far as I understand. For example, it is not very advisable to cite a website younger than, say, one year of existence, because it could disappear just as easily as it was created. SyG (talk) 21:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

C-class is on the way
There has been recently a lot of talk about the fact that the B-class for the Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment was too broad, i.e. the distance between B-class of lower quality and B-class of higher quality was too important. The consensus has been to add a C-class between Start-class and B-class (see discussion here). That means we have to sort once again all the existing B-class articles between the new C-class and the new B-class. Now my proposal would be to list automatically all the existing B-class articles into the new C-class, and then to let the best of them "manually" upgrade into B-class as time goes by. Opinions ? SyG (talk) 21:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know, that sounds like a lot of extra work. Why not start with the list that graded them B+, B-, etc, and put the B- into C?  Bubba73 (talk), 01:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a good development. Right now, B-class covers a huge expanse, from incredibly thorough, exhaustively researched articles that for some technical reason are deemed not to merit A-class Swindle (chess) down to anything a smidge better than Start-class.


 * Addressing the SyG-Bubba73 debate, Bubba73's approach seems a lot more practical and time-saving. For example, for B-class articles we've already deemed good enough to be in the Chess Portal (unlike most B-class articles), it would seem a waste of time to throw them into C-class with all the rest and then have someone bring them back. Krakatoa (talk) 03:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I still wonder who is the incredibly short-sighted and narrow-minded guy who judged Swindle (chess) could not be A-class, for some purely pointy reasons and mean technical shenanigans ;-)


 * For the C-class, yes Bubba's suggestion is fine, provided the articles that were judged B+ are still compliant with the new rules that will be defined for this class. SyG (talk) 06:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * And not forgetting to sort all the 'Start's into Start+ and Start- so that the upper group can be considered for C-class. Fortunately, for those less keen on 'death by corporate initiative' there is always the option of writing and editing articles instead. Brittle heaven (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Lol, yes if we really get bothered with the assessments we can still switch to improving the articles, but obviously that should only be done as an extreme last resort. SyG (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

