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Chess openings: thread 1

I've recently been involved in some AfD's that have brought up game guides as a reason for deletion. Now me, I think a lot of the things that are considered game guides by people are a bit odd, and in my seeking for what articles are in Wikipedia, I came across Category:Chess openings and found it has over a hundred entries.

Many of them are unsourced, though I'm sure there are sources, so I don't object to that. But what arguments do you have for them being encyclopedic content? List of chess openings I get, but does Ruy Lopez's chess openings really deserve 18 individual entries?

Now I hope I'm not interpreted as trying to make a WP:POINT or being disruptive. That's why I'm not Proding or Afding anything, but I am seeking some information as to why people believe so many of these articles exist, or should exist. Anyway, hoping to see some thoughts here. FrozenPurpleCube 18:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

You make some good points. (Yes, there are sources for all of that.) Several small artiles were recently deleted or merged. It is a balancing act, I guess. Some people want an entry for each of the 500 ECO codes List of chess openings. The theory of the Ruy Lopez opening is far more extensive than when he played it, it is one of the most extensive in terms of theory. However, many of the subvariations have only one or two paragraphs in their articles. These could easily be merged into the main Ruy Lopez artice. On the other hand, there are other Ruy Lopez articles that are large enough to stand by themselves, and merging them into the main article would make the main article too long. Bubba73 (talk), 18:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

But is there even a good argument on the Ruy Lopez having as much content as it does? I'm sure it's all fine and valid, and would be great in an encyclopedia or other book on Chess, and seems to exist with enough notability to have an article on its own, but is it not perhaps a little too much technical detail? The history and basics are fine, but all of those variations? And over a dozen more articles with other variations? (Some of which may duplicate information, I must confess to not knowing, but I am concerned with the possibility). FrozenPurpleCube 18:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well as I said, there is a lot of theory and practice for the Ruy Lopez. My guess that it is third behind the Sicilian defense and the Queen's Gambit. Bubba73 (talk), 21:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That explains one article. Now you've got another 17 to explain. Plus the content of the main article, which IMHO, goes into far too much detail. FrozenPurpleCube 00:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I have two arguments for the openings in this case: 1) "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. This means that there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover (...)." (WP:NOT). 2) "A subject is notable if has been documented in multiple, non-trivial, independent, published sources" (WP:N) - which is true about all the main variations of chess openings. Amazon.com has currently about 20 books about Ruy Lopez and/or its sub-variations, and there are many more articles in chess journals, websites and books in languages other than English. --Ioannes Pragensis 19:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

OTOH, WP:NOT is also "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and several of the articles on chess openings may well be taken as instruction manuals. Most of them are nothing more than a description of the moves, without even the content of the Ruy Lopez to even bring some historical interest. For example, Lopez Opening. It's sourced, and presumably fine for a book on Chess, but what does it offer the casual reader? Same with say Chigorin Defense. Then there are unsourced examples like Napoleon Opening, Hamppe-Muzio Gambit or Fred defence (which I'm hoping is somebody's hoax, but I don't know enough to say for sure). But now that I think of WP:NOT again, there's also "Wikipedia is not a directory" which could well be taken to include the ECO lists. The concept of the list itself is article-worthy, but how is the list itself anything but the equivalent to a phone directory? Shouldn't it be left as an external link? FrozenPurpleCube 20:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Many of these articles need to be expanded, but I don't think they are an "indiscriminate collection of information". I wouldn't delete any of them (assuming Fred Defense is for real), but I would merge some of them. Bubba73 (talk), 21:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The articles are not written for a "casual reader" (nothing exceptional - the same is true for e.g. article about ω-consistent theory). But for a chess amateur with Elo somewhere between 1400 and 1900, such article can be quite useful, if properly written, sourced and enhanced by external links. The real problem is that many of the opening articles are poorly written or stubs. But again, this is not exceptional here - many articles about movies, cities or videogames are similar. BTW, thanks for the link to Fred defence. I've already PRODed it.--Ioannes Pragensis 21:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Being a stub is one thing, but my problem is the absence of even a hint of potential beyond the content already there. Being something only a person who already has a an expertise in the subject can understand is another problem, frankly, as someone who has a minimal understanding of Chess, I look at most of these openings and am simply befuddled. May be worth looking at WP:TPA. In some subjects, like in math, it may be unavoidable at some levels, but I'm not convinced that so many expert-level articles is appropriate for Chess. At least, not on Wikipedia. WikiChess, maybe. Anyway, happy to point out the Fred defence for you, and I hope maybe this gives you something to think about. Perhaps it might be worth establishing an essay or guideline to shape these articles. I really don't think 100+ articles is appropriate. FrozenPurpleCube 22:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

For your information, expert level in chess starts somewhere about Elo 2100. People between 1400 and 1900 are amateurs, and according to my raw estimation, there may be about 200,000 such club-level players in English speaking countries only. So the articles are not as esoteric as you think. Real expert level writing about openings takes books and not short WP articles.--Ioannes Pragensis 22:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, you may be right, as Elo ratings is not a subject I know anything more than what it is. I don't profess to understand it. Certainly reading the article didn't help increase my understanding. Anyway my comments are not based on your reasoning, but my own perspective. And in that perspective, I consider most of the chess openings to require a fair degree of expertise to understand. This may not be an Elo expert, but as far as I'm concerned, to a layman in chess, such as me, they really go right past my head. Now that may be unavoidable to a certain extent, but it should certainly be recognized, and if at all possible avoided. FrozenPurpleCube 23:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with I.P. These articles are far below the expert level. In fact, I would say that they are below the level of most books aimed at amateurs. Bubba73 (talk), 23:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

To you, yes, they may seem simple, or even below the level of books aimed at amateurs, but as a person who is if not an expert in the subject, I find them highly complicated and technical, often with only the barest whiff of relatable content (or even less than that in some cases). Obviously, it's a question of perspective here. Mine is different from yours, and if you don't even see where I'm coming from, I'm not sure how to address that. Though come to think of it, frankly 200,000 people out of 350-odd million is a pretty small number. Yes, I'm sure you could come up with a book on this subject, but that doesn't mean a shorter article on the same subject can't be written at too expert a level. FrozenPurpleCube 00:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There have been many times that I have read something in an encyclopedia that I didn't understand immediately. But usually I came to understand it. A person wanting to know more about chess could read these articles and learn from them. There are quite a few chess articles on WP, and if a person doesn't understand some of the technical stuff, that is probably covered in other chess articles. See list of chess topics for a nearly-complete list.

P.S. - about the 200,000 players - I think he is talking about players in the 1400-1900 range. These people play organized chess. There are many more than that who play chess, but not in any club, and are generally below that playing level. They could learn something from these articles too. Bubba73 (talk), 14:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

(responding to whole thing unindented)Yes, I know there are quite a few chess articles. That's part of my concern. A lot of them could well be redundant or excessively specific. (BTW, I think list of chess topics needs to be organized in something other than an alphabetical. I'll throw a tag on it). This isn't about immediate understanding, this is about complete befuddlement that would require extensive education on my part to understand. I don't mean I'd have to look at a few other things first. I mean hours of learning and study. When I look at many of those articles, they really do blow past my mind.

And for the numbers, you'd have to assume for each of those 200,000 players, that there was at least 5 people who could also understand/benefit from the article to reach a million. Not that I'm saying a million is a benchmark, I'm just trying to explain why your reasoning doesn't really convince me. This isn't to say there isn't a place for this information, just that I think it's at a bit too advanced a level. Yet there doesn't even seem to be a recognition on your part about that. This is like one of those scenes where the highly educated and advanced guy comes across a problem that is beyond everybody else in the room, say "Oh this is simple" and proceeds with a 20-step process that leaves everybody else still confused. FrozenPurpleCube 16:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've seen your contention that you think that the material is too advanced. I recognize that you feel that way. I don't think any of the people who have made a significant contribution to the articles would agree with you. As far as the short articles about opening variations, many of them list the moves in algebraic chess notation, and that is about it. How can that be too advanced? As far as the alphabetical list, there is also list of chess openings and there are categories for endgames/endings, chess strategy and tactics, etc.

