Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 36

"WP:NCHESS is total crap"
I nominated Giulio De Nardo for deletion and User:Quale, who appears to be a (WP:CHESS/WT:CHESS) regular, argued there that WP:NCHESS is total crap (see WP:Articles for deletion/Giulio De Nardo). User:Uldis s continues to create articles like the one at a prolific rate. Given that a regular here thinks NCHESS is total crap and Uldis s is WP:AUTOPATROLLED, I felt uncomfortable mass-nominating their articles (that don't meet GNG or NCHESS) before reassessing/re-establishing project consensus. Thank you for reading. Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:51, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Uldis s's articles that don't meet GNG or NCHESS (of the last 20 new creations): José Aguilera Bernabé, Arne Desler, Ernst Sørensen (chess player), Alberto Campolongo, Fritz Igel, Dugald MacIsaac, Thrainn Sigurdsson, Julius Nielsen, Johannes Addicks.
 * Pinging Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 33 participants:
 * Pinging WP:Articles for deletion/Giulio De Nardo editors:
 * Hmm. These articles look to combine prose based only on databases/records of games and, in at least one case, copyright violations (the only part of Johannes Addicks that isn't just based on a database is a copy/paste of the only line in the chessgames.com profile page). Not just WP:N, these are WP:NOT/WP:NOR issues. I'd encourage to redirect their efforts to Wikidata, where this sort of information is not only acceptable but valuable. Wikipedia isn't a database, though.
 * As for NCHESS, I probably wouldn't call it "total crap," since it has some ok rules of thumb, but I've expressed my opinion in the past that it does seem to fail to correspond sufficiently to WP:SIGCOV, and would therefore lead to a lot of permastubs or, as here, database entries and original research. But it's already been established, AFAIK, that it doesn't have sufficient consensus to be added to a notability guideline, so it shouldn't be weighed heavily in deletion discussions in the absence of concrete sources showing significant coverage. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 14:36, 30 December 2019 (UTC)


 * In your shoes, I would indeed feel uncomfortable mass-nominating another Wikipedia editor's articles for deletion on GNG grounds, when most of the 100+ stubs you've created yourself in the last year don't meet GNG either, particularly with respect to the "significant coverage" requirement, i.e., "more than a trivial mention", considering that WP:POLITICIAN "does not guarantee that a subject should be included", per WP:BIO. Are you here to improve Wikipedia or are you here to pick a fight?
 * That being said, 's contributions do leave very much to be desired in other aspects, as has indicated (and many other editors have noticed in the past, including myself – this is not the first time their articles have been nominated for deletion). The fact is while both of you have made useful contributions to Wikipedia, a focus on quality rather than quantity would save us all the trouble of having to second-guess the notability of the subjects you've chosen to write about. I understand that it's much easier to suggest doing the research needed to produce such quality, than to actually do it. But we edit Wikipedia not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
 * In other words, I have neither the ability nor the interest in stopping you from nominating for deletion any article you see, but I hope you do not forget to reflect on your own editing practices, and to dedicate yourself to upholding the very standards that you see others failing to meet. Moreover, it would be fantastic if you would consider helping others fix their substandard articles, instead of presuming that a substandard article in a field you are completely ignorant of cannot be fixed because the subject must be non-notable, because the article does not demonstrate its notability, because the article is substandard – see the circular reasoning here?
 * As for NCHESS itself, I already explained in the discussion you linked to that its purpose is to provide bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a chess player is likely to meet WP:GNG. It isn't and was never meant to be an infallible substitute of WP:GNG for chess players. It is no more "crap" than any NSPORTS guideline; the only reason it's not listed there is that not everyone likes calling chess a sport. Cobblet (talk) 23:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned in the linked discussion, in order for the chess notability advice to become a guideline, it must go through the life cycle for policies and guidelines. This means establishing a consensus in the community as a whole that it should become a guideline, which requires having a broader conversation than just with the members of a specific Wiki project. isaacl (talk) 01:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone's seriously looking to give WP:NCHESS any kind of official status at the moment. It's just, well, a guide. The problem with Uldis's articles is that many of them are simply data dumps, rendered in prose, along the lines of "Marie Schmidt represented Luxembourg at the 1957 olympiad and scored 1/8. She participated in the 1957, 1960 and 1962 Luxembourg championships and came 5th in 1962.". Usually there is no biographical information, and in some cases date or even year of birth is absent. This clearly indicates a lack of notability. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that sports persons who represent their countries at the highest level of international team sports competitions lack notability. For example, I consider all Olympians to be notable.  This has been discussed on WT:CHESS before and I understand that my opinion is not widely shared among chess editors.  In terms of an encyclopedia, it is useful and valuable information to record a sports person's results in international competitions and I don't have any problem at all with an article having only basic biographical information (birth and death dates and places) and results in noteworthy competitions.  (Subject to WP:V and WP:RS, of course, since they must be observed for all articles.  I will also admit that I would not generally create such scant articles myself, but under the circumstances if someone else creates them, I wouldn't delete them.)  Deleting such articles does not in any way improve the encyclopedia, which in my view calls into question the application of any rules that editors insist demands such an outcome.  If that puts me at odds with most of the rest of Wikipedia, I'm comfortable with that.  Quale (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As a final note, it is true that recent Chess Olympiads are very large events, sometimes with more than 800 competitors. The prospect of 800 new chess bios every two years for all Chess Olympiad competitors is not appealing.  But, I would note several things.  First, not all 800 are new every Olympiad cycle since many will already have articles.  Second, and most importantly, this isn't happening now and there's no evidence that this would happen.  The current effort seems to be one of WP:BUILDTHEWEB to turn potential red links blue by creating articles for players already mentioned in existing Olympiad articles.  Personally I applaud the effort to build the web in this way.  No one has yet attempted to list full team rosters of 700+ players in recent Olympiads and I think it is unlikely that this will happen, so the build the web reason to create large numbers of bios would not apply.  For example, as an application of building the web, I think every competitor in the world championship cycle should have an article, even if it is very brief.   Quale (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

One-half, again
Recently someone changed ½ to .5 in a score report in Garry Kasparov, and upon combing through it, I realized that there were two other .5's in that article, as well as 30-some ½'s. I then thought of putting something about this in the Wikiproject Chess page, but what do you all think? I wonder if this is just a chess thing, or if other sports have this issue too, and if there is something in MOS about it. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything in WP:MOS about chess scores. (It did get a somewhat recent addition concerning capitalization of chess opening names that has an inaccurate and misleading claim, although it does affirm the correct spelling.)  It's come up a few times more often over the years in discussion at WT:MOS and WT:MOSNUM than I had remembered.  You can search the talk archives for chess to find discussions about fractions:
 * WT:MOS archives search for chess
 * WT:MOSNUM archives search for chess
 * The most recent discussion was at WT:MOSNUM in Jul–Aug 2019 and seemed to result in an informal consensus to leave WP:CHESS alone on this issue: WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 159. Quale (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have been busy, but will try to remember to follow up on this, by editing WP:CHESS (or proposing edits here, whichever seems appropriate). I can see that this would go somewhere in the section on "Conventions", and there may be other tidying up to do in that section as well.  Bruce leverett (talk) 04:05, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Shogi opening sequences is "too big"
It's hitting a Wikipedia technical limit causing templates to not work properly.

