Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 32

wtharvey.com links
Links to wtharvey.com have been added to several of our chess player biography articles lately. Looks spammy to me. Comments? MaxBrowne (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I was about to ask the same thing here in the talk page. They look like spam also to me. Sophia91 (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Weirdly enough I was thinking that too. I remember when this started to be done on chessgames.com years ago. Probably the same person as back then. I have asked the user via their Talk page to pause the additions and contribute to this thread. Jkmaskell (talk) 13:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It's hard to defend the chessgames.com links on policy grounds, but somehow they're useful. Not a reliable source in itself but can get lots of good references from it. People often reference good sources in the comments sections. MaxBrowne (talk) 15:18, 17 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I added those links, so please read about my chess contribution to wikipedia:

First In the last 8 years I wrote about 450 articles about chess in the Hebrew wikipedia, and also made use of the wonderful tool to input whole games with a java tool that makes possible to move the game automatically and allows me to annotate the games. See for example: 78th Tata Steel Masters 2016. I offered it the the English wikipedia, but for reasons that I do not understand it was rejected. It helps a lot when you wnat to show important games without bothering to create diagrams and type moves.

Second - chesswise I am an ICCF Grandmaster with my best rating 2655 (now 2576)

I assure you that the links I added are excellent chess material. Some of them are easy (for me) but some of them are challenging even to strong masters, so without doubt they are very good examples of the tactical best moves that the specific player ever played. I attach here one of the links that I added so that the readers will understand what we are discussing. I added today this links some chess puzzles from the games of Yuri Averbakh, and all the other are the same only from games of other players. How can you write that this is spam?

I assure you that I have no connection whatsoever to the creator of this website and no gain from adding the links. I simply think that they are excellent - real gems! --Yoavd (talk) 15:46, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
 * To clarify what I was saying earlier, I didn't mean that Yoavd was Bill Harvey, the owner of the website. That's clearly not the case. I've had a look at the site and the link isn't advertising, its merely a puzzle list. I'd let it pass. I've seen worse links added to articles.Jkmaskell (talk) 16:52, 17 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The quality of the puzzles is not the question. The question is why would we be linking to puzzles to begin with?  Wikipedia is not a repository of links.  How do some random puzzles contribute to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject of the article?
 * Also, in response to Jkmaskell, this page for example is loaded with ads, as well as an affiliate link to letsplaychess.com --SubSeven (talk) 19:18, 17 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I will try to answer the question: "why would we be linking to puzzles to begin with" - those puzzles are not random puzzles - those are real positions that happened in the games of very creative players, that saw a possibility of some outstanding tactical shot. Not every strong player would be able to recognize such possibility, and even I - quite strong player - when facing those "puzzles" - knowing that some tactical move must be available (which the player, in real time, could not be so sure) struggles. So showing to the many readers of Wikipedia such beautiful positions, is resembling the galleries of the best drawings of an artist. This is the best possible explanation that I can give. I really believe that it contributes to the article.

I have a question too: do you have contributors that are highly rated chess players? You could ask them the same question and get answers from experts and then you could decide. I write this as I also read a debate on the quality of question mark in annotation (see above). Comparing Estrin (former ICCF world champion and a very strong IM in OTB chess) annotations in the Two Knights Defense where he was the world top expert and his game with Berliner is a masterpiece ( I have read his excellent book on this defence) to Mr. Harding (which I know very well, and corresponded with him for years) is impossible. If you would ask any chess expert he would advise to rely on Estrin's assessment, as he was the world expert on the subject. Certainly saying anything about 4th move is difficult, but still - you cannot compare the depth of understanding between those two opinions. --Yoavd (talk) 05:37, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I, for one, don't have Estrin's book (so not in position to use as source for the article if there are improvements to the lines). Correction: I have Estrin's 1971 English ed. (but not the 1983 ed.). IHTS (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I took a look at the Averbakh page linked above and I have to agree with the first few posters – linking to these puzzles adds no value to the encyclopedia. They are all of a fairly trivial sort and show nothing unique about Averbakh's tactical ability. It would be a different matter if the site presented games like this, this or this – then we could legitimately speak of comparisons to "the best drawings of an artist". By the way, since you are so intent to establish your chess credentials, this is you too, is it not? Cobblet (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting back to the topic. The issue is not who's any good at chess, it's whether wtharvey.com pages showing "puzzles" from a player's games should be linked to from chess bios or not. I have a concern, I raised it. How are these "puzzles" generated by the way? Does a computer trawl through the player's games and select "tactical points"? What these pages typically show are tactical positions from the games of the players, presented without comment. Some are more difficult than others, but these are tactics that any grandmaster would be expected to find at the board regardless of their style of play. It's all quite impersonal. MaxBrowne (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * To the question of Cobblet - yes. This is me, 60+ years old and still playing some OTB games in the strong Israeli league. I was much stronger when I was 45 years younger....To the question of MaxBrowne - I do not know how those positions are found (not generated). We could send an e-mail to Mr. Bill Harvey, the owner of the website as was mentioned earlier, maybe he will answer us - maybe not. But I do not think that the way he managed to collect those positions is important, now it exists. The question is if the readers of the wikipedia think that those positions add a value to the article. It is like any source that points to the reader a point. I fully agree that "any grandmaster would be expected to find at the board regardless of their style of play" but being under pressure of the chess clock, sometimes under pressure of the number of points you collected in the tournament and the probability to lose a good place in the end (and lose money) or to lose rating points to a lower rated player, may drive the player to a more cautious move. Remember that many times the player had a "sure" way to win but chose the beautiful tactical move. I even found one or two examples of a winning move (I checked it with a computer) but the move chose was certainly more beautiful. --Yoavd (talk) 04:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * For me the moves which truly show a player's artistry are not the "correct" moves. Take Spassky's 15.Nd6 against Bronstein. Was it correct? No it wasn't, objectively it was better to play Qxe2 or Rf2 and maintain a clear advantage; Black could have drawn with correct defence as has been known since the 50s. Was 15.Nd6 an awesome move? Hell yes. The fact that he had the imagination and courage to play 15.Nd6 at the board is far more interesting than any three move checkmate combination. The links at wtharvey.com tend to be more in the nature of three move tactical combinations than illustrations of the player's artistry. MaxBrowne (talk) 06:12, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * With some of the combinations you are right, they are a forced sequence. Some of them are not, they just lead to an advantage. The only difference (specially comparing to Tal's moves) that they were checked to be CORRECT. Tal's moves sometimes are beautiful, and he managed to win the games because his opponentes were baffled by the moves (see for example the 6th game against Botvinik) but chesswise they are wrong. /so - wrong tactics are not included in the site - only correct tactical shots. For 99% of the readers it is more than enough. --Yoavd (talk) 08:02, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I looked at another one of these pages at random, that of Meri Arabidze. The "puzzles" on that page are so trivial that I frankly think Arabidze would be insulted if he she saw these held up on Wikipedia as notable achievements of his hers. Seriously, just look at them. Cobblet (talk) 09:27, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Arabidze is a young woman rated 2350. If you are able to solve in your head mate in 4-6 moves like most of those puzzles than you are a strong player. Most people cannot do it correctly. --Yoavd (talk) 17:08, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It should be mind-numbingly obvious that a 2350-rated player is capable of finding moves "most people" are not. That does not change the fact that these tactics are far less interesting than what one would find in a standard anthology like the Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations. Applying the first criterion of WP:LINKSTOAVOID, if we were to develop Arabidze's biography into a featured article, I'm absolutely certain we could find a better demonstration of her skill than, say, mate in 5 in a position that is otherwise still trivially winning. Cobblet (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You are correct that the Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations offers excellent examples, but most of the Wikipedia readers do not have access to this book. It is not available online, and certainly has no direct access to a certain player Chess Combinations. If we return to the example of Arabidze I would ask why write an article about a chess player rated 3029 in the world or 103 between female players. Given that it was written, the examples found in the wtharvey.com are the best of her tactical moves. Another thing: IF we could find excellent examples of tactical moves and would like to add it to an article it is a lot of work. Here is an example I wrote a few years ago manually: []. You can see the diagrams and the annotations. I still do not get the logic that says :LINKSTOAVOID. What is the bad thing that you see in this site? --Yoavd (talk) 05:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Whether people have access to Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations has nothing to do with what I said. As for Arabidze, she reached the quarterfinals of the Women's World Chess Championship 2015 – based on how previous discussions regarding chess biographies have gone, her notability is not in question. The "bad thing" is that the linked puzzles add nothing to the reader's understanding of who the player is. They are just positions extracted from the player's games with no context or explanation as to how or why this was done. For instance, nowhere is it even asserted that they represent "the best of their tactical moves", as you suggest. (That is demonstrably untrue in the case of Averbakh.) No doubt it takes a lot of work to present a person's biography and achievements properly, but that is not an excuse to link to a website whose purpose is something completely different. Cobblet (talk) 06:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Friends, I will wait to your decision and if you decide to delete those links as you think they do not add anything so be it. It is a pity that you do not have a few high rated players that could also add their view on the subject. In the Hebrew Wikipedia we have at least 4 highly rated players that express their views on chess subjects. For me those positions demonstrate the originality, creativity and sometimes courage of the player. --Yoavd (talk) 09:14, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't presume to know that people here aren't high rated, just because they don't disclose their rating without prompting :)   But, more seriously, what difference does it make what people are rated?  This is about application of Wikipedia policy. --SubSeven (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure - this is about application of Wikipedia policy - but in a technical matter experts should be consulted. If 3-4 players (even average players, but still those that are training daily) think that something is useful, their opinion should count. --Yoavd (talk) 13:19, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * There are a million links that could be considered useful to chess players, I'm sure. 'Useful' is not the criteria for inclusion. --SubSeven (talk) 15:52, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yoav seems to be implying that our opinions should be weighted according to our chess strength. Firstly, a player's chess strength is not necessarily correlated to the quality of their output - Harding's books are excellent, whereas Kasparov's are mostly rubbish. Harding may not be a particularly strong player, but he's an excellent writer and researcher, whereas Kasparov's books are mostly about using the brand Kasparov to make a buck. Secondly, like many wikipedia contributors I prefer to be anonymous so I'm not about to get into an Elo rating pissing contest; let's just say I'm competent and knowledgeable about the game of chess, and my wikipedia contributions are evidence of this. We all have egos but the focus is on the content, not on the people producing it. From examining the site wtharvey.com, the "puzzles" given appear to be bot-generated using Chess Assistant software and a chess engine, with little to no human intervention. There is no commentary, no context, nothing about the players or circumstances of the game, nothing that reflects anything about the character or style of play of the player concerned. A secondary concern is that the site is used to promote the webmaster's commercial self-published efforts (which are probably just bot-generated output too). Sorry but I just don't share Yoav's high regard for the site and don't think it should be linked to from a chess player's biographical article. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:01, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I have in my library many chess books. To say "Kasparov's are mostly rubbish" is amazing (from my point of view) as My Great Predecessors series are certainly the best ever chess books that I had read and played through. --Yoavd (talk) 05:35, 23 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I see that all the links thatI added were delete by SubSeven as he wrote "no consensus to include these links ". Was this decided by the forum or is it SubSeven own decision? I understand that he " despises linkspam, and will terminate it on sight, as well as any other spam by the contributor." as he writes himself, but still, I do not see those links as spam.