First-move advantage in chess
First-move advantage in chess is now an A-class and a GA-class article. The only impediment to FA status that the GA reviewer, Noble Story, identified is that the article had text sandwiched between two images. Artichoker and I have now remedied that problem (at the cost of four diagrams, unfortunately). Should we nominate the article for FA now? Krakatoa (talk) 05:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't been watching the revisions, but I would guess that the four diagrams would be more important than a formatting issue. Bubba73 (talk), 05:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So Krakatoa, after all the pain and suffering you have been through for the A-class review and the GA-class review, now you want more ? ;-)
 * More seriously, I think we could give it a try for FA. Please prepare for some possible harsh comments from the FA-reviewers, not because the article is weak, but just because most of them spend a lot on time on FA-review so they sometimes do not have the time to be kind. Also, I expect you are not leaving on holidays next week, because someone will need to answer their issues. SyG (talk) 06:35, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, you want it, you have it! I have just nominated the article for FA-review, please contribute here. SyG (talk) 06:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, SyG. Yes, you are doubtless right that I should be careful what I ask for. Bubba73, I would definitely like to have those four diagrams back. Personally, I thought the article looked fine with them in there and don't see the reason for the "don't sandwich text between two images" shibboleth. Is there a way to position two chess diagrams right next to each other, rather than on the left and right edges? If so, we could probably put the diagrams back without running afoul of the "no sandwiching" dictum. If you or anyone else could help me on this, I'd be much indebted. Krakatoa (talk) 07:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can easily position two chess diagrams next to each other. Simply both change them to "tleft." You cannot do it to the right however. Artichoker[talk] 11:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I put all the diagrams back using this. Krakatoa (talk) 05:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! Now a Featured Article. Well done everyone (particularly Krakatoa of course).Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Chessmetrics
Can I ask how reliable is Chessmetrics, is it still original research, or has any qualified statistician reviewed and approved of it?--ZincBelief (talk) 15:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is "original research" by Jeff Sonas, but that is OK because everything is someone's original research. The problem with "OR" on Wikipedia is when the editor puts up his own research.  I don't know if any qualified statistican has reviewed it and approved it, but I know something about statistics, and it seems sound to me.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like his system is set up to acheive a result rather than to discover a result. If there are no peer reviews of his work I hold out severe doubts as to its respectability.--ZincBelief (talk) 15:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with you; it's completely unofficial and it worries me that it's used in so many articles here.Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:04, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Chessmetrics may not be peer-reviewed, but it's cited by Charles C. Moul and John V. C. Nye in Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-64 published May 2006 by The Social Science Research Network, and freely available from the cited web page. Moul and Nye used it to determine the "expected" results of games, and say,"This specification (Chessmetrics) has been optimized for predictive power for games between world-class players. ... there are three primary differences between these Sonas ratings and standard Elo-based ratings. Besides a linear framework that appears to dominate in predictive power (my emph) the more common logistic specification, Sonas ratings weight more recent games more heavily than distant games (looking back four years) and are padded to reward players who play more games. ..." That looks to me like an endorsement. Philcha (talk) 18:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * While looking for something in connection with ZincBelief's post at Talk:Howard_Staunton, I found Sonas' article The Sonas Rating Formula – Better than Elo? (Oct 2002). Points to note:
 * Sonas was invited to a 4-day conference in Moscow about rating systems in Aug 2002. Someone considers him expert enough.
 * He repeatedly emphasises the importance of a rating system's ability to "predict" results (during testing the results to be "predicted" are those of past games whose outcomes are known to the tester). This is exactly the method used to evaluate and improve models in all of the "historical" sciences, including geology and paleontology. There's no need to take my word on the soundness of this approach - check out for example Karl Popper. Philcha (talk) 19:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * ZincBelief said "It looks to me like his system is set up to acheive a result rather than to discover a result." Yes, the result it was to achieve was a more accurate rating system.  I don't know of any peer reviews of it or of Elo's work. Chessmetrics is like Elo but better.  Having computers, he did a lot more analysis than Elo did. Bubba73 (talk), 19:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder how many people one can reasonably invite to a Chess Ratings conference. :) On examination this seems to be a bastardised form of performance rating, I find the inclusion of 4 draws in any result to be very odd indeed. It does remain performance rating based though, I am not convinced this gives a better long term view of a player's rating, but overall it appears to be reasonable enough. There are some obvious concerns. The effect of feeder ELO rating inflation. The appearance of less than 8 players on the rating list.--ZincBelief (talk) 19:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Draws are included in the Elo system too. Chessmetrics is a better predictor. Bubba73 (talk), 20:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The current rating system can probably be improved upon in many ways. For instance, it is assumed that result likelihoods all follow a normal distribution. It is very likely that that is not even a good approximation. Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that data in Elo's book shows that the normal distribution is a good approximation. Bubba73 (talk), 03:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Chessmetrics is very good, but (1) it is unofficial, (2) it is the work of one person, and (3) it could change if Sonas thinks of improvements in the future. For these reasons, I think Wikipedia should freely use Chessmetrics, but always make it clear that is a chessmetrics result, not an absolute result or ranking. So for instance, "Geza Maroczy was the the world #1 according to Chessmetrics between 1904 and 1907" is OK; "Maroczy was the world #1 between 1904 and 1907" is not. Peter Ballard (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Any such statement should be qualified. Number 1 according to what?  World champion?  Elo rating?  Chessmetrics?  Bubba73 (talk), 05:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

First-move advantage in chess is now FA !!!
After about one week of extremely intense and challenging work, the article succeeded its FA-review (see here). That means the number of FA articles within the WikiProject Chess has increased by 50% ! (well, from 2 to 3...)

Many thanks to Krakatoa who took this article from scratch only 3 months ago and in such a short time got it through A-review, GA-review and FA-review, with more than 850 edits. Clearly an unbelievable feat!

Thanks also to all members of the WikiProject Chess who contributed to the reviews, notably Caissa's DeathAngel, Sjakkalle, Ioannes Pragensis, Bubba73 (who actually created the article), SunCreator and Voorlandt.