I've opened a discussion on what to do about it at Talk:Shogi opening sequences. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  19:43, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of us are interested in Chess Variants but most of us are not Shogi players. Anyway that article doesn't look especially huge to me, it's only 66K and isn't big on markup. Our article on Bobby Fischer by comparison has 220K. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 20:44, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not the literal size, it's the fact that during template- and module- expansion on the server, some intermediate size gets to 2MB. At this point, template- and module-expansion ceases, causing those lower-down on the page to not show up correctly.  On this page, the problem shows up around Shogi opening sequences.  On my web browser, this appears as a rectangle that says "#invoke:Shogi diagram" instead of the actual Shogi diagram. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  21:37, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I wonder if the implementation of template shogi diagram is somehow at fault. It shouldn't be that difficult to build such a diagram.  Certainly we have articles full of chess diagrams, and they don't cause this kind of problem, as far as I know.  Bruce leverett (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't surprise me if the "expanded template size" jumped on June 10, 2016 when the template was replaced with a module (diff) or any time since as Module:Shogi diagram changed. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  22:09, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

storiascacchi has moved
Citations of http://xoomer.virgilio.it/cserica/scacchi/storiascacchi should be changed to cite http://storiascacchi.altervista.org/storiascacchi. I have just done this at Emanuel Lasker, but I can see that there are many more, and I have no hope of getting around to more than a small fraction. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Checkmates in the opening
An IP editor keeps adding garbage to this article. Time for page protection? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 20:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for keeping an eye on this. I've seen the edits but haven't had the energy to patrol them.  If it continues then I agree that semiprotection would be advised.  Quale (talk) 02:43, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Now he's indiscriminately adding short games from chessgames.com and adding his personal (often wrong) commentaries and annotation symbols. I say we go back to pre-IP state and protect the article. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting that you used that word. Frankly I don't see how this article could ever be more than an indiscriminate collection of short checkmates. With list of chess traps (of which this article seems to be a fork), at least one can say that all the traps listed there have been given names in reliable sources. Cobblet (talk) 02:46, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * So maybe AfD should be considered. It was created back in the earlier days of wikipedia when sources were less emphasized and original research was relatively tolerated. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 03:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand the article was created with the best of intentions, but some articles are more trouble than they're worth. Cobblet (talk) 04:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm getting more and more fed up. Literally every edit by this IP is problematic. Look at this one for example. Labelling 9.Qe3 as a blunder is just clueless, the alternative was to leave the Q en prise and lose that way. The blunder, of course, was 8.Bb3. 9...Qd1+ is obvious and deserves one ! at most. This is not an isolated example - just about every single one of his annotation symbols is wrong. He just dumps a whole lot of crappy games, gives them crappy annotation symbols and writes crappy commentaries (usually in the form of stating the obvious). In other words he just creates more work for others. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 03:32, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If I were you, I would AfD it and save everyone the trouble of trying to put lipstick on a pig. Cobblet (talk) 06:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Never mind about "if you were me", I'm looking for project wide consensus about how to proceed. I'm concerned that if I Afd it it will open up a can of worms, because to be fair we do have a fair amount of WP:OR analysis and WP:INDISCRIMINATE lists within this project. What's to stop List of chess games being deleted for example? What about the many opening and endgame articles which contain good analysis but don't provide any specific references for it? Problem in this case is the WP:OR analysis is being done by someone who is clearly unqualified to judge the quality of a chess game. Every single edit he makes creates more work. Easiest is just to go back to the state of the article before he started adding his rubbish and introduce page protection. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at the list of references, even before the new IP editor started doing his thing, only two of them were anything other than chessgames.com. Some of them involved more or less famous players, but that by itself doesn't give them notability.  So if we complain about his sourcing, we don't have enough legs to stand on.  One can complain about his chess analysis skills, but I gather that this goes beyond just fixing his analytical errors.  As for opening a can of worms, true enough.  But, I can't get motivated to apply protection to this article, which was already pretty embarrassing.  Bruce leverett (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * All OR must be removed. All list articles should comply with WP:LISTCRITERIA. Analysis must be verifiable, i.e., a citation to a reliable source must be provided if the analysis is challenged or likely to be challenged. It does not concern me that we must follow these rules like any other wikiproject should. If you are looking for a consensus to not follow these rules, that would concern me. Cobblet (talk) 23:19, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "All OR must be removed". True up to a point but do we really have to cite the fact that after 1.g4 e5, 2.f3?? is a bad move? WP:BLUE. There's a thing called WP:VERIFIABILITY too. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Like I said: "Analysis must be verifiable." WP:V and WP:NOR are both policies; one does not contradict the other. I'm not seeing the can of worms you've referred to. Cobblet (talk) 07:53, 25 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I created this article in 2008 because it was originally in checkmate and I didn't think it belonged there. I'm not married to it.  I haven't followed any of the recent edits.  Except for a few named checkmates, it comes at least close to being an indiscriminate list.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 20:10, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I need someone to revert the 10.Qe3?? and 10...Qd1+!! at the article. 10.Qe3 is not a blunder, since the only alternative is to leave the Q en prise and the only practical chance at the board is to hope black misses 10...Qd1+. Likewise 10...Qd1+ is one exclam (!) at the most since it's a fairly obvious move. Without citations you can't add "!" or "?" to a move. I can't continue reverting this per WP:3RR. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 04:03, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Winning strategy for Jeson Mor?
See Talk:Jeson Mor. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:05, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