I am really sorry to see this outcome; this adds to the strange decision not to add the wonderful tool to show chess games in the wikipedia as I demonstrated. Pity for the English wikipedia. I shall stay now with the Hebrew wikipedia. --Yoavd (talk) 04:32, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It was decided by the discussion right here.  People had over a week to weigh in, and there was no support for the links, other than one mild endorsement that was based on a misapprehension (that there were no ads in the links, not true).  --SubSeven (talk) 05:14, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the various distractions that were thrown this way, it comes down to the simple question of whether or not wtharvey.com is an appropriate link for a chess player's bio. The consensus is that it is not. MaxBrowne (talk) 12:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. There was plenty of time for people to make contributions to the debate and the majority went with the removal of the links. I believe the majority of the regular editors, certainly those with real experience of Wikipedia, had commented. Jkmaskell (talk) 12:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Kasparov Polgar incident
I've made a number of edits about the Kasparov-Polgar touch-move controversy at the Judit Polgar page. I'd like regulars from the project to review my changes and make any edits as they see fit. I know it's a controversial incident so it's important that wikipedia reflects a NPOV. MaxBrowne (talk) 10:06, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It's an improvement. Thanks. -Koppapa (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It's better now, thanks MaxBrowne. I'm glad that you also removed the reference to "Chess for Dummies". Sophia91 (talk) 19:29, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Found a couple of references from Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam of New In Chess, including the info that the tournament sponsor would not allow the tape to be released. Hope it isn't too POV to record Kasparov's dickish response. MaxBrowne (talk) 08:02, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Notability
Is being a FIDE Master sufficient for notability? See Michael J. R. White. Pam D  21:09, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No. There are many thousand FMs. They're good players, of course, but not the sort that gets much more than local coverage (if I were to generalize). I don't think -- though I could be wrong -- that there's consensus for any chess title to bring inherent notability (maybe world champion?), although most grandmasters (contemporary, anyway) could probably pass GNG. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 21:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * FM's or even untitled players may be included if they have some other claim to notability within the chess world, for example national champions, well known authors, well known administrators. MaxBrowne (talk) 02:39, 26 May 2016 (UTC) Edit: but not this guy. MaxBrowne (talk) 02:50, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Of course, anyone can be notable under WP:GNG: I was asking whether this mastership was "sufficient" for notability (on the same lines as some of the sports criteria where anyone who once played one county cricket match is notable), in case I'd have been wrong to CSD him. He's now at AfD. Pam  D  07:44, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

List of books and documentaries by or about Bobby Fischer
I added a WikiProject Chess banner to List of books and documentaries by or about Bobby Fischer, so I am wondering if somebody wouldn't mind assessing it. Also, there's been a bit of edit warring going on there over some categories (see Talk:List of books and documentaries by or about Bobby Fischer). Maybe someone from WP:CHESS whose familiar how Category:Chess books and Category:Films about chess are added to chess-related articles could comment on whether they cover the article. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:44, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Idea for subdividing Project Chess into two different/separate projects
I'd like to suggest the idea, to break out of Project Chess, all chess topics that relate to non-FIDE chess. (In other words, Project Chess would be about FIDE chess, also called "international chess". And the other project, containing shogi, xiangqi, Chess960, Grand Chess, Fairy chess, etc., ... all the traditional, national, and modern variations of chess. The two distinct groups have a wealth of material per group, and are a bit alien to one another ... even to the point of, as is well known, lots of active chess players, who sometimes become WP Chess Project editor members, have preference against, or even plain prejudices against, non-traditional variations of 'chess'.)

I don't have a proposed Project name in mind to contain all chess that is not FIDE-defined chess, because there might be disagreement over said name, and, that could/would be a distraction from the point. (Project Chess = FIDE-defined chess; New Project = all other chesses.) I think maybe there are other advantages and things that make sense too, for having the two projects distinct, that I'm not even thinking at the moment. (A substantially different set of literature sources, research skills/interests, etc.!?)