Finally, thanks to all editors of the article, mostly the people mentioned above but also Quale, Brittle heaven, Pawnkingthree, Guido den Broeder, Artichoker and Philcha.

Next step (yes, there is a next step after FA): get to the Main Page! SyG (talk) 18:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I echo SyG's thanks, and express my profound gratitude, to everyone he named. In addition, I would like to thank SyG himself, who nominated the article and helped defend it, and Dank55, self-proclaimed "double or triple nerd", who did an outstanding job of copyediting the article. And thanks to anyone else that we neglected to mention. Thanks to everyone - you rock!


 * PS to SyG: what do we have to do to get it to the Main Page? That isn't automatic? Do I have to engage in gladiatorial combat with primary editors of other FA-approved articles or what? :-) Krakatoa (talk) 20:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem is that there are more new FA's than days in the month (Featured_article_statistics). Now, the relevant links for main page articles are Today%27s_featured_article, Today%27s_featured_article/requests and User:Raul654/Featured_article_thoughts. To be honest, I don't really understand how it works. It used to be much simple (the request page used to have about 100 articles on it), and this point system is new to me. The request page says that it is only for 'date requests'. I don't know where normal requests have to go.  Voorlandt (talk) 07:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Weird - you and I were writing about this simultaneously, and you edit-conflicted me out. Eyeballing the statistics, it looks like FA's get approved at maybe 2.3 to 2.4 times the number of days in a month, on average. There must accordingly be a lot of FAs that have never made the Main Page, although I can't find that statistic. Apparently a date tie-in is regarded as a compelling reason for getting on the Main Page, but this article doesn't seem to have any obvious date tie-ins (Steinitz' birthday and such seem pretty underwhelming). Of course, we mention enough people in the article that probably at least two of them have the same birthday. If, say, Steinitz, Weaver Adams, and Hans Berliner all have the same birthday, we might be getting somewhere. Not likely, although at my old law firm, out of about 28 lawyers, at one point we had three born on May 1 (yes, Law Day!), two of those in the same year. FWIW, July 20 is supposedly "International Chess Day" (the anniversary of FIDE's founding in 1924), but I can't even find any authoritative source saying that. Krakatoa (talk) 07:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, I have a mental list of chessplayers who died at age 64: Bobby Fischer, Wilhelm Steinitz, Howard Staunton, and Edmar Mednis. I had thought Vladimir Bagirov, too, but he died about three weeks before his 64th birthday. I thought of making a category or list of these folks, but I daresay my fellow Wikipedians would delete it with even more stunning alacrity than they did my former article on the greatest birthday in history: February 12, 1809 (Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln). Krakatoa (talk) 08:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As we all know that Wikipedia is an MMORPG, the interesting feature is the variety of different worlds composing it. GA-review will mostly require abilities on adding content, so we could have an analogy with the "Strength" skill all RPG have. FA-review requires more abilities on format and style, which is just the "Dexterity" skill. Then, going to the Main Page just requires the "Luck" skill: you have to continuously watch out and hope a slot gets free to propose your article, as only five slots can be filled at the same time.
 * Anyway, no need to hurry as the monsters there (yes, I am still in my analogy with RPG) would eat alive any article that has not been featured for enough time before being nominated for the Main Page. It is probably better to wait for several months, and to find an interesting date as Krakatoa mention. SyG (talk) 08:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned before, the request pages seems to be only date requests, and I don't think our new FA article qualifies for that. That said, not all main page featured articles are there because of the date, see for instance Sertraline on Today's featured article/June 2008. So there must be another way. Voorlandt (talk) 08:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes!!!! Two of the central figures in the article, Richard Réti and Andrew Soltis, were both born on May 28!!!! Wait, you say they're not central figures in the article? Never mind. Krakatoa (talk) 17:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * FWIW, today's featured article, Oxidative phosphorylation, became an FA on August 30, 2007, about ten months ago. Krakatoa (talk) 02:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a few criteria for the main page, but ultimately it's Raul654's decision (and SandyGeorgia, who contributed to the FA-Review for this article, is his deputy with that incidentally). He can use whatever motives he wants, but requests can be judged by other editors. Date relevance is generally weighted highest, because obviously important anniversaries don't come along that often. Decennary, centenary, millenial anniversaries etc are naturally weighted higher still. Another point to note is that they generally aren't too keen on articles which have only just been promoted, especially if there's no date connection (i.e. a specific reason why it should be so soon) although some do get through. The number of featured articles on the topic and its relative obscurity (based on the vague notion of the kind of articles your average 12 year old would look up for a school report) are also major factors. No harm in going for it, but might be best to let it "season" a little first? Just that they can be rather tyrannical on the requests page about date relevance. Caissa&#39;s DeathAngel (talk) 16:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the protocol is; certainly wouldn't want to piss off the powers that be by pushing it prematurely. Is obscurity (what a 12-year-old would look up) considered good or bad in terms of making the main page? If Oxidative phosphorylation and Conatus are any indication, I'm guessing good. I see that today's Main Page FA, Conatus, became an FA on May 5, 2007. Krakatoa (talk) 01:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The main page article a couple of days ago was The General in His Labyrinth, which just made FA on April 19, 2008! Dunno how it rocketed to the head of the line so quickly. Krakatoa (talk) 05:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Generally, the less obscure an article is, the more likely it is to go on the Main Page. Articles that a 12 year old would likely look up for a school project are likely to be prioritised ahead of obscure articles for the most part. For time since promotion, a year is considered a marker for more attention, and another is two years plus. At the moment there's a couple of spaces on the Main Page Requests page here: so feel free to stick it up and see what people say. Caissa&#39;s DeathAngel (talk) 07:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on getting FA class. Especially to Krakatoa whom applied much effort and put together most of it. In my view this article is outstanding and much better then most other FA Class wikipedia articles. SunCreator (talk) 13:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested collaboration: Caïssa
Hi everyone, I've been meaning to do this for a while now. I'd like to see the article Caïssa much improved if possible. My username suggests an interest in the subject, and it is also rated by this project as a High Class article, despite being start. I've checked the other language versions of it and they are all much the same, but I think they could be better. Anybody willing to assist? Getting the ball rolling isn't my strong suit on these matters, I'm far better at running away with it once I'm going. Thanks.Caissa&#39;s DeathAngel (talk) 16:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In all honesty I doubt WikiProject Chess can add much more to it, I expanded it as much as I could find before. It's contents are considerably more then most of the sources. Maybe more assistance can be provided in other wikiprojects like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poetry, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mythology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History etc. SunCreator (talk) 13:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would be happy to assist but for the moment I have a hard time finishing some A-class reviews and also in real life (2nd quarter closing, for those who know what that means...). Also, suggesting a collaboration on an article while explaining that you will run away is very courageous but may chill out some participants ;-) SyG (talk) 13:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Weaver Adams