John Paul Gomez
I'm wondering if this person is notable enough for a stand-alone article to be written about him per WP:NCHESS. According to De La Salle Green Archers he is a grandmaster and represented the Phillipines in the 2008 Chess Olympiad. His FIDE profile can be found here (I'm assuming it's the same person); so, perhaps a stub could at least be created about him. I'm asking about just this as part of assessing the unsourced entries in the "notable alumni section" to try and see which might be OK per WP:REDYES. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Grandmasters are automatically notable. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:45, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying this . Any suggestions on the best way to create a stub for this person? Any other similar articles/stubs which could serve as a model? -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:56, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Plenty. One I've done is Edwin Bhend. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:42, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've started Draft:John Paul Gomez so if any WP:CHESS members want to help flesh it out, feel free to do so. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks good, I'd have no problem moving it to main space as is. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC) It would probably better with an infobox... I know, some people like them, some don't. Also date of birth would be good, and other basic biographical info if known. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * An infobox would be fine and I thought about adding the one you used in the Bhend stub; however, I haven't been able to really find anything to populate an infobox with so that it's not really nothing more than a WP:DISINFOBOX. I tried Googling for sources to cite and did find some stuff, but much of it seems to be to blogs, etc. that might not be RS's; I'll keep looking though. I only added it as a draft because I basically had nothing more than a name at the time I started it. If you or anyone else thinks it's ready for the MAINSPACE, feel free to move it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't really know about the procedure for moving articles to mainspace but your article is better than many that are already there. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi again . Do you think this would qualify as a RS for a BLP about a chess player? Polgar obviously is not some random person writing about chess, but she didn't write this article per se. Even though she didn't write the article, her site might be considered a WP:NEWSBLOG with respect to at least chess. Do you know if Ed Andaya, the person who wrote the article, is established and recognized as a chess journalist? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We don't normally link to Susan Polgar because she basically just scrapes anything chess related off the web and copy-pastes it to her blog without asking permission. I'm surprised nobody's sued her for it. If you can find the original source that would be far preferable. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:51, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. I did find a better source (at least I think its better) in a Philippine Daily Inquirer article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you or someone else can clarify something for me. Gomez's FIDE page states he became a GM in 2009, but some articles I found about him state he became a GM in November 2008. Is there a bit of a lag between the date a player qualifies for a GM title and the date they are actually awarded the GM title? -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes there is almost always some lag.  There is a FIDE Congress every so often, which is where pending GM titles (and other titles) are officially confirmed by the bosses. --SubSeven (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. I've been able to find a little more content about Gomez, but I'm still have a hard time tracking down his DOB or even just his age. Does anyone have any ideas as to where I might find that bit of information? I found this, but I'm not sure if that would be considered a RS since it's not clear where that information came from. I'm also wondering if FIDE announces those awarded IM/GM titles anywhere on it's website or perhaps in a press release, etc. after they hold one of their congresses. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:33, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I seldom see citations to support birth dates in Wiki biographies, except where there is some question. Also, having given the birth date in the intro, you don't have to give it again in the "Early Life and education" section.  Bruce leverett (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Add GM Justin Tan as new article?
GM Justin Tan is Australia's 8th grandmaster and is currently the only Australian grandmaster without a page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.150.37.63 (talk) 00:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Fischer random chess
A question for old-timers. Was this article ever named Chess960 or Chess 960? These are both now redirects, but it might be helpful to me to know whether one of them used to be the "real" name. Thanks! Bruce leverett (talk) 02:21, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well I'm an old-timer, but this is actually fairly recent.The page history indicates that it was moved from Chess960 in October 2019, in response to a request from User:KristofferR.-- P-K3 (talk) 18:54, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Infrastructure for chess game viewer gadget: On-demand loading of gadgets
In a discussion at the technical village pump about running specialized Javascript on demand, I brought up the chess game viewer gadget. T8883 was mentioned, which would implement the on-demand loading infrastructure in the Mediawiki software on the server, instead of a Javascript implementation running in the browser. Any one interested in the chess game viewer gadget being deployed one day may be interested in this Phabricator task. isaacl (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Articles added to Index of chess articles
I added about 650 articles to WP:WikiProject Chess/Index of chess articles. I found the articles by accumulating every page in Category:Chess and all its subcategories. I omitted most of the pages in Category:Amateur chess players since although it is interesting trivia that Howard Stern likes chess, that isn't an article of primary interest to chess editors. (Or if it is, it is probably not of interest for chessic reasons.) Most chess editors are probably familiar with using Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Index of chess articles as a shared watchlist (it is mentioned on WP:CHESS). I may have added a few pages that aren't interesting for chess editors to watch since the volume of additions didn't allow carefully checking every page. There's no need to suffer with the spam in related changes, so if you find any that don't belong feel free as always to remove them. Also I'm sure I made some mistakes in alphabetization when adding the pages to the index. I tried to research the sort for all entries I wasn't certain about, but again the volume of additions makes mistakes all but inevitable. Quale (talk) 05:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Give me a "Y"
While cleaning up about 150 links to redirects on the shared watchlist page WP:WikiProject Chess/Index of chess articles I replaced the link to redirect page Yerevan Chess House with its target, Tigran Petrosian Chess House. Since that was the only general chess article starting with Y, Index of chess articles > General Articles > Y is now empty. In fact Y is the only letter of the Latin alphabet that does not have at least one general chess article.

I welcome any ideas on a good general chess topic that begins with the letter Y so we can remedy this unfortunate state of affairs. (There are of course many chess biographies under Y.) Quale (talk) 20:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yugoslav chess championship? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 21:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You know, that should qualify but we have split up the Index of chess articles into a lot of sections. The way the page is organized, Yugoslav Chess Championship is under the Tournaments & competitions articles section rather than General articles.  Quale (talk) 21:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yugoslav Chess Federation? (Presumably this doesn't exist anymore). Only "Y" articles in the Oxford Companion to Chess are bios like Yates, Yanofsky, Yusupov, opening lines named after "Y" players and references to Yugoslavia. Currently glossary of chess has no "Y" entries. Golombek has an entry for "Year book" but in the wikipedia context the correct title would be "Chess year book" if we were to create such an article. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:29, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe there could be a general article on Youth chess, how competitions for young people are organized and so on. There is an article on Youth sports. P-K3 (talk) 23:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "Yamal" and "Yekaterinburg" have the right letter, but searching for "Yamal chess" and "Yekaterinburg chess" in Google didn't give me any clever ideas for an article. Bruce leverett (talk) 00:34, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Youth chess sounds like a good idea for an article. It wouldn't have to be a FA from the very first version, even 400 words could be a good start.  Quale (talk) 05:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Is Game of the Generals a chess variant?
Is Game of the Generals a chess variant?

I understand this question doesn't really have a definitive answer since chess variant does not have a precise definition. I ask because I have just started to work on reconciling Index of chess articles, Category:Chess and Category:Chess_articles_by_importance. I don't expect these three to correspond exactly, but I think they should be (or at least could be) close. Things that I've seen so far include shogi articles with talk pages tagged with WikiProject Chess and some pages in Category:Chess variants that don't seem to be related to chess in any obvious way other than simply being a two-player board game.

But I don't know anything about chess variants, so I am asking for help from someone with knowledge in that area. I also don't get to unilaterally decide what goes in the Index of chess articles or any chess category, since those are resources shared by all chess editors and in fact all Wikipedia readers. I removed Game of the Generals from WikiProject Chess/Index of chess articles, but I hesitated before removing it from Category:Chess variants. If chess editors find it useful to be in the article index to watch for changes, then it should be returned to the list, and if editors think it is a chess variant then it should remain in the category.