Of course there would be some article overlap, e.g. History of chess. But that is normal and unproblematical. IHTS (talk) 00:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Irregular Openings
For the inelegantly titled article Irregular chess openings, wikipedia appears to have taken a traditional (old-fashioned) chess term and redefined it in order to fit what was already in the article (original title was A00). "Irregular Opening" is certainly not a synonym of ECO code A00. It might covers unusual replies to conventional White opening moves, unusual setups like g3, Bg2, b3, Bb2, d3, e3, Ne2, Nd2, a3, h3 or.... really it just means whatever the particular writer thinks it means, though the time and context when it was written is also a factor. It is an inherently imprecise term which has fallen out of favour in modern chess literature. An article called "Irregular opening" should discuss all this stuff. It is not a suitable title for an article about A00 openings (i.e. any 1st move by white except 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3, 1.b3 and 1.f4). At some point a wikipedian decided to redefine the term to be a synonym for ECO code A00 which is pure OR. I put tags on the article and discussed my concerns on the talk page but does not seem to understand my points and removed the tags without properly addressing my concerns. The site chessarch.com isn't bad but it certainly isn't convincing evidence for the definition in the opening paragraph in the light of hundreds of years of chess literature which defined the term differently.

My proposed way forward is to delete this article (which is basically just a series of wikilinks anyway) and integrate the material into Chess opening. The space for Irregular opening (my preferred title) could then be used to discuss the historic use of/objections to the term by Lewis, Jaenisch, Tartakower etc and the decline in its use in chess literature as more and more openings were found to be viable. More eyes are needed to resolve this issue satisfactorily. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:52, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I fully concur. Cobblet (talk) 03:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So what do we do now? There's another unconvincing citation to the Chess Informant/ECO website, which doesn't even mention the code "A00" or the word "irregular". Would be different if he was actually citing ECO itself. Does anyone have a copy of ECO Volume A handy? If so, does it have a name/description of the openings covered by code A00 in English, Serbian or any other language, or is it all just in symbols? MaxBrowne (talk) 08:59, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * ECO A covers 1.e3, 1.Nc3, d3, 1.b4, 1.g3 (without transpositions to other openings) and various other miscellaneous first moves by white. No text, only symbols in the notes. It does not mention the word "irregular". Sasata (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Interactive boards/pgn viewers again at VPP
See Village pump (proposals). &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 13:53, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * As an update, there are now two interactive game viewers being tested/developed, discussed at the above thread. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 12:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)


 * the discussion was moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Interactive chess boards (and of course, the adjoining project page). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * there's an RfC in VPP. i did not see any anything from anyone in the chess community in this discussion. please weigh in. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * so this proposal fell off the top of vpp. i guess we won't have interactive chess viewer in enwiki, at least for a while if not indefinitely. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:22, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Irregular chess opening for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Irregular chess opening is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Irregular chess opening until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:40, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Team line-ups at the 42nd Chess Olympiad
I have created and started filling the articles about the team line-ups in the open event and women's event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad with information from the official website but it seems like a pretty arduous task. Help from other members of the project that are interested in the Chess Olympiad will be welcome. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:08, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd have to question whether so much detail is really necessary. If someone really wants to know who played third board for the Burundi women's team they could just go to the site. MaxBrowne (talk) 14:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I am in full agreement with MaxBrowne. I think there is way too much detail in this article, similarly with the 2016 WC match one as well. I love the enthusiasm and ambitiousness of Kiril's efforts though. Jkmaskell (talk) 15:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I wanted to make detailed overview of the whole event but then I realised that it's extremely difficult to deal with all of it. I will move the articles about the team line-ups and concentrate on providing round-by-round updates in the next days.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no reason why all the 42nd Olympiad information cannot be contained in the main article. It simply requires tight copy-editing to keep it concise and on the point. I think it's also way too early for nominating for GA status. I disagree with having an article on concerns and controversies, which I would guess is probably not appropriate. Jkmaskell (talk) 14:58, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that there should only be the main article on the Olympiad. A few years ago I would have pushed to get this fixed immediately, but now that I'm older and lazier I am OK with leaving it this way for a little while.  The articles have to be combined into the main article, but it can be done after they stabilize a bit.  If someone wants to work on it right away that's fine too.  Quale (talk) 23:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The effort user Kiril Simeonovski puts in these articles is commendable, however I agree too that one article about the Olympiad is enough and that a separate article about concerns and controversies is a bit excessive. Sophia91 (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I was initially planning to include all relevant information into one article but it seemed impossible as there is too much that would make it rather long. The existence of an article about the concerns and controversies is useful and easily justified with the existence of similar articles related to other sport events such like the 2016 Summer Olympics, the 2014 Winter Olympics, the UEFA Euro 2012, the 2010 Commonwealth Games or the 2014 Asian Games.. Of course, the article would have not been created had the content been short enough to fit within a single article.


 * My main idea is to set a standard for documenting the future Chess Olympiads so that our readers will be able to find all relevant information in a neatly organised group of articles like we usually do on Wikipedia. I was working on improving the articles about the previous Chess Olympiads but didn't have the time and desire to do it as now. And it's really confusing to me how someone's willingness and efforts in increasing the quality of something is inappropriate and excessive as the article neither illustrates a point nor lacks sufficient reliable sources and presents exactly the issues that were top chess news.