See Category:Chess for a list of chess categories. Bubba73 (talk), 17:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right that most of the people who have made a significant contribution to the articles wouldn't agree to me. That doesn't say to me what you think it does, because to me, those people are more likely to be an expert in the situation, with a perspective that doesn't even come close to that of the man on the street. Just bringing that up as a defense tends to point to me that there's a slight disconnect in understanding the problem here. It's not those people I'm concerned about. It's the layman. And I think they would be overwhelmed. I know I am. Maybe you should look at WP:BETTER, particularly section 3. And if all an article does is list the moves in notational form, they aren't an article that even comes close to what should be on Wikipedia. In regards to list of chess topics I just think it would be more helpful if it were organized by sub-topics, or put the lists of subtopics in a clearer format. It's not a bad list, not at all. I just think it's a bit strangely structured. Take a look at WP:WIAFL. Citing the category doesn't help your case actually. An existing category is often used as a reason to delete a list. FrozenPurpleCube 17:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read your latest message yet, but I could say the same thing about biology. There are too many species. All of that stuff about Kingdom (biology), Phylum, Class (biology), Order (biology), Family (biology), Genus, Species, and Subspecies is too complicated and I don't understand it. So let's take it out. Bubba73 (talk), 17:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, some of them are bit overly technical, and should be rewritten to be more easily understandable. They could certainly be improved. Would you like to tag them, or should I? FrozenPurpleCube 18:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I was being facetious. Bubba73 (talk), 18:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not. I am serious in that I find the various articles on chess openings to be of a highly technical and specialized nature. I am not sure that they are right for Wikipedia. I also agree that those articles you named could be improved, but if you're going to be dishonest with me, it'll be hard to keep up this discussion with you. You may wish to read WP:CIVIL and consider your comments in light of that. I'm going to tag some of those articles anyway, though, because I do think they could be improved, even if you don't. I thank you for bringing them to my attention. FrozenPurpleCube 18:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

If you don't understand them and don't want to try to, then you don't have to read them. Bubba73 (talk), 21:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I have tried, and that's how I realized that most of them would require a long period of study to understand. Not a few minnutes, but a concerted effort of weeks or days. That is not a good thing. You may think of them as simple and easy, I don't, and I don't know how I can get across to you the idea of how complex I think they are. FrozenPurpleCube 00:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Guys, please stop this discussion. It becomes increasingly unfruitful. :-) If you have a while to spare, you can work on the main article Chess which is under review just now and needs your attention. Happy editing! --Ioannes Pragensis 21:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I stop. I'll sumarize my position. I agree with him that most of the Ruy Lopez articles are too short and need to be expanded or merged into the main article. I disagree that they are too technical. They are no more technical than they have to be, and are much less technical than what is in most chess books and magazines. I'm stopping now. Bubba73 (talk), 21:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid I don't have much of anything to contribute to the Chess article, but I do hope I've brought the problems of a layman with some of those articles to your attention, and that you'll give it the due weight and consideration it deserves. Maybe you could seek some outside feedback on them, besides me? It might help to get some opinions, like is being done with the main article. FrozenPurpleCube 00:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I find the articles on chess openings in Wikipedia very nice. It is actually an unique resource on chess openings in Internet. The articles are not too technical at all, but explain idea behind the opening in detail, which is very usefull for people who want to learn about new opening. Andreas Kaufmann 20:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Chess openings: thread 2

As list of chess openings shows, there are a lot of short articles on sub-variations of the Ruy Lopez and the Sicilian. There are even such articles for Nimzo-Indian, Alekhine, English, Benko gambit, and others. Most of these articles are stubs of only one or two paragraphs. We need to decide whether to keep the articles this way or to merge them back into their main articles. Bubba73 (talk), 16:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think those articles, which consist just of one paragraph should be merged back into main article. For example:

• Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 7...O-O,
• Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 9.Bc4,
• Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 10.O-O-O and
• Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 12.h4

should be merged into Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation. Create a separate article for each ECO code is quite bad idea. Larger variants, which already have quite a lot of info should stay, for example:

• Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation,
• Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen Variation,
• Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation,

i.e. basically main variations with rich theory. Andreas Kaufmann 19:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think your proposal is exactly how it should be. And after looking at these overzealous opening articles that were linked above (the Dragon variations), I see they were created by a "WTHarvey" character whose main objective seemed to be linking to his web site in the external links. So these articles weren't created in good faith anyway. SubSeven 20:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Assume good faith. :-) Anyway, until the Sicilian article is short enough, they can be merged back. But perhaps in the far future, I can imagine that they will have right on existence as soon as somebody writes more than one paragraph sbout them. Today, my vote is rather neutral as I think that we have much more acute problems in this Wikiproject than stubs on openings. Ioannes Pragensis 20:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the subvariations of the Sicilian Yugoslav should be merged back into th Dragon article, and that the atricles on the Dragon, Schev, and Najdorf are certainly good enough to stand on their own. Bubba73 (talk), 21:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I just found C86 (chess opening). I don't know how many ECO codes hace their own articles. This needs to be addressed too. Bubba73 (talk), 04:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Sim man added C86 and some others. He says that he has a project to add all ECO codes. He is not a member of this project. I think we need to decide whether or not this should be done, and invite him to join this project. (He has not edited since Feb 2006 though.) Bubba73 (talk), 04:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the text and made it a redirect. It didn't say anything that wasn't in Ruy Lopez#Worrall Attack and Ruy Lopez, Worrall Attack. Bubba73 (talk), 17:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The Sicilian is an interesting case, although I tend to agree that there are more articles than needed, articles on variations which are too specific. However keep in mind that the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings devotes as much space to the Sicilian alone as they do to all the 1.e4 e5 openings combined. That all variations are collected under the "Sicilian" umbrella while we have Ruy Lopez, Italian, King's Gambit, Scotch, Vienna, etc. for the open games is an injustice caused by historical reasons. I think it is reasonable to have individual articles on some of the main variations such as the Closed Sicilian, Dragon Sicilian, Najdorf Sicilian and Scheveningen Sicilian, as well as some rarer lines (O'Kelly, Wing Gambit, and so on). But when the titles start to include moves instead of names the specialization is perhaps too great. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Chess openings: thread 3

While I do not believe deleting opening articles (see this AfD) is the way to go, there could certainly be some cleanup - how about merging and redirecting some of the stub articles on irregular openings to a single Irregular Chess openings article? Should I be WP:BOLD and go ahead and do it?

Articles I have merged;

2...Bf5 Defence & Baltic Defense

Barnes Opening & Gedult's Opening

I've also redirected Épine Dorsale to Italian Game.

Articles I suggest could be merged into the above article. Note: I have not suggested openings that arise from another (i.e. Blackburne Shilling Gambit which if anything would be merged into Italian Game).

1. Alapin's Opening
2. Amar Opening
3. Anderssen's Opening
4. Balogh Defense
5. Barnes Opening
6. Benko's Opening
7. Clemenz Opening
8. Desprez Opening
9. Dunst Opening
10. Durkin Opening
11. Englund Gambit
12. Fred Defence
13. Grob's Attack (might be notable enough to have its own page?)
14. Kangaroo Defense
15. Mieses Opening
16. Napoleon Opening
17. Parham Attack
18. Polish Defense
19. Portuguese Opening
20. Saragossa Opening
21. Sokolsky Opening
22. St. George Defense
23. Van 't Kruijs Opening
24. Ware Opening

Comments welcome. EliminatorJR

First off, I suggest moving this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess so that the Chess Project can be more properly aware of the situation, and maybe you can get some action done. This is just too out of the way a place to discuss it. Beyond that, the biggest problem I have with your proposal is that it has no reasoning behind it, and that you haven't even looked at the real problem behind the articles, namely that so many of them are nothing but algebraic notations of chess openings, with at best a brief mention of some person playing it. I have yet to be convinced of the encyclopedic value of that. Especially since there so many chess openings with names and codes. There's currently 196 odd articles in this category. Do we want that to grow even further? FrozenPurpleCube 14:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well this proposal would remove 21 (edit:24) of those 196 to begin with! After that, I suggest merging a lot of the articles based on the same openings into the articles for that particular opening. That will remove an enormous amount. The reasoning, btw, is that the irregular openings are very rarely played in serious chess and therefore probably don't need their own articles. EliminatorJR 14:56, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think merging all of those articles into one article Irregular chess openings is a good idea. For one thing, it would make that article too long. I think that the article on irregular openings should list all of these, though. Several of the articles listed are stubs that need to be expanded, but several are not. Of course, there is the bigger issue that there are many stubs about sub-variations of openings that need to be merged. This has been discussed, but I don't think anything has been done about it. Bubba73 15:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Basically I was looking at this one step at a time. First of all, irregular article stubs. Next, merging multiple articles on variations of the same openings. Now I realise that might not be possible for all openings (merging all the variations of the Sicilian or Ruy Lopez may result in unmanageable articles, but it's a point for comment. Tell you what - I'll create a test version of Irregular chess openings in userspace, then everyone can comment on it. Example. OK, how about an article that looks like this? I've done the first couple of articles. Comments? EliminatorJR 16:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

(replying to both of you). The problem isn't simply the numbers, but the lack of reasoning. With 196 pages to go through, not to mention the numerous other chess openings that could be conceivably added, it's very important to have at least some idea what to do. I don't need hard rules, but any kind of baseline would be nice. Besides, is there any point to an actual merger for those pages? I agree with Bubba73, even if I wasn't uncertain that such an article would be of value beyond listing the specifics of the opening (better served at some chess book elsewhere IMHO), the length would be a problem. Not to mention it has to actually happen. Which is exactly why I felt an AFD was appropriate. The problem is known, and if not specifically decided upon a given result, aware of its existence. But nothing has been done about it over the course of months and possibly even years. Instead, there's a mass of articles, with no real rhyme or reason for any of them. I'm sure all of them can be documented and referenced to a certain degree, but is it really appropriate for Wikipedia to have hundreds of pages on chess openings? A few, yes, but there ought to be some limit. This isn't to say you can't transwiki them all elsewhere if you want, I've got no objections to the content as such. I just don't like the way it is now.

Oh, and I'll give some examples of what I consider especially bad pages among those you named.

• Barnes Opening (unreferenced, but even if that were the only problem, the only content besides instructions on how to play the opening is a brief mention of use in a British championship. and another claiming its origins with two other players. I can see describing this opening in Thomas Barnes (questions of whether to cover him or not is a different concern), but this is nothing but an instructional manual to a particular opening.)
• Fred Defence (marginal references as external links, content describes a few games in the 30s, but that's brief in comparison to the instruction parts, and maybe an offhand joke in a Chess game? That's trivia at best.)
• Kangaroo Defense (Nothing but instructions on this particular opening, no way to tell how important it is or isn't)
• Polish Defense (unreferenced, brief mentions of play by a few masters, again, more instructions and information)
• Saragossa Opening (unreferenced, no idea why it's named after the Spanish city, the theme tournament doesn't seem notable at all.)
• Ware Opening (wow, a reference, but wait, all this says is instructions on the opening and that it's named after Preston Ware. Who doesn't even have an article of his own.)

