Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/Archive 14

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Christmas fun

I suggested a while back that as a Christmas fun "project" we should each adopt a patron saint (I hereby claim Doubting Thomas, as I habitually challenge historical orthodoxies). Another possibility that occured to me at Talk:Emanuel_Lasker#New_York_1893_tournament_pic is a quotes book. Each member's quote(s) must be selected by other members of WP:Chess and, in true WP style, must be supported by a link to the appropriate Talk page (it should link to the history, so that archiving does not make it hard to find).

Amusing suggestions for interculturalising the title of this Talk thread are welcome! --Philcha (talk) 10:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

How about "Christmas/Hannukah/Chrismukkah/Eid ul-Fitr/Bodhi Day/Kwaanza/Jonkanoo/ Yule/Saturnalia/Ziemassvētki/Winter solstice/Festivus fun"? If I've thoughtlessly omitted your favorite December observance, feel free to add it in! Krakatoa (talk) 07:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
In the above comment, I tried to link to the December observances category (after "favorite"), but for some reason it doesn't show up. Krakatoa (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Has the fun started already, with a contest for the longest relevant section title? --Philcha (talk) 09:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Chess Player's Chronicle

Does someone want to re-review Chess Player's Chronicle? It was a stub with no sources. I've totally rewritten it and added a bunch of sources. It's still not beauteous (the sources say different things, so it's kind of messy), but it must be better than a stub, at any rate. Krakatoa (talk) 08:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. Voorlandt, displaying stunning alacrity, just re-rated it C-Class. Thanks, Voorlandt! Krakatoa (talk) 15:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Adolf Anderssen passed GA-Class!

Adolf Anderssen has passed GA review and been approved as a Good Article! I didn't even know it had been nominated! Thanks to reviewer KenKt, and congratulations to Philcha and everyone else who contributed to the article! The article has been nominated for A-Class, and is still awaiting reviews. Please participate at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Review/Adolf_Anderssen. Krakatoa (talk) 16:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

George H. D. Gossip needs a third reviewer

George H. D. Gossip has received A-Class reviews, both favorable, from SyG and Philcha. It needs a third review by someone. Please participate at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Review#Review_of_George_H.D._Gossip. Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a great article and a good chunk of work has already been done with Philcha's review. So please come by and give your opinion, just one more positive opinion and the article gets to A-class !! SyG (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC) That being said without trying to influence your judgment, of course :-)
I'm not above bribery, which I have discovered that Wikipedia to some extent condones. Accordingly, and in honor of my state's governor, Rod "gBay" Blagojevich, I make the following offer: please give my article an A-Class review, let me know how much time you spent on it, and I will spend the same amount of time (or more, if I get into the subject) on a chess-related article or articles of your choice (writing a new article, copyediting an existing article, finding and adding references supporting propositions in an existing article, etc.). For examples of my handiwork, see, e.g., Featured Article First-move advantage in chess, the aforementioned George H.D. Gossip, Swindle (chess), and Napoleon Marache. Just don't tell Patrick Fitzgerald about this. Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 14:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok this worked brilliantly, but I prefer to call it an incentive :) Actually I think this is a pretty good system, and might use it one day myself! I spend about an hour reading through it and writing the review (yes I do read slowly :) ),now articles that could use an hour of your time are James Grundy or Henry Hosmer (both played in the American Chess Congress).Voorlandt (talk) 22:41, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Voorlandt, you rock!!! I will see what I can dig up on Messrs. Grundy and Hosmer, who evidently are even more obscure than Mr. Gossip. Krakatoa (talk) 03:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, I think I just managed to spend 3+ hours writing an article on Grundy, even though as far as I can tell the guy played in one significant tournament in his life! (Seriously.) Although I've exceeded the time allotment, I will write an article on Hosmer too in the near future. (He played in a walloping two tournaments.) Krakatoa (talk) 09:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, wrote an article on Henry Hosmer, too. Unfortunately, there is even less available on him, since he's not on Chessmetrics. Krakatoa (talk) 02:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Great job on both articles. Henry Hosmer is on the Edo Historical Chess Ratings list [1]. Voorlandt (talk) 14:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Libro de los juegos

There are two different articles, Libro de juegos and Libro de los juegos, on the same subject. They both contain valuable information, so creating a redirect is not as immediate as I would have hoped. Could someone please try to merge them ? SyG (talk) 09:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Photos of past masters

As part of the Mikhail Botvinnik upgrade work done a while back, I added a small number of extra images (all fair use, which we can mostly only claim for the deceased).

In a similar vein, I have located a number of photos relating to other top deceased players who either lack one, or have poor coverage at present. Subject to writing all the 'fair use rationales' (which means finding and citing all the sources), I am hoping to supplement the Bronstein, Flohr, Stein, Geller, Petrosian, Furman, Euwe, Najdorf, Polugaevsky and Tal articles in particular, but if anyone has a request, I will do my best.

Finally, in the spirit of the Voorlandt/Karakatoa example of 'generalized reciprocity' or 'paying it forward', above, I also wondered if some kind soul would volounteer to contact LIFE, or Google/Life and ask permission to use those excellent chess images that Voorlandt found (again, above)? They have "for personal, non-commercial use only" displayed on them, but as we are non-commercial and could promise to credit them, and could vow to reproduce them smaller than the original resolution, they may go for it. Any takers? Brittle heaven (talk) 13:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Hugh Myers

Anyone want to take a look at whether Hugh Myers merits B-Class now? It's currently rated C, but I've now added a Lead section, and it looks like a comfortable B to me now. Heck, even the notoriously hard to please Edward Winter likes it:

5919. Wikipedia

It is impossible not to have misgivings, both general and particular, about Wikipedia, but we have recently noticed a great improvement in some of the chess articles in the site’s English-language version. There is, for instance, excellent treatment of G.H.D. Gossip, and it is also good to see a fine article on Hugh Myers.

Krakatoa (talk) 05:45, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, you are a celebrity now ! Maybe you could advise Winter to look at First-move advantage in chess, or even ask him what he thinks about the aborted match Morphy-S******* ? :-) SyG (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
About Myers, I have reviewed the article (see on the Talk page) and raised it as B-class. Good job ! SyG (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Incidentally, Hugh Myers' son sent me a very nice e-mail complimenting me on the article. Krakatoa (talk) 00:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Wilhelm Steinitz

... is now a GA. Happy New Year, everybody. --Philcha (talk) 09:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

A very satisfying and important feat for the WikiProject Chess ! Now I understand "Philcha" stands for "Producing Homogeneously Impressive, Laudable and Complete Historical Articles". Happy new year ! SyG (talk) 18:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

46th USSR Championship

There is a possible discrepency over the results of the 46th USSR Chess Championship (1978). RUSBASE says Tal and Tseshkovsky‎ both scored 11/17, but another source gives Tseshovsky only 10. Recent updates to Vitaly Tseshkovsky‎ and USSR Chess Championship make those articles conform to the second source. We need to resolve this and make sure the information is correct in our articles. 165.189.101.177 (talk) 16:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Tal and Tseshkovsky tied for first with 11/17, ahead of Lev Polugaevsky 10, Georgadze 9.5, etc. Bernard Cafferty and Mark Taimanov, The Soviet Championships, Cadogan Chess, 1998, p. 179, ISBN 1-85744-201-6; Chess Informant, Volume 26, p. 270. I'll go correct the articles. Krakatoa (talk) 08:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

George H. D. Gossip

... is now a GA. Thanks to Crystal whacker, who immediately passed it without further ado. I have now nominated it for Featured Article. Krakatoa (talk) 08:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Great ! I will try to help as I can. SyG (talk) 08:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hiding "solutions" in diagrams

At Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chess/Archive_12#Chess_diagrams_with_moves it seemed members if Wikiproject Chess were in favour of hiding "solutions", so I went ahead. Happy‑melon has attempted to undo all the hiding of solutions in Alexander Alekhine, Howard Staunton, Wilhelm Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Joseph Henry Blackburne, John Cochrane, Adolf Anderssen and Mikhail Botvinnik, and has also tried to disable the Show/Hide template used in these diagrams. I have reverted the changes. Please comment at Talk:Alexander_Alekhine#Hidden_solutions_in_diagrams. --Philcha (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

George H. D. Gossip is still a Featured Article!!! candidate

George H. D. Gossip is still a Featured Article candidate. So far two Supports, no Opposes, one editor's comments resolved (now one of the "Supports"), awaiting further comment from a second editor. Feel free to stop by and comment. Krakatoa (talk) 19:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is another link to the review, for those who may find the one given above slightly cumbersome. SyG (talk) 20:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
It made it!! Many thanks to SyG, Philcha, and Ioannes Pragensis, for your help and support, and to Bubba73, to responding to SandyGeorgia's questions about the reliability of the article's sources. Thanks also to non-WikiProject Chess members Crystal whacker, who promoted the article to GA in record time and supported its FA candidacy, and to Brianboulton, who participated in the FA review and ultimately supported it for FA. Krakatoa (talk) 01:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Congratulations, it's an excellent piece of work. Talking of record times, you must be close to the record for 0–FA. --Philcha (talk) 08:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! That would be an interesting statistic to know - it only took this one 2 months and 17 days, I think. I would guess (without having actually researched the subject) that some articles back in the old days - when one didn't have to give inline references and things generally seem to have been much more loosey-goosey - took less time. Incidentally, I was much amused by your remarks about (1) Gossip being poised for his greatest success ever and (2) articles being denied FA status because of violating an edict issued last week on the colour of vowels (I realize you didn't originate the latter). Much of the stuff that's "litigated" at FA review level is indeed pretty trivial and has little to do with the actual quality of the article. (I won't cite any examples, lest any FA-reviewer happen by and be offended . . . .) Incidentally, unlike First-move advantage in chess, Gossip actually had a birthday and a date of death (thus giving us a "hook" to front-page the article) - so maybe we can actually get this one to the front page someday. Krakatoa (talk) 09:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Just checked - he died on May 11. I wonder if we have any chance of getting it front-paged then? I suppose a birthday is better than a death-day, but we have to wait until December 6 for that. btw, it's a shame that there's not a push to get Darwin Day to FA in time for February 12, the bicentennial of the greatest birthday in history: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Krakatoa (talk) 09:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
You're right about the bad old days, I'd regard anything promoted before 2007 as an unofficial informal FA :-) --Philcha (talk) 11:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Referencing schemes

I see someone's changed the referencing scheme at Alexander Alekhine. I think we need to agree on a standard one and stick to it, otherwise there will be inconsistencies within articles, and a lot of unnecessary grunt-work when articles face reviews / reassessments. The core of the problem appears to be books, because an artcile may cite several pages from different chapters / sections / pages. On the other hand one cannot cite pages for a web source, and it is not usual to cite specfic page numbers for journal / newspaper articles (although one usually gives the page range of the article within the issue).