In my inexpert view, I don't see why Game of Generals is in Category:Chess variants. Similarities to chess are that both are two-player games with equal starting forces and in which players alternate moves. Differences from chess are everything else: the boards are different sizes, the pieces are completely different with no pieces in common, all rules are different including the moves of the pieces, one is a complete information game and the other a hidden information game. Quale (talk) 05:51, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Module:Sports table/chess
There was a chess style for the sports table module that was created around 2 years ago, but has gotten no use until now. Due to coronavirus, I have had a bit of free time to add some code to this module, and have done so, and now it is being used in the Candidates Tournament 2020 and Candidates Tournament 2018 articles. However, I stopped really adding any features a few weeks ago. Are there any features that anyone here would like me to add to Module:Sports table/Chess while I still have the time? NHammen (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You improved the appearance of the table compared to what it looked like before, which is very good.
 * Looking at the wikitext that generates the table is a little intimidating as it looks a bit complicated to edit. That's possibly unavoidable given all the things the table module does.
 * I don't favor the layout that puts the the results to the left near the player names and the game scores to the right end of the table as it looks very foreign and weird to a chess player. Chess crosstables are never laid out that way, the game scores always appear after the players' names (and possibly ratings, if displayed) and the total points and tie breaks go to the far right side.  I think it would be better to follow common practice in this area.  The crosstable in the linked chess.com article on round 7 is a good example.
 * The "Pld" column is unusual since chess scores aren't normally given that way. Instead, "Score 4.5/7" is used, combining the total points and the number of games in the same column.
 * It may be that spelling out the column title as "Score" rather than abbreviating as "Pts" might be better since the savings doesn't seem to be large enough to warrant the obfuscation. The mouseover tooltips explaining the column headings are nice, but in my quick test I found the tooltips didn't help on a touch device (tablet or phone) so they can't be relied upon as the only description of columns such as HTH.
 * The question of whether to color game score cells white and black is an interesting one. The convention in a double round robin is that the score when playing White is always given first, so there's no need to color the squares in a double round robin once the tournament is complete.  The color information is useful while the tournament is underway, but it is also conveyed by the cell position (left or right) in each table column.  We do use white and black colored cells in crosstables for some Swiss, single round robin and two-person matches, but the effect is rather heavy and distracting en masse and I would avoid that styling when possible.
 * I hope you get feedback from others who actually do more editing of these tournament articles, and I don't want my comments to sound overly negative since I appreciate your contribution of time and expertise to help improve the encyclopedia. Quale (talk) 06:55, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * For number 2, that would require a massive amount of effort. This is a style for the larger Module:Sports table, and that module requires all of the points and tiebreaks to be to the left of the crosstable. I took a look at it, but it would basically require me to create an entirely new module. For number 3, you can already hide the played column with hide_played, but it shouldn't be too hard to display that fraction in the points/score column as well. For 4, column headers are easy to change in the code. And 5 is even easier to code. I will add an option to not color cells basically right now. As I understand it, the tables in Candidates tournaments have used black and white backgrounds since before they started using any module at all, and this was added to the chess style (in an ugly way) when it was created two years ago. NHammen (talk) 13:54, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Deep Blue (chess computer)
Deep Blue (chess computer), an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Mz7 (talk) 20:58, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Two articles
An editor is putting too much material copied directly from the FIDE website (rules) at Three-fold repetition and Touch-move rule. Can someone replace this by a summary? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for keeping watch on this. Some of the changes are improvements, but the negative effect of inclusion of large amounts of copied material spoils this.  I think we can remove the problem areas and keep the improvements in citing references and some more precise language.  For example, I like the addition of the footnote in Touch-move rule that explains the aberrant USCF rule (I guess that's US Chess now) that allows touching the rook first to castle. Quale (talk) 03:03, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Progress on "Knight (Chess)"
I have been adding to and revising "Knight (Chess)". I posted a question on the talk page, so opinions would be appreciated. Thanks! Puredication (talk) 16:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Three-check chess
Can we create a page for this variant instead of just redirecting it to chess variants? Geekpotato24 (talk) 23:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There was an article on Three-check chess but after a rather bad-tempered AfD discussion the decision was made to redirect it. Myself and a few other regulars here did argue that it should be kept as a stand alone article, but personally I wouldn’t recommend that it be turned back into an article without finding some more reliable independent sources to establish notability. P-K3 (talk) 00:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Infobox template
Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I thought it might be a good idea to include the FIDE Blitz (and maybe Rapid) rank in the infobox template below the classical ranking, at least for the top 20 or so entries, as well as players that are ranked notably higher in those rankings than classical. Jonas1015119 (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Lichess spam
I've noticed lichess spam in several articles. As in large blocks of text about Lichess clubs, events, etc. sourced only to Lichess itself. It's been on the lichess article, of course, with a massive table about "Lichess Titled Arena" repeatedly added by many accounts over a long period of time, but also elsewhere. Like in atomic chess just now. Always a new account, it seems. Could this just be due to its popularity, or is there some strange promotion going on (AFAIK, Lichess is non-profit, so it's a little strange). &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 02:54, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't create sections in Atomic Chess to "spam", but I didn't understand Wikipedia's rules then (I've learned more of them within the past few days, though). The accounts are probably new since people create a Wikipedia account, try finding something to edit, and find an article about the chess website they use. Puredication (talk) 23:12, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Sorry to implicate you there. I shouldn't have assumed bad faith. There are certainly a lot of other users who seem interested to include lots of material about Lichess. I was going to say "I would say it's just the popularity, but I don't see this kind of stuff for chess.com" but now that I look again, I see large blocks of chess.com-sourced content in the chess.com article, too. :/ Ah well. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 03:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

And more: Lichess Titled Arena. As with everywhere else, it's just citing nothing but Lichess itself. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 04:39, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I Afd'd it. It's a content fork made with the intention of reintroducing disputed material to wikipedia, and that doesn't strike me as acting in good faith. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Five-fold repetition and the 75-move rule
There is discussion at talk:Fifty-move rule about whether or not the relatively new 75-move rule and five-fold repetition rules need their own articles. Input is welcome. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:THQ § Article for Creation: Eric Rosen
You are invited to join the discussion at WP:THQ § Article for Creation: Eric Rosen. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps someone from WP:CHESS can take a look at this Teahouse question and see if you can provide anymore specific guidance. The question is likely going to be archived fairly shortly if nobody else responds. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * My apologies to who has already responded to the question. I didn't realize they were a member of this WikiProject. If anyone else wants to add something to the discussion, you probably need to do so fairly soon before the thread get archived. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to turn Development of the World Chess Championship into a redirect to World Chess Championship
See discussion at Talk:Development_of_the_World_Chess_Championship and offer opinions if you have any. Adpete (talk) 12:30, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Vice champion
Vizemeister and Vizeweltmeister are German idioms that have little currency among native English speakers. We refer to "runner up", or less charitably, "loser". The terms "vice champion" and "vice world champion" have crept into chess reports over the past decade or so but are almost always written by non-native speakers. The only reference I could find to the term in a chess context by English speakers before 1980 was an article in a 1976 Chess Life in which a proposal to crown the challenger of the 1978 World Championship match against Karpov as Vice Champion in the event of a tie was explicitly rejected as "meaningless and unacceptable". This pretty much sums up how most English speakers feel about the title of "Vice champion". Also, the term appears nowhere in the FIDE handbook and certainly has no official status. This being the English wikipedia, we should resist attempts to introduce the term into the text of articles such as Johannes Zukertort. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 21:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC) edited for clarity. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:28, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I see you and Quale have already reverted at that page. I agree with you and I have reverted as well. The IP should be reported for edit warring.-- P-K3 (talk) 22:05, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I see that the Chessbase article to which the IP referred really does say "the first official Vice World Champion in the history of chess". We usually consider Chessbase to be a reliable source, and the article looks tolerably well researched, but I have to agree that I have never seen this title in print before.  Where did this dissonance come from?  The article is translated from German, by someone whose name sounds German, so perhaps there is a translation issue.  Another possibility is that some contemporary German magazine used that title, but afterwards it was not imitated or otherwise carried forward to the present.
 * In any case, I would acknowledge that the IP editor is not just making this stuff up. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:33, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Even a search for "Vizeweltmeister" + "Schach" in google books produces very few hits pre-internet. Googling the phrase "the term vice champion", I see English speaking motor racing fans have the same reaction to the term. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Whatever the merits of the IP’s claim, they have now argued on three different editors’ talk pages without once going to Talk:Johannes Zukertort, which is where the discussion should happen. Thankfully the article has been semi-protected so they will now be forced to seek consensus. Personally I’m dubious that such a meaningless term should be added even if there are sources. P-K3 (talk) 11:39, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Also as Bruce notes, the author of that Chessbase piece is German, and I don’t think a native English speaker would ever write “first official Vice World Champion” when all he means is “runner-up in the first official World Championship”.P-K3 (talk) 11:57, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The language "vice-champion" or "vice champion" is strange sounding to my American ears also. Apparently this has some basis in French as well as German, but less recognition in English.  One example of someone asking about this is Is there a special word in English to translate "vice-champion" like in French?.  Dictionaries don't show much support for "vice-champion" or "vice champion", for example, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=vice+champion shows "vice chairman" which is widespread use but not the combinations with champion.  As noted by others, "runner-up" is in common use in English, and "silver" works for second place in some contexts.
 * Aside from it sounding very alien in English, my other concern is that it doesn't provide much information. Johannes Zukertort says "lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Chess Championship 1886, which is generally regarded as the first World Chess Championship match"  which provides a lot more information and context than "Zukertort was the first official world chess vice-champion".  I can imagine in some works people might want a shorthand for this, but in the context of Wikipedia articles I can't see anywhere where it wouldn't be vastly better to write "Zukertort lost the first official world championship match in 1886" rather than "Zukertort was the first official world vice-champion in 1886".
 * Specifically to the alienness of "vice champion" in American English, American sport has a strong tradition of "if you aren't the winner, you're a loser", and as Dale Earnhardt famously said, "Second Place is the First Loser". And a great American poet sings, "Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line."  Quale (talk) 16:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize that the IP editor had gone to three different editors' talk pages, and used them quite a bit, without ever actually going to the article talk page. What a performance.  Thanks to all for dealing with it appropriately.  Bruce leverett (talk) 03:07, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Make that four. Disdain for the term "vice champion" is not restricted to native English speakers by the way. "For me, it's all about the first place. When I think back to my career in 20 years, I really will not be proud that I have become the vice-champion. I just don't care. It is only about the top spot. Maybe other people think differently, but for me, only the win counts." - Max Verstappen. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 05:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