Note, this isn't an endorsement of the others named, I'm just picking out what seems to be the worst of the lot. I'm sure many people have written fine books on Chess openings, and may have included these. But simply being attributable isn't enough. This may be valuable information to some chess players, but is Wikipedia really the right place to cover them in this way? FrozenPurpleCube 15:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, surely that's exactly the point - how much of a problem is it, for example, to mention the Ware Opening in a single sentence in a merged article? And can you please stop referring to opening definitions as "how-to" articles? - they're plainly not. It's not like a video game walkthrough - you couldn't learn how to play, say, the Sicilian Defence from its article. EliminatorJR 16:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that it's a problem, the thing is, I don't know that it's worthwhile. There are apparently hundreds, if not thousands of such openings. That would make any listing of them more a directory than anything else. Even breaking down to various branches doesn't fix that problem, it just spreads it out even more. I do not feel that's necessarily valuable for Wikipedia because it provides little context, and it might be better served elsewhere. And while I'm sure you might not learn how to effectively play the Sicilian Defense from its article, the fact is, large sections of that article, and these other articles are clearly instructions on play. Not just reasonable descriptions of the opening, but detailed recountings of the opening variations including advice on what the various moves mean.

If that isn't a how-to, then please tell me what it is. Convince me that it's something besides an attempt to teach you how to play the opening. Give me some purpose to it besides that. If this isn't identical to any of the various descriptions of how to say, beat a level of Quake, then it's so close that there isn't any difference to me. Simply saying "No it's not" doesn't change my mind. That's an assertion, not an argument. Note, don't get me wrong, I am not adamantly and completely opposed to any opening descriptions at all. I believe, and I have believed for quite a while (if you look at the archives, I'm said this all before, so forgive me if I sound a tad irritated) that there is an acceptable amount of such coverage. The current state of articles far exceeds that. FrozenPurpleCube 17:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

A level walkthrough tells you how to beat the level from beginning to end. A definition of a chess opening merely tells you how to play the first few moves. There is little about continuation, strategy or tactics for that opening. To use the Quake example, it'd be like telling a gamer "at the start of the level, turn left, then right ... then you're on your own". Incidentally, have you seen the example nascent merged Irregular openings article in my userspace? EliminatorJR 17:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, no. I see no distinction between the two based simply on the length or completeness. If you made the hypothetical Quake page that didn't cover the whole level, it'd be just as deletable as these. If you want me to extend the analogy, an article, even on a whole Quake level doesn't tell you about the rest of the game. Heck, I could conceivably write a game describing various strategies in a FPS without specifically describing any levels at all. (this would be even easier in a game like World of Warcraft where the characters can be customized and geared specifically.) Thus, I see no difference. Sorry if this offends, but as I see it, your claim is arbitrary and lacking substance. There is nothing that says a how-to isn't a how-to if it's not complete and exhaustive.

And your page is far too incomplete for me to even begin to comment on it fully, but how about an explanation to why these chess openings are called irregular? That would be helpful information.

And as I said on the AfD, some alternative to the algebraic notation would be nice. It's not necessary to remove it, but rather supplement it.

Also, contents like "Like the standard Dragon Variation, Black develops his bishop to g7 in the Accelerated Dragon. The difference is that Black avoids playing ...d7-d6, so that he can later play ...d7-d5 in one move if possible." are very much strategy and tactics. If you can conceive of more to add it, that changes nothing. FrozenPurpleCube 18:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the point I'm trying to make on the 'how-to', I think. I believe the opening articles to be equivalent to an article giving an overview of a video game, but without telling them how to play the game. As for the openings themselves, "Irregular" openings are basically openings that aren't played very often, mainly because they're technically weaker than "regular" ones. However, many of those openings are useful as 'surprise' tactics, especially against weaker players. (There is a more technical definition of an irregular opening, but this is the one that is probably suitable for Wikipedia). EliminatorJR 23:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, that actually make things worse in my mind. Telling people how to play a game is one thing, detailing the contents of a level is another. Neither is especially encyclopedic. They are both problems. If all an article constituted was a list of moves, then I'd say it should easily be deleted. That might be valid content somewhere, but it's not for a general purpose encyclopedia, any more than listing the stats for a baseball game are. Sure, the world series is case where those stats are appropriate, but the rest of the season? Not so muc. You're focusing on the 'how-to' issue (and I see the obvious instructions even in chess openings I can accept keeping), and missing the rest of the point, namely that there's no other substance to the article. Yes, there may be some concepts in chess openings that merit their own articles. I can understand how irregular chess openings could be one of them, but the current standard is to allow anything at all. That is just too much. FrozenPurpleCube 04:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to propose something to consider, but I'm not sure it is the best thing to do. How about making the Irregular Openings artice "summary style", and limit each opening to about one paragraph (edit: to keep the article from getting too long). Then for ones that have more, link to a "Main" article (e.g. Anderson, Benko, Grob, etc). I'm not saying that is the best thing to do, but let's consider it. Bubba73 23:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes - that's a very good idea. I'll incorporate it into my userspace article. EliminatorJR 23:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The way it i shaping up in Wikipedia:Summary style looks good to me. But reading the text of "Clemenz Opening", be sure that is referenced to a reliable source. Bubba73 (talk), 00:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Can't source that, so I've rewritten it. Plenty of references to Clemenz, but none linking him to the opening!. I've altered Dunst Opening to QN Opening, as it has so many names in different countries it seems easier to give it a generic name so as to avoid WP:CSB EliminatorJR 12:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't see this helping as much as might be hoped. The problem needs to be addressed not at the style of an article, but rather the concept of what the article should contain. If all you're going to tell me is that the Clemenz opening is named after Hermann Clemenz...it's really not all that much in the way of substance. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia article, so his notability is in doubt (A web search turns up a few of his games and absolutely nothing else). The rest of that section is instructions on the opening, describing the playable responses, suggesting the most common, and saying what's most logical, what is bad for one player, what's good for another. That is clearly instructions. So even if it could be referenced, it's inclusion in Wikipedia is borderline. I might accept it in a list of irregular openings (though that could have problems of its own), but the strategy parts ought to go elsewhere. FrozenPurpleCube 04:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, I've stripped the strategy elements down to their bare minimum, leaving a bare desription of each opening, plus any additional (non-strategic) information that can be sourced. EliminatorJR 12:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

FrozenPurpleCube, I don't know if you have ever played chess yourself, but I find articles such as Barnes Opening and Kangaroo Defense very interesting and well-written. You probably won't find as good descriptions of them elsewhere in the web. For what it's worth, I'd also like to refer to WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_paper_encyclopedia. The sheer number of the articles shouldn't be a problem. EliminatorJR's page looks rather odd with some openings described and some just having the "See main article" link. I also think a diagram is a must for each opening, which the page currently does not provide. "some alternative to the algebraic notation would be nice" You aren't suggesting the articles provided the moves in both algebraic notation and in, say, descriptive chess notation, are you? ZeroOne 12:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

And perhaps you need to refer to WP:ATA which provides several arguments as to why saying something is interesting is not a good argument. In particular, I suggest you read further down on WP:NOT to the WP:NOT#IINFO section and explain to me exactly how these pages are not instruction manuals.

Liking pages, liking chess, all things that are laudable in their own right, but they do not equate to keeping an article. And that's all you've said to me, that you like these articles. That doesn't persuade me of anything.

If you truly want to keep these pages somewhere, perhaps you might wish to check Wikibooks or look for a chess specific wiki to move them to. They are not, however, demonstrated as encyclopedic, and no matter how much you, or possibly thousands enjoy them, that opinion isn't going to make them viable contents for an encyclopedia. FrozenPurpleCube 16:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Quote from FrozenPurpleCube, a couple of comments ago: "I just don't like the way it is now." Disliking pages do not equate to deleting an article. I don't really understand your problem. You want some openings deleted and you are the one to judge, which ones? I mean, I totally agree that pages like Foo Opening, Bar line, Baz defence, 27. Rd3 should be merged into Foo Opening or at least Foo Opening, Bar line, if that would make the Foo Opening article too long. I just don't think that your point about selecting some openings for deletion and some not is solid. There are only 14 openings listed in the Irregular chess openings article. They account for a very tiny bit of those 196 articles. ZeroOne 20:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can only assume you're taking my remarks out of context because you weren't following the discussion. If you'll read the whole remark, you'll see that I provided numerous grounds for why I didn't "like" the way the category is now. It's not a question of me liking the subject, it's a question of me finding that the contents of the category do not comply with established Wikipedia principles and procedures, such as attribution, notability, and indiscriminate information. I suppose you could boil that down to a sense of not liking it, but to do so is misleading and inaccurate. Therefore, I ask that you review what I said in full, and respond to that. If you can't understand it, well, I don't know how I can explain further to you, perhaps you should review previous discussion? Or maybe you could try to ask some questions? And note, I'm not saying that I am the one to judge. I have consistently sought input and information from other people so that a consensus can form to establish sound guidelines to proceed in improving what is perceived to be a problem.