I'm aware of 3 referencing schemes for books:

  • "Indirect without links. This has a separate list of books in plain text form, as Alexander Alekhine has now. IMO this is simply the worst, as the user has to scroll to find the biblio details, and remember the page number(s) at the same time.
  • Harvard referencing, as in Rules of Chess, where the ref is a link that jumps to the entry in the books list. This works reasonably well for an article that cites only books, and I suspect can be used for web pages and journal articles. However I think it has some drawbacks:
    • The identifiers (usually author's surname plus year) are rather obtrusive, being full-sized normal text, usually at least 10 characters long. This is likely to be worse if the article cites several papers by the same authors in the same year, which occasionally happens in academia (e.g. with the flood of fossils from China) and in chess - e.g. Tim Harding is useful and very prolific at chesscafe.com. Then identifiers become confusing ("Harding 2007 a") or huge (e.g. "Harding 2007 World Championship 2006") or include ugly abbreviations (e.g "Harding 2007 WCh2006") - and are always visible as full-size text within the body of the article.
    • The user has to remember which pages were cited, while looking up the biblio details.
  • Numbered footnotes. The "base" reference itself contains all the details, and provides a name= for further uses. In books where I cite several sections, some of them several times, I often create a separate "base" reference for each section of 5 to 20 pages covering a coherent sub-topic, for example: separate chapters on Lasker, Capa, Alekhine, etc. in Fine's Great Chess Games; separate sections of Ruppert, Fox & Barnes in Mollusc. The only downside I can see is that one repeats the bibliographic details in each "base" reference for each section. OTOH its advantages are:
    • Using the same scheme for all types of source - book, web, journal, etc.
    • Showing the reader immediately what the source is, who wrote it, its date, the chapter / section and / or pages, etc.
    • Identifiers for different web pages or journal articles by the same author(s) are hidden in the mark-up and can be as long and mnemonic as you like, e.g. <ref name="RuppertFoxBarnes2004MolluscaBivalvia" /> at several points Mollusc tells me exactly what section of that large text book is cited at a specific point.
    • Ref numbers are unobtrusive and are allocated automatically.

I suspect the underlying issue is page numbers. IMO WP's guidelines on this make little sense:

  • Some web pages are pretty long, and most do not contain links to specific sections (like WP's TOC does and the under-used {{anchor}} can).
  • The web versions of journal articles often do not provide internal page numbers or links to specific sections. Some of those that are presented as PDFs provide page numbers that are searchable, but for older articles the so-called PDF is usually just a non-searchable scanned image, so page numbers are little help.
  • Section / chapter names are more helpful if a book has been re-issued or translated.
  • A reader or reviewer with any sense will read the rest of the section / chapter to ensure that the WP article's use of the source is accurate, WP:NPOV, etc.
  • I've had no objections from GA reviewers to referencing sections rather than individual pages in books. --Philcha (talk) 11:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
About the author/date (Harvard) referencing system:
  1. You can put page numbers down in the references (pages=) but that is not the standard
  2. you can use it to refer to websites ("cite web"), but it asks for the author, date, and publisher. The publisher can be left out, but it needs the author and date, and that isn't always available
  3. having the author and date in the text is a big benefit to the readers. Wikipedia is not paper, so the extra space matters little. With the author/date you see right there who said it and when. Who said it may be important and when they said it may be important. If you are familiar with the people and the literature, you know what book it is without going down to the references (e.g. "Fine & Benko 2003"). When you are reading the text, you can easily see that this came from the same source as some previous information or see if it came from a difference source.
For more info see User:Bubba73#Why I like Parenthetical referencing (also known as the author-date system and Harvard Referencing) Bubba73 (talk), 16:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Bubba73, I thought you'd be quick to respond, as I remember a previous discussion (? re Rules of Chess?). "Wikipedia is not paper" cuts both ways: both referencing styles are links to the biblio details, which paper can't do. I suppose the question is how much attention the average reader pays to refs. I suspect very little, as most are to books they don't have or to journals to which they don't have access - I edit scientific articles on WP as well, most journal articles show only the abstract for free, and the abstracts are so condensed that you have to know the subject pretty well already to get any sense at all out of them. To be honest I suspect only reviewers pay much attention, and hence I prefer the least obtrusive system.
How would you handle the situation where several works by the same author in the same year are cited in the same WP article? --Philcha (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
There aren't that many cases in the chess articles where the same author has more than one reference in a year. The only one I can think of off hand is a couple of Kasparov's books. But the standard way is to make them 2009a, 2009b, etc, which isn't that big of a deal in my opinion.
A benefit of the inline author/date is this. Suppose after some text it says "Lasker 1911". Now suppose it says "Schiller 2003". The reader sees that without having to go to the footnotes. See how the author and date conveys important information (about who said it and when)? Bubba73 (talk), 22:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I have a practical question. Often one has information that is not really important enough to put in the text, but deserves to be mentioned somewhere (an example is the details about the qualifications for GM, IM, and FM, which are mentioned in a footnote in George H. D. Gossip). That sort of detail gets put into footnotes. When one has an article with Harvard referencing, that means that you end up with two referencing systems in one article: Harvard referencing and numbered footnotes. Examples of this are List of world records in chess and Zwischenzug, and the GA-rated articles Endgame tablebase and Rules of chess. If one tries to get these articles or other such articles to FA, is the existence of two referencing systems in them going to be a problem? In other words, is there a Wikipedia guideline to the effect that an article should use only one referencing system, not two? Krakatoa (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it is a problem and in fact I intentionally do it that way. I like to put all of the references in author/date (Harvard, parenthetical) style and all "more information" items in footnotes. Then it is easy for the reader to know which is which. I personally think it is worse to put references and "more information" into footnotes. The reader may not be interested in looking up the details of a reference, but is interested in looking at "more information" type footnotes. With the method I prefer, the reader knows that a footnote is always "more information" instead of a citation. Bubba73 (talk), 00:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:REF sort of says "anything goes:" Editors are free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Some examples of common styles include:

  • Putting all references in a single section, "References". This is the simplest and most common approach.
  • Putting linked short citations in a “Notes” or "Footnotes" section, followed by a list of full citations in a “References” section. See, e.g., Starship Troopers.
  • Putting linked comments in a “Notes” section, followed by linked short citations in a “Footnotes” section, followed by a list of full citations in a “References” section. See, e.g., Augustus.
  • Putting linked full citations to inline references in a “Notes” section, followed by a list of full citations to general references in a “References” section. See, e.g., Rosa Parks, or Absinthe, which reverses the order of the sections.
  • Alternatively, particularly for articles with fewer notes and references, an article may have a combined “Notes and references” section.

Note, however, that it recommends combining notes and references only for ones with few notes and references. Bubba73 (talk), 02:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:FOOT says: "Wikipedia footnotes serve two purposes. First, they are used to add material that explains a point in greater detail, particularly if the explanation would be distracting if written out in the main article. Second, they are used to present citations to reliable sources that support assertions in the main article." Of course, I prefer to segregate the two, except for links to games and (usually) to websites. Bubba73 (talk), 02:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Henry Ernest Atkins

Henry Ernest Atkins is rated Start-Class. I've just done a ton of work on it. Anyone want to take a look at re-rating it? Thanks! Krakatoa (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I have reviewed the article and raised it to C-class (a bit harsh, I admit). See my comments on the Talk page. Good job ! SyG (talk) 20:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I certainly agree with the "a bit harsh" characterization. :-) Guess I'll have to beef it up some more. Of course, the last article you harshly rated C-Class was George H. D. Gossip - whereupon, I said, "C-Class?! I'll show him C-Class!" Krakatoa (talk) 03:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, what about now? Now it's got a photo of Atkins, two diagrams, an annotated game annotated from two sources, and a second person saying he would have been a chess god if he'd applied himself to the game. I also think I've also addressed your concerns about organization. And as for his family, I don't know that information about a chess player's family is really necessary for B-Class, but I can't find anything about that. Krakatoa (talk) 06:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh well, if my harshness results in you taking up the article up to FA-class, I am begging for more :-) ! Anyway, thanks for your improvements, I have reassessed the article to B-class. SyG (talk) 08:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Yeah, I was afraid that after my explanation of what happened to the Gossip article, you'd downgrade Atkins to "Stub" just to rile me up. :-) Krakatoa (talk) 10:14, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

A Debate in Paradise

A Debate in Paradise between great players of the past might amuse you. --Philcha (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

GA nomination of chess tournament

Hi all! I was considering nominating the chess tournament article for good article quality, but I just wanted to hear the comments from WikiProject Chess members first. Would the article have a chance of success, or would the nomination be fruitless? Thanks in advance! Arbitrarily0 (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about GA and stuff; others will advise you better on those things, but I would definitely say that you've made a good start! As we don't have articles like chess match or team chess ( - I think!?), it looks like this article shoulders the entire burden for the time being. There are therefore a few areas into which you could consider expanding or increasing the level of detail, but there could be a lot of (rewarding?) work involved;
  • tournament type/range - distinction between individuals, teams - typical number of boards for a team - examples of squad size including reserves, non-playing captains etc. Also correspondence, problem solving competitions
  • entry qualifications - based on rating - ranking (world top 10?) - age - sex - disability (blind) - "stars barred" - "open" etc.
  • entry fees - typical - free to titled players - "conditions" for star players, like free entry and hotel room.
  • frequency - one-off (eg. Queen's Jubilee), annual (eg. Corus) biennial (eg. Olympiad), cyclical - eg. zonal, interzonal, candidates, world ch.
  • themed/commemorative - predetermined start position (eg. see Rice Gambit) / Memorials etc.
  • playing hall conditions - silence observed at all times, anti-cheating etiquette, use of demonstration boards (first use 1886), stage area for leading boards, spectator area, rules on photography, bookstall, commentary room, analysis room etc.
  • specify time limits - commonly used - FIDE standard - classical - rapid - blitz - bullet etc.
  • number of rounds - varies - traditionally 15 , more for national championships (Soviet Ch. - 17?) and other important competitions.
  • adjournment / adjudication - less common now, but very common pre- quickplay finishes.
  • tournament organisers and officials - famous chess personalities - arbiters - FIDE qualifications etc.
  • organising bodies - FIDE - individual federations - PCA, GMA (both now defunct) - ECU - ICC etc.
  • media/reporting - games relayed live around the world via the internet. Round by round bulletins.
  • inclusivity - eg. unlike most sports, the physically handicapped are welcome to compete - blind persons can compete with the sighted or against each other - tournaments/championships for the blind.
  • categories - eg. first cat. 18 at Linares 94. Nowadays cats over 20 are not unheard of.
  • smoking banned - first started about 1976 for major competitions.
  • prizes - monetary - book prizes - norms towards title qualification etc.
As I said, a lot of work ... Brittle heaven (talk) 01:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Brittle Heaven! This is exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. I'll begin work on the article soon. Thanks again, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 01:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Arbitrarily0 ! Sorry I did not answer to your call on my Talk page, I was really, really busy this week. Anyway, Brittle Heaven's are excellent suggestions for improvement, in the direction of covering the full scope. I guess you will need a bit of time to treat that thoroughly. :-) SyG (talk) 19:56, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) I agree on the excellence of Brittle heaven's suggestions. I have some further comments:

  • You need page citations for print sources. You are likely to get hammered on GA review (and I guarantee you will get hammered on FA review, if you want to take it that far) just citing The Oxford Companion to Chess or Sunnuck’s Encyclopaedia of Chess. I have added some page cites to your article.
  • Avoid citations of Internet sources unless you are can establish that they are reliable sources. (Of course every source is supposed to be a reliable source, but in my experience reviewers look at Internet sources with a much more jaundiced eye.) You have a lot of Internet sources, most of which I don't recognize. I can tell you that on FA review of George H. D. Gossip, Internet sources that I consider unquestionably reliable, such as Edward Winter’s Chess Notes and ChessBase.com, were questioned, as was Chessgames.com, which is cited in practically every chess article on Wikipedia, including the Featured Articles. I cited one article that had been given an award that year by the Chess Journalists of America (an Honorable Mention for "Best Historical Article"), and whose author had received numerous other awards for articles on chess history; the FA reviewer still wasn't sure. I know that GA review isn't as exacting, but I still think you will get in trouble, particularly since (at first blush) it doesn’t appear that most of the Internet sources you cite are well-known ones. In a few places in your article, I have substituted unimpeachable print sources (mainly the Oxford Companion) for Internet sources that I'm unfamiliar with.
  • Your history of chess tournaments is very skeletal, and gives the impression that after 1851, chess tournaments just took off. They did not. You list a bunch of chess tournaments that were supposedly held in the 1850s; I'm not sure where they come from (partly since you don't cite page numbers). I have two of the three books you cite - Sunnucks' Encyclopaedia and Whyld's Guinness Chess: The Records - and I don't see them in those books. Reuben Fine in The World's Great Chess Games (Dover), p. 16, claims that there were no tournaments between 1851 and 1857. Sunnucks on page 463 ("Tournaments, International–1851-1949" entry) indeed lists no tournaments between the two London 1851 tournaments (there was a round robin, also won by Anderssen, after the more famous knockout tournament) and the First American Chess Congress in 1857 (which actually was not an international tournament, contrary to Sunnucks' suggestion). (You might want to pick up Fine's book, btw, which is available used starting at $5 including shipping from various sellers listed on amazon.com; it has some interesting stuff about the history of chess tournaments and is a good book to boot. If you don't want to buy it, I can fill in historical details from his book.)
  • Computers - maybe worth mentioning controversy over whether computers should be allowed in predominantly human chess tournaments. Not a controversy any more, I don't think - computers would run away with tournaments if allowed in - but it used to be a hot topic. You say in the lead that computers have played in tournaments since the 1950s?! - that doesn't sound right, and the rest of the article doesn't support that (as it should, since the lead is supposed to summarize the rest of the article).
  • You say, "Top commercial programs such as Shredder or Fritz have even surpassed world champion players at short time controls." Two issues: (1) I’m not sure what this has to do with chess tournaments, since I don’t think they're playing computers in tournaments, but in matches?; (2) The sentence implies that computers haven't surpassed humans at longer time controls, but AFAIK no human has won a match against a leading computer program in the 21st century, and several humans have lost matches (as you'll recall, then-World Champion Vladimir Kramnik lost 4-2 and that was with various limitations being placed on the computer, such as a limited book and limited use of endgame tablebases).
  • You say that the SCCA has given Deep Rybka 3 a 3238 Elo rating. At what time control? Are human and computer Elos commensurable? (I think Jeff Sonas has written ChessBase.com on that subject; see here and here.) If they are, Deep Rybka 3's rating (almost 400 points above Kasparov's record 2851) of course indicates that computer programs are far beyond humans. But again, you don’t tie this in to chess tournaments, which you should do. Did it achieve this rating in tournaments played against other computers, or matches?
  • Some of your subsections have no citations - e.g., "The chess clock", "Irregularities" and others. I would add at least one citation for each paragraph. If every sentence in a paragraph is covered by the same cite, that’s probably OK, but I wouldn’t have any citation-free paragraphs.
  • Special prizes (brilliancy prizes, best game prizes, biggest upset, best swindle, etc.) should be mentioned. According to Whyld in Guinness Chess: The Records, p. 9, the brilliancy prize was introduced at New York 1876. Maybe worth mentioning that there is often controversy over these. George H. D. Gossip at the end discusses the controversial award of the best game prize to Gunsberg for a very humdrum game rather than Gossip for his spectacular win over Showalter. More recently, I know Kasparov complained mightily when Karjakin Radjabov was awarded a prize for a win over Kasparov, despite Karjakin having been lost earlier in the game. I think Savielly Tartakower wrote an article in the 1950s or so in Chess Review saying that brilliancy prizes are a farce and awarded for everything except brilliance, but that might be hard to track down. Tartakower's own game against Maroczy at Teplitz-Schonau 1922 (see also this article), featuring a deep rook sacrifice, which did not win the brilliancy prize only won the Third Brilliancy Prize, is another controversial instance (and surely contributed to his cynicism on the subject). Tartakower wrote: "The judges awarded this game the third brilliancy prize, although a majority of them declared in peremptory fashion that such sacrifices are incalculable in advance in all their ramifications and that, in consequence, they deserve no encouragement." (The above quote is from a commenter on ChessGames.com; I don't know the original source.)
  • You should probably mention something about prizes for different rating categories (Expert, A class, B class, etc.). Maybe you should also make explicit that the World Open, which you mention, has an Open Section in which anyone can participate and such-and-such rating-limited sections, with prizes in each.
  • Maybe it's probably worth mentioning in the text of the article Howard Staunton's book The Chess Tournament? I haven't read it, but I think that it was at least in part intended as kind of a "how-to" book for future tournament organizers? Krakatoa (talk) 10:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, a reference to a page number in an encyclopedia is not necessary if it is the article about the item. Page numbers are there to help you find something in a book, and an encyclopedia does that by the alphabetical list of topics. For instance, if you are referring to the checkmate article in an encyclopedia, I don't think it helps to have the page number, the reader can just look up "checkmate". And then there are no problems with different editions either - any edition of the book will have the checkmate entry, even though it will be on different pages. Bubba73 (talk), 17:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
That may be true if the context makes clear what entry in the encyclopedia you are referring to or (better, I think) you add a parenthetical - e.g., ("chess tournament" entry) - or something of that nature. The article as written makes reference to material, supposedly in books that I own, that I could not find. Krakatoa (talk) 17:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

A few more comments, less thorough than Krakatoa's:

  • The lead defines "chess tournament" but the main text does not - this is forbidden see WP:LEAD.
  • In 1846 Ludwig Bledow proposed an international tournament for the title of world champion, see text & refs at Ludwig Bledow & Howard Staunton.
  • I'd cover formats (knockout etc.) much earlier, possibly as the first section, since the history can then point out that by the time of the London 1862 chess tournament knock-out was discarded and round-robin because the norm for strong tournments - until FIDE changed the format of the Candidates Tournament to a knock-out series of mini-matches after Bobby Fischer's claim that the Soviet players had colluded at Curaçao 1962.
  • As Krakatoa says, it gives the false impression that tournaments took off very fast after 1851. Adolf Anderssen contains a bit more info, with refs. In particular the next international tournament after London 1862 was Paris 1867, then I think Baden 1870, and tournaments really took off in the 1870s - notably the German regional championships, which were open and generally had 2-5 top 10 players, see Adolf Anderssen and the refs there.
  • IIRC all of what is in "Rules" is already in Rules of chess, a GA. I suggest the "Rules" section could be slimmed down.
  • Two pics of tournmants is enough.
  • I don't see how the "A pressure-sensory chess computer" pic is relevant. Was it a serious competitor in its time?
  • "the first international chess tournament was held in single-elimination style.[30] In single-elimination tournaments, the loser of a game is immediately eliminated from winning the first prize" is inaccurate. In London 1851 each round was a mini-match, see London 1851 chess tournament, so "loser of a game is immediately eliminated" does not apply. In fact all the notable knockout tournaments have been series of mini-matches.
  • I see nothing about levels of tournament, e.g. how some tournaments can contribute to a player's qualification for a master / grandmaster title; or the World Chess Championship cycle of tournaments (historically important even if it is not restored once FIDE sorts out the mess); or the growth of "super tournaments" from the late 1980s onwards (and presaged by earlier "super tournaments", e.g Baden 1870, St. Petersburg 1914)
  • Bottom line: I think it's necessary to list (possibly at Talk:Chess tournament) all the things one could say about all aspects of chess tournaments and then grade them, e.g. "essential", "important", "covered elsewhere but needs summary here", "wiki-link", unnecessary". --Philcha (talk) 16:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Castle as synonym of rook

There has been much discussion on the Talk:Rook (chess) page whether "castle" should appear in the lead as a synonym of "rook." It is my view that, although "rook" may be the standard term in the chess world, the term "castle" is a current, standard English synonym and that it is misleading to exclude that fact from the lead. This is supported by the OED and any number of other authoratative sources. Here's the last go-round on this:

The refusal to use the term "castle" in this article is simply wrong. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. Like it or not, the piece is commonly known today as a "castle." For example, OED 2d ed under "Castle, def 9." states: "Chess. One of the pieces, made to represent a castle; also called a ROOK." Denying this is misinformation and a violation of WP:NPOV. Ecphora (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The obsolete names are listed in the lead section. The Oxford American Dictionary says: "informal Chess old-fashioned term for Rook". I'll add that. Bubba73 (talk), 17:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
OK. How about replacing "Although the piece was widely known as the castle in 17th and 18th century England, (Sunnucks 1970) this term is no longer used by chess players (Hooper & Whyld 1992)." with: "Although the piece is informally known as a "castle", chess players refer to is as the "rook" (Hooper & Whyld 1992)"? Ecphora (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The OED (which includes American usage as well) does not indicate that "castle" is obsolete; it's not (even though professionals might not like the word). That term is a flat out synonym of "rook," standardly used and should appear so in the lead in bold. Anything else is misleading. The fact that so many editors have raised this point is significant. Ecphora (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Is the OED2 the most recent edition? I thought there was a newer one. There are a lot of people putting wrong ideas into chess articles, look at the history of rules of chess, for instance. I think the current wording with the footnote explains it. Bubba73 (talk), 18:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I took the exact quote from the OED on line, which is the 2d edition (the latest, with all additional supplements and updated on line quarterly (see http://www.oed.com/pdfs/oed-brochure.pdf). You may need to go through an institution to access it. There is no reason to hide the term in a footnote. The lead could read as follows:
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") or castle is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. "Rook" is the standard term used by contemporary chess players. <FN> In the past the piece was also called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970). Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
Ecphora (talk) 19:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
That would definitely be misleading because Sunnucks has two sentences saying that "castle" was used in the past, and was used in the 17th and 18th centuries, just as the article says. The Oxford Companion has the quoted part about non-players using the term, but a few months ago people objected to the "non-player" part. The encyclopedia by Golombek also says that castle is an old term and has nothing about it being used now, but it is not cited in the article. Bubba73 (talk), 19:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The Official Rules of Chess by Schiller, The US Chess Federation Official Rules of Chess, and Official Chess Handbook by Harkness say nothing about the rook being called a "castle". Bubba73 (talk), 19:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The question in not what term the chess world prefers. My proposed language states that. The question is whether "castle" is a current synonym used by the general population. It is according to (1) the OED on line, (2)The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) (http://www.bartleby.com/61/90/R0299000.html), (3) Encarta ("same as rook") (http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/castle.html}, (4) Mirriam Webster Dictionary (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rook%5B3%5D}, etc. The OED is accepted as the most authorative source on standard English. I see no justification for refusing to acknowlege the fact that "rook" and "tower" are currently synonymous. Ecphora (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
"Rook" and "tower" are not currently synonymous - see the references. At one time the article did say that non-players used that term, but people objected to that. I've given seven reliable sources for what the article currently says. I think the text and footnote are accurate. I think the OED probably copied that from eariler versions without updating it. The New Oxford American Dictionary is based on OED and is from 2005. Do you want to bring it up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess? Bubba73 (talk), 20:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Bubba73, I have never heard "castle" for "rook", whatever the OED says. The chess jargon is apparently not "standard english", as the OED has it wrong here. I think it is just a case where Wikipedia (meaning, us) knows more than the OED, especially as we have ample reliable sources to back that. SyG (talk) 21:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. I, and many other editors, have heard the term so used. (See discussion on Talk:Rook (chess)) But the issue is not what we personally may have heard or seen; it's what the reliable sources state. The OED -- the leading authority on the English language -- as well as any number of other authorities define "castle" as a snyonym of "rook". I have not yet seen a single authority quoted which refutes that. What reliable sources can you cite that the term "castle" is not a current synonym for the general public? Ecphora (talk) 21:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Chess books are more reliable sources for current chess usage than the OED, which simply notes all the recorded uses of a word - my rather old Shorter OED (still 2 fat volumes) has the subtitle "On historical principles". The principle is the same as in e.g. science, where a current specialist book or academic article is more authoritative than the OED. You may occasionally see "castle" listed as a vernacular synomym for "rook" in a beginners' book, but I would be very surprised if anything above beginner level uses "castle" as a noun. --Philcha (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You are no doubt correct, Philcha, that chess books may be more reliable sources for "current chess usage" than general dictionaries. But "chess usage" is not the point here. The question is what does the word "castle" mean to the general public, and so far I see nothing to refute the OED and its kin. Ecphora (talk) 22:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Two books directly address the subject:
Both of these are cited in the rook article. I also consulted
and none of them give "castle" as an alternative.
The article used to quote the Oxford Companion to say that "castle is used by non-players", but people objected to that. I changed it to quote Sunnucks about "castle" being used in the 17th and 18th centuries, but there was an objection to that. I changed it to say that contemporary players call it "rook", but now there is an objection to that. Bubba73 (talk), 23:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Excellent set of sources, Bubba73! --Philcha (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't help to cite a number of books that I don't have. If any of these contains a statement that refutes the OED et al., it would be helpful to quote that in context. The only ones you have quoted thus far, the Oxford Companion ("castle" used by "non-players" -- the majority of people, I might point out) and the New Oxford American ("castle" is informal and "old-fashioned") both support the OED, and Sunnucks' statement (I haven't see the quote and don't know the context) that the piece was "widely known as the castle in 17th and 18th century England" is not inconsistent. I would like to see what specific authority there is that the term "castle" is not a current synonym for "rook" outside the specialized world of chess. Ecphora (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Sunnucks and the Oxford companion both directly contradict the OED on that point, and what NOAD says is above. None of them support OED as "castle" being used now for "rook". Bubba73 (talk), 23:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
A Short History of Chess by Davidson has nothing about a rook being called a castle. Page 18 of 1934 book Lasker's Chess Primer does say "castle or rook", but he never uses "castle" again for rook in the book, so the term must have been pretty much obsolete by 1934. Bubba73 (talk), 00:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
How is "castle is used by non-players" (Oxford Companion) contrary to OED (and many other dictionaries) saying the words are synonyms? Ecphora (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
That wording is a polite way of saying "people who don't know what they are talking about call it a castle". People objected to the article saying that. Bubba73 (talk), 00:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

My exact point. The question, again, is not what chess people or specialists call it, but how it is known by the general population or, "people who don't know what they are talking about", and even then, whether it is simply a synonym (and not even primary name) for "rook". I could cite dozens of websites where the words are defined as synonyms, but I am doubting that would be of any use here. It appears that to the chess world it is simply unthinkable that others could possibly call it a "castle" and the facts, and authorities, will not change that view. Ecphora (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Chaps, I can attest that ordinary occasional chessplayers in the UK almost universally call it a "castle" and think I'm poncey when I call it a Rook. You have RS sufficient to show professional (and perhaps regional) variation. Just reflect it in the Lead. This isn't a chess manual, it's an encyclopedia and needs to reflect the world and its practices, not the elite chess world and its practices. --Dweller (talk) 11:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Dweller, I'm afraid that your attestment is not a reliable source. Using "castle" for "rook" is as wrong as using "horse" for "knight". The bolded terms in the lead need to reflect the correct terms, and when all official rules call the piece a "rook" with no alternative name, then "rook" is the only one which should be bolded. In addition to the US-specific rules cited by Bubba73, we can add the FIDE laws of chess, almost all other countries go by. Former names for the piece are of course OK to mention, but they should not be given equal weight with the contemporary name, since it misleads the reader into thinking the two terms are on equal footing when they are not. The term "castle" has a distinctive meaning in chess, as in the verb "to castle" (see Castling) and mixing that up with the piece is more likely to cause confusion than enlightenment among non-chess players. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments are confused. I'm not discussing what is "correct" but what is "used". It's unarguable that "castle" is widely used. And we have RS to prove it. None of which can be said of using "horse" or "horsey" for knight or "prawn" for "pawn", as was popular at my primary school. And I agree, the text can and should indicate which is correct usage - that is not mutually exclusive to mentioning the alternative term. It just needs to mention both. --Dweller (talk) 11:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we are not all that far apart then. :-) I'm OK with mentioning other words in common use, but they should have nowhere near the same prominence as the correct term which is "rook", which is why I would protest against a lead like the one suggested by Ecphora at 19:20, 27 January 2009. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's a reasonable (and more complex) example of another WikiProject struggling and, IMHO, succeeding in defining and outlining various regional and informal usage of a term: Googly --Dweller (talk) 12:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Following up on Dweller's suggestion, how about this lead:
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Although standard chess usage is "rook", the piece also is popularly called a castle. <FN citing OED and other dictionaries> In the past the piece was also called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970). Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
Ecphora (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
That looks excellent to me. --Dweller (talk) 15:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
(Got an edit conflict, but I like Ecphora's proposed lead although I would not bold "castle". My original ramble follows.) I think Bubba73 and Sjakkalle are correct. Rook (chess) is an encyclopedia article, and as such it must represent standard usage. It appears that "castle" was once considered synonymous with "rook" but it isn't any longer as evidenced by the wording of the Laws of Chess and the fact that "castle" in place of rook never appears in modern (meaning post 1950) chess writing. In fact, it seems it hardly ever appeared in any English-language chess writing at all, at least in the last 150 years. "Castle" is stated to be a synonym of "rook" in several older instructional chess books including the Emanuel Lasker book mentioned by Bubba73 above (this is an English translation from German, but presumably the translator knew what English usage was around 1947 when the translation was done) and also about a hundred years earlier in Howard Staunton's The Chess-Player's Handbook (1847) (this is mentioned in the article). There are a few more we can check: Tarrasch has a translation in Dover reprint, Capablanca has a chess primer that I don't think I have, Reinfeld and Horrowitz wrote many instructional books and Krakatoa must have some of them that he might be kind enough to check for us. It's important to note, however, that Bubba73 correctly points out that even the old books that say that castle is synonymous mention it only once to make that point and then use "rook" exclusively thereafter making the preferred usage clear. On the historical side, HJR Murray's magnum opus A History of Chess (1913) actually has an interesting section on the use of "castle" for rook. Murray writes that they are synonyms but that peak usage of "castle" was in the 18th century and that it seemed to be on the decline. I would say that Murray was right and that modern chess writers do not consider "castle" to be correct current usage, as evidenced by the Oxford Companion to Chess and the Anne Sunnucks reference Bubba73 gave earlier. Murray points out that "rook" is the name derived from the Arabic and Persian, and that "castle" is a European invention found in languages other than English as well and based on the new shape of the piece (presumably easier to carve than a chariot). He also traces the usages through poetry and literature. When I look at the article today I think it actually is pretty good as the rook (chess)#History section describes this briefly, although I should probably add some material from Murray. Quale (talk) 15:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I am new to this controversy, but see that Quale just mentioned me. I am not at home now, but when I am I will check Tarrasch's The Game of Chess, Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals, Reinfeld's The Complete Chess Course, Horowitz's Chess for Beginners, Pritchard's book for beginners, and maybe another book or two (Barden?). I also have Mason's books, but those are about a century old now, so probably not worth consulting if we're debating contemporary usage. Krakatoa (talk) 16:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I had already checked Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca. However, my copy is the recently-revised edition by de Firmian. It does not mention "castle" as an alternative for "rook" at all. However, the original of several decades ago might, so I didn't list the revised edition. Bubba73 (talk), 16:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) It has been proposed that the article cite the sources, yet alter what they say. Here are the exact quotes from Oxford and Sunnucks:

Castle, Tower, Marquess, Rector, and Comes. The term Castle, which was widely used in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was a translation of the German word Turm... ". I am opposed to taking "castle" out of that list. Bubba73 (talk), 17:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

In my last suggested language, I thought it was implicit that "castle" was also used in the past and dropped it, but I have no problem with leaving it in the Sunnucks ref. Ecphora (talk) 17:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

It's important not to get distracted here. It's fine and helpful to look at chess references if they happen to address the question, but the question is not what term is used in chess -- it's established that chess people call it a "rook" -- the question is what words do the general public (which includes the readers of Wikipedia) use. The fact that many chess books may not use the word "castle" does not address the question. As noted by Dweller, "It's unarguable that "castle" is widely used. And we have RS to prove it.". If anyone still has any doubt, look at the following samples:

1. Dictionaries

  • OED 2d ed (on line access, updated quarterly) under "Castle, def. 9."- "Chess. One of the pieces, made to represent a castle; also called a ROOK." n.b. not marked obsolete, archaic, etc.
  • American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2006 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rook) (“A chess piece that may move in a straight line over any number of empty squares in a rank or file. Also called castle.“)
  • Random House Dictionary, 2006, on dictionary.com. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rook) (Rook: “one of two pieces of the same color that may be moved any number of unobstructed squares horizontally or vertically; castle.”)
  • Worldnet3.0, by Princeton University, 2006 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/castle) (Castle: “(chess) the piece that can move any number of unoccupied squares in a direction parallel to the sides of the chessboard”)
  • Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 96 (castle: “a chess piece also called a rook”)(couldn’t read entire entry on line, but I believe this is accurate)
  • New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press (on line access) ("(informal)(Chess) old-fashioned term for rook2")

2. Some refs on games:

  • Oxford World Encyclopedia, (on line access)(under “Chess” - “white's pieces are set out: rook (castle)...”).

3. Miscellaneous

"Castle" thus is a current popular synonym for "rook", even if not so used by chess people. Ecphora (talk) 17:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The general public also has a lot of misconceptions about the rules of chess and we strive to keep those out. Bubba73 (talk), 17:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Bubba, this isn't a question of the rules of chess; it's a question of what words people actually use. Like it or not, people commonly call the piece a "castle" and that is not a "misconception," it's a fact (with extensive RS), which Wikipedia should recognize. Ecphora (talk)
Ecphora, thanks to the marketing efforts of model and poster producers, a lot of the general public think Dimetrodon was a dinosaur. That is both a fact and a misconception. In both cases we report the fact and correct the misconception. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I think we may be at the heart of the problem. It is not incorrect to call a "rook" a "castle", nor would it be incorrect to call it a Tower, a Marquess, a Rector, or a Comes. It's just a name. Not a single source cited above states that it is an incorrect usage. Ecphora (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
You're out of luck, Ecphora. The dictionaries show that "castle" is used as a synomuym for "rook" in chess, but say nothing about its correctness. Reliable sources mentioned above state that this usage is informal or mainly used by non-players. If you cannot produce an opposing source that explicityl says "castle" is used by experienced players and / or significant chess books above beginner level, this discussion is over. --Philcha (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) For editors who don't know the edit history of the rook article, it used to say that inexperienced players sometimes call it a castle, without a reference. People objected to that so it was changed to quote the Oxford Companion to say that non-players sometimes call it a castle. People objected to that so it was changed to quote Sunnucks saying that castle is one of the five old terms for the piece and that it was widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now that is being objected to. If it is changed to say that the general public sometimes calls it a castle, won't that basically get back to versions that have had previous objections? Bubba73 (talk), 18:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that chess people simply cannot imagine that others could or do call the piece a "castle." In light of that and Pilcher's "this discussion is over," I will propose a Request for Comment to get some independent views. Ecphora (talk) 18:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Some more sources, from books aimed at players who are beginners or close to it:
  • Capablanca in Chess Fundamentals (apparently originally published in 1934, the year his preface is dated), consistently refers to the "Rook"; no mention of "Castle"
  • Reuben Fine in Chess the Easy Way (1942) lists the pieces on page 9; he calls it the "Rook"; no mention of "Castle"
  • I.A. Horowitz in Chess for Beginners (originally published in 1950), page 3, calls the piece the "Rook"; no mention of "Castle"
  • D. Brine Pritchard in The Right Way to Play Chess, (8th ed. 1974), page 13, refers to the piece as "[t]he rook, sometimes referred to as the castle"
  • Fred Reinfeld in The Complete Chess Course (originally published in 1953), page 8: "(Some players call the Rook a 'Castle'; but 'Rook' is the proper term.)"
  • Siegbert Tarrasch (1938; translated from original German) in The Game of Chess consistently calls it the "Rook"; no mention of "Castle"
  • Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (originally published in 1966, republished in 1972), said to be the best-selling chess book in history, calls the piece a "Rook" (e.g., pp. 5, 17); no mention of "Castle"
Krakatoa (talk) 22:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC) (last reference added 29 January)
Once again, this is not helpful. There is no debate, at least from me, that chess players do not ordinarily use the term "castle." There also should be no debate at this point that non-players do use that term. The question is simply whether ordinary people's usage of the term "castle" should be recognized in the lead. Ecphora (talk) 22:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

I have some experience of mediating controversies on Wikipedia. Obviously, I can't mediate this one, as I'm involved, but my experience has taught me one thing - where both sides are truly debating in good faith, which is clearly the case here, and where RS can support a multiplicity of views, which is also the case here, the easiest path to consensus is simply to spell out the controversy in the article. And it need not be excessively wordy, but must be well-referenced.

I strongly recommend that you use this as the basis for finding a solution with consensus. --Dweller (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fair to me. How about this--
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was also called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970), and today is still commonly known outside of the chess world as a castle. <FN citing OED and other dictionaries> Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
Ecphora (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Something along those lines seems OK to me. We have something like that in the knight (chess) article, which says that the piece is sometimes informally referred to as a "horse". There is more support for "castle" than there is for "horse". Krakatoa (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
OK. What about the prior reference to non-players:
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was also called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970), and today is still commonly known by non-players as a castle. <FN citing OED and other dictionaries> Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
Ecphora (talk) 23:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm loath to put "castle" in bold, which implies that the two are equally acceptable. Perhaps:
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was also called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970), and today is still often referred to by non-players as a "castle".<FN citing OED and other dictionaries> Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
Krakatoa (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Alternate terms in Wikipedia are commonly bolded. I refer you again to the Googly article. Otherwise, this seems to be heading in the right direction. --Dweller (talk) 11:31, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I can't comment on Googly as I'm not a cricket fan. However "castle" as the name of a piece does not merit equal status with rook, as at least 2 reliable souirces have effectively deprecated it and the piece is hardly ever called "castle" even in books / chapters aimed at total beginners. To even begin to argue against what I've said, you need to produce chess sources that explicitly say that players above beginner level commonly refer to a rook as a "castle". --Philcha (talk) 12:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
<sigh>No I don't. This isn't a chess manual. It's an encyclopedia. Aimed at everyone, whether serious chess players or not. --Dweller (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Alright, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, I took a look at the standard Britannica set. In their Macropedia with in-depth articles, under the sub-heading on "castling" there is a subnote in parentheses that the rook was also formerly called a castle. That is the attention a general-purpose encyclopedia gives the term "castle", which i think illustrates that using the term "castle" for "rook" is not as widespread as you may think. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Is "castle" a synonym of "rook" in chess?

We have reached an impasse on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess‎ page regarding whether the word "castle" is a currently used synonym of the word "rook" and should be mentioned as such in the lead of the article Rook (chess). My view is that, even though chess people may standardly use the word "rook," the general public also commonly uses the term "castle" as a synonym. This is supported by the OED2 on line and many other current dictionaries. Others take the position that in the chess world, the piece is only known as a rook and that it consequenty is "incorrect" or a "misconception" to call it a "castle". There has been much discussion of this, the most recent of which (with extensive citations of references) is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess#Castle as synonym of rook. —Ecphora (via posting script) 19:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Ecphora, it seems you have opened this RfC in the section "Art, architecture, literature and media", but I would suggest to place it in "Society, sports, law, and sex" as well. SyG (talk) 22:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
That's where I initially thought it belonged, but the actual full name of the section is Art, architecture, literature, media, culture, [and] games, which seemed like the right place. I have attempted to add RFCsoc as well. Thanks. Ecphora (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Ecphora's statement above misrepresents the issue. While the statement names one authority (OED) for "castle" as a synomym of "rook", "Others take the position that in the chess world, the piece is only known as a rook" is misleading:
  • It withholds the information that these "others" are reliable sources that specialise in chess
  • It mis-states what they say. They do not say that "in the chess world, the piece is only known as a rook". Anne Sunnucks' Dictionary of Chess (1970) says that the piece was widely known as the castle in 17th and 18th century England, and Hooper & Whyld's Oxford Companion to Chess (second edition, 1992; page 344) says, "In English-speaking countries non-players sometimes call it a castle..." (my emphasis). The Official Rules of Chess by Schiller, The US Chess Federation Official Rules of Chess, and Official Chess Handbook by Harkness say nothing about the rook being called a "castle". Nor does Harry Golombek's The Game of Chess, not even in the "Introduction to the Game" chapter that describes the pieces and their capabilities. Even the New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd edition) says that "castle" is an informal usage and is an "old-fashioned term for rook".
This issue has already been discussed at great length at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess#Castle as synonym of rook. Ecphora started this discussion after failing to persuade anyone at Talk:Rook (chess)#Castle, where Ecphora claimed that "castle" is a "a flat out synonym of "rook," standardly used and should appear so in the lead in bold."
Castle (chess) is a disambiguation page that gives "castle" both as a verb describing a special type of move and as a noun, "The rook itself since it is shaped like a castle. However, this use of the word is no longer used by chess players". So non-players can still find the piece via the search term "castle", but the article should only emphasise "rook" as that is the term they will find used in chess books and articles. --Philcha (talk) 23:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I was hoping to get some new blood into this one. As can be seen above, I have cited no less than 8 major dictionaries, including OED, American Heritage, Random House, Oxford American (and many other authorities), all of which state that "castle" is a synonym of "rook." That fact is irrefutable. The chess players adamantly point out that no chess player ever calls it a "castle" anymore (although they did in the past), which I can accept. For some reason, they want to ban from the page the statement that "castle" is currently a standardly used synonym by those who do not play much chess. This, I cannot understand.Ecphora (talk) 00:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes it is, to ordinary people who don't know about tactics/openings and just move randomly, so it should be mentioned that it is used a lot (even if incorrectly), albeit mainly by people who have never tried to read up on what gambit, King's Indian etc, and the large amount of random lunchtime schoolkids who start up by playing h4/a4 or h6/a6 and then move their rook out. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Once again Ecphora misrepresents the issue. His / her "they want to ban from the page the statement that "castle" is currently a standardly used synonym by those who do not play much chess" (00:02, 29 January 2009) is visibly untrue - see any version of Rook (chess) from 4 September 2008 onwards]. Ecphora has demanded at inordinate length that "castle" be given equal prominence with "rook". That would be a dis-service to readers, as the only name they will find in the majority of English-language chess books and articles is "rook". --Philcha (talk) 07:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Pilcha, stop the "misrepresenation" nonsense. None of the versions you cite state that "castle" is a currently used synonym by non-players. That simple fact should be in the lead. Ecphora (talk) 13:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Ecphora, you know perfectly well that Bubba73 gave you an explanation of the changes in the lead. At some point in the history someone griped because the lead said "castle" was "currently used by non-chess players". I think expect of Wikiproject Chess would be happ yto see the lead contain both "common in the 17th and 18th centuries" and "currently used by non-chess players", to alert readers to the fact that "rook" is the term they need to remember when reading chess books and articles.
Have you given up your aspiration for "castle to have equal billing with rook?
PS you have have never even managed to get my username right. --Philcha (talk) 13:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, Philcha (sorry about the spelling, it was unintentional), let's get this resolved like the professional Wikipedians we are. How about:
A rook (♖ ♜, borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit rath, "chariot") is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was also called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970), and today is still often referred to by non-players as a "castle".<FN citing OED and other dictionaries> Each player starts with two rooks, one in each of the corners nearest their own side.
In the interest of compromise, I'll drop the bold, although I still think that would be preferable. So? Ecphora (talk) 14:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
That looks like exactly my proposal in the previous section? OK with me, obviously. Krakatoa (talk) 14:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Krakatoa. A lead like that, with "castle" in quotes, but not bolded, is acceptable. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