POV
I've been reconsidering. Regardless of the IP's poor behaviour, perhaps we should be wary of imposing the "second place is first loser" attitude on wikipedia. This is the prevailing attitude in the United States and is by no means unknown elsewhere in the world, but it's a point of view. Another point of view is that being the world's number 2 chess player or tennis player or formula one driver is in itself a massive achievement. Another point of view is that the emphasis on winning and disdaining second place is psychologically harmful, especially to young people, and cultivates undesirable aggressive attitudes and lack of empathy. Another point of view is that good manners and sportsmanship are more important than the result; it's better to lose than to win by unethical means, hence the culture in sports such as golf and snooker of calling faults on yourself. I'm not saying we should use the term "vice champion" in the Zukertort article, just that we shouldn't impose an Americacentric or Anglophonocentric POV on wikipedia. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, and was sort of thinking along these lines already. I agree that there is no basis for using "vice champion" in reference to Zukertort, but that's more because contemporary sources don't use it, than because of any preferences by modern commentators.  Bruce leverett (talk) 00:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * In my case at least expressing the disdain American sports culture has for losing was intended in a somewhat lighthearted way. The real reasons not to use vice champion are the other ones expressed: it isn't a common word in English dictionaries so any sentence in which it appears is clunky and hard to process, and it would seem always better in Wikipedia to simply say "Zukertort lost the 1886 match against Steinitz that is is now recognized as the first official world chess championship" rather than "Zukertort was the first official chess world vice champion", which is simply awful.  This is the English-language wikipedia, it doesn't have to use "vice champion" which is odd in English just because the equivalent might be idiomatic in German or French.  Quale (talk) 01:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Coming into this late... I don't really mind it being used in 1948 and later, because the match loser won matches or tournaments beforehand so in a very real sense "came second". And I have occasionally seen it used in that sense, e.g. I think FIDE applied it to Michael Adams and Peter Leko during the invitations to the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. But pre-1948, the term "vice-champion" does not make sense, because of the champion/challenger system. Did David Janowski become world vice-champion in 1910 just because he drummed up enough support to play (and get smashed by) Lasker in 1910? I don't think so, and I very much doubt any WP:RS will say so. Zukertort is a bit of a special case, because the 1886 match happened because he and Steinitz were recognised as the two best players in the world, but I don't think we can call him vice-champion unless a WP:RS does so. Adpete (talk) 01:42, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Help reducing blank space
I just wrote some extensive analysis of two games into the TCEC S18 article, but had to include a lot of blank space to get the diagrams where they should be. Can anyone help utilize more of the blank space, e.g. by changing the effective margin of the text and leaving the rest to the figures? Banedon (talk) 08:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Let me try ... --IHTS (talk) 11:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I did a quick one-over using my usual formatting choices. (If you like let me know, and I'll work on game 65. Else just revert.) For right-most diagrams, I made them all "small", I highly recommend that when there are a lot of diagrams, and to conserve vertical spacing for close-as-possible-to-relevant-text positioning. I also removed all diagram "headers", since that info is implied (redundant to section head info), and eats up vertical spacing unnecessarily. I evolved to using "see diagram" when the diagram has caption annotations or commentary text (when no annotations or commentary I evolved to using just "diagram"). And I cleaned up cap→lowercase for piece names, and White/white & Black/black. p.s. And I included my personal formatting bias of using an extra space for moves in bold, which I think is easier to read compared to otherwise closely knit dense black. --IHTS (talk) 12:09, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. Feel free to amend Game 65 as well, but if you don't, I'll study your syntax and learn to do it myself. Banedon (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, just finished. (If I missed or screwed up something, or you've Qs about my chgs or why, let me know.) p.s. When viewing w/ a mobile dev, in most cases the diags will pop before their respective "see diagram". That c/ be adjusted, however, they're close enough in mobile view to not cause confusion, & methinks it's an okay price to pay to (in non-mobile viewing) flush the diags vertically w/ their "see diagriam"s, and also not push things down vertically unnecessarily when vertical spacing is at a premium due to using lots of diags. --IHTS (talk) 09:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Country parameter in chess biography infobox
See Garry Kasparov. I think there might have been similar issues with other GM's recently. For someone who represented country X, then country Y, during his chess career, but now lives in and/or is a citizen of country Z, what should appear as that person's "country" in the infobox? Bruce leverett (talk) 18:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Kasparov is an interesting case. Normally I would say for players in the modern FIDE era (since 1950) we should use only the countries that the player had registered with FIDE.  That assumes the person is solely or primarily known for chess.  But Kasparov's politics are important now too, and his citizenship is integral to that story.  Quale (talk) 05:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes want you to put things into neat little boxes but some things just don't fit. I'm ok with the current status quo but wouldn't edit war over it. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * An "infobox chess biography" should display only chess-related things, as the name suggests, and chess-wise he only represented USSR and Russia. His political activity deserves a separate infobox though imo, and there one can put his current citizenship. See also Dana Reizniece-Ozola, who has separate infoboxes for chess and political careers. Sophia91 (talk) 14:04, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Importance assessment of Andreas Diermair
Hi,