And just in case you are curious, as well as to provide an explanation as to why I took the course I did, with 196 articles to go through, I do not feel it's possible to go through in one step and decide what to do. That is the sort of thing that I feel is best done in stages. Sure, there are times when a top-down review is appropriate, but in this case, where the subject isn't the overall problem, but rather the specific way it has been handled....well, I think it's best to work from the button up. In contrast, I suggest you review the situation regarding List of Zip Codes which is more of a subject where all the articles are of roughly the same nature.

If you can come up with a better way to address the problems I have had, please, do let me know. FrozenPurpleCube 05:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi - yes, my page is really a work in progress and comments are welcome. I have tried to conform to summary style. However, as regards diagrams, I was worried about page size. I'll try another version with diagrams to see how unwieldy it is. And here it is (in userspace, again). EliminatorJR 14:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion the current arrangement, each opening on their own article, looks better. Your layout suits well for discussing several variants of one opening but these are all individual openings. Besides, if the chapters about the openings merged into your page grow to become as big as the ones you have left as "See main article" links, they would have to be split out of the page for consistency. It doesn't make sense to me to first merge articles and then separate them again. ZeroOne 16:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I doubt that many of the obscure irregular openings will ever have articles that grow to any extent. Some of them are already bigger than they need to be, with lists of variations rather than reference links. However, given your input, let me try a test merge of a major opening, to see how it looks. OK, here's an example for the Grunfeld. There are currently four articles - all the relevant information is in this one. Good idea? EliminatorJR 16:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, that looks very good if all the relevant information really is there! ZeroOne 18:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

First off, regarding the irregular first moves for White, I strongly oppose merging them, because the only thing they have in common is that they are rarely played. In a strategic chessic sense, the openings have very different characteristics. Second, it is not at all obvious where a cutt-off point between "rare" and "common" should go. The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings does lump the irregular moves into a chapter called A00, but for some reason a fairly common move like 1.g3 winds up in that chapter. I was amazed to see that 1.g4 was listed as "(might be notable enough to have its own page?)" on the list while the Benko was not, 1.g3 is a very regular opening move, in fifth place in popularity according to the ChessBase database. Edmar Mednis even called the move "perfect" as the mainstream 1.d4, 1.e4, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3. Other reference works like the Oxford Companion to Chess treats each of these opening moves seperately. Sjakkalle 06:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the example article in userspace, you'll see that I left the Benko in its own article. This was the idea - merge some irregulars, leave others as individual articles, EliminatorJR 17:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Second, Dunst Opening. This opening is played regularly by one of the correspondence chess world champions for goodness sake. THere exist entire books devoted to this opening. Sjakkalle 07:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's all very nice to assert that there are whole books on how to play these openings, but do they say anything beyond that? What is the scope of their content? How can you get past WP:NOT#IINFO when most of these pages are heavily instructions, with no interest in coverage beyond that? Besides, can't you just say in correspondence chess that the Dunst opening is a common choice (assuming you have a reliable source about that)? FrozenPurpleCube 14:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Your comment betrays a lack of knowledge in chess. "Can't you just say in correspondence chess that the Dunst opening is a common choice?" The answer is a very clear NO, for starters because it is NOT a common choice in correspondence chess either, and a comment like that would be highly irrelevant in that article. It is true that a World Champion, van Geet, frequently used the opening, as any reasonable chess game database will tell you.

Second, the Dunst Opening article is not an instructional guide to the opening. If you have read an instructional guide in chess you will see a clear difference in the language used. An instruction manual is really heavy on analysis, the current article barely scratches the surface. Indeed, the first paragraph is on the naming and etymology, the second is about popularity, the third discusses basic strategy, the fourth discusses possible transpositions to other openings and coverage in ECO, at the end we have a few examples of contemporary usage. None of this is made with the intention of teaching a student how to play the Dunst. Sjakkalle 14:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I mispoke. My bad. Refactor my statement to specify that it's a common choice by this champion, assuming that there is some notability to him playing Correspondence chess. Heck, why can't you just say in that champion's article that he favors the opening? (Not that there seems to be an article on Dirk van Geet, so we don't know how notable he is)? Besides, I'd say statements like "Here is a quick victory by Dunst himself against ten-time U.S. Women's Champion Gisela Gresser. It illustrates the problems that White's rapid development can pose if Black is not careful:" are clearly meant to instruct someone on the article. That doesn't even tell folks about the importance of the game. Does that game actually matter anyway? This level of analysis is far beyond the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia. I have already said why the assertion that more analysis is possible doesn't convince me either. I'm sure many articles cold be more detailed, but that doesn't make them any less instruction manuals. Now there may be enough substance in the subject that the article itself can be improved, but that is not the case now, and I don't see you doing anything to fix it.

And as I've said before, perhaps I am ignorant. I have tried to seek further knowledge on the proper course of events. Nonetheless, I'm concerned that you are biased. Can you honestly say you've looked at this from a perspective that isn't colored by your knowledge and fondness for the subject of chess? Have you even thought to look? FrozenPurpleCube 17:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(1) Many people other than van Geet have played that opening. (2) He probably has played a lot of other openings. The article is about the opening itself. Bubba73 (talk), 20:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(1) If other people have played that opening, then perhaps coverage of that *might* make for a good article, but in that case, why was it brought up that Van Geet's play of it meant something? And who are these people, and what's the notability in their play of it? (2) If he's played lots of other openings, than why was the assertion made for playing that one? You can't have it both ways. Either there's some notability to van Geet playing this opening or not, if not, then how much reason is there to have an article about it? Especially when the focus of the article is not on the history, but on telling people about how to play it? FrozenPurpleCube 00:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Obviously other people have played that opening. You can't list all of them. Neither can you list every opening the van Geet has played. If you look up Fender Stratocaster guitar, you will probably see a few people who have played one. You can't list everyone who has played a Fender. Bubba73 (talk), 00:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Of course you can't list everybody, the point is to list the people whose play of it is notable. If there's nothing notable about Van Geet's play of the opening, then again, there's no point in asserting its meaningful. However, simply saying he played it? Not quite enough. Especially when Dirk Daniel Van Geet has no article.

But since you bring up Fender Stratocaster, if you look at it, there's not one single instruction on how to play one. (And I'm not sure that the current articles on the various signature models are appropriate, but that's another problem.). There is List of Stratocaster players and a featured list List of Telecaster players, which both require right at the top that any players on the list have significant usage of it before being added. Has this been done for any of the Chess opening? Not so far as I know, and that demonstrates why the problem is not that there is zero notability to any particular chess opening, but rather, that the vast majority of the articles in the category don't have assertion of notability. If you can make a convincing case for improving Dunst Opening go ahead and fix up that article. Seriously, I'd be quite pleasif you made better articles. The thing is, I haven't seen that being done. FrozenPurpleCube 01:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Start the article List of players of the Dunst Opening if that will make you happy. I don't see what's wrong with the Dunst Opening article. Bubba73, 02:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to do that. And the problem with the Dunst opening is with the instruction parts of it. Is this somehow escaping you? FrozenPurpleCube 05:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not the problem—it's your problem. Although you're trying to make it our problem, what seems to be escaping you is that most chess contributors find your arguments to be baseless. Wikipedia is a community effort, and I honestly don't see much community support for your views at all. I appreciate your attempts to engage the Wikipedia chess contributors, but at this point I don't think you are listening to anything anyone is saying. I think a few people in the Wikipedia chess community have been fairly patient in addressing your many complaints (certainly more patient than I have been), but I suspect at some point they will just give up and let you have the last word. You always write as if your opinion is the only one that matters, and it seems you will only be satisfied if everyone does exactly as you dictate. I don't think that's going to happen. We just don't agree with your basic premises or your interpretation of Wikipedia guidelines. Quale 07:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Please see the comment right below this one, and please remember that it is important to comment on the content, not the contributor. Thank you. FrozenPurpleCube 13:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking through the chess opening articles, and Mister Manticore does have a point. Too many of the articles are just "these are the moves" + "some random opinion and strategy". What the articles should be doing is describing the history of chess openings. Find a proper chess encyclopedia and source facts like when the opening was first played, who it is named after, and any other historical information, such as the names of famous players (ie. those we have articles on) who played the opening (over their whole career, or only for a certain time period). Actual chess opinion should be avoided at all costs, as fashions change and Wikipedia cannot hope (and shouldn't want) to supply the latest opening theory. All the chess articles need to be reviewed for transient "chess opinion" and replaced with "chess history". Carcharoth 23:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, that is a fair description of my problem. Thanks for your input. FrozenPurpleCube 00:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually it isn't an accurate assessment of the situation. Wikipedia can hope to apply the latest opening theory, but more importantly than that, changing evaluations of chess openings and positions are part and parcel of the history of chess. It is akin to Single wing and Pro set in American football—the changing fashions over time are the life blood of the sport. Entire books have been written concerned primarily with new ideas in chess, with books by Richard Réti and Aron Nimzowitsch being famous examples early in the 20th century, and a couple of John L. Watson's books being recent examples. An excellent Wikipedia article on a chess opening should describe how views and evaluation of the opening have changed over time. Of course someone who is not familiar with chess couldn't be expected to know this. Quale 02:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Great. But in many cases, they don't actually do that. They focus on the moves and give specific advice, not historical perspective. FrozenPurpleCube 05:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

You are right, it would improve the chess opening articles to include greater historical perspective. Perhaps you can help us add more history to the chess opening articles? Quale 07:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I would be glad to, if any of the books I found on the chess openings had content other than long lists of game play and strategic advice with maybe one line that some people played this game, without any indication of its greater meaning. But with that problem, I can only conclude that my available resources are not up to the task. Perhaps there are others with better access, and to them I wish the greatest of luck. FrozenPurpleCube 15:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is kind of revealing, isn't it? I have approximately 40 books on openings, and none of them are the way you want them to be. They have very little on the history of the opening and very little on who has played those openings. Their text is almost all about the moves, the strategy, and sample games. And for some reason, that seems to be reflected in the WP chess opening articles. Hmmm....