 * If we really should look at something inappropriate and excessive related to chess, it's definitely the dump of information about everything mentioning Agon in several articles pertaining to this year's World Chess Championship. Yet, I'm still not against it, because it is supported by reliable sources, and would even think about documenting the issue in a separate article.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I question the Chess Olympiad / Olympic Games analogy as justification for the extremely detailed coverage. As sporting events go, the Chess Olympiad is nowhere near the same level as the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup. Most local TV stations and newspapers aren't even covering it, it's an event of specialist interest only. I would not expect to find this level of detail in an article on the World Series of Poker, for example. Even among chess players, the Olympiad is more of a fun event, certainly less prestigious than Dortmund or Tata Steel. MaxBrowne (talk) 14:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This excessive level of detail in the article is bordering on info-dumping. Take for example the sub-section on the opening ceremony! I disagree with the idea of a "controversies" article as it brings undue weight to it. I would happily delete it, bringing in a single section on the main article. I would remove the excessive stuff but don't want an edit war, as I tend to be pretty thorough and my writing style is a little dry. Jkmaskell (talk) 18:18, 8 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The analogy is not just between the Chess Olympiad and the Olympic Games but also to the UEFA Euro, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games as mentioned above. I also strongly disagree that the Chess Olympiad is a "fun event" as it regularly brings most of the strongest players at one place who represent their national teams. The Chess Olympiad and the supertournaments like Dortmund or Tata Steel are different as chalk and cheese. Team chess is a thing on its own and the Chess Olympiad is by far more important, more prestigious and has much longer history than other team events like the World Team Chess Championship, the European Team Chess Championship or the European Club Chess Championship in the same way as the World Chess Championship weights more than any other strong tournament like Dortmund, Tata Steel, Bilbao or Sinquefield despite the differences in the format. Finally, it's worth mentioning that the largest chess websites and broadcasters pay incomparably more attention to the every aspect and detail of the Chess Olympiad, similarly to the World Chess Championship, than to any other tournament.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:57, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The "Concerns and controversies" article doesn't intend to protest against the organisers of the Chess Olympiad or to illustrate any point. You can easily check that it documents exactly those things that are reported in the media. On the existence of the article, it even seems a borderline case to me, because most of its content was extracted to the "Concerns and controversies" section, but it's still a matter of consensus. I'd gladly accept the opinion supported by the majority if a such proposal opens.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:57, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My point is even people who don't follow athletics or swimming or cross country skiing follow the olympics....it's huge, it's pervasive, it dominates the news in most countries. The chess olympiad... not so much. It gets some media coverage, usually when some local junior player is doing well, but people who aren't interested in chess aren't interested in the olympiad. Much as chess players might wish it were so, it is not "huge" like the olympics and the Football World Cup. Sure there are a lot of top players there... and a lot of rank amateurs too, representing the minor chess playing countries. It's a celebration of chess but the top players don't take it as seriously as they do the elite tournaments like Dortmund, Tata Steel. Anand doesn't play in it at all because he doesn't consider it a serious event (too much random stuff due to the Swiss System etc, and when he has to play people rated 400 below him he's on a hiding to nothing). MaxBrowne (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand you and respect what you say but the thing is that we don't have guidelines on removing content from Wikipedia articles that is verified with reliable sources on the grounds that it's too excessive for a certain level of significance (otherwise, it would have not appeared in the news [in the specialist field] had it not been significant enough). The Chess Olympiad is definitely not comparable to the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup and even the media don't pay attention at the same level (though this varies on a country-by-country basis) but the event is considered important by our editorship mostly as an encyclopedic topic that is of wide interest for our readers. You can find the confirmation in the fact that the conclusion of the last three Chess Olympiads appeared on the main page as articles that "have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest" upon consensus by the community (please see, and  and note that even users who commented were zealous to see more information on the topic). The only other recurrent chess tournament that is regularly being posted on the main page is the World Chess Championship. With thousands of other articles having improperly referenced content, including some chess articles that use tweets as sources, intending to remove verified content with the top sources in the field is definitely the least thing one should do and totally out of the spirit of Wikipedia.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I suppose there is a wikipedia-wide debate as to what level of coverage is appropriate and I'm happy to go with the consensus. Wikipedia *is* biased though, towards white American male college students, which is why female porn stars have much better coverage than female novelists or scientists. MaxBrowne (talk) 09:28, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the GA nomination might have come too early and perhaps we should close it until the article stablises shortly after the conclusion of the event.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:57, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Although I agree that there is plenty of excess and the coverage should be condensed to a single article, I want to make a small defense of some of the greater level of detail Kiril is providing. For example, I think the coverage of individual rounds (currently in Open event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad, but I think it needs to be in 42nd Chess Olympiad instead) is good and I wish we had that in more chess tournament articles.  (Unfortunately it's a lot of work to provide this level of detail, and good sources can be hard to find for older tournaments.  Writing it now while the contest is going on gives the best chance.)  Actually the individual round coverage is my favorite part of the article.  Quale (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment. I agree it'll be difficult to find reliable sources for older tournaments but it's still worth giving a try. I've also first thought about bringing all information in one article but it seemed rather inappropriate due to the length of the resulting article. After the Chess Olympiad ends, I plan to add summary sub-sections in the main article that will briefly re-cap both events.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Automatic rating updates in infobox
The rating bot has been down for over a year, making player ratings in the infobox display incorrectly. It turns out that the equivalent bot on dewiki is working, so I've manually copied the rating data from the equivalent template page on dewiki over here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Elo_rating&action=history I'll do this at the start of every month in future to ensure that the ratings display correctly. Hopefully someone will get our bot working again in the future, but until that happens, manually copying the data over is easy enough. Just letting you all know, so you don't have to worry about incorrect ratings being displayed any more. :) Chessrat  ( talk, contributions ) 16:47, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Chessrat. Quale (talk) 04:19, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for keeping this updated Chessrat. It's been driving me crazy why the rating was not being automatically filled in for some players! But I still don't completely understand how this works. Which page contains the data you are copying from? At first I thought that the player had to exist on the German Wikipedia in order for their rating to be 'automatically' filled in here, but then I saw that some players without German equivalents are being added. The page doesn't contain data, but I see that players have to have at least a rating of 2400, so that means this process will not work for, for example, Kenny Solomon, South Africa's only GM. Greenman (talk) 19:36, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I see the data is hidden on https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlage:Elo-Punkte (view source). Greenman (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The Clonard Queen - Article Worthy?
It is mentioned in one of the websites linked to the Lewis chessmen article that a Queen (Called in the article "The Clonard Queen") in very similar style was found in Ireland about 14 years prior to the Lewis chessmen.

This piece, its discovery and its eventual fate may make for an interesting article. But I think consensus would be needed before what I suspect would be a considerable research task could be started.

The website in question is linked below

The Lewis Chessmen on a Fantasy Iceland

Graham1973 (talk) 13:03, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think it's worthy of an article, but even if the deletionists have their way, the content can probably be included in the Lewis chessmen article. Greenman (talk) 15:40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

A separate article is probably too speculative for now, because it seems unclear to me whether there is a wealth of good information lurking somewhere, or the extent of what is known amounts to little more than what is in the Chessbase article. But something could certainly be added to the LC article as a starting point and thereafter, if the story gathers enough unique momentum of its own ... Brittle heaven (talk) 16:33, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of 43rd Chess Olympiad
There is a proposal to delete the article 43rd Chess Olympiad (2018 Olympiad) on the grounds that it is WP:TOOSOON. Those interested should !vote at Articles for deletion/43rd Chess Olympiad. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 14:27, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The result was to keep the article. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Importing elo ratings to wd in progress
Good day to all wikiproject members.

I am operating a bot that is importing ratings to wikidata I manually mined from http://ratings.fide.com/

The bot is running semiautomatic - I am checking the values it is adding to wd at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/EloBot and telling it which data (which month and year) to upload.

I did not find a wrong value yet, but I am adding values to players from this query which is 3473 players.

I am writing to you for 2 reasons:
 * to let you know that this is happening
 * to ask you if you could help me check for errors, since it is a mass import I really cant check for everything

If you are willing to help me with the second item in the list, please go to https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml, get an appropriate xml file and check if the player from that month has the right value on wikidata. The easiest way to search for such a value is to search for the fide id the bot set in the source of the statement you are checking.

Thank you in advance. --Wesalius (talk) 04:23, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Userboxes
Hello, I created this page to make it easier for users to find the Chess Userboxes: Userboxes/Chess IQ125 (talk) 13:34, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Non-English sources
I refer to the recent edits at Anna Ushenina and List of Jewish chess players.

The editor concerned (a web address only, with a turbulent record for edit warring) has cited an online Russian or Ukrainian sports page, to assert that Ushenina is of Jewish ethnicity. The page does not respond to Google Translate (for me at least), and so it is not possible to read the claim, nor is it possible to assess whether the sports page appears to be a reliable source. The editor has repeated the same citation and added Ushenina to the List of Jewish chess players.

I am minded to revert the changes, but would appreciate the opinion of other editors. As a general rule, could such a claim be rightfully sourced to just one foreign language webpage and if yes, would it need to respond to Google Translate? And how do we assess whether foreign language webpages are reliable sources? From memory, this one had a fairly trashy look, with stacks of adverts and nothing that allied it to a reputable newspaper or news reporting agency. Brittle heaven (talk) 12:46, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It works in Google Translate for me. This appears to be a (machine?)-translated version of the same article. This seems to be the book in question. Cobblet (talk) 13:04, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * NEWSru is a Russian news site with offices in Ukraine and Israel. It seems a reasonable enough source to me for a fairly uncontentious claim. MaxBrowne (talk) 13:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys. Now that I've seen it, I would agree that there is no need for further action. Brittle heaven (talk) 15:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Mark Taimanov death
Mark Taimanov has died and it's been nominated for the 'in the news', one problem is the Mark_Taimanov section is unreferenced. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 22:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis
Hi WT:CHESS. I came across Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis while cleaning up a citation in Garry Kasparov. The article had been deleted in March 2009 per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, but was re-created in April 2013. I've looked at the sources cited in the article and they are appear to be trivial mentions per WP:ORGDEPTH, so at first glance the club does not seem satisfy WP:NORG. Does this WikiProject have some specific notability guidelines for chess clubs? Should the article be brought back to AfD or tagged per WP:G4? Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages
Greetings Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:


 * Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, — Delivered: 17:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

gender watch
I and I'm sure millions of others have been linked into a lot of articles on various chess positions and terminology this past month, and at least half of those used male pronouns by default as early as the lead, e.g. in Giuoco Piano: "Black aims to free his game by exchanging pieces..., or to hold his center pawn at e5." $\langleDel my family anecdote here as I shouldn't have had it in the first place – it was late.\rangle$ You know, I think chess might actually have a historically entrenched systematic male bias.... Long-story short, keep eyes open on chess articles for the whole default-player-is-male thing, especially in the lead. I cross-posted this on the GGTF also. SamuelRiv (talk) 09:48, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I know there was a fairly strong debate about this earlier in the year and I see your point. Wikipedia points to MOS:GNL. It's something that a lot of us do by default, very much without thinking so please don't take too much offence at it. Feel free to edit them out as appropriate and thanks for bringing it up here. Jkmaskell (talk) 10:35, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * While singular they is increasingly acceptable it still tends to draw unnecessary attention to its gender-neutrality, like "chairperson", so I prefer to write around it. Even when it gets clumsy I prefer to avoid third person singular pronouns altogether. Not ideal but it's the best we've got until the English language has a universally accepted non-gendered third person singular pronoun. I wonder what sort of debates they're having with other euro languages where grammatical gender does not equate with biological sex, e.g. in German Fräulein is grammatically neuter? MaxBrowne (talk) 11:25, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * This is long overdue for an RfC. The most recent substantial discussion on the subject that I can recall took place here: Talk:Losing chess.
 * I use gender neutral pronouns in everyday language and on Wikipedia. In most places it's easy enough, but in some contexts there's a technical precision that's necessary, and the best course is unclear. So, for example, explaining the rules of a two-player game in which the various singular/plural pronouns can stand in for one player's side, piece, position, opening, strategy, clock, etc., the other player's same, or both players' combined. There are ways to minimize confusion through careful writing, but it's difficult to achieve when intentionally using a plural as a singular.
 * I have an easy time imagining someone, new to chess and whose first language is not English (or even just one of these factors), coming to the Giuoco Piano article and reading "Black aims to free their game by exchanging pieces" as "Black aims to free [the game being played by the two players] by exchanging pieces".
 * To some extent that's the case across all articles, but when the goal is to be precise, as with technical writing/explanation of rules, then the precedent for future editors of an article should be set to more, rather than less precise standards. After all, MOS:GNL does say "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision".
 * So I find the singular they problematic in some technical senses. I don't have a problem with the "he or she" formulations, but other people feel strongly that they're ugly/unwieldy. The other option is to either use "it" ("Black aims to free its game by exchanging pieces" seems just as clear as "his" -- we could just imagine computers playing the game [or another ungendered entity]) or work around "the player"/"white"/"black" (though "Black aims to free black's game by exchanging pieces" is pretty unpalatable).
 * So, again, there needs to be an RfC. I would strongly urge anyone inclined to do so to create a drafting space and get feedback before starting it, though, as the scope, terms, language, etc. all have the potential to railroad any actual results for what is always a fraught subject. At first I was thinking the easiest scope might just be "technical writing regarding two-player games", but I don't know if there are problematic examples that would throw a wrench into that. So maybe the scope should just be chess and chess-related games? &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 15:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Eh, using "his" or "its" for both sides can run into bad confusion too when describing moves – I've definitely had to make clarifying edits on that before. An RfC is hardly necessary since the proposed solutions (including "do nothing") all have the same caveat: write carefully and re-read for ambiguity before posting. In addressing this, your solution will likely end up avoiding pronouns altogether – think 4 moves ahead.


 * Now, with that caveat in mind, let me address pronoun concerns again. Yes, "Black"/"White" is compatible with "it" as well as "he", so that's an option, but let me remind (or inform) everyone that the singular they has been uncontroversially popular in English for hundreds of years until the prescriptivist grammarians of the 18th and 19th centuries gave us a veritable Coliseum of misappropriated Latin "rules" we still can't get elementary school teachers to escape from. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:05, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you using a preposition to end a sentence with? MaxBrowne (talk) 18:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It takes some work, but in my experience it is possible to avoid using he/his, they/their or it/its and still write about chess moves in a way that isn't clunky or confusing. See these edits to the Modern Benoni article which I made in response the last time we had this discussion. Cobblet (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Am reading article starting from the end. First stop: "And if White carries out his original intention with 8.Nc4 0-0 9.Bf4, Black can either defend the pawn with 9...Ne8 or sacrifice it with 9...Na6 or 9...b6." Get to work. ;) IHTS (talk) 11:03, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Cobblet (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Next stop: "Black's half-open e-file grants him a certain degree of influence over the kingside." Back to work. ;) IHTS (talk) 04:27, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That was easier to fix. Cobblet (talk) 04:34, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * But notice you had to change the sentence meaning slightly (by removing sense of ownership of the half-open file). (Half-open files are owned by one or the other players. Your first crack at the text retained that traditional meaning. Your "fix" subtracted it.) IHTS (talk) 04:45, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that Black is explicitly mentioned three words later, I don't think there's any confusion who owns the half-open e-file. Cobblet (talk) 04:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you misinterpreted my point. (I didn't say the owner of the half-open file can't be figured out from context, that that loss of meaning from the sentence can't be compensated for by deduction. I'm saying there was a slight loss of meaning along with the "fix". [There might be assumption in the gender-neutral discussions, that there's no price to pay after efforts to re-phrase. And that once the gender pronoun is eliminated, all good was kept and some bad was eliminated. Not true. There is often a sneaky price to pay. And the enthusiasm re "fixing" language tends to want to overlook same. For me I see it as a sacrifice of sorts, and the obvious Q is: "Is the sacrifice worth it?" When the sacrifice is unrecognized or ignored, that Q never comes up. Ostrich time.]) IHTS (talk) 05:23, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I understood you, but for me all that matters is whether the revised sentence still conveys the desired meaning – I don't care if it isn't semantically identical to the original. You don't need to convince me of the disadvantages of strictly adhering to gender-neutral language – there's no question carrying this burden makes it harder to write well, especially when I'm also not a fan of the singular they. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Cobblet (talk) 06:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I know that it can be done, and that it can be hard. My own bias is that "natural" writing (not consciously re-efforted writing for artificial purpose of dodging use of a verboten word), contains the best/most complete/most contexual info (similar to data loss if audio/video file is copied to a different format). The point of hardness is especially pertinent too, since I doubt the average WP editor is up to it. (And so, thereoccurs editors substituting blindly many times "his or her" or "their", then getting up in arms if there's contention or revert to obstruct their noble endeavor. Then sides divide and others join and discussion [pissing war] is revisited.) I think it's correct what Maxbrowne said re the word we need doesn't exist in English language. It's not an isolated phenomenon, there are other lacunas in English. (So we have a blind spot in the language, whatta we do [that all editors can do, easily]? Why not just use "she/her/hers"? [Who will complain then, the men!?]) IHTS (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * RfC question: Should we nominate to competently copyedit all of the chess articles to use standard gender neutral language? support :) &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 04:54, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm flattered (really!), but I have to admit I don't usually bother with this sort of thing because it feels like putting lipstick on a pig. For example, the sentence about the Giuoco Piano that began this entire discussion is factually wrong in just about every way – it should've been deleted, not rewritten. Cobblet (talk) 06:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "Long-story short, keep eyes open on chess articles for the whole default-player-is-male thing, especially in the lead." First, I don't read masculine pronoun "he" to mean "default player is male" as you do, no matter MOS says about "he". (Like millions of other players, I read it as a generic, not a gender pointer.) And, I doubt very much that encouraging editors to create inconsistency between lead and body is consistent at all w/ numerous WP dictums harking to maintain consistency within a single article. (Your edits to Giuoco Piano did just that, created inconsistency between lead and body. I think that only adds confusion for readers, where confusion did not exist before. [Thus, how can be considered 'improvement'?] Editing a lead is easier than editing a full article, and can be more fun too. But that is the wrong fountain to drink from.) IHTS (talk) 12:11, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * move to end for date and side-topic: IHTS: "'Natural' writing...contains the best/most complete/most contexual info"??? To find "natural writing" one only need look to 6-year-olds or the 17th century: "uglyer", "goodest", "naycheur". I know, learning to write "unnaturally", what with complete sentences and stuff (Almost all spoken language does not use complete sentences – listen to a conversation sometime.), is hard and takes effort, but since you're a fan of the rules of previous centuries' grammarians, maybe it's time to upgrade to the latest release version from prescriptivist linguists: either alternate "he/she/one" throughout your work or use singular "they". SamuelRiv (talk) 14:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Not a fan of what you shove in my mouth. By "natural" I meant how the typical WP:CHESS editor writes w/o re-thinking or conscious re-efforting to dodge a word. (And when that happens there're occurrences of generic "he/his", as you've already noticed in so many chess articles. Here's example of first-effort hard-to-improve easy-to-disimprove sentence, over which there has already been extensive discussion & drama: "A player wins by losing all his pieces, or being stalemated." Simple, clear, precise.) IHTS (talk) 15:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit surprised that in that entire discussion nobody seems to have suggested either "Players win by losing all their own pieces" or "One wins by losing all of one's pieces". Cobblet (talk) 16:35, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually not quite clear – the placement of the comma allows the possible interpretation of "... losing all his pieces, $\langlethe term for which is\rangle$ being stalemated." Since you're obviously talking about a very unusual and esoteric chess variant, this is a reasonable late-night reading. You can avoid this by making it "... or by being ...", but the point (among others) is that our work will never be perfect in expression and monosemy, not in English nor in any other language (no, not even lojban) . I'm not trying to shove words in your mouth, but rather to explain that what writing you say is "typical" or "natural" for an editor is a learned behavior, and in the case of gender defaults one that this generation's schooling and current academic writing will soon find a bit quaint, like when grandparents talk about bees having knees.