I was going through Stub articles of High importance to see what I could expand on. I was intrigued to see that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Diermair is marked as High importance, even though most articles on grandmasters are marked as Low importance. Should this be updated? Sincerely, Ovinus (talk) 02:14, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Same thing with the article on Syeda Shabana Parveen Nipa. Ovinus (talk) 02:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Clearly not of "high importance" at all, world championship challengers are. I'm going to downgrade them both. Sophia91 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Berlin defence lead reworking
I put a suggestion on the Berlin defense talk page a couple of weeks ago. Anyone got an opinion on it? Dhalamh (talk) 23:30, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Sexism/gender bias in chess
So, I'm unsure if there are many good sources on this, but I've seen some of this myself, and a cursory Google search seems to show that there's some discussion of it. Not sure if this is notable enough for an article, but I figured I'd bring it up so you all can discuss. Harmonia per misericordia. OmegaFallon (talk) 23:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , what about Women in chess? That is surely a notable topic and the topic you proposed should come completely within its scope (I have never seen the issue come up except with regard to women), and also encompass more that needs to be covered. But perhaps the discussion should be anchored with some sources, not personal opinions/hunches like mine. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * We have Women's World Chess Championship and plenty of articles about individual woman players, but a Women in chess article sounds like an excellent idea. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Women in chess could be a great addition to the encyclopedia, the key is to find a few good sources. It would be the main topic article for Category:Women's chess.  And sexism and gender bias is also an encyclopic topic that could be addressed in that article, again assuming good sources can be found.  I know of one academic study that explored reasons for the gap in chess playing strength between men and women, but the topic needs more than the work of one researcher.  Quale (talk) 09:19, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Are "fivefold repetition rule" and "seventy-five move rule" even really chess terms?
These articles were sneaked in after there had previouisly been no consensus to create them during discussions on Talk:Fifty-move rule. They are not established chess terms and don't get any hits on google except for wikipedia, self-published and blog sites and other low quality sources. I wasn't comfortable with introducing them into "glossary of chess terms" and I'm even less comfortable with having them as articles separate from Threefold repetition and Fifty move rule. This emphasis on these obscure and rarely implemented rules seems to be a particular hobbyhorse of a single editor, and they are being given far more weight than is appropriate. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 07:05, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * FIDE's current laws of chess have the fivefold repetition and 75-move rule, see article 9.6.1 and 9.6.2. Basically they fivefold repetion or 75 moves without captures or pawn moves lead to a mandatory draw; players do not need to claim it. Rules that are in the official laws of chess should be included in Wikipedia. Sjakkalle (Check!)  09:52, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The issue is whether these rules are significant and notable enough to merit separate articles. The actual terms "fivefold repetition" and "seventy-five move rule" occur nowhere in FIDE rules, have no tradition in chess, and are not used in chess literature; the only google hits are on self-published and generally low quality sources. In the discussion at Talk:Fifty move rule the general feeling was that these rules are extensions of the threefold repetition and fifty move rules and should be covered in those articles, and not given undue weight. This is all being pushed by a single editor. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:59, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Included in Wikipedia, yes, but that does not mean they deserve their own articles. I see the were accepted via the Articles for Creation process; I think the standard there is just, would they survive AfD. I think both could be adequately covered in Threefold repetition and Fifty move rule articles and I would support a redirect/merger.-- P-K3 (talk) 12:27, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree that the rule can be covered in the articles on threefold repetition, and fifty move rule, and that full separate articles are overkill. Sjakkalle (Check!)  18:16, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I second that. Also, I think they will be hardly ever mentioned outside FIDE rules and forum posts unless a related incident occurs in a major tournament, in that case these additional rules would receive coverage by chess media outlets (I can recall right off a World Cup for the 3-fold repetition, and a Women's WC for the 50-move rule). Sophia91 (talk) 16:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * For the rules are from 2014, obviously there is less history as for other rules. This does not mean own articles are not appropriate. These are independent rules by definition and not extensions of the existing rules, while the existing rules serve the players the new rules serve the arbiter / tournament director. I direct to MaxBrowne2 to avoid wording like "particular hobbyhorse". I have an interest in these rules and generally in rules of chess, and this is not to confuse with what you suggest which I find disrespectful speech. Same for edit comment "pushing back against the 75 move rule stuff". I also find it inappropriate to claim "That rule really only exists so that the arbiter can intervene in kid's tournaments" in an edit comment and later refusing to explain on what basis you come to this conclusion. Dlbbld (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No apology, I stand by the "particular hobbyhorse" description. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 19:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Whatever, this isn't about your rough language, it's about the matter. Dlbbld (talk) 06:15, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:NCHESS
With the recent deletion of a two-time national champion, and this PROD of a three-time champion, is it time to revisit criteria #3 of WP:NCHESS? We shouldn't be encouraging editors to create articles on winners of national championships in countries like Luxembourg and Guatemala if they are going to be deleted. Maybe we should change it to national championship of a major chess-playing nation. P-K3 (talk) 13:26, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Editors must be aware that any article must satisfy WP:GNG first and foremost. The NCHESS guideline is only meant to lay out conditions under which GNG is likely to be satisfiable if a reasonably diligent search for sources is made. This is true even for the officially sanctioned WP:NSPORT guidelines: they do not replace GNG and do not supplant the need for reliable sources. I have added the relevant text from the NSPORT guideline to make this clear. If one had access to Luxembourgian or Guatemalan newspapers from the relevant time periods, I have no doubt, based on my experience working with such sources in many other countries, that notability could be established for these players. But it's still up to the writer of the article to do their research properly. See my comments at Talk:Carlos Enrique Salazar. Cobblet (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Usually this is done on the talk page of the destination article, but I'm going to put the formal proposal here because two separate but related mergers are proposed, and because it impacts all of WP:CHESS. Also, the discussion in the previous paragraph is clearly related to this.

The proposal is that MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:21, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) The article Fivefold repetition be merged with the article Threefold repetition
 * 2) The article Seventy-five-move rule be merged with the article Fifty-move rule

Discussion
Support as proposer. This should be done for the following reasons:
 * 1) There is considerable WP:OVERLAP between the respective articles (reason 2, "overlap").
 * 2) The articles require an understanding of the material in their respective destination articles for proper comprehension (reason 4, "context").
 * 3) The new articles rely on primary sourcing, and deal with material that is not sufficiently independently notable to justify a separate article.
 * 4) The new articles were created contrary to a previous WP:CONSENSUS at the fifty move rule talk page that the new material would be better incorporated into the existing articles.
 * 5) Incorporating the new content from the fivefold and seventy-five move articles will lead to improvements to their respective destination articles.MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Support on all points. I didn't think separate articles were needed to begin with. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:21, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per my comments in the section above. The rules are in the official laws of chess and clearly warrant coverage, but they are so closely related to the threefold repetition and fifty-move rule that they are best covered in those articles. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:03, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Support Per WP:NOPAGE it is not necessary to create separate articles for these topics as they can be adequately covered at the Threefold repetition and Fifty move rule articles.P-K3 (talk) 11:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep This is inherent notability. Each independent draw rule has its article, these are two new independent draw rules, so creating articles is along WP:OSE.
 * 1) "[...] overlap [...]" The specification of position repetition is the overlapping. That is not a valid reason to merge. The position repetition is used equally for both rules, so technically only, one could argue the same to merge threefold into fivefold, which shows that this argument is not valid.
 * 2) "[...] context [...]" The new rules can be understood and applied without knowing the existing rules. There is no need to understand threefold to understand fivefold, same for fifty-move and seventy-five-move rule.
 * 3) "[...] primary sourcing [...]" The sources must be put into relation with the rules being from 2014, and in this relation fine.
 * 4) "[...] contrary [...]" This was speaking out the idea and not an official proposal.
 * 5) "[...] improvements [...]" This I disagree and explained already. The new articles are independent and, as such, do not belong in their full entity to the existing articles. They would be in the wrong place; they are not extensions of the existing rules. They would distract from the actual article content. German Wikipedia has an article about Stellungswiederholung, that is "position repetition" and incorporates threefold and fivefold under it. This is conceptually correct. But I don't argue for it as an own article about "position repetition" in my view is not appropriate, maybe in Germany, it is.


 * For the talk regarding terms: These arguments from my point of view are unbalanced. There is no mentioning of "threefold" or "fifty" in the FIDE Laws of Chess as there is no mentioning of "fivefold" or "seventy-five". One must give these rules a name, as done for the existing rules. The chosen names are natural. In fact, the equipment standards use these terms: "Threefold repetition of a position (fivefold repetition)" and "50 moves rule (75 moves rule)".


 * Another reason for objection is "rarely implemented rules". That these rules are rarely implemented is laziness and as such an observation which deserves documentation and not a reason to not create. For a better example, python-chess library is a notable chess library per my understanding, implements the rules and refers to them as "fivefold repetition" and "75 moves without a pawn push or capture". That is also a source.


 * I cannot balance every word, such an effort is just not appropriate. The above discusses all arguments I have seen for merging and counters them. Dlbbld (talk) 13:02, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Summarizing, independence is met and notability is met, so I see no reason for merge.


 * For me, it was crystal-clear from the beginning that the new rules need their articles as being independent of the existing. Adding them to the existing articles is conceptually incorrect and creates a wrong understanding. This is only ok when meant temporarily.


 * The fivefold and threefold share position repetition as a common term, but one can strike through one rule, and the other still works and vice versa. The independency is also stated by Geurt Gijssen, "To avoid all misunderstandings, the rules regarding draw claims based on triple-repetition of position and the fifty-move rule are still valid. There are no changes at all." As the new rules do not affect the existing, they are independent. Somebody, please explain to me how they depend on each other? They depend on a common term, but not on each other.