I think Weaver Adams is a lot better than Start-Class now. Anyone care to reassess it? Krakatoa (talk) 07:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Perhaps would benifit from a nice photograph and infobox (as in the Howard Staunton article) Voorlandt (talk) 10:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  22:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * For information, I have started to reassess all the existing B-class articles against the new criteria. Not surprisingly, most of them fall into the C-class for the moment. SyG (talk) 14:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your efforts on this. Some of the Start-class will likely will fit into the C-class also . SunCreator (talk) 17:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The Staunton-Morphy controversy
At Talk:Howard_Staunton I suggested that the controversy should be made the subject of a separate article since: we now have enough sources to support a separate article; a blow-by-blow account would take up a huge chunk of Howard Staunton; I'm hoping more material will be available in a few weeks. The advantages of a separate article are that it can expand as we get new material and can be used as a "see also" in both Howard Staunton and Paul Morphy without taking up disproportionate space in the Staunton and Morphy articles. Would you please comment on this suggestion at Talk:Howard_Staunton. -- Philcha (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've started The Staunton-Morphy controversy and got a lot of the chronology in place, but it could use a lot more quotations etc, with WP:RS. Please respond at Talk:The Staunton-Morphy controversy, which presents a shopping list. -- Philcha (talk) 23:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Chess "Article of the Day"
Best greetings from the German Wikipedia chess friends. Our article on Chess problems made it, somewhat surprisingly, to the Main Portal (July 16). Even without any German knowledge, you may enjoy this rare view (see Chessbase News ). Did it ever happen here so far? --DaQuirin (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That is a fantastic achievement, thanks for the hint! That is also great to have a mention on ChessBase, it may bring new editors to the Deutsch Wikipedia.
 * On the English Wikipedia, the articles Chess and The Turk both made it to the Main Page. Our article on Chess problems is still far from the required level (Featured Article) but in several months we may propose First-move advantage in chess for the Main Page. SyG (talk) 17:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Player ratings
There are hundreds of articles about players. Their ratings generally change a little each time a new rating list comes out. I don't think we need to track those little details. For one thing, it takes a lot of effort of editors. Secondly, if the reader wants the exact rating or details, they can go to the FIDE site or the national organization. Also, I think it is misleading to give the current rating of someone who is way past their prime. They may have once been over 2600 but now their rating is 2400. So I have a couple of ideas: 1. give the peak rating. Then after a certain point it won't have to be updated. 2. It is close enough to round it off to the nearest 100 or maybe 50, i.e. "once rated over 2500" or 2550. Bubba73 (talk), 20:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree we should delete the "current rating" field in the Infobox, as it cannot be properly maintained. The reader can always find this information in the FIDE player card if he wants to. SyG (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Would it be a good idea to link to the FIDE player card? -- Philcha (talk) 23:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how big this problem really is, though I see your point. Keeping ratings updated is a bit like keeping population figures for cities and towns updated; there are a lot of articles to update, and in many cases population estimates are given several times a year. As long as we indicate which list we have the rating from, I think readers will understand, and then someone will update if they feel the rating for that bio is way too old. I cannot support removing the "current rating" field altogether, and referring to the rating card instead, because even slightly out-of-date information about playing strength is valid, a reasonable indicator, and still better than having no information. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I like Sjakkalle's solution. The "Peak rating" field already has a date in brackets (see e.g. Boris Spassky, the first place I clicked), so simply put a date in brackets after the "FIDE rating" field also. It's a simple fix, and doesn't break any of the ones we forget to change. Peter Ballard (talk) 07:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes I don't see what the problem is really. They will get done in time; last time round we had an editor who went through and did most of them in a day or so. As long as each infobox has a peak as well as a current rating, we'll be giving a good idea of that player's strength.Pawnkingthree (talk) 08:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * For one thing, I don't think that is a good use of editor time. There are hundreds of players, who is going to update them every time a new rating list comes out?  And most of the changes are small and insignificant. If there are to be current ratings, how about making 50-point ranges, and say "over 2550" for anything between 2550 and 2600, then they won't have to be updated nearly as often.  And being in a 50 point range is close enough.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:07, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * With respect, it's not up to you to decide what's a good use of editor time and what isn't. Many editors (myself included) update sports statistics regularly and don't mind doing so. User:David Senek updated the last lot and it didn't take him that long. Having a vague "over such and such" list is not much use to anyone. I agree with Sjakkalle, as long as we indicate the date, whether it's January or April or whatever doesn't really matter. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking at his contributions, it took him several hours over a period of several days. At best he was changing about two per minute.  That is a lot of time that could be used more productively. The rating list comes out four times a year, I think, and there are probably hundreds of players with ratings. Also the difference between 2443 and 2451 is not much use to anyone.  The great majority of the changes from one list tothe next are statistically insignificant.  Bubba73 (talk), 03:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the July Top 100 has already been done; but I guess some of those lower than that might get missed (not sure how many articles on active players outside the 100 we have). I agree that there is usually not much difference in the points totals (unless a player has a really good or really bad few months) but personally I find the movement in the placings of interest; for example the fact that Morosevich has now split Anand and Kramnik and is at a Career high no.2.Pawnkingthree (talk) 08:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 2669 articles are assigned to this project, of which 431, or 16.1%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-07-14.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 08:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Illustrative games in chess opening articles
I found some chess openings articles with so called Illustrative games. I really dont see what these games have to offer us. So i propose deleting all this. And if some game does have something interesting that is useful in the article, a Chess Diagram template can be used and link to ChessGames can be offered.