<unindent> Ecphora provided a host of RS above that use the term. --Dweller (talk) 15:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

All WP:RS are not equal, depending on the subject. In science one article by an expert would overrule a host of general-purpose dictionaries. It's the same in chess. As it is a host of RS by experts either deprecate or avoid the noun "castle" as the name of a piece. --Philcha (talk) 16:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
We've discussed that plenty. Do we have consensus now, Philcha? Ecphora (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, provided the citation for ' today is still often referred to by non-players as a "castle"' includes Oxford Companion' as this and not the general dictionaries say "by non-players".
The useful result of this RfC is that we now have a defence against grumbles about either "In the past the piece was also called the .." or "often referred to by non-players as a ...". --Philcha (talk) 17:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
<e/c>No comparison. Science is not popularly indulged in by non scientists in a notable manner. However, chess has an elite and is also played by b/millions of less serious participants in a thoroughly notable manner. It's demonstrable in RS that there's a notable term the sans culottes use that is despised by the chess artistocrats. Look down on it as you may (indeed, I do too) but you cannot deny its existence, it's referenced in RS. Defining the term as unprofessional is 100% acceptable and indeed valuable. Its omission or relegation is unacceptable and a breach of WP:NPOV - your POV being that you are a chess enthusiast. --Dweller (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Dweller, you are treading on thin ice by accusing me of a breach of WP:NPOV. Reliable sources have already been provided for the archaism and "by non-players" aspects. I suggest you examine your own approach, which did not cite any useful sources.
No-one - certainly not me, check what I wrote earlier - denied that the term "castle" is widely used by nonplayers and absolute beginners who may have been taught via an oral tradition. However that does not make the term "castle" correct - no more than the popularity of the notion that Dimetrodon was a dinosaur makes that correct. Irrespective of the subject, expert opinion trumps popular opinion - otherwise we might as well scrap all of WP's policies and let the site become a general forum. --Philcha (talk) 17:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this has served a good purpose, although the effort was immense. We did not (and do not) agree on everything, but I think we have reached an acceptable consensus. I will make the agreed edits soon, assuming that's all right, and we can go on with our lives. Thanks. Ecphora (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Gracias. (I am also removing the RfC tags.) Ecphora (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

List of people who have beaten Garry Kasparov in chess

This article is so poor, I contemplated prodding it. I'm not sure if it's redeemable, but I think it probably is.

Do you think your WikiProject could go through it and hack out the unreferenced material.

I also suggest you remove people who beat him in a simultaneous display and anyone who beat him before he reached a certain point in his career, but you'll know better than me if that's encyclopedic. --Dweller (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs a lot of work. I think List of people who have beaten Bobby Fischer in chess is an excellent example of how this kind of list should be done. Krakatoa (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
In terms of notability, I think that list has some real merit, considering that there is a whole book devoted to games featuring someone beating Garry Kasparov (How to Beat Gary Kasparov, Raymond Keene, 2002), even though Mednis' How to beat Bobby Fischer is more well-known. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Along similar lines, there is a new book coming out next week titled Kasparov: How His Predecessors Misled Him About Chess. It analyzes 70 games he lost. Bubba73 (talk), 17:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, the book seems quite funny. Anyone has read it ? SyG (talk) 23:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
It is scheduled for release next week. Bubba73 (talk), 23:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

chess-stub tag

Is the "chess-stub" tag obsolete? Bubba73 (talk), 18:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it is, just clutter on the page. It is quite obvious when a page is stub or not, and anyway, almost all articles can do with expanding. Since the wikiproject chess is not the only project with such tags, there must be a good reason to have them? But for me, they can go! Voorlandt (talk) 19:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'd say the primary purpose is that an editor may mark a chess stub page with Template:stub. This template's direct use is discouraged, and we are encouraged instead to use more specific stub templates to put the article in more specific stub subcategories (see WP:STUBSORT, some people do this work routinely). Template:chess-stub is a possible target for stub sorting. Without it, they would probably use a games-related stub, but this would still lead to the same clutter. It's pretty clear that people aren't looking through Category:Chess stubs looking for work to do, but that's either a weakness of the chess wikiproject or a sign that the whole idea of tagging stubs might be suspect. 165.189.101.177 (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I ran AWB on some articles yesterday and it removed the chess-stub tags. We do have the Chess Project ratings, which include stub, so I don't see a need for the chess-stub tag. Bubba73 (talk), 21:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Bubba73, what exactly would be the point of a template on stub ? SyG (talk) 23:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed importance chess articles

I got a message that this category was deleted because it is empty. Don't we need it to hold articles that have not yet been assessed? Bubba73 (talk), 23:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

If people add the wikiproject template without specifying the importance, it places that page automatically in this category, so yes we need it! Perhaps some admin can revert this? Voorlandt (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I put a request on the editor that deleted it User:Pascal.Tesson. , but I don't know if they are an admin. (is an admin.) Bubba73 (talk), 01:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I put a request on the page of the admin who deleted it, but no response, and the editor has been on since I posted the message on his talk page. Bubba73 (talk), 05:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I have left another message to User:Pascal.Tesson. Maybe we can let it a couple of days to explain, and then if he does not answer we can always re-create the category ourselves. SyG (talk) 12:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
The admin replied to me:

Hello. What I deleted is the category Category:Unassessed importance chess articles which isn't used anymore. The whole thing was moved to Category:Unknown-importance chess articles about two years ago and the "Unassessed" became a cat redirect. All the relevant templates have been updated so there's no need to keep the deprecated category around. I'm not sure if these explanations are clear but let me know if you have questions.

. Is he right in that we don't need the one he deleted? Bubba73 (talk), 16:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes. SunCreator (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
For reference used importance Categories here Category:Chess articles by importance SunCreator (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi SunCreator ! It's good to see you back from time to time :-) SyG (talk) 21:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

project tag on redirects

Two articles (Ed Trice and Checkers chess) have just been merged into other articles. However, the old discussion pages and they contain the chess project tags. Should these tags be removed from pages that are now redirect pages? Also, should they be removed from list of chess topics? Bubba73 (talk), 21:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

In the past, I have always removed those templates from new redirects. I think it is the right way to do. And I also remove them from the list of chess topics (so that there is a 1-1 correspondence between articles in the category chess (recursive), articles having the template, and articles on the list -- every now and then I use the list comparer of AWB to check this). Voorlandt (talk) 21:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Arena

I've added Arena (chess), a frontend for chess engines. Could someone add a screenshot, please? Thanks. --Roland2 (talk) 09:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Who Do You Love? (2008 film)

Why is Who Do You Love? (2008 film) part of WP:CHESS (i.e., tagged on its talk page and included on List of chess topics)? Chess Records is named for Phil Chess, a person, not the game of chess. 165.189.101.177 (talk) 20:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You are right, I will remove it. SyG (talk) 20:58, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Non-notable replies to Bird's Opening?

On the talk page for Bird's Opening, I have questioned whether the offbeat replies 1...g5 (the "Hobbs Gambit"), 1...h6, and 1...Nh6, all discussed in the Bird's article, are (a) notable and (b) supported by reliable sources. Thoughts? Krakatoa (talk) 18:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If it's unsourced, I say drop the hammer on it. We have too much unsourced junk in chess opening articles as it is. In fact I would remove on any material sourced only to a GeoCities page (including Wall, who is good, but geocities is simply not a WP:RS) or similar blog-like sites, and I would also remove most material sourced only to Schiller (e.g., "Reagan Attack"). Quale (talk) 19:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Featured Articles

I see that Toa Payoh ritual murders has somehow gone from being promoted to FA on January 10 to being front-paged on February 9. Anyone suppose that there's any chance of getting First-move advantage in chess or George H. D. Gossip (the two chess FAs that have never been front-paged) front-paged anytime? Gossip died on May 11, if that helps as a tie-in. Krakatoa (talk) 03:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not know, I have never tried. For First-move advantage in chess I would suggest to wait that one year has passed since its FA-rating, as then it will have slightly more chance to pass. SyG (talk) 15:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Listing Native Countries in tournaments

Recently, I saw that players' native countries were listed in the tournament table at Dallas 1957 chess tournament. Thinking this was a bit strange, I removed them, with the comment "remove native countries. Unless this was a special feature of the tournament, there is no need to list these." However the user has continued to add them at other tournaments, e.g. Nottingham 1936 chess tournament, London 1883 chess tournament and London 1899 chess tournament. Rather than continually revert someone else's hard work, I seek opinions on whether these should be listed. My opinion is that we should not, because they almost never are when sporting events (of any type) are covered (in any media, not just Wikipedia). Peter Ballard (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Confusing and completely unnecessary, in my opinion. Seeing Botvinnik with a Finnish flag against him, for example, strikes me as very odd (personally I think we should not display flags at all, but that's a different debate I guess).--Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Not to mention that Nottingham 1936 chess tournament treats New York and North Holland as countries :-)   Philcha (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
The cross-table in the tournament book of Nottingham 1936 (Dover, 1962; reprint of original 1937 edition), p. 289, lists the players' countries. The four bottom finishers are listed as "B.C.F." (British Chess Federation), so Great Britain's flag is appropriate, I would think. The others are Botvinnik USSR, Capablanca Cuba, Euwe Holland, Fine and Reshevsky USA, Alekhine France, Flohr Czechoslovakia, Lasker USSR (! - he had just fled Germany), Vidmar Yugoslavia, Bogoljuboff Germany, and Tartakover Poland. Krakatoa (talk) 16:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

There is an issue to consider. Of course, term "native" has several meanings. I agree with Brittle heaven (talk) that the English language is so duplicitous - states within a state, - counties within countries -. I use term "Native Country" in several variations (independent states, republics within a state, states within a state, counties within countries, etc.). For example, De Vere (Scotland), Burn (England), Marshall (New York), Mieses (Saxony), Alekhine (Russia), Bogoljubov (Ukraine), Najdorf (Poland).