Mister M, I've been playing chess for over 40 years, and I have no idea what the "greater meaning" of chess openings you speak of in your comment above means. Bubba73 (talk), 18:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Which demonstrates my point, namely that the focus is primarily about instructions on how to play the opening, and not about its larger notability. Which of course leads to the article being well, what they are, instructions on how to play the opening. Fine for a book on Chess. Less fine for an encyclopedia. FrozenPurpleCube 21:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been playing chess for over 40 years, and I don't know what you mean by a chess opening's "larger notability". Bubba73, 00:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you re-read Carcharoth's statement then. It expresses the point quite clearly. If you still don't understand, perhaps you might ask that user to clarify. I've tried to explain it to you for a couple of months now, but I've sadly made no headway. Thus I'm beginning to think such an explanation may be beyond me. BTW, I suggest you try to remember WP:EXPERT. You may be what you claim, I have no way of knowing that, and absolutely no interest in verifying it. Claiming you've been playing chess over 40 years is not going to convince me that you know better or anything at all really. If you want to convince me, try arguments that don't rely solely on your own claims of authority. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but they don't exist on Wikipedia. You are only your words, and they're just not persuasive. (And that's leaving aside the issue of people being wrong despite years of practice and training. Believe it or not, it does happen). FrozenPurpleCube 04:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The Oxford Companion to Chess has some good historical information on some of the larger openings. Sadly, I do not have the newest 1996 edition (although I have seen it occasionally in my local library), and the edition from the 1980s, while still good, does not contain the same richness in detail. Even the Oxford Companion does give an overview of the basic strategies employed however. Sjakkalle 15:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It is a great book but out of print. It also tends to be expensive. I have the first edition, but all I could afford was a used paperback copy of the old edition. I really need to bite the bullet and by a hardback copy of the newer edition. Bubba73 18:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the three mergers at the top:

• 2...Bf5 Defence & Baltic Defense - was merged into 2...Bf5. I think it should be under Baltic. There are other pages that link to Baltic.
• Barnes Opening & Gedult's Opening - OK
• redirected Épine Dorsale to Italian Game - Make sure no info in the former was lost. Bubba73 00:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  
  

Agree with the comment on the Baltic Defense merge—it was merged the wrong way. This is easy to fix. (I understand the concern about WP:CSB, but the problem is that first, 2...Bf5 is not a common name in English for this opening and second, 2...Bf5 is a poor title for any page and a poor search term. Quale 02:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, who would call thatthe "2... Bg5 defense" - it makes no sense unless you know the previous moves. I can see a case for something like "1.Ng3 opening". Bubba73 02:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, my bad - I should've thought about that a bit longer. The Epine Dorsale article was a couple-of-sentences article, with nothing additional that was encyclopedic. EliminatorJR 19:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Chess openings: thread 4

Here is an example (from Queen's Gambit) of how chess opening articles should be written:

The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known chess openings, as Lucena wrote about it in 1497 and it is mentioned in an earlier manuscript in Göttingen. During the early period of modern chess queen pawn openings were not in fashion, and the Queen's Gambit did not become common until the 1873 tournament in Vienna. As Steinitz and Tarrasch developed chess theory and increased the appreciation of positional play, the Queen's Gambit grew more popular. It reached its peak popularity in the 1920s and 1930s and was played in 32 out of 34 games in the 1934 World Chess Championship. Since then Black has increasingly moved away from symmetrical openings, tending to use the Indian defences to combat queen pawn openings. The Queen's Gambit is still frequently played, however, and it remains an important part of many grandmasters' opening repertoires.

The difficulty of course is that for many of the obscurer openings where it is easy to bash out a diagram and moves and general opening strategy, it is much harder to reliably source historical information on the opening or opening variation. If that is the case, then sadly Wikipedia cannot adequately cover the topic. Carcharoth 15:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

But then there are eleven (if I counted correctly) articles that give the details. The Queen's Gambit is a very large topic. Bubba73 15:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the Queen's Gambit is one of the better attempts at a page. Not perfect, but at least in general the right idea. It has sources, it gives context and history. I do wish a bit of exposition on Luis Ramirez and Göttingen were in the article though. Yes, people can just click the wikilink, but it doesn't mean you can't say anything about them. Or heck, what was that 1873 tournament in Vienna that it became popular at? There isn't even a link to it. Somebody might be perplexed, and without even a link to know what it was. Leaving them to do what? Look elsewhere? At the least, mentioning that it was part of the Weltausstellung 1873 Wien would be nice. (Might be worth mentioning this tournament there, adding the same to List of strong chess tournaments. FrozenPurpleCube 21:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

And if all of those eleven subarticles were put into the main article, it would be largely moves and strategy, which you said is what you don't want. Most of the articles on openings are not large enough to have multiple sub-articles giving the details. Bubba73 00:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Then perhaps they don't need to be covered on Wikipedia, but removed, or if the content is valid, perhaps transwiki'ed elsewhere, such as to Wikibooks. If all you can do is describe the moves and strategy, I'm sorry if this continues to offend you, but there's no real way you can get past WP:NOT#IINFO. And what do you think of my other suggestions though? Would it be worthwhile to describe the circumstances of the tournament? FrozenPurpleCube 04:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I added all that material to Queen's Gambit back in April 2005 ([1]). What I didn't do then but should have, is properly source it. You're right that it would be good to have an article on the Göttingen manuscript, so I just created one. I only have one source handy (Oxford Companion to Chess comes to the rescue again), so the article is a bit spare. I enjoy the history of chess and would like to see more chess history on Wikipedia. I didn't and don't know anything about the Weltausstellung 1873 Wien, so if that's correct, it would be an excellent addition to the page.

On a related note, however, I can't agree that chess articles should not contain algebraic chess notation or describe the basic chess strategy involved. First, the moves are absolutely required as the definition of the thing that the article is talking about. Without the moves, there's no way to distinguish one opening from any other. Second, without a discussion of the strategy and tactics, the ideas behind the opening will remain a mystery. One of the most basic questions any chess opening article should answer is "What are the advantages and disadvantages of this opening", or "Why would (or wouldn't) I (or someone else) play this opening?" Without moves and strategy, opening articles are incomplete and have no purpose. The Queen's Gambit article notes that Lucena wrote about it in 1497, but out of the (tens or hundreds) of thousands of opening moves in chess, what is so special about "1.d4 d5 2.c4" that Lucena chose to write about it? Why does this sequence of moves (and a several hundred others) have a name, when most sequences of beginning moves do not?

For instance, I added this text to the Queen's Gambit article two years ago: "With 2.c4, White threatens to exchange a wing pawn (the c-pawn) for a center pawn (Black's d-pawn) and dominate the center with e2-e4. This is not a true gambit since if Black accepts the pawn he cannot expect to keep it." This is terribly elementary strategy and moves, but without it it is impossible to understand why anyone would ever play the Queen's Gambit instead of something else. Without the moves there's no discernible difference between the Queen's Gambit and Grob's Attack. It would be nonsensical to say "Grandmasters prefer the Queen's Gambit to Grob's Attack" without any explanation at all why, and this explanation requires moves and strategy. Maybe that's why you want so many chess articles deleted. Once you remove the parts you find objectionable there's no reason for the rest to remain. Quale 05:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I notice you're saying once again that you can't agree chess articles should not contain algebraic notation. The problem with that statement is, nobody is proposing that they shouldn't, it's a misconception on your part, and that of several other people. What I have been saying is that algebraic notation, and that only, is a problem. And you're right to say "what's so special" that Lucena chose to write about it. But the thing is, the article doesn't explain that. It provides a bare statement, and sadly, his article doesn't provide any further context itself. (Nor does your new article on Göttingen help much either. (I'll assume that you intend to rectify that though, by expanding the coverage). The key is to get beyond simple strategy and include significant context such as that. If that's not possible, then that's when the page should be deleted, or moved to another site.

In any case, while some moves may be necessary, is it truly necessary to list the moves of each and every variant? Even when no context or notability can be provided? It's one thing if say, Garry Kasparov can be referenced to say something on a given variant, but if he just played the opening at some point....then it'd better be a very important game on its own. Which of course, means, documenting that reaction in the Chess world. This is not something that has been done, instead the pages in this category are frequently just a list of moves with a bare bit of strategy to go with it. If there's mention of some game, there's no context given for the game. There's room for some chess openings on Wikipedia. But the current setup? It's not the way to do it. The pages are of haphazard quality at best, and Wikifarming at worst. (Sadly, many of the articles were obviously set up by a user who has already been accused of spamming Wikipedia with their external links). It's all nice to say covering Chess openings is important, but not every opening needs to be covered. And if they do, it needs to be something more than Staunton Gambit, which besides lacking references, provides minimal context, but is instead dominated by several example games. Then there's the Don't you think it'd be nice if the article explained why the games were important? (And I find the links to the java re-enactments of the games as a bit troublesome in the way of EL anyway). Then there's the [[King's Knight Opening which provides neither references, not any attempt at content beyond describing the move. Doesn't even mention the Reti Opening which I see it was created as a redirect as well. Perhaps this has just flown under the radar, but um, that's exactly my problem. Too much has grown up without actually working at it.