So that anyone understands what Im trying to say: Ponziani_Opening here you can see two games, without any explanation at all about why they are there. So template can be used to show the critical situation that explains about the opening's dynamics. Lab-oratory (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I probably added most of those illustrative games. As to Ponziani Opening, I have added text explaining the significance of the games. Krakatoa (talk) 19:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as they're used sparingly, with accompanying explanation, I don't have a problem. I'm not so keen on a long list of games in an external links section; those should be avoided. Pawnkingthree (talk) 11:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If the game is referenced to somewhere which has additional commentary as to how it illustrates play in the context of the said opening, I think they are good ideas. In lieu of that, I would wish to minimize them.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any real problem with illustrative games and have added a few to articles. Certainly, there shouldn't be long lists of random games culled from some database but, if used sparingly (and I think The Oxford Companion to Chess is a good example here), they can help give a greater understanding of the subject, help establish notability and also improve linkage to other articles. My main criteria for inclusion would be; There may of course be other valid reasons too. Brittle heaven (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * to show a famous win over an esteemed opponent;
 * to show how an opening typically plays out and/or the middlegame plans that may develop;
 * to show an opening or variation where its creator/main protagonist is the subject of the article;
 * to attribute a game of striking tactical or strategic merit with some introductory explanation, or a link to annotations elsewhere;
 * to demonstrate a characteristic style or aspect of a person's play.