I have added "Native Country" (synonyms: Birthplace, Country of Origin, Native Land, etc.) into several crosstables, mostly for the period from 1850 to 1914. It is important especially for people from Eastern and Central Europe who were born and lived in their countries occupied by empires (Russian, German, Austrian, Ottoman). For example such persons as Nimzowitsch, Rubinstein, Winawer (Russia), Steinitz, Vidmar, Reti (Austria), etc. So, there is need to list players' native countries .

In my opinion, it is always better to have more information than less information. --Mibelz (talk) 13:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I think politics is "duplicitous" in any language :-) Philcha (talk) 14:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I use "Native Country" as a geographical term (Birthplace, Country of Birth, etc,) but not ethnic identity. From the other side, New York (State not City) is a state (country) within the United States (country). It is a different level of the category. --Mibelz (talk) 11:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Items in tables need to be simple. Your last comment shows that "country" is not at all simple. --Philcha (talk) 11:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, in tables (e.g. tournaments in the 19th century and early years of the 20th century) there are "State" (e.g. Russian Empire, German Empire, Austria-Hungary, United Kingdom) and "Native Country" (Lithuania, Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, Hungary, England, Scotland, etc.). Maybe, it is better to use term "Country of Birth" than "Native Country" in that case.

There are such categories as British chess players and English chess players. It is a typical example of a different level of the category. By the way, does anybody know why Jacques Mieses is an English player, and Johannes Zukertort a British player, both immigrants from Germany?

I think we - members of Wiki ProjectChess - ought to be flexible and reasonable. Shalom, --Mibelz (talk) 12:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe that it is a long-standing practice that each player in an international tournament plays under the flag of a country. (For example, the cross-table in the tournament book of Hastings 1895, p. 343, lists the "Country Represented" for each player.) FIDE lists the ratings of every single player under the name of a country. I believe that Korchnoi was for a time "stateless" after his defection from the then-USSR, but the vast majority of the time this is not a difficult or controversial thing to ascertain. I think that the person's country is something that is traditionally recognized, adds color (literally) to the cross-table, and may be of interest to the reader, so it is an appropriate thing to include. Maybe there should be no countries and we should all be citizens of the world, but unless such time as that is realized, it should be permissible to list players' countries. Krakatoa (talk) 16:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
If it's better to have more information than less information, then let's put in the players' home towns, ages, religions, wife's names etc. etc. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
At international tournaments, each player commonly has a flag next to him/herself indicating his/her nationality. When placards advising spectators "I am a Zoroastrian" and "My wife is named Ethel" become the norm, maybe we ought to feature that information in cross-tables, too. Krakatoa (talk) 07:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
As Mibelz is aware from my recent discussion with him, I sometimes struggle to understand the worth of this second column in the crosstables, particularly when it causes page width problems. The first use of this second column in the Mar del Plata 1941 chess tournament crosstable seemed a reasonable way to help tell the news story of the day ... many of the world's best players stranded/exiled from their homeland and needing to choose a new country, or more to the point, turn their back on an old one. However, in some of the tables since, I see less compelling arguments for its use. It seems an incongruous place to try to summarise all such political upheavals of the time and there are the inconsistencies / misnomers that we have all noticed, like calling a 'US State' a 'country'. I also agree that the 'Botvinnik born in Finland' entry feels awkward; similarly, for George Alan Thomas at Nottingham 1936 chess tournament we get 'UK/Turkey', when 'England' would be more appropriate, given that he lived there most of his life and it was the country he represented in chess and other sports. Mibelz is correct in that we have an inconsistency with the use of Cat: British chess players and Cat: English chess players, but this 'two tier' approach was agreed on these Talk pages, to tackle the issue of unknown residence within the UK. Only when we knew where the player had settled (beyond doubt) was it possible to use English, Scottish etc. No doubt some of them could be improved on. Returning to the main point, if it is considered important and relevant to describe the political changes of the period as a backdrop to the chess, helping to set the context, then I see no harm in this - Burgess does it in one of his books. I just think that it might be better done in the prose, away from the crosstable, as was done at 8th Chess Olympiad quite successfully. Brittle heaven (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I think that the native country doesn't need to be there, except that it is interesting in Mar del Plata 1941. If the reader wants to know that, he can go to the articles about the players. Bubba73 (talk), 02:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Krakatoa and with Bubba73. Chess tournaments are sporting events, and it is customary in international sporting events to report the players' nationalities. It is not customary to report on the players' native countries. This is important information, but it is almost always completely irrelevant to the tournament and to the crosstable. Bubba73 points out the excellent counterexample, Mar del Plata 1941, but as he notes this is an exceptional case. We do have a good and appropriate place in wikipedia for native country information—the player bio—linked in the crosstable and only one click away. Finally, we should follow the examples of the way that crosstables are normally presented in our sources. The single best source of recent crosstables that I know of is TWIC, and those crosstables always include nationality for international tournaments. The same with chessbase.com. I have never seen "native country" in any crosstable outside of the ones that have recently been added to wikipedia. We should not invent new usage, but should instead follow the lead provided by our sources. WP:UNDUE may apply to the attempt to shoehorn native country into our crosstables. Quale (talk) 08:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
It is a pity, that Peter Ballard (talk) tries to solve this issue by Reductio ad absurdum. We are talking only about players' countries! It is important, especially for the pre-war (World War I) period, when most of European countries were parts of three states: Russian Empire, German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire. Mibelz (talk) 12:55, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
PS. In the 20th century, the same case for the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia.
I don't think it's reductio ad absurdum. We just have a hard time understanding why this information is more relevant than, say, the players' ages. Also, as noted, there's a huge POV potential in what is and isn't a country. (U.S. states? When have they ever been called countries?) Plus it takes much care to get the flags right. London 1883 chess tournament even gets some flags in the "State" column wrong by using {{flag|United States}} instead of the correct {{flag|United States|1877}}. —JAO • T • C 14:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
To clarify my prior remarks, I think that putting in two flags (country of birth and present country) is generally overkill, Mar del Plata 1941 being a rare exception. I agree with Quale's analysis. Krakatoa (talk) 18:24, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
The "native country" info is not without interest, but a crosstable is the wrong place for it. As Quale points out, it's there in the players bio articles if a reader wishes to know more details. Putting in a whole extra column is cumbersome and most of the time, overkill. --Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

It is a question: "What an exceptional case is?" Krakatoa (talk) have just written (my recent discussion with him): The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), p. 448, calls him (Szymon Winawer) a "Polish player". Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, p. 343, calls him, "A Polish master, born in Warsaw." Arpad Elo's book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, p. 196, gives his "Country of Birth/Residence" as "Poland" (i.e., he both was born and resided in Poland, unlike, say, Johannes Zukertort, who is listed as "Poland/England").

Is the period from 1851 to 1914 an exceptional case? If not, such players, for example, as Winawer or Rubinstein were ... Russians. In my opinion, extra column is not overkill. --Mibelz (talk) 18:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mibelz. Thanks for your work on the chess tournament articles and also on chess bios, they are a great help in "building the web". Although I think I understand in general the reason why someone might be in favor of including extra information in the crosstables about the players' origins, I don't think I understand your specific argument here. Winawer was Polish and I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue otherwise. I think that's what our pages say, but if not, they should be corrected. If we have need to use a flag for Winawer's nationality then we might need the help of someone who knows what would be appropriate for that time period (such as yourself). I've never heard anyone suggest that Winawer was Russian and I do not know of any WP:RS reliable source that identifies him as Russian. Ultimately I don't care about any argument about when and where he was born, because we don't decide these matters. It's a waste of time to try to over analyze this ourselves—just look to the sources. On a somewhat related note, I think you have written elsewhere that Edward Lasker was Polish. I don't agree with this at all. Lasker's parents were German, he identified himself as German, and again I don't know of any reliable sources that indicate anything other than German/American. (That the Lasker page is currently in Category:Polish chess players is a mistake.) This entire argument shows why putting native country in the narrow confines of a table entry is problematic. In the best cases, the information is merely irrelevant and violates the prohibition against undue weight (e.g., Yasser Seirawan and Syria, Irina Krush and Ukraine). In the difficult cases more explanation is required than is practical in a table. The correct place for this is in the player bio, where we can give a full and nuanced treatment in the appropriate context. (This is the place that more information is better—given the appropriate weight and in the appropriate context.) Finally I still have to ask: do you know of any other sources that present crosstables including "native country"? If not, I think that is a very strong negative indication. Quale (talk) 20:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Quale and Pawnkingthree. I also appreciate Mibelz's work on chess tournament articles and biographies, but two columns indeed gives undue weight to nationality. I feel sensory overload when I look at the two sets of flags at Vienna 1882 chess tournament - the flags assume more significance than the minor matter of how the players performed in the tournament. Mar del Plata 1941 was an exceptional tournament because so many of the players had been dislocated by the war. I think that there should be very few, if any, other tournaments that warrant two-flag treatment.
As for the nationalities of Edward Lasker and Rubinstein, Edward Lasker certainly should be considered a German-American, for the reasons Quale gave. Reading Lasker's book Chess Secrets it is readily apparent that he considered himself to have grown up as a German, and The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), p. 217, for example, calls him a "German-born American player and author". As for Rubinstein, sources such as the Oxford Companion and Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess say that he was born in Stawiski, a Polish border town then in Russia, but moved to Łódź, Poland, at about age 19, which coincided with the beginning of his chess career. The tournament book of London 1922 identifies his country as "Poland". (The St. Petersburg 1914 tournament book seems to be silent on the matter.) He played for the Polish Olympiad team in 1930 and 1931. Based on this, it seems correct to designate his nationality as Polish, not Russian. Krakatoa (talk) 21:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
My opinion now is that Mar del Plata 1941 should not even have the extra column of country/flags. That can be discussed in the text. Bubba73 (talk), 00:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear Collegues,

After Napoleon's fall, the entire territory of the Poland was finally divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Russia took control over most of the Duchy of Warsaw (so called Congress Poland), Prussia took a part of the Duchy of Warsaw – Greater Poland (Provinz Posen), and Austria – Galicia and next Free City of Cracow. It is no doubt that regions of Greater Poland (Province of Posen) , Lesser Poland (Galicia (Central Europe)/Western Galicia) and Kingdom of Poland (Russian: Priwislanskij Kraj) are Poland.