This may be hard for you to realize, but I am not actually hostile to the subject of chess, or chess openings. I am, however, dismayed by the quality of these articles, as they lack encyclopedic content, references, and substance. Some of them are probably somebody's idea of getting their content wider exposure by using Wikipedia. Something has been needed to be done for a while, and yet...it has remained undone. It's one thing to like chess, and want chess to be well-covered on Wikipedia. But it's in need to be covered better, which doesn't mean more pages, but better ones. FrozenPurpleCube 14:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Chess openings: ECO code

User:Theandrewdotcom seems to have begun creating an article for each of the 500 ECO chess opening codes listed at List of chess openings. See his contributions list. So far he has created articles for 200 of the 500 codes. I would question whether each of these codes are notable enough for their own article and suggest they should be merged into List of chess openings. I have left a comment to this effect on his talk page.

I think it might be appropriate to propose the deletion of each of these newly created articles but first seek the opinions and knowledge of participants of this project. Adambro 20:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Oy, you're right. I'm going to report this to an administrator, it's a real problem and obviously a script. FrozenPurpleCube 21:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It is my opinion that we should not have an article for each of the 500 ECO codes. However, that should be the subject of a discussion within this project. Bubba73 (talk), 23:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Each of the 200 articles have been changed to redirect as part of a discussion of this issue at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents so it might be that this has been resolved. The user name in question has also been blocked due to violation of WP:U (Usernames that contain a domain or imply a web address). Adambro 12:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not convinced that these are good choices for redirects, but redirects are cheap, so I won't worry about it. FrozenPurpleCube 22:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

New Merge Pages

Next one up (I'm going in alphabetic order here) - Alekhine's Defence (3 pages). Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Looking ahead - issues I've thought of....

• Queen's Gambit; separate pages for Accepted and Declined, or one article?
• King's Indian Defence; one article?
• Sicilian Defence; one article for mainline and one for Dragon, or one article?

Thoughts? EliminatorJR 00:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

(Please forgive me for lightly formatting some of your questions and adding links to make the articles easy to find.) There's nothing written in stone, so he are my personal opinions:

• QGA and QGD should remain separate articles.
• I don't think we have enough material on the QGA for separate articles on its variations, at least not yet, so all variations of QGA should go in the main article for now.
• The QGD territory is absolutely huge, so I don't recommend much merging here. On it's own, it's probably about as large as all the Double King Pawn openings put together. I like the current QGD page, and if you look at the contributors in the page history, you'll see why as Sjakkalle and Krakatoa have both done some work on it. (So have I, so my opinion is not necessarily unbiased). The QGD page can and should be improved, but its most desperate need is good references. Nearly two years ago we were simply too casual about the need for sourcing. I like having the main variations of the QGD split into separate pages. Although both are variations of the QGD, the Cambridge Springs Defense and the Tarrasch Defense are more dissimilar than the Giuoco Piano and the Two Knights Defense—it's mere historical accident that the King's Pawn and Queen's Pawn openings are named and grouped so differently. The current, awkwardly named Queen's Gambit Declined, Mainline Orthodox Defense should be moved to Orthodox Defense (or Orthodox Defense (chess) if there's any fear of confusion over the subject) and it also needs to be totally rewritten.
• The Sicilian Defence is also huge, and ultimately I suspect we should have a page for each of the major divisions in the opening, certainly including the Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation. Also the Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation and the Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen Variation. Pages such as McDonnell Attack (which I had usually seen referred to as the Grand Prix) could be merged back into Sicilian Defense. On the other hand, if the main Sicilian Defense page gets too large, we could create a page for the closed Sicilian. For me, the naming of these pages is a more interesting question than should they be merged. A chess player would never say "Sicilian Defense, Dragon Variation", but might say simply "Dragon". Clearly "Dragon" is far too informal to use as a page title. On the other hand, I think "Sicilian Defense, ... Variation" is a bit stiff, but workable, although I think consideration ought to be given to simply using "Najdorf Variation", "Dragon Variation", etc. These are well known enough to chess players that they are used constantly, in conversation, magazine articles, and book titles without further explanation, and as separate entries in standard reference works such as The Oxford Companion to Chess.

In general I just don't see merges as a panacea. Almost every page that has chess notation in its title should be merged (for example, QGD; 3...Nf6, QGD; Slav, 4.Nc3, Queen's Indian, 4.g3)—not coincidently most or all of these were created by one user. This is not as many pages as some would have you believe, especially after the cleanup you and others have done. Most of the rest should stand alone. Quale 02:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I have worked on Alekhine's Defense some last night and earlier today and merged a couple of articles. I was planning to work on the other two, but I haven't put any time into it yet. If someone else wants to do them - go ahead. Otherwise, I will probably do it soon. I agree with the above on almost all points. Queen's Gambit Declined, Mainline Orthodox Defense was named "Mainline Orthodox Defense" and yesterday I renamed it by prepending "QGD". I don't think it should be named "Orthodox defense" since it is part of QGD. How about simply taking out "mainline"? My reasoning is that the name of the overall opening should come first. My reason for this is that if a reader goes to the Chess Openings Category or to list of chess topics then all of the QGD variants would be together, and the same with the Sicilian and Ruy Lopez. Bubba73 03:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Your point makes sense to me, and I don't think I gave enough thought to that issue. It is possible (and I think desirable) to create redirects from Najdorf Variation, Dragon Variation, etc. to the longer titles, to make things easier for those who search. The long names do sort more nicely in lists and categories. Quale 04:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I probably didn't phrase that well enough; obviously QGD and Sicilian (and a few others) are so huge they're never going to be merged in; it's probably more a question of reorganising the sub-pages with the main article being in summary style. Anyway, we'll come to that one when we get there.

Another one; Benoni Defense and Benoni, Taimanov variation - any point in separate articles? EliminatorJR 08:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I have merged the Taimanov in with the Benoni, info on the Taimanov's impressive reputation is better provided in the context of the main opening article. The Benoni is incidentally one of our older articles, but is not a very big one yet. A reasonable argument can be made for having separate articles on the Old Benoni, Modern Benoni and Czech Benoni since the strategic principles in them are so different from one another, but until the Benoni article is expanded, I won't recommend it yet. Sjakkalle 10:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, looks great. I think we're all on the same page. Although the work done on the chess openings articles two years ago made them look wonderful around the beginning of 2006 compared to what they looked like in 2004, quality has decayed a little and we have higher standards for referencing now. The work you're doing is really making the articles better. There are a couple of other arguments against merging that I forgot to mention. 1)If a reader might often want to read about the subject in isolation, merges can make that annoying. If we merge McDonnell Attack into a large Sicilian Defence article, it gains context, but someone interested only in reading about the Grand Prix will find it more clumsy. 2)It kind of messes up categorization sometimes. I have added many chess opening pages to the Category:Years in chess subcats based on the first mention of the opening in chess literature or some other highly significant event (It seems Alekhine was not the first master to play Alekhine's Defence, but it is associated with his games in 1921). If the McDonnel Attack is merged into the Sicilian, it's hard to associate its 1834 date with the Sicilian as a whole and so the years in chess categorization doesn't work well. This isn't really a strong argument against merging, but it is something to consider. Quale 15:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Assessment of the situation regarding opening stubs

Regarding the Opening Stubs subcategory of Chess Openings:

• Grunfeld 4.Bf4 needs to be deleted, since it has been merged. But that is being held up by a AfD.
• the two Pirc stubs need to be merged. (done)
• QGD, 3...f6 needs to be merged (done) (added:) and QGD, Mainline Orthodox Defense. Someone mentioned that they were working on QGD.
• Ruy Lopez subvarations - all of these need to be merged. -- done except for Exchange and Marshall
• Sicilian subvarations - all of these need to be merged. - done!

The rest of the stubs can stay.

• King's Indian Defence, Four Pawns Attack is listed in the stubs, but it seems to be more than a stub. One problem is that it has one section that simply says "to be developed". Bubba73 19:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  
  

That's a good point. Once we keep one of the main variations in a separate article, I think it makes sense to do the same for the other primary lines as well, or a summary style article will look odd. If the Four Pawns Attack is the only KID variation on its own page, a reader will naturally draw the wrong conclusion that it is the most important. That doesn't mean every variation needs a separate article, but each variation more important than the Four Pawns should be split out too.