Update on quality: July 2008
Here is a brief update on the development of different quality reviews.


 * Howard Staunton unfortunately failed to reach the level "A-class" of quality, although Philcha has done a fantastic job on this article. Thanks to him and to all the reviewers, mostly Brittle heaven and Krakatoa. You can see the review at WikiProject Chess/Review or directly hereunder:


 * Meanwhile, I have nominated the article for a GA-review at Good article nominations, the reviewer has finally been found so the review should begin very soon now.


 * Adolf Anderssen is still under a A-class review, waiting for reviewers at WikiProject Chess/Review. I have to admit I did not really have the time to look at it because I was busy on the reviews of First-move advantage in chess and Howard Staunton, so crowds of reviewers are expected to join!


 * Chess boxing became a GA after a very fast GA-review, welcome to this newcomer!

SyG (talk) 20:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

What does "absolute seventh rank" mean?
I was reading about rooks on the seventh rank in a game. The rook is on the seventh rank between two pawns. The defender moves one of the pawns off that rank, and the author uses the term "absolute seventh rank" twice. What does it mean? That the rook has a freer reign? That then it is able to get behind pawns? Other??? Bubba73 (talk), 02:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't know, but might guess it means that the opposing king cannot leave the eighth rank by sneaking behind one of its pwans still on its home square. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That is correct (Kracatoa told me). Bubba73 (talk), 22:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Liverating.org
The site http://www.liverating.org is being put in a few times, especially people with high "live" ratings such as Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen. I've been deleting them because liverating.org is not official, and because the edits are usually anonymous so I suspect spam; and because edits have been phrased in such a way to suggest liverating.org is official (e.g. this edit ). Am I being too harsh? Peter Ballard (talk) 11:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I like it when you are harsh, please be it again. Wikipedia should only use reliable sources, and I am not aware that the calculations of this site have been peer reviewed seriously. I have seen ChessBase mention it occasionaly, but what guarantees that the ratings published are correct ? SyG (talk) 19:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that we don't need them, because they are constantly changing. Bubba73 (talk), 22:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