The Category:Polish chess players includes persons who were born in Poland and began playing chess in Poland. There are such chess masters as Jean Taubenhaus (Warsaw), Samuel Rosenthal (Suwałki), Akiba Rubinstein (Stawiski), Samuel Reshevsky (Ozorków), Samuel Factor (Lodz), Johannes Zukertort (Lublin) – Russian Empire, Arthur Dunkelblum (Cracow), Max Judd (Tenczynek), Salo Landau (Bochnia) – Austrian Empire, Paul Saladin Leonhardt (Posen), Edward Lasker (Kempen) – German Empire.

All of them were Polish Jews who were born in Poland. So, there is not essential difference between, for example, Edward Lasker, Samuel Reshevsky and Max Judd.

From the other side, some wikipedists, especially Russian ones, try to remove such countries as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Bohemia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, etc., for the period 1815-1914, as an anachronism (?!). In that case, I have entered an extra column into crosstables.

--Warm regards, Mibelz (talk) 16:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I have (naively, it seems) regarded the matter of whether to put the participants' flags into tournament cross-tables as a minor matter - IMO, the flags add color and may be of interest to the reader, so why not put them in? But I would not regard it as a tragedy if they were omitted. It should not be a big deal either way.
I do not think, however, that the inclusion of flags should be used as a means to push someone's POV, specifically the notion that a particular country has been screwed over (to use the vernacular) by other countries. Articles on chess tournaments should be articles on chess tournaments, not polemics on the injustices done to a certain country by other countries.
As I have said before, I regard the inclusion of two columns of flags as distracting and (as Quale has said) giving undue weight to the players' nationalities. I would be fine with one column of flags and, in the perhaps unique case of Mar del Plata 1941, two columns of flags. If the choice is between two columns and zero columns, I would definitely go with zero. If the inclusion of flags leads to great controversy as to what nationality certain players "really" belong to, I think flags should be omitted altogether. To reiterate: these are articles about chess tournaments, not about the injustice claimed to have been done to one country by another country or countries. Krakatoa (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I agree with everything in Krakatoa's response. My longer original response follows.
First, the intent of Category:Chess players by nationality is just what it says—to categorize players by their nationality, not their birthplace. (Birthplace categorization can be found at Category:People by country and city, and it is a consensus at WP:CAT that birthplace intersection categories are not appropriate, for example "Chess players born in Poland".) Birthplace can be indicative or suggestive of nationality, but it is not determinative or else John McCain might be considered Panamanian. This is especially true for Eastern Europe in the period in question. Determining the appropriate nationality in cases like these can be difficult, which is precisely why we do not engage in guess work or original research to make these decisions, but instead look to what reliable sources have to say on the matter. In some cases such as Nicolaus Copernicus the arguments about nationality are essentially intractable, but fortunately these do not seem to come up as often chess. According to our sources, Edward Lasker was a German who was born to a German family in Poland, which is something that I understand was not uncommon in that era. Do you have a reliable source that says Lasker was Polish?
No one I know has claimed that Rubinstein was not a Pole, so I really don't understand why you keep on about this—who are you arguing against? (In the same way, I have never seen any claim that Reshevsky was not Polish either.) You asked Krakatoa and he showed you that sources say Rubinstein was Polish. This is why Lasker and Rubinstein are not comparable, since our sources say Lasker was German and Rubinstein was Polish. Also I am not familiar with anyone who has tried to remove the Baltic and Slavic countries from wikipedia's chess articles in cases where their use would be appropriate. If you have specific examples, please point them out. The squabbles I have seen usually involve trying to classify Kasparov as Armenian and the like. Finally, you have never answered my question: do you have any sources that give "native country" in tournament crosstables? I suspect the answer is that no one does this except you, which means that this experiment is probably not appropriate for wikipedia.
Crosstables in our sources frequently list the players' nationality, but it is always their nationality at the time of the tournament in question. For Steinitz this could be any of Bohemia, England, or the US at different points of his career, but it would always be only one of them at a time. I had a discussion on a matter like this concerning Roman Dzindzichashvili and Lone Pine International 1980 when he was apparently still an Israeli citizen even he had moved to the US the year before. The strangest case in my opinion is Nottingham 1936 chess tournament where we (correctly, I believe) have Emanuel Lasker identified with the Soviet Union. Quale (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Re Emanuel Lasker: yes, as I said above, the cross-table in the Nottingham 1936 tournament book (Dover, 1962; reprint of original 1937 edition), p. 289, lists the country of Lasker (who had recently fled Germany) as the USSR, which is where he lived from 1935-37. (Nottingham was his last tournament. He moved to the U.S. in 1937 and died in New York in 1941, so alas there are no cross-tables giving his country as "United States".) Krakatoa (talk) 20:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi Quale! Emanuel Lasker is identified with the Soviet Union in the Nottingham 1936 chess tournament. In the USSR Lasker renounced his German citizenship (then Germany Nazi Germany) and received Soviet citizenship in 1935. So, it is a sense, in my opinion, to present Lasker with  Soviet Union /  Germany at Nottingham 1936. The next year, he moved to the U.S.

Flags in all crosstables are connected with a year in which a tournament was held. So, Steinitz is identified with several flags:  Bohemia,  Austria-Hungary,  United Kingdom, and  United States in different years and tournaments, as well as Dzindzichashvili -  Georgia,  Soviet Union,  Israel, and  United States. By the way, Dzindzichashvili became an American citizen after the 1980 Lone Pine International. Mibelz (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

PS. I have just removed the column "Country of Birth" from the crosstables.

As I've said, the tournament book identifies Lasker's country as being the USSR. In addition, you say that he received Soviet citizenship and renounced his German citizenship. As such, it is not at all appropriate to list him as Soviet/German. He should just be listed as Soviet. Krakatoa (talk) 21:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, Soviet is not a nationality but citizenship. It is a good question: "What is more important: citizenship or nationality?" It is probably both (for example, Winawer, Rubinstein, Duras, or Nimzowitsch in the pre-war period - before 1914). --Mibelz (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Edward Lasker was a Jewish chess master (see, Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 5 (Keter, Jerusalem, 1972, pp. 401-410) or The Jewish Lists, by Martin Greenberg (Schocken, New York, 1979, pp. 210-214, http://www.jinfo.org/Chess_Players.html) born in Greater Poland (then occupied by Prussia/Germany). So, he was a Polish Jew, as well as, for example, Rubinstein (born in Congress Poland, then occupied by Russia) or Landau (born in Lesser Poland, then occupied by Austria). For me, all Jewish people born in Poland are Polish nationality. From other side, Edward Lasker, a far cousin of Emanuel Lasker, was also German Jew. Well, Ed Lasker, like Copernicus, was both German and Polish. --Shalom, Mibelz (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
"For me, all Jewish people born in Poland are Polish nationality." That's the point: your opinion is not determinative. Nor is mine, nor Quale's, etc. Original sources are what determine what flag someone should be associated with. Edward Lasker thought he was a German-American, and so do the sources (e.g., The Oxford Companion to Chess), so we don't get to decide that he was really Polish. The tournament book of Nottingham 1936 says Emanuel Lasker's country at that time was the USSR. We don't get to decide that he really ought to still be associated in part with the flag of Germany, despite (by your account; I'm not sure what your source is) having become a Soviet citizen and having renounced German citizenship. Krakatoa (talk) 05:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I see from the Emanuel Lasker article that the source for the proposition that by the time of Nottingham 1936 Lasker had become a Soviet citizen and renounced his prior German citizenship is Litmanowicz, Władysław & Giżycki, Jerzy (1986, 1987), Szachy od A do Z, Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka Warszawa. ISBN 83-217-2481-7 (1. A-M), ISBN 83-217-2745-x Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: invalid character (2. N-Z). In light of the tournament book and that, I've changed Lasker's flag in the Nottingham 1936 chess tournament article to solely that of the USSR. Krakatoa (talk) 05:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
"Edward Lasker was a Jewish chess master ..." – OK, I believe this is correct and that there are sources that confirm this, "born in Greater Poland ..." – right, I don't think there's any controversy about his birthplace, "So, he was a Polish Jew" – no, that does not follow. He was a German Jew born in Poland. Birthplace simply does not determine nationality. "For me, all Jewish people born in Poland are Polish nationality" – that's the problem. To repeat what Krakatoa wrote, it doesn't matter that you consider Ed Lasker to be Polish and it doesn't matter that Krakatoa and I consider him to be German. The deciding factor for Wikipedia not what editors think but rather what reliable sources say. (If you think about this the insistence on reliable sources is absolutely necessary or else disputes over facts could never be resolved.) All the reliable sources I have seen say that Ed Lasker was German-American. Your claim that all Jews born in Poland were Polish despite sources to the contrary is an example of original research and synthesis: "Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not in any of the sources." Quale (talk) 05:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
First of all, the best sources on Jewish chess players are Jewish authors! Of course, I am not "the alpha and the omega". Mibelz (talk) 09:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

My take on this is that a tournament table should not contain information about the players but only about their participation in the tournament. Do they play under a certain name? Yes, certainly. Include that. Do they represent a national federation? Often, yes. Then include that. Do they play under a certain flag? Often, yes. Then include that. But don't include purely biographical information that's irrelevant to the tournament at hand, such as place or date of birth, sex, native language, etc. We don't do that in sport, so why should we in chess? I'm not saying that it's uninteresting, just that there's a right place for it. —JAO • T • C 06:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should include the flags, because on the actual crosstables from the tournament they do, and they also do on the crosstables published to the internet by FIDE or USCF. GBizzle (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Do they include the country of their birth? I don't think so. Bubba73 (talk), 18:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
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