 * I'm also trying to lord my relative linguistics experience over you and encourage you to either take this up to MOS Talk or somewhere higher, but using better arguments, or accept consensus (as one does on WP with not pushing conspiracy theories and using IPA transcription).

In my opinion, "he" is the best pronoun for indicating an example player of unknown gender. Why?


 * 1. "He" indicates that the player is a singular human, rather than a computer or multiple humans (as in a consultation game or as in referring to both players). This information is not communicated by "their" or "it".
 * 2. Most professional chess players are men. Thus, most games of exemplar quality are and were played by men.
 * 3. Most club-attending chess amateurs are (probably) men. So the majority of people who would be playing chess of even a moderately high, say 2000 Elo level are men. We should write to reflect this, as if we were writing about other fields which are mostly male such as Go or mining.
 * 4. I don't have the data to back this up, but it seems to me that Engish chess literature usually uses "he" to refer to an unidentified player. There's no harm in keeping Wikipedia similar to the established format of chess literature.
 * 5. "He" is used as a default pronoun in many other fields. There is no good reason to diverge Wikipedia's style from this.
 * 6. Wikipedia (probably) already uses "he" in most of its references to unidentified chess players. There is no good reason to waste time copyediting it away.
 * 7. "He" probably feels more natural to a lot of chess writers and readers than "she" or, worse, remembering to alternate "he" and "she" in a roughly 50% ratio. "s/he", "(s)he", "he/she", "she/he", "he or she", and "she or he" are impractical due to being ugly and too lengthy. Rare pronoun use (I'm especially thinking of "they") could distract readers from the subject matter and from picturing the chessboard state (if that is what they're doing).

I will probably use "he" as a default pronoun if I write about opening theory or any other writing about a theoretical unidentified player on Wikipedia. --51.7.50.239 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

An experienced WP editor, one of whose focuses is grammar, today applied singular feminine pronoun her to article Malefiz. (Same as my suggestion above. For sure it's not the first time has been done in WP article; just the first time I've ever seen it.) Please read that article (it's short) to see how seamless, unobjectionable, clear & simple the result is! IHTS (talk) 20:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi all—I'm the editor responsible for the re-write of Malefiz mentioned by, so I'm just dropping in without having given proper attention to the above conversation. This is only my own personal approach, but it's brief and easy, so I'll share it.
 * Avoid gender pronouns when possible. I'll usually opt for "the starting player" or "the pawn's owner" when I can. (I'm not opposed to the singular 'they' in principal, but it can be confusing in technical writing.)
 * Alternate between male and female pronouns when you have lots of distinct examples in one place. This shouldn't be done in compare/contrast situations, and it shouldn't ping-pong back and forth if it's distracting. (It can work with the classic Alice-and-Bob coöperative situations, but those don't arise in chess.)
 * If the above two guidelines don't apply, literally flip a coin (real or virtual) to assign gender. I know you chess folk aren't big fans of randomness in your games, but I can't oversell the purity of this method to ensure fairness in writing without having worry about which gender you chose yesterday or what other editors wrote in a different section.
 * Cheers to all. —jameslucas (" " / +) 22:57, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I was going to open a discussion about gender-neutral language here but I saw that there's already a section here - I'm an old editor returning in the last couple of days and I's since edited a couple of chess-related pages to make it easier to read in terms of WP:GNL as I found the language was a bit clunky with male pronouns only. I've since had those edits reverted, so I was wondering what the general consensus was regarding gender-neutral pronouns? I didn't think it would be super contentious but the reasoning for the reversions have not been very informative (eg. reason "poor, even confusing") and I'd like to resolve the issue without heightening tensions too much. I've opened a discussion on Talk:Bishop (chess) but I've also had an edit on Outline of chess reverted. Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Your "solution" to "being in line w/ GNL" has been to blindly substitute "he or her"/"his or hers" for "he"/"his". (Is that any way to write? Make blind substitutions? I don't think so. [E.g., in one of the reverts, "he" fairly referred to Jan Timman, as White.]) IHTS (talk) 01:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I did actually go through the article and attempted to substitute gender-neutral language in areas where it was relevant. For example, in Outline of chess, I changed instances of "he" to "he or she" where it was referring to players in general rather than specific male players and in good faith. I did not attempt to do this blindly. In one of my edits which you have raised here specifically, my main focus was actually on rewording a paragraph and adding a paragraph break to it for readibility (see Smothered mate), one my edits in that was incorrect and I don't mind your reversion as it's fair. I just thought I'd check here whether it's better to use 'his or her' or 'their' as a gender-neutral term more generally on chess articles, I apologise if there's anything I've said or edited that's offensive/personal to you and I appeciate your input. Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 01:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * From my end your edits looked/look like blind substitutions. Doing blind substitutions "in good faith" is still no way to edit, and you seem to defend doing it. Others have their views, re mine, "her" is superior to "their", "their" is superior to "his or her"; but there is no consensus re "their" (and btw, I don't for one share the assumption that "he" in chess articles is counter-GNL, or defective, or needs improvement, or even that it can be improved; perhaps any change to that generic pronoun in chess articles is a net disimprovement). You seem to be looking for guidance/rule that will empower you to continue to make blind substitutions. IHTS (talk) 01:48, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I accept that I'm looking for some sort of guidance in cases where it's not possible to avoid player pronouns altogether, as from what I can gather Wikipedia has moved to using 'his or her' or 'their' rather than generic male and I feel like it affects quality of reading when there are inconsistent pronouns across chess articles. I am genuinely attempting to have a discussion more generally so that I can understand what is acceptable language to use so that I am able to edit chess articles without stepping on toes and having all my edits reverted. I am also very happy to defend my edits, but my main focus has been actively trying to work collaboratively with you and other editors and thought that this WikiProject was a good place to go. In comparison, so far you have described my edits as "crappy writing" (Chess opening revision history), "blind" (see above) and "poor" (Bishop (chess)). I'm doing my best to be friendly and civil, and I've accepted your suggestion on Talk:Bishop (chess) to change it to 'their' instead of my suggested 'his or her'. I'm not sure what exactly you're hoping I will do. What if we reword sentences where possible to avoid using player pronouns? Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 02:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to have absorbed the significant discussions above and at other Talks. And I think what you are looking for (a guarantee your editing won't be reverted when eliminating masculine pronouns on sight), doesn't exist. And there was nothing personal till now, my editsums were re blind substitutions using the mechanical "his or her", you seem to want to make this a civility issue now which it isn't. (p.s. I try never "to hope", so have no hope "what [you] will do".) And I see no evidence you've read the suggested Talk discussions. I have no more to say, except I'm left wondering if you really have an interest in chess & chess articles, or more in pushing language correctness in articles as a social advancement thing propelled by the power of MoS which doesn't take into account that masculine pronoun use in the relevant literature is strictly generic. Good luck. IHTS (talk) 06:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Julio Sadorra
I've just created Julio Sadorra. Plenty of news sources, but I am too busy to invest all my time into developing the article. Could anyone help me out?  CatcherStorm    talk   17:09, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * He is the highest ranked player of the country and I do recall the name, though vaguely, perhaps through bulletins of the Olympiads. Rebounding back towards 2600 territory. I'll do my thing. Jkmaskell (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Albert Sandrin Jr.
I created Albert Sandrin Jr. about a year ago, but didn't know about this project talk page, and about other useful places to put references to that article. Enjoy! Bruce leverett (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