rating categories
One thing that has frustrated me about many articles is that they refer to tournament categories (Category 20 etc) without defining them. To fix this I've created the Category (chess) Category (chess tournament) page. So please consider creating a link like Category 20 next time you come across an article mentioning a tournament category. Thanks! Peter Ballard (talk) 05:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * On reflection, I decided Category (chess) was too vague, so I've renamed it to Category (chess tournament); and edited the above paragraph to match that. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Good idea, Peter Ballard! It might be even better if you could give some examples of tournaments e.g. in the top 5 categories, saying who was in them. That way readers who are less familiar with the category system, including me(!), can look at the names and think "Wow!" or "OK". -- Philcha (talk) 12:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I know that Corus was Category 20 this year. You could use that as an example. GBizzle (talk) 01:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Rating of Ponziani Opening
Anyone want to re-rate Ponziani Opening? I've added a lead, and think it may merit B-class now. Krakatoa (talk) 19:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it is clearly "B", and I made the change. Bubba73 (talk), 20:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It may be "low" importance instead of "mid", since it is rarely played now. But, OTOH, it is historically significant.  Bubba73 (talk), 20:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I suggested in the Talk section to the article that I thought "low" was more appropriate. The opening is indeed historically significant, being one of the first openings ever discussed in the literature, but its significance has gone downhill ever since. I'm not sure it was ever very popular in actual play. Certainly it hasn't been popular for 140+ years, at least. Staunton in 1847 was complaining that it wasn't more popular, and I don't think his advocacy did much for it. Before and after he wrote that, King's Gambits and Evans Gambits were far more popular. Krakatoa (talk) 15:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've decided to re-rate the article "Low" importance. As I state on the Talk page of the article, I don't think it's more important than the Staunton Gambit, Hungarian Defense, and Dunst Opening, for example, each of which is rated "Low". Krakatoa (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

bug in chess position template
There is a bug in the chess position template.

The above works, but in the caption, using "=" instead of ":" in the move gives:

When I was using it in the article, the caption was "68" or something like that. I don't know anything about how to fix it. Can someone? Bubba73 (talk), 23:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The "=" in the comment causes it to mess up the comment. Bubba73 (talk), 15:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It is because = is used in templates. Lab-oratory (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Solutions: I would favour the first method, as it is much simpler and can be used for any character. SyG (talk) 18:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * use the "nowiki" feature (see my first diagram below)
 * use the special character &#x003D (see my second diagram below)

Thanks, that works. But then I realized that standard AN doesn't use "=" before the promoted piece. Back in my day, we used descriptive notation, and my use of "=" is a hangover from that. Nevertheless, there are some times when we need = in the caption. Bubba73 (talk), 22:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"fortress" versus "positional draw"
Is there a difference between fortress (chess) and a "positional draw"? At least two of my books talk about positional draws, but it is not clear how they are different, except one says that the term "positional draw" is borrowed from endgame study terminology. The article fortress (chess) has a section on positional draws. The first example there seems to be a simple fortress. The second one is more complex, with many more pieces. Bubba73 (talk), 15:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is. "Positional draw" is a broader term that includes more than just fortresses. Hooper and Whyld (first edition; the second also has a definition, but the first is a little more thorough) define "positional draw" as "a study term for a drawn position in which Black has (or is about to gain by promotion) a material advantage but cannot free his pieces because of White's positional advantage. White might give perpetual check ..., attack a black piece continually ... , make recurrent mating threats ... , or hem in the enemy pieces .... These and other kinds of positional draw often end with a repetition of moves. Kasparyan classifies the fortress as a positional draw." David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (1st ed. 1984), Oxford University Press, p. 261.


 * If I understand Hooper and Whyld correctly, the positions at left and right are two non-fortress examples of positional draws. The diagram at left, from my immmortal 2005 problem, is a draw by stalemate if Black's bishop moves. If Black allows the king to take the bishop and refuses to agree to a draw, the game will eventually end in a draw under the 50-move rule, since the knights cannot force checkmate. The diagram at right is a well-known position where the rook holds the draw: 1...Kh3 2.Rh2+! Kg4 (2...Kxh2 stalemate; 2...Kg3 3.Rh3+!) 3.Rg2+ Kf4 (3...Kf3 4.Rg3+!) 4.Rf2+ Ke4 (what else?) 5.Re2=. Krakatoa (talk) 03:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I should have thought to consult the Companion. Bubba73 (talk), 03:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Rating of Chess handicap
Anyone want to re-rate Chess handicap? I've added a lot of stuff to the text, and a genuine lead. I think it may merit B-class now. Krakatoa (talk) 04:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have reviewed this article (see its Talk page) and raised it to B-class. Well done! SyG (talk) 08:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Camara Defense
The sources (see in the article) stating that the Câmara Defense should be named as such appear weak to me for the moment. More reliable sources do not use this name: So I am considering renaming the article to Gunderam defense. What do your reliable sources say ? SyG (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * , Tartakower's Bréviaire des Echecs and van Seters' Guide Marabout des Echecs do not use a particular name
 * and calls it the Gunderam defense