 * There is independence, so by Other_stuff_exists creation of new articles is justified. "Each Star Trek series has an episode list and individual articles for each episode [...] Thus it is reasonable to expect that, using these as precedent for content inclusion, that Star Trek: Discovery can also have an episode list as well as articles on each individual episode" All independent draw rules have own articles, so new independent draw rules should have own articles.


 * Quale mentioned the additional requirement of WP:N: "that in general more than one source with significant coverage is expected" and "So 5-fold repetition and 75-move rule are definitely significant enough to be explained in articles, WP:N only applies to the question of whether a standalone article is warranted."


 * For another requirement "Although it's obvious that 5-fold repetition makes chess a finite game, it isn't obvious enough to to be claimed in an article without providing a source. " from Quale also sufficient source was provided.


 * Only after I found different notable sources over time, as requested above, I drafted the articles. There is no "sneaking in" of these articles; this is disrespectful. It was requested to work out precisely the differences between the new and existing rules. After this task was completed, the drafts have been accepted.


 * The independence of the new rules is stated, and the additional requirement of WP:N was met. Not perfectly, but still. What is the problem now with the new articles? Must they be perfect? No, the existing articles aren't perfect as well.


 * For the comment "Judging from the seat of my pants, I suspect that if articles were created for the 75-move rule and/or fivefold repetition, they would languish at the bottom of the list for many years" from Bruce Leverett I do not agree as argument against. This is popularity; popularity does not relate 1:1 to notability. For example Decoy is around position 900 on the list, despite I wonder if someone ever questions the article, there are 1001 chess books mentioning the term.


 * As this discussion came out is nothing that I intended in the very least. From some sides, the new articles are fought against as something religious from the very mentioning of the idea. As hell would outbreak with the own articles for the new rules. And constant provoking comments by the side are not ok.


 * In my opinion, there is a lot of bias for the new rules, and also the permanent try to put the new rules a special case of the existing rules. I suggest reassessing this thought. Dlbbld (talk) 21:32, 15 September 2020 (UTC)


 * What I find disrespectful is ignoring the consensus of the wikipedia community. You just went right ahead and created those articles even though nobody supported their creation in discussions at Talk:Fifty-move rule. You are literally in a minority of one in your insistence that these rules are entirely separate from their obvious antecedents and deserving of separate articles. And no amount of attempts to intimidate me and other members of the wikipedia chess community with your massive walls of text can change this simple fact. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * You made several subjective statements, e.g. "That rule really only exists so that the arbiter can intervene in kid's tournaments", I addressed here and here, you decided not to answer; similiarly I see no discussion on the subject here. Discussion for new articles is informal; Bubba73, Quale, Bruce Leverett and Cobblet commented, the last four stated notability is a key. I found additional notability, went on and expect a discussion on the matter. Dlbbld (talk) 21:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think five-fold repetition and 75-move rule are notable enough for their own articles. I think they can be handled by sections in the main articles.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:16, 17 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Support I do not know if the intent of the proposal includes redirection, but this seems to me a situation where a redirect would be highly appropriate, e.g. a person types "fivefold repetition" and hits the enter key and gets to "threefold repetition", where there is appropriate merged text. Bruce leverett (talk) 15:30, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirection is normal when merging articles. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:01, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Just by the side. Besides that merging is wrong as explained, per MaxBrowne2 new articles should not be in own sections. The user as such would be redirected from fivefold repetition to threefold repetition article, which is confusing and was the case after MaxBrowne2 removing own sections. Dlbbld (talk) 06:28, 11 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Support For the cogent reasons articulated by MaxBrowne2 Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 05:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Additional comment It is not normal for a poll like this to turn into an open-ended discussion. One can assume that experienced editors who have already indicated "support" have already given full consideration to the evidence that has been presented.  If you don't like that they have come down on the wrong side, it's too late to try to change their minds.  Also, one should be cautious about describing editors who have been involved in Wikipedia for more than a decade as "fighting ... as something religious", and making "constant provoking comments", or using "rough language".  I cannot find any such misbehavior in the comments I have seen.


 * Since you are not an experienced editor, I will give a short summary on the notability question. In Wikipedia, when notability is in question, we look at sources to establish it.  Let's look at the footnotes of Seventy-five-move rule.
 * Foonotes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10 cite rulebooks. In an article about a rule, the rulebook in which the rule appears does not indicate any special notability.
 * Footnotes 6 and 11 are essentially announcements and/or clarifications of the rule change, aimed at the same audience as the rulebooks themselves. Likewise these do not indicate notability.  Footnote 9 is further clarification for, and with the assistance of, the same audience.
 * Footnote 12 is a game score illustrating that the rule was applied. Although chessgames.com has limitations as a source, I think it is OK to use for this illustrative purpose.  But it is well understood among editors of chess articles that the presence of a game score in this database does not indicate notability.
 * Footnotes 13 and 16 are unpublished articles from the authors' personal web pages; not peer reviewed. Footnotes 14 and 15 are excerpts from the article cited in footnote 13.  As a matter of fact, I found the article by Labelle to be well written and interesting, and I wouldn't hesitate to cite it for the purpose of further explanation, but neither article indicates notability.  The lack of articles published by conventional means indicates the opposite.
 * We aren't even to first base on the notability question. The situation at Fivefold repetition is the same.


 * I agree with User:MaxBrowne2 that it is especially puzzling and vexing that you went against consensus. Wikipedia is held together by the willingness to collaborate with other people.  There is no hierarchy here; when people disagree with one another, some people will have to exercise forbearance in favor of others.  It's not easy to deal with a fellow editor who cannot do this.  Bruce leverett (talk) 01:26, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Short note on consensus - I did not agree with including "fivefold repetition" and "seventy-five move rule" in the glossary article. I gave my opinion, other editors disagreed, and the consensus went against me. So the entries remain in the glassary, and the issue is settled. This is how wikipedia is supposed to work; wikipedia is not about winning. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:38, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reviewing the sources, I would like to compare with threefold but leave aside not to bring new topics. My statement regarding MaxBrowne2 is careful, I already had what I found an encounter, and I find using the F word not appropriate. I disagree with this and certainly speak it out. I did not want to propose the drafts for the new articles for I experienced this as a hostile discussion, comments as well like "shoehorned into every article on chess" are not respectful, and this reason for not proposing has to be taken into account as everything else. Formal consent is recommended but not necessary for creating articles, you have the right to be affected, but there is no formal right to avoid discussion for that.Dlbbld (talk) 11:36, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * No it is not "appropriate", but this is what happens when you constantly niggle people. Eventually they'll snap at you. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 13:30, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreement without (seemingly) considering arguments being disputed
With all the necessary respect, I don't see it following a democratic process when initially presented arguments are being agreed to, without (at is seems) considering that they are disputed. I have put arguments on the page which a) follow "nuanced and thoughtful" and b) contain a lot of quotes, so are not walls of text and require consideration should this be objective. Dlbbld (talk) 11:09, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Disadvantages of chess diagram
I've been a bit annoyed for a while now when trying to read Wikipedia articles that discuss chess openings or games in detail. I understand that strong enough players can picture moves with relative ease when reading algebraic notation but much of our audience (me included) will not be able to, and Chess diagram is only of so much use when it can only display individual positions. As an example see French Defence where a position after 11 ply is listed, but the move order and captures are not as immediately obvious as they could be. Gifs like File:Immortal game animation.gif solve this problem but introduce another—you have to wait until it loops back to the start when you start looking at it, or reload the page, and can't control the speed.