chessgraphs.com
Useful or spam? MaxBrowne (talk) 09:41, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems useful to me. Cobblet (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Spam to me. I also don't like the fact that the user put these links above 365chess.com, cg.com etc. Sophia91 (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I mean, are we just chatting about the site, or are you asking whether it's acceptable for someone to link-bomb the encyclopedia with this site. If the latter, I assure you that "useful" has nothing to do with it...   Let's have a look at WP:ELYES.   #1 is not applicable.  #2 is not applicable.  #3 says "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject...."  Can anyone honestly make an argument that comparing a [random GM]'s rating chart to [another GM]'s rating chart is actually essential to an encyclopedic knowledge of that GM, and not an utterly trivial thing to do? --SubSeven (talk) 07:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Feels spammy to me. chessbase and chess24 produce monthly analysis of ratings lists. Below that level, comparing to other players isn't that important. Agree over the handling of this by shoving it into dozens of articles, though I recognise that the user was ignorant of how things should be done here. Given their enthusiasm about adding them, is there a possible conflict of interest? Jkmaskell (talk) 12:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree the comparison function is unnecessary and unencyclopedic. But is there any other site that allows you to graphically view the complete (i.e. 1971–present) rating history of a player? Like where else would I be able to find a graph like this for Lawrence Day? That graph and table satisfies WP:ELYES, does it not? Cobblet (talk) 13:05, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I invited him to join this discussion, he just went back to link-bombing articles about chess players. This isn't good. MaxBrowne (talk) 07:59, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking at the editor's history, every edit the person has made has been to add in the site chessgraphs.com. I'd say spammy to me.  LionMans Account (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The site is intriguing. FIDE's website has its own rating graphs.  However, they only go back to 2000.  So I enjoyed reviewing the progress of my own rating between 1980 and 2000 on the chessgraphs.com site.  I assume they made a deal with FIDE to get easy and up-to-date access to their whole rating DB.
 * I agree with Jkmaskell that there is more than a whiff of COI. It would be one thing if one of you were writing a biographical article and wanted to include a chessgraphs.com link.  It would be kind of like adding a link to their FIDE card (emphasize "kind of" -- chessgraphs.com doesn't have that "official" ring to it like fide.com does).  But it's another thing to see someone trying to do it in bulk.  Bruce leverett (talk) 02:34, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Ellipsis is normal I think...
...when discussing Black moves, even if they are being discussed in terms of overall strategy without reference to specific move numbers. For example, in the chapter on the Giuoco Piano, MCO has "One can learn from the opening theory when/if to play ...a6 as Black". The chapter on the Ruy Lopez has "The white bishop can sometimes be more exposed on b5 than on a4, where it retreats after ...a6" and there are no doubt other examples. Are there counter examples of books which omit the ellipsis when discussing Black moves? MaxBrowne (talk) 05:50, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Only poorly edited ones. Cobblet (talk) 06:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Had added ellipses to lots of articles years ago, now thinking those edits were perhaps editing overkill ("Black" as mover is mentioned in same sentences in nearly every case). I see now books do the same redundant ellipses, so have reverted per Quale's undos. FYI. --IHTS (talk) 10:33, 7 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I didn't want to start a fight over it, and I'm comfortable doing whatever the Wikipedia chess editors agree on. My opinion is omitting the ellipses can be confusing sometimes, and it's easier for the reader if we explicitly mark the moves by Black.  Doing the same thing always is also a simpler rule than trying to decide in each specific case whether it's completely clear in context that Black is making the move, and avoids disputes over whether they are needed in particular instances.  IHTS made some other improvements to some of the articles when he was trying out the articles with some elipses removed; I hope I didn't lose any of those improvements when I reverted.  Quale (talk) 06:41, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Sometimes the redundancy is double and perhaps makes more difficult to read, compare (current text, French Defense):"The flank attack ...c7–c5 is usually insufficient to achieve this, so Black will often play ...f7–f6. If White supports the pawn on e5 by playing f2–f4, then Black has two common ideas. Black may strike directly at the f-pawn by playing ...g7–g5."to:"The flank attack c7–c5 is usually insufficient to achieve this, so Black will often play f7–f6. If White supports the pawn on e5 by playing f2–f4, then Black has two common ideas. Black may strike directly at the f-pawn by playing g7–g5."Plus another possibility:"The flank attack ...c5 is usually insufficient to achieve this, so Black will often play ...f6. If White supports the pawn on e5 by playing f4, then Black has two common ideas. Black may strike directly at the f-pawn by playing ...g5."--IHTS (talk) 10:39, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The third of these is the style adopted by MCO. MaxBrowne (talk) 12:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I try to always use long notation for pawn moves to distinguish them from square labels ("If White supports the pawn on e5 by playing f4"). Cobblet (talk) 12:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be mixing two different notation systems within one article (short notation & long notation)? (Clear to us, but to new player-readers who expect short form in WP articles [if that indeed is the WP:CHESS consensus standard] ?) To that extent, an expression like Nf3-d2-c4 is long notation while Nf3–d2–c4 (MOS:NDASH "ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through") is still short notation. --IHTS (talk) 13:52, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't tell me our readers can handle dashes but not hyphens, and that mixing varieties of English spelling presents no confusion but the occasional long-notated chess move does. I prefer to solve real problems, not imaginary ones. Cobblet (talk) 06:39, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not really "occasional" in your Modern Benoni, it's frequent. If I put myself in shoes of someone learning short notation for purpose of reading WP articles, then coming across long form, I think it could be confusing. It is at least inconsistent. I do not try to solve any problem here, accepted long ago that consensus discussions re WP:CHESS notation conventions are totally futile and a waste of time, so do not lecture me. I did not open this section, someone else did. I added examples for simple info including alternative views on topic, and don't deserve your insults here or in editsum. --IHTS (talk) 08:50, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I think long notation is pretty self-explanatory; I certainly don't remember having problems when I first saw it used without explanation. What else might "f7–f5" mean, for example? I would think that Cobblet's decision in favour of clarity over consistency ("If White supports the pawn on e5 by playing f2–f4") is a little better. If you use long notation, I think you don't need to write "...a7–a6" with the ellipsis because White cannot possibly play that move, because he would be moving a pawn backward; it must be a Black move and "a7–a6" is clear enough. You would only need the ellipsis with short notation like "...a6". So I would think the second of MaxBrowne's examples strikes a happy medium between clarity and space. Double sharp (talk) 14:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

zh:麒麟 (日本將棋) and Kirin (chess).
Should we interwiki them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ticgame (talk • contribs) 18:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. Cobblet (talk) 15:17, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it, we also need to interwiki zh:鳳凰 (日本將棋) and Phoenix (chess). Double sharp (talk) 14:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * OK! Cobblet (talk) 16:04, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 04:29, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Ruifeng Li
I have just created Ruifeng Li, one of the youngest chess grandmasters. Rating is near 2600, plenty of refs found with a google search. Needs improvement.  CatcherStorm    talk   14:00, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The infobox and the sources seem to suggest he is only an IM, not yet a GM.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:48, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * His GM title application will be considered by FIDE next month. Cobblet (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Chess_in_China
China is just an exmaple. What is the meaning of inactive and former? OK, inactive is currently not on list because of no games played. But former? Isn't a title for life, or does it really mean dead? -Koppapa (talk) 06:36, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * No, it means they changed federations (to Singapore for Zhang Zhong, Qatar for Zhu Chen). Cobblet (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Then it should say "changed federations." "Former" is ambiguous.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:19, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * That would indeed be better. More opinions? -Koppapa (talk) 18:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Three-player chess on rectangular board
Some of chess variant intentors designed three-player chesses on rectangular boards. But none of them are refered in the wikipedian article three-player chess. --Ticgame (talk) 13:59, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * And there are at least two dozen inventors/flavors of four-player chesses, and only one of them is (only partially) reflected in the corresponding article. (Go figure. That's why God made editors like you & me. ;) ) --IHTS (talk) 23:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Well they could be mentioned of course, if they are notable. -Koppapa (talk) 18:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