 * I considered it when I made the article on fi-wiki and named it Gunderamin puolustus (Gunderam Defense). Geocities calls it Gunderam, Brazilian, Queens Defense and Levenstein. Lab-oratory (talk) 08:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Page moved. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! SyG (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

problem with captions in small diagrams
Captions are not showing up in the small chess diagrams. I don't know how to fix it, does someone know? Bubba73 (talk), 14:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have just tried changed the template, a bit randomly I must say. It seems to work now in your example, please tell me if you spot unwanted side-effects. SyG (talk) 15:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is working now, thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 15:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "xw" no longer makes a white dot!! Is that a possible side effect of your change?  Bubba73 (talk), 20:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Mmm, I do not see how, and I did not know it was possible to do a white dot with "xw". Could you please provide an example so that I can compare what happens in the large diagram and in the small one ? SyG (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * After cheking, I see that User:It Is Me Here has been doing a lot of changes to the templates today, and it seems to have broken some mechanics. I will ask him to stop for now, and revert the templates to their former versions. Please tell me if problems continue. SyG (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I do not think this white dot problem is limited to small diagrams. I noticed that someone changed white dots to "x" in cross-check, and then I discovered that the white dot doesn't work.  The files seem to be missing.  See my sandboxUser:Bubba73/MySandbox.  Bubba73 (talk), 20:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, now it works again! Bubba73 (talk), 20:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * But in the big diagram the caption is centered while in the small one it isn't. I slightly prefer the left-aligned style, but whichever it is, it should be applied to both. GregorB (talk) 20:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That is an easy change to do. Bubba73, what's your opinion on this, left or center ? SyG (talk) 07:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I prefer left. Lab-oratory (talk) 12:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have an opinion about left or centered. I'll go along with the others.  Bubba73 (talk), 13:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have changed it to left. SyG (talk) 13:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Left is better because if you do want to center it, you can use ... on the caption. Bubba73 (talk), 03:35, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

we need to improve rules of chess
We need to improve rules of chess to bring it up to at least GA class. Presently we have few articles that are GA or better, and some of them I feel don't represent chess particularly well. In my opinion, The Turk (FA class), Bughouse Chess (A class), and Chess boxing (GA class) are not that important to chess. The chess article itself is FA, but I think that the second most important article is rules of chess, currently rated B class (although it may be better than that). I don't want to jump through all of the hoops to get it to GA or better myself, but I will help. What do you think? Bubba73 (talk), 05:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, I mean no disrespect to those articles or the editors who worked on them. Bubba73 (talk), 01:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. The 8 articles currently rated GA-class or better are not that representative of the most important aspects of chess. I would be willing to contribute to the improvement of Rules of chess as far as I can, but unfortunately I am just taking a Wikibreak for one week (holidays). Please feel free to nominate this article to WikiProject Chess/Review and I will be happy to review/improve it as soon as I come back. SyG (talk) 09:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree totally - we shouldn't lose sight of the data that told us which articles were being viewed and with what frequency. From memory, it was mostly about the rules, tactics, strategy, openings, middlegame, endgame etc. These are the core topic areas and they need to be as good as we can get them. If we see the GA process as "jumping through all the hoops" then this is probably acting as a disincentive and we should ignore it for now. We all know what makes a good article and those reviews (or getting your homework marked by teacher, as I prefer to think of it) can absorb way too much editorial time and energy. Anyway, we'll just get everything to GA and they'll invent FGA (no prizes for guessing what the F stands for). The important thing is to get writing. I intend to help out with some of these topics in the near future. Brittle heaven (talk) 00:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think rules of chess is viewed over 500 times per day. The program that listed that doesn't work past June 2008.  Bubba73 (talk), 00:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)