Ruy Lopez - This is kind of a tough one. The current Ruy subvariations do need to be merged. The question is, what do we do with the Ruy Lopez page long term? 1)leave roughly as it is and continue to expand as needed inline, or 2)go to summary style. I would have used summary style when I worked the page over in the autumn of 2005, but I didn't see a good way to do that. Much of the material needs to stay together because the context is important in a survey article. Quale 20:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Some variations deserve their own article and some are too stubby (at present). The Exchange version in the main article is too long and probably duplicates a lot of the sub-article. I think the main article section on the Exchange should be shortened, making sure not to lose any information that could go in the sub-article. Bubba73 20:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes its almost like telepathy. The Exchange Variation is one that I thought had enough detail so that it should be split out. Right now it's one of the longest sections and although it has great history (Lasker-Capablanca, St. Petersburg 1914 and later Fischer), it certainly isn't the most important. This throws the sections kind of out of balance. Quale 21:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The article on the Ruy Exchange is big enough to stand by itself. Other branches as the Open defense and Marshall may be too. I'm pretty sure they are each more extensive than the Exchange, so it does seem out of balance with the Exchange having its own article. However, the size of the Exchange article seems to merit it. The Ruy Exchange article is large enough, but it is not organized very well. Also too much "arguably the best... ", etc. Bubba73 03:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge Épine Dorsale in Italian Game

• I've done a hopefully uncontroversial merge: I've redirected the one-line article Lengfellner System (which wasn't categorised properly and so didn't appear in opening stubs) to French Defence#Early deviations and added that one line into this section.
• A user has again undone the redirection of Épine Dorsale to Italian Game. Per the discussion on trhe talk page, the user appears to be saying that the Dorsale isn't an opening, but a series of moves ending up at the position after 3.Bc4, that can be branched off at any time (i.e by Black playing 1...e6 to go into the French). Personally I can't see how that makes it any different from an opening, i.e the Italian Game. EliminatorJR 10:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  
  

Thanks for the merge. I don't know what to do about Épine Dorsale. Actually I had never heard the term until I stumbled across it on the web, looking for some sources for some chess opening pages. (Three years ago the chess opening pages were in rough shape, and just about anything was bound to be an improvement.) Maybe the term is more popular in non-English sources (perhaps French), as I don't think I've ever seen it used in print in English. It is unreferenced, so that should certainly be fixed. The standard MCO, NCO, BCO sources aren't going to help, and I don't think ECO will either. Quale 13:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There's no article in the French Wikipedia. It's difficult for users of en-wiki to find the article, either, because of the diacritic. Meanwhile, Google searches don't help much, especially as you get lots of hits referring to fish, and also the internet, where it appears to be a jargon term (something to do with backbones I suppose). The only articles in English I can see relating to it are this and this, plus a couple of blogs. Trying "Epine dorsale echecs" fails too because of the alternative meaning of echecs ("failure"). Finally I tried "Epine dorsale 1.e4" and got just 28 hits excluding wiki-mirrors, including a forum post at chessgames.com, and this page which equates it with the Italian game. I have to say that given this level of sourcing, I'm not sure this article can sustain itself - perhaps it could be mentioned in King's Pawn Game? The reverting editor is adamant it shouldn't go to Italian Game, though. EliminatorJR 15:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have a listing in MCO-13 or the Oxford Companion. I put an unreferenced tag on it, hoping to get an English source. It is simply a transposition, right? Bubba73 15:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC

No, it doesn't look like it is. As far as I can see from the article's talk page, the edit summaries, and the few articles mentioned above, it's a series of moves that can be branched off at any time. I think the idea is that if you play, say, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6, then Black is said to have branched from the Epine Dorsale at move 2. EliminatorJR 15:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Scratch that. As far as I can tell, it is the same as the Italian Game, It may branch off after that to 2 knights or Guico Piano, but at that point it is the same. It seems to me that it is probably an old French name for the start of the Italian game. Well, Italian game and Evans Gambit by Jan Pinski points out that from that point you can have the Guico Piano, the 2 knights, the Hungarian Defense, as well as 3...g6. And 3...d6 will transpose. Bubba73 15:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

See my comments to ThreeE here. "Épine dorsale" is indeed the French term for "backbone" (and not "dorsal fin", which would be "nageoire dorsale"), and as I pointed out to ThreeE, this French site calls the Ruy Lopez "L'épine dorsale des jeux ouverts", i.e. "the backbone of the open games". youngvalter 16:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Back in my day, we didn't have the Italian game in the US. When I first heard of the Italian, I thought that it was 3.Bc4, as the article says. Therefore it included the Guico Piano and Two Knights. However, more recent references (MCO, Pinski, Seirawan, Oxford Companion) limit it to 3. Bc4 Bc5. Bubba73 16:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

IF that's the case, it needs to be merged with Guioco Piano. I've always understood the Italian to be defined by 3.Bc4 though, as in the Pinski book on this page. Is there a difference between countries here? EliminatorJR 17:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I have three books on that page, and the situation is not clear. The Italian game book by Pinski only covers 3. Bc4 Bc5 - contrary to the description on that page. His Two Knights book doesn't say anything about the 2N being part of the Italian. On the other hand, the Giuoco Piano book by Gufeld says that the G.P. is a branch of the Italian (inplying that there are others). But the majority (5 out of 6, I think) of references I checked equate the Italian and 3...Bc5. It might be that the Russians call everything under 3.Bc4 the Italian game. Bubba73 19:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like the Russians call 3.Bc4 Bc5 the Italian Game - see here. youngvalter 03:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Then equating G.P. and Italian, with the 2 Knights being seperate makes sense to me. Bubba73 04:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the Lengfellner System, I wonder if the reference should be removed altogether, for reasons of notability. youngvalter 16:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It is in the Oxford Companion. Bubba73 16:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

According to this website, Épine Dorsale means "back spine" - we might say "backbone" (Alta Vista translates it that way). It talks about Épine Dorsale as the backbone from which the other openings arise. It seems to be an old term from when most games started 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6. It gives 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 as part 1 of E.D. and 2... Nc6 as part 2. This is in contrast to the article, which gives 3.Bc4. So it seems that E.P. doesn't really refer to an opening, but a position from which other openings start. So in that case, it probably doesn't need to be merged with Italian game, without the 3.Bc4 that is. Bubba73 04:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It certainly needs a rewrite to make that clear, then, plus it needs to be sourced. I'll have a look at it when I get the chance. EliminatorJR 10:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This might connect to the concept of tabia, the standard or normal position that an opening variation leads to. A term borrrowed from the chess precursor game Shatranj, tabia has been reintroduced into modern chess parlance; e.g., Google(tm) the three singular variants, tabia, tabiya, and (misspelled?) tabya, with chess. (Arabic adds a final 't' to produce the plural; I'm sure we'll soon get this wrong as we did with "isolani".) Wfaxon 10:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a good observation—I hadn't thought of it that way. Quale 15:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

No Original Research / Sourcing

Thread 1

I ran across one of the pages about opening chess moves and was startled to find opinions being given for responses to the moves. Describing a common move, defense, or opening is one thing - but the majority of articles at Category:Chess openings introduce original research and unverified claims. Who says if a response is "offbeat" or "lively"? And it's How-to info at best and pure OR at worst, to suggest a best response or list the variety of ways one might respond to an opening. After the guff I have to put up with while dealing with Pokemon related articles, I'm surprised that a topic that this has been allowed to succumb to so much OR and gamecruft. ΖαππερΝαππερ 02:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Chess is not Pokemon. There exist a vast literature about chess openings and huge databases of master games here, so the articles are not OR, but mostly extracts from independently published sources. But I agree that they should be better referenced. Ioannes Pragensis 08:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I remember writing many of these chess opening articles years back, and I can only apologize that I was not particularily conscientious of the need for sourcing things back then. But Ioannes is right that there is a wealth of chess literature, especially on openings which can back up nearly all, if not all the claims in those articles. For instance, an "irregular" opening is one with very few entries in a chess database, or one classified as "A00" by the ECO. You mentioned a concern that the article's labelling of some openings as offbeat or mainstream. Let's look at Damiano Defense. OK, it labels move 2...f6 with a "?". But it can be backed up: the Oxford Companion to Chess says that the move was "correctly" condemned by Damiano (who therefore got his name attached to the opening). For a comparison with paper encyclopedias, I can mention that my version of Aschehoug has a (very short) article on the Caro-Kann Defense which notes its reputation as a solid opening. Sjakkalle 09:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, good general references for all chess openings are Modern Chess Openings, Standard Chess Openings and Nunn's Chess Openings. In addition there are usually several good opening books on each of the major opening lines (some giving detailed description on a single variation of an opening), and for the non-major openings... well Eric Schiller and Joel Benjamin wrote a book called Unorthodox Chess Openings. Sjakkalle 10:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm acually aware that many of these things could be sourced (incidentally, many things about pokemon could be sourced, but that's a different arguement). The problem is that the large majority are not, these sources you're giving me would fit very nicely and remove (more appropriately) the "sense" of OR in these articles. There don't seem to be too many, and if many of them are found within the same reference then citing them should be a breeze. However, just citing a ref as these are written really isn't enough, it still sounds like advice. A better way might be to say something like "according to..." or "the ECO classifies this move as X meaning Y." -ΖαππερΝαππερ 03:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I've read many of these articles, and I agree that they need to be sourced. Although a lot of it may appear to be original research or opinion, I think it could probably be properly sourced from standard opening books. But it does need to be sourced. Bubba73 04:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I figured the ChessGames.com Opening Explorer may be used as a reference with claims such as "White continues most often with Qb3 or Rc1" and "Characteristic for Black is the ...c5 counter-thrust or the defensive ...c6" as in Grünfeld gambit. ZeroOne 01:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I'd chime in and concur, a lot of those pages are unsourced, and frankly, not very much more than a guide to playing that opening. That may be useful to folks who play chess, and can understand the articles, but me, I continue to be befuddled by them. I seriously think this Wikiproject needs to put the clean-up of Category:Chess openings on its to-do list. I'll go through and tag some of the unreferenced examples right now, just to point them out. FrozenPurpleCube 16:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well in all fairness, if you read WP:NOT and refer to the section on "Wiki is not paper" you can see that it's been said that as long as things are referenced (i.e. as long as someone has written about it, and that "it" already satisfies the condition of being notable, which chess does) there is no reason that wikipedia cannot contain information on the subject in order to be comprehensive - the example given is with Poker. My main problem is that while chess and poker are granted this clemency, many video game related articles are not, basically because they are oft cited as being gamecruft or gameguide. I think that the spirit of wiki not being paper and allowing discussion of strategy is so that all notable aspects of a subject are included. If the discussion of strategy in a game is notable enough to warrant published material by a reputable source (i.e. not my myspace blog) then that strategy should be included. For example, i would not expect to find an article on the strategies of War. The only thing is that strategy discussions NEED to be referenced because the opportunity for original research is so high. -ΖαππερΝαππερ 17:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