considering PRODing my own article
I'm not sure that Slav Indian Defence for 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c6 is actually an accepted name. Maybe Kudischewitsch Gambit, which I set up as a redirect, should actually be the primary article? 3.Nf3 b5!? is rare but it has bean played by Ian Rogers, Oleg Chernikov, Luke McShane and others. This is one of the few lines after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c6 that has any independent significance, other than that it's just an unusual move order for getting to the Slav or Old Indian (or maybe King's Indian). Note that Draft:Kudischewitsch_Gambit also exists, but has a sourcing issue. Sorry, I've made this situation a bit messy now.

So, are there reliable sources for the names "Slav Indian Defence" or "Kudischewitsch Gambit"? Like New In Chess or something equally non-internettish? MaxBrowne (talk) 08:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I must admit I saw this and wondered why I'd never really considered this position a 'Slav Indian'. I do get the c6/Slav connection, but would question whether it is too early to categorize such a flexible, non-committal opening set-up as anything specific. As well as the Old Indian, KID and regular QGD Slav transposition possibilities, another popular continuation would be the Slav Grunfeld (i.e. Black plays ... d5, ... g6, ... Bg7 etc.). Having never heard of it, I can't really comment much on the Kudischewitsch Gambit, but it strikes me you'd need to proceed from a move/diagrammed position that shows the actual gambit, for any mention of that opening to make sense. Overall, I would agree with your concern - it would be wise to seek some good sources, whichever direction the article proceeds. Brittle heaven (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Not that I'm aware of. Ikonnikov's survey of 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 b5 in New in Chess Yearbook 109 (p. 176) does not give this line a name. In Secrets of Opening Surprises Vol. 5 (p. 114) Rogers calls 1.d4 c6 2.c4 b5 the Malinoise Defence (due to Belgian IM Michel Jadoul having invented it in Malines) and notes 3.cb cb 4.Nf3 Nf6 as a transpositional possibility, but makes no mention of Kudischewitsch. Neither article mentions any sort of gambit line for Black. I don't see why an article is needed for this line. Cobblet (talk) 21:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe a merge/redirect to Indian Defence then, while retaining the info about 2...c6's usual lack of independent significance? Doesn't look like there are any refs for the name "Slav Indian" outside of the internet either. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:26, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That makes sense to me. Cobblet (talk) 01:28, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Except that Indian Defence is a terrible article. The whole "Variations" section needs to be broken up into subsections and reorganized. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Nikolay Minev
Somebody has written on his page that he passed away recently. I cannot find sources to confirm this yet. Cobblet (talk) 04:14, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Twitter sent me here but that doesn't look good enough to use, nor does chessgames.com. We'll have to wait. MaxBrowne (talk) 05:19, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I added a citation from the Bulgarian CF to the article. Brittle heaven (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Help requested
I need some help at Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. is a stubborn edit warrior who insists on overlinking the article and overwriting correct information concerning the publication date with incorrect information. He is displaying clear WP:OWNership behaviour. MaxBrowne (talk) 11:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I think the stubborn editor is MaxBrowne, he keeps deleting the optimum inter-wiki links in the article Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess and either replacing them with inferior wiki-links or none at all.  Thank you IQ125 (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Notability of chess engines
Unlike human players, we haven't really developed any consensus on what constitutes notability for a chess engine. My feeling is engines that win major tournaments (e.g. world computer chess championship, TCEC) or top one of the three major rating lists are probably notable. Other historically important programs like Mac Hack are probably notable. Engines that are very good but not quite on a par with the top engines (Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini), such as the newcomer Andscacs, probably are not. MaxBrowne (talk) 03:59, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Glossary focus
I'd suggest that Glossary of chess not stray from FIDE chess. Glossary of chess problems is already not merged with the chess glossary, I'd suggest that fairy chess topics also not be. Currently there is no Glossary of fairy chess or Glossary of chess variants, perhaps one of those s/b opened!? (Of course there is some overlap, e.g. Chess960.) --IHTS (talk) 15:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree, and would suggest removing 'Chess960' and any other terms that aren't inter-compatible. It's going to be confusing to a novice, if some terms are completely at odds, like Chess960 and castling for instance. Of course, we understand that not all of 'regular chess' has to be played with a clock, or would necessarily feature a scoresheet or a Candidates Tournament, but they are still broadly compatible terms, and any mandatory, optional, or case specific considerations should be accommodated in the definitions. Going forward, it may help if our approach is more clearly explained/stated in the glossary intro, to make future editors aware of what will likely be deemed appropriate for inclusion. Brittle heaven (talk) 13:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Well the intro already says This page explains commonly used terms in chess, not sure it isn't overkill trying to clarify as [game defined by] the . This discuss might be better at Talk:Glossary of chess, but there aren't many terms all told ...
 * As you mentioned (and synonym ) could go (be deleted).
 * Ditto.
 * Def 1 of belongs at the chess problems glossary (can be chg'd to a reference).
 * My only two Qs would be:
 * Def 1 of is about shatranj, but what about defs 2 & 3, should they also go?
 * Should be retained as a term in the chess glossary? (Seems to me "royal power" is sometimes used in chess contexts to refer to castling. Maybe ditto "royal powers".) It's also a term used in fairy, perhaps it can be moved to the chess problems glossary, but I dunno.
 * --IHTS (talk) 15:19, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Indeed, maybe the intro is reasonably okay as it stands. 'Tabia' I would keep, but maybe convert def 1 to a brief introduction (i.e. just acknowledging the Shatranj origins), then combine the two 'regular chess' defs into one. Could it be better phrased? How about 'a notable or theoretically important position that analysts might study, or that players may choose as an interesting start point in a friendly or themed tournament game'? Regarding 'Royal powers' - I'm suspicious - why would the Queen not be regarded as royal? And wouldn't you mention stalemate as well as checkmate? Not absolutely sure, but it reads like it's a bit home-cooked - I've certainly not seen it in any authoritative book in the context of 'regular chess' and struggle to see its worth, so I would probably scrub it here. Brittle heaven (talk) 01:59, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know if "royal powers" is really a technical chess term, it's more of a figurative term some writers might use (and a trite one at that). MaxBrowne (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Regarding "cook", I'd prefer to retain the entry as is. Most chess players are at least casually interested in chess problems and studies and are probably familiar with the word "cook" even if they don't know what a Schiffman Defence is. It doesn't matter if there is a bit of overlap between the two glossaries. MaxBrowne (talk) 02:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok, all done. And queen was already reflected in glossary as royal in entry . (I moved the fairy-only context add'l def to the .) FYI, --IHTS (talk) 05:50, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Turns out "royal power(s)" is sourcable. I've updated /. FYI, --IHTS (talk) 07:02, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Requesting feedback
A while back, I tried to remove a completely unsourced section from Comparison of top chess players throughout history and surprisingly was reverted by an established user. Nobody ever joined the discussion on the talk page other than us two. I'd appreciate someone else to have a look. The section in dispute is here and the talk page discussion (reply there if you've anything to say)  is here. Thanks. --SubSeven (talk) 05:33, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

How endgames would be affected by stalemated player forfeit his turn?
Two knights and a king can force checkmate a lone king in this rule. Do you know any other endgames can be affected by this alternative rule? --Ticgame (talk) 08:38, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

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