How difficult would it be to implement a simple system where we list a sequence of boards within a template and display them in a way where readers can click left or right arrows to go backwards and forwards? Maybe we would transclude these as templates to stop the code from clogging up the article wikitext. It seems like this should be a clear advantage of an online encyclopedia over chess books and printed resources, but I think we're stuck in a 2005 mindset (when chess diagram was established as a Wikipedia-wide default across different language editions). This really reduces the utility of our chess articles in comparison to e.g. chessgames.com. — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:22, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know what would be required to do this, but I think it would be satisfactory. Thought must be given how the pages will render when printed, as printing Wikipedia is a thing and I think pages should remain useful even if JavaScript is not available in the browser or is disabled.  I dislike all animated chess gifs, but if the reader is given control over the move transitions as you suggest, it would be good.  I think there is working Javascript in other language wikipedias that implement a chess viewer that can replay entire games, so this seems feasible.  If you look in the archives for this talk page I think you will find something about this within the last year.  Quale (talk)


 * In german wikipedia, such a template was developed, see de:Benutzer:Habitator terrae/Schachpartie. As far as I can see, it does not use javascript, only css. However, the template is not yet in use in articles and the handling (input etc.) is still a bit cumbersome. But it shows the potential of what could be possible. Steak (talk) 09:54, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * honestly, I think this looks ideal. Cumbersome input isn't too bad since it's the editors, not readers, that have to use it. Anything that represents a whole game will have a lot of input so I was picturing that we'd abstract these diagrams out to template pages (e.g. The Immortal Game, Najdorf example 1), and then transclude them on articles. So long as it works on different browsers and mobile (at least as well as the current chess diagram), I don't see why we shouldn't switch to using this immediately. — Bilorv ( talk ) 12:07, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * On a related note, consensus support for a chess PGN viewer gadget was established at, but no interface admin has volunteered to help with the implementation of a generic loader gadget to load the chess viewer gadget on demand for just the necessary pages, as discussed at . There is some discussion of implementing a loader gadget for this year's Arbitration Committee elections. I have mentioned these links in that discussion and so maybe something that can also be used by a chess viewer gadget will be implemented. (Given the long saga of the chess viewer, though, I'm not holding my breath.) isaacl (talk) 16:38, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Correspondence Chess in the United States
The ICCF U.S.A. page has errors - confusing CCLA and ICCF-US. It also has the wrong name - it seems to be ICCF-US these days. There are 3 major correspondence organizations that are primarily US-based - ICCF-US, USCF, AND CCLA. What's the best way to clean this up? I thought maybe a Correspondence Chess in the United States could explain all three? Airplane42 (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The beginning section is confusing. Is ICCF-US an offshoot of CCLA?  Are USPCU and ICCF-US different names for the same thing?  Pursuing answers to these questions and others, I went to this website:, but found that its own "History" section is substantially similar to the beginning section of our article.  One of them is presumably largely copied from the other, but I don't know which.  Bruce leverett (talk) 02:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * To answer your original question: yes, I think I agree, the name is wrong; I have never seen it as anything except "ICCF-US".  However, don't rely on me for this.  Also, look over the edit history of the article -- did it used to have different names?


 * Also, I see that someone has already put an "overly detailed" tag on the History section, which is still highly appropriate, after 7 years. Although I used to play int'l correspondence, and was acquainted with Zavanelli, I am sure that most of the material in this section is of no interest to anyone who isn't personally involved.  Use your own judgment.  Bruce leverett (talk) 16:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that the CCLA used to be the official US affiliate to the ICCF but no longer is. Now a new organization (whether spun off or otherwise created) ICCF-US is the official affiliate. CCLA remains as a separate organization. Airplane42 (talk) 16:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia was not improved by deleting Herbert William Trenchard
It was deleted after minimal discussion. I think in particular for historical figures, there should be a presumption in favour of keeping. He competed at Vienna 1898 and representing England against the US in telegraph matches. Is it worth asking for a deletion review? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * , as per WP:THREE, find your best 3 sources qualifying the player for GNG, and then ask for deletion review. Roller26 (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it might have benefited from a relist rather than closing as delete. One of the delete votes was a mere "per nom" so contributed nothing to the discussion. It could have done with more input. P-K3 (talk) 01:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Edochess gives some potentially useful sources – check also the sources listed for the tournaments he played in. MissScarlett on Chessgames quotes a couple of unfortunately pithy obituaries. Digging through newspapers and magazines (BCM and the British Newspaper Archive would be a good start) should turn up something substantial for a player of his calibre. If enough can be found for Gossip to have a featured article, one should be able to find some half-decent sources for Trenchard. Cobblet (talk) 01:18, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Had I seen it, I would certainly have voted to retain. He is listed in Chess Personalia and has three mentions in A Century of British Chess. Happy to provide the references if required. Brittle heaven (talk) 04:21, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The references I've found on the web are not the best. Apparently he's mentioned in the massive scholarly work on Amos Burn by Richard Forster, which I doubt many of us have forked out the 400 bucks for. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 08:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I stopped buying those McFarland books when the prices soared. Harding's Eminent Victorian Chess Players was worth it, because there were 10 substantial biographies, but books like Amos Burn, Steinitz in London, JH Blackburne ... feel like an unnecessary indulgence to me. Trenchard's telegraph matches for GBR are listed in Di Felice too, so, all in all, quite a few sources available. Brittle heaven (talk) 13:59, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I've asked the deleting admin JGHowes to consider re-opening the AfD.-- P-K3 (talk) 14:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Have re-opened for further discussion: Articles for deletion/Herbert William Trenchard.  JGHowes   talk  15:06, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Have added various new events and sources. If anyone can knock the refs into better shape, feel free. I've been out of the game too long - was hard enough remembering the basics.Brittle heaven (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Apparently User:Bruce leverett is responsible for one of the worst chess programs of all time
Just for your entertainment. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:33, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess this is why people use pseudonyms to edit Wikipedia! Bruce leverett (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Lol you never thought google was going to bite you on the ass back then did you? Blame Harvard Crimson. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 21:51, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There are worse skeletons that could come out of the closet. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, a good time was had by all. My program was just a spare-time project, to learn about assembly language, or about whatever.  I knew it was primitive and generally horrible, nowhere near belonging in the ACM tournament,  but it was a last-minute substitute for some other, more legitimate, entry.  It was awesome rubbing elbows with people who were doing real research, not spare-time projects.  I still savor the memory of David Levy's summing-up speech, where he mentioned how bad "some programs" were and glared at me balefully but didn't mention me by name.  Really a fine start for a computer science career.  Bruce leverett (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * He won his bet that no computer could beat him before 1978, but only because of time frames. Even Carlsen doesn't stand a chance against Stockfish these days. The old Mission Impossible episode is no longer science fiction. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Sam Sloan
Was wondering if some more editors could take a look at Sam Sloan and Talk:Sam Sloan? The article has recently been worked on quite heavily by an editor in what seems to be a good-faith attempt to clean things up, but there's still lots of unsourced or poorly sourced content that might need more eyes looking at it and assessing it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Nakhmanson Gambit
Does anyone want to do anything about Nakhmanson Gambit? It's a good faith effort, but it isn't a good article. Normally I'd say just redirect to Scotch Game, but (quite understandably) there isn't anything about it in that article now. The article deserves credit for citing Bologan's refutation, but if Wikipedia is to say anything about this line at all, the refutation is enough. Quale (talk) 23:31, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The article would fail WP:GNG without question. We could mention Bologan's refutation but certainly aren't under any obligation to, in either or both the pages dealing with the Scotch Gambit and the Anti-Max Lange in the Two Knights (both are likely move orders). Cobblet (talk) 23:47, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Pretty clear cut merge/redirect. The Scotch Game article arguably should be expanded, but it should mention the Canal Variation before it mentions the Nakhmanson Gambit. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 14:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)