OTOH, if you go to WP:NOT#IINFO, you'll see that just because something is written, doesn't mean it goes on Wikipedia. The subject of chess openings overall? No problem with it. The current category though, is a sprawling mess of minor openings and pages that are of dubious quality and merit. They are frequently no more than how-to guides and instruction manuals, written in what I'd consider overly technical terms. Perhaps great stuff for a Chess Wiki, but Wikipedia is meant to be general-purpose. I'm also concerned that List of chess openings is nothing more than a Directory. Still, respecting that there may be something to be done, I'd go with trying to get some clean-up done. I'd help, but honestly, most of the time, I look at these articles and I'm scratching my head at the notation. So what I'm hoping to do is prod some action. FrozenPurpleCube 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If you find any overly technical terms that are not described in either chess or chess opening just point them out here or on the article's talk page and we'll see if something can/should be done about them. I think, however, that it is safe to assume some previous knowledge of chess from the reader. To me, for example, the articles Arsphenamine and Lipschitz continuity appear to be written using overly technical terms but I don't care, because I don't need to know anything about their subjects and if I really needed to, I'd be happy to read enough background material to understand them. ZeroOne 17:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

He can also see chess terminology, rules of chess, list of chess topics and Algebraic chess notation. Bubba73 01:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thread 2

I've just expanded Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 9.Bc4 considerably. I believe that this is a large part of sicilian theory and that enough data / information exists to make this a separate page. i've taken the section on yugoslav with 9.bc4 on the main sicilian page and merged it with this article as well as to expand on the ideas, strategies and tactics that exist. I plan to add more theory tomorrow / this week. Hopefully we can get to these previously mentioned 1 paragraph pages that provide minimal help. I can take care of the yugoslav lines! Revision should be made to the main Sicilian page to limit redundant information now that we have an informational B77 page to link to.What is the feeling of providing an illustrative game ? are we keeping the pages to strict variation and strategy or are we allowing an example to further the readers understanding ? i'm new to wikipedia editing but not to chess, please help me with any criticism so that i may better convey my chess knowledge.

I've just re-wrote King's Indian Defence almost completely. so much more information is added and variations. i was going to do this to the Sicilian page, but apparently controversy exists. PLEASE check out the two pages i re-wrote and let me know what you guys think! Are many other people contributing to rewriting these pages and adding more detail to these one paragraph articles ? please let me know whats going on and where to focus. thank you for your time, hopefully i'll get some feedback. Matthew Yeager 04:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I like your additions to the KID, so personally I say, "thanks, more please". If you want to improve the Sicilian Defence article I think you can go ahead. Mediation has been requested (Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Sicilian Defence), but even if accepted I don't think it's likely to result in any changes to the article. The "controversy" is just one unsatisfied person who really doesn't have anything nice to say about any chess content on Wikipedia at all. On the other hand, if you don't enjoy the endless, mind-numbing tedium of having one individual who doesn't know anything about chess but who will not stop dictating to everyone else how they must write chess articles and what they are not permitted to include, you may want to wait a while. Quale 06:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the previous posts here, as i was told that many members fly right by the top and go straight to new things at the bottom. My name is Matthew and I hope to greatly contribute to the wikichessproject! I have read previously posts indicating that some articles were short and merely contained moves with no explanation. I have gone through and as noted above, rewrote 2 so far. I know a great deal in areas of chess, but I am new to wiki. From this, I would love some feedback on what needs changed, enhanced, whatever you got! More references are coming for both pages, I am going through some books I own and will be searching some sites for reliable incite. I want to become a better writer here and be able to convey my knowledge of chess to others. Thank you for your time Matthew Yeager 06:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The largest problem with the condition of the chess articles in general we have is that many of the chess articles are old, from an era when it was more common to look the other way when it came to citing sources. The content is still valid, but sources are still needed. Help in sourcing the articles we have would be really appreciated. I am impressed with your enthusiasm for working with the chess articles! Hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to seeing more of your contributions. Your recent contributions are great, thanks! :-) Sjakkalle 07:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Matthew. Thanks for the work you done on those two articles. I personally like what you have done there, but there are problems. I think most of the problems arise from you saying things like "I want to become a better writer here and be able to convey my knowledge of chess to others" - you are missing a key point about Wikipedia, which is to be able to write well about the knowledge of other people. Your knowledge of chess may be good, but you need to be able to back up what you say by referring to reliable sources (see WP:RS and WP:ATT), not by writing about what you "know" (regardless of whether it is correct or not). This is sometimes a hard lesson to learn, but looking at those two articles, I see problems with phrases like (for King's Indian Defence): "Until the mid-1930s, it was generally regarded as highly suspect" (said by who, and regarded as suspect by who?); "helped to make the defence much more respected and popular" (respected by who, popular with who?); "9.b4 used to put top players off playing this line" (used to? When? Which top players?); "Joe Gallagher, in Play the King's Indian, has recommended" (needs a date - in 10 years time, or maybe even next year, this will be out-of-date); "Statistically, after 7...Na6 White scores 57 percent out of 1600 games, which is not bad at all!" (the 'verdict' and exclamation mark is over the top - just give the statistic, a date, a source, and if you must give n opinion, credit it to someone - preferably a strong grandmaster or opening theory specialist). Similarly, for Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav attack, 9.Bc4: "Black will typically counterattack on the queenside"; "transition from one variation to another results in tactical loses if accurate play isn't observed" - are examples of unencyclopedic writing.

Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, and readers shouldn't expect to find detailed game strategy here. My opinion is that strategy should be kept to a bare minimum of the opening moves and variations, plus carefully selected (for balance) and dated (to avoid recentism) opinions from authors of chess books on opening theory, with the bulk of chess articles concentrating on chess history (both from the past and more recent "news" type of history). Carcharoth 11:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Foreign language sources

I have added some new claims to a couple of articles, namely to Sicilian Defence and King's Gambit, using a Finnish chess book as a reference. Wikipedia:Verifiability says that it is perfectly ok to use foreign language sources but English language sources are of course encouraged. What do you think, would you like me to continue adding Finnish sources, as I don't really have an access to any English chess books? Can someone find books in English that can replace the Finnish references? I think that it is better to cite a book than a random web page, but do you think it is the same if the book is in a foreign language? --ZeroOne (talk | @) 15:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As you know, chess is and long has been a very international sport. I encourage you to add any references you judge to be high quality in whatever language you find them in. Like many ugly Americans, I am hobbled in this respect by being fluent in only a single language, and unfortunately my 25-year-old weak high school level French doesn't really help much. Contributors who are conversant in languages other than English are a tremendous resource to the English language Wikipedia, and are one way of helping with WP:CSB. Claims currently only sourced with non-English references may sometimes be augmented in the future with English references. Quale 16:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree. Any source is better than no sources. Like Quale, my English is only augmented by some average French, but as he says, if a later English language cite becomes available, it can always be added. EliminatorJR 17:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The verifiability policy has a paragraph on foreign sources. They are perfectly acceptable, but if you have a choice between an English one and a foreign language one, pick the English one assuming they are of equal quality since they are more accessible to the readers. Sjakkalle 06:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'm aware of that, but as I said, I don't really have the choice. I consider the book is of a better quality than random English web pages. ZeroOne 06:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, so your use of foreign sources in this instance was definitely appropriate and the right thing to do. :-) Oops, I see now that I read only the responses and not the original post, and wound up talking right past you. Sorry about that. Sjakkalle 08:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Other

Racism shadows?

Note: I copy this post from the talk of the Checkmate article, I think it is important to the whole project and should be disccuss.

I am traslating a part of this page to spanish, I get a question. Why every checkmate are from whites to blacks?

This fact is not trivial I think.

It has two points:

1. NPV.-Novice readers are going to think the blacks always loose, or often they loose. In chess white starts and they have a few advantage at the beginning, but every chess player knows this is not trascendental to the game result.
2. Metaphor.-Why in an encyclopedia are we going to reflect to humanity white are best than dark?

I invite you to be more accurate to the wikipedia philosophy.

Thanks GengisKanhg (my talk) 20:03, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Convention is to give exercises and examples with "White to move and win" or "White to move and draw", and most of the contributors here are following that convention. For readers this is easier because boards are displayed from White's "point of view". The point that White moving first is racist has been raised before, but one should look at the history of chess. Historically, Black moved first half of the time. For some reason unknown to me, Black was considered to be a "lucky" color and it was suggested that White be given the first move as compensation for this. Having one color move first in all games makes it easier to compare different games of chess, it may as well have been black who always got the first move but we would be having the same question. In Checkers and Go Black moves first (a disadvantage in Checkers I've heard, but a clear advantage in Go). Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:52, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. I only can add is good for readers to learn to analyse the chess board from both player`s view, so they can analysed his or her own position and enemy`s one. GengisKanhg (my talk) 23:38, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think this kind of concern is the obnoxious extreme of the politically correct movement, and has no place affecting chess conventions. Period. Themindset 10:55, 11 November 2005 (UTC)