# Talk:Bobby Fischer

@Keeper of Albion: On the one hand, WP:FALSETITLE is not "one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines", and does not justify sweeping through an old and popular article trying to "fix" it by removing every false title. Also, When editors disagree about whether the use of false titles is appropriate in an article, the status quo should be followed until a consensus to change it forms.  On the other hand, I have have already spent some time trying to reduce the journalistic atmosphere in Bobby Fischer, and some of these will help. In many cases there should be no title at all, because we are referring to a person whose name is wikilinked, or because the title is not relevant. In some cases the addition of "the" or "a" makes the sentence noticeably clumsier, and I will scratch my head over these. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:43, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I never claimed it’s "one of Wikipedia’s policies or guidelines." Have you fabricated a quotation from me?
"does not justify" — I don’t need a justification per WP:BOLD.
"old and popular" — Completely irrelevant. Sounds like an emotional argument, too.
You can do as you please with this article and others in American English, but please keep the sensationalised journalese out of British English- or Oxford English-tagged articles.
Regards Keeper of Albion (talk) 18:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
That "fabricated" quotation was from WP:FALSETITLE. Did you read the whole thing? Bruce leverett (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
I didn’t call it fabricated. In fact I misunderstood your comment. Keeper of Albion (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
A wlink on player's name isn't sufficient reason to remove e.g. "grandmaster" title from the viewpoint/consideration have read on WP before that WP articles need to be paper-print ready/might be printed to paper where there's of course no access to wlink tech. --IHTS (talk) 00:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
It is, in fact, somewhat common in the non-chess historical biographies I have seen, such as Thomas Jefferson, to use "historian" (no article) as a title; for example, Historian Bernard Sheehan argues that ... I have grown used to this, and so I was initially taken aback by the "false title" complaint. I would not say that using "historian" in this way gives an improper journalistic cast to a historical biography article; but somehow that is an exception to the rule, for I agree that our frequent use of titles (such as "grandmaster") and thumbnail introductions (such as "former world champion" or "Latvian chess master"), with or without "the", has an unpleasant journalistic flavor. Going around adding "the" to each one doesn't help.
Referring again to Thomas Jefferson, I see that we use the "Historian" title whether or not the historian's name is wikilinked. I retract my earlier comment about not needing a title when the person's name is wikilinked. Although I have not found the "print-ready" idea to which you referred, I have gotten the impression from the overall discussion of wikilinks that they are not to be used as a substitute for actual article content, but only as a convenient navigation for readers who need some background.
I am suspicious of giving thumbnail introductions to people who are only incidental to our story.  See this edit for example. However I left in place "the defending U.S. champion" as a modifier for "Arthur Bisguier", because it is common practice in describing chess championships to identify the defending champion if he's present.  Maybe I should have left in something about Reshevsky being a previous champion, but I have gotten very tired of reading "six-time" in U.S. chess literature to describe "ol' six-time" champion Walter Browne.
I have also removed a couple of thumbnail introductions that I didn't like for other reasons: "grandmaster Andrew Soltis" (he was quoted not because he was a grandmaster, but because he was a popular chess journalist and author); "former world champion Garry Kasparov" (what, I need an introduction for this guy?).
My choices here may be somewhat idiosyncratic and not necessarily the last word on this. I just wanted to explain what I was thinking, in a little more depth than I did in the edit summaries. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

That's a misreading of WP:BLP1E which begins, "We generally should avoid having an article on a person ...".  We don't have an article on Jinky Young, the article is on Bobby Fischer. Quale (talk) 14:52, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Firstly, per WP:BLPRESTORE, material removed on good-faith BLP objections should not be restored without consensus, so please self-revert @Quale.Secondly, WP:NPF says: in [cases where articles contain material on people who are not well known], exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability. This girl's name is not relevant to her notability; only her implication in a posthumous paternity dispute that took place when she was a very young child is.Thirdly, WP:BLPNAME says Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event... The presumption in favor of privacy is strong in the case of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons. The names of any immediate, former, or significant family members or any significant relationship of the subject of a BLP may be part of an article, if reliably sourced, subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject. I think in this case it's unambiguous that the reader's complete understanding of this paternity dispute would not be hindered by the exclusion of the child's name.This girl was a very young child when the dispute that ties her to Fischer took place. She had no agency in publicizing her identity. She is certainly low-profile and has never sought media attention. Given the policies I've cited here, I think it is reasonable to exclude her name. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:27, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for linking to WP:BLPNAME, which I had also found when I saw that WP:BLP1E and others that you had mentioned were not really on point.
"Editorial discretion" is important.  The child was not just discussed in terms of a single event; she was already in the news as early as 2004, as in this article: [1]  Although her mother drove her participation in the legal proceedings that resulted in Fischer's exhumation, it was the daughter, willy-nilly, who was the star of the show, and her name was all over our sources.  Our suppressing her name does not protect her privacy; on the contrary, it is conspicuous, and attracts attention to her.  Even seventeen years later, everyone who was following those events remembers her name, and is likely to use it as a search term in accessing Wikipedia.
Of course, there are the usual BLP considerations. Do we cite enough sources, and are they reliable?  Is our description of events neutral?  The parts of the article about Fischer's later life have a long and difficult history, and I would welcome suggestions for making them more encyclopedic. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
Her name in quotes returns eight Google News results, three Google Scholar results, and zero Ngrams results. Her name wasn't splashed into every household, and nobody remembering the affair would Google her name, fail to find the Wikipedia article, and be left at a dead end without the ability to Google "Bobby Fischer daughter". Suppressing her name is in no way conspicuous, and if we believed in that sort of thing then WP:BLPNAME wouldn't exist. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:24, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
WP:BLPNAME states: When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories. The name has been published in a number of books, such as Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer by Frank Brady, A Psychobiography of Bobby Fischer by Joseph G. Ponterotto, Bobby Fischer: The Wandering King by Hans Böhm and Kees Jongkind, and Bobby Fischer for Beginners by Renzo Verwer. Khiikiat (talk) 09:32, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
How does this counter the argument from the Caution should be applied... and exercise caution... language in BLPNAME? Yes, the name has been published. But it's not ubiquitous, exclusion of her name wouldn't damage the reader's complete understanding of the situation, and this is exactly the sort of situation that policy encourages editors to err on the side of privacy for. What good reason is there not to? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:16, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
Just a note to support Zanahary's removal per WP:BLPNAME: This is generally interpreted by the community to include the removal of names of non-notable minors from articles about their notable family members, such as when a notable individual births or sires a non-notable minor. Notability is not presumed or inherited with extremely limited exception (such as heir to a throne or similar).. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
In this case, the daughter and the mother were both notable. Brady's 2011 book mentions the daughter by name more often than the mother.
Brady's book is the source on which we primarily rely in parts of this article, including the sections about Fischer's years in exile. Bruce leverett (talk) 00:18, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
Notable in the context of wikipolicy tends to mean WP:N (i.e. subject of a sufficient amount of coverage to merit an article). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:49, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
Her name in a standard Google search returns many results including
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11006166
https://www.chess.com/news/view/fischer-not-the-father-of-9-year-old-filipino-girl
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5070561/
https://en.chessbase.com/post/dna-test-results-prove-fischer-was-not-the-father-of-jinky-young
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/08/18/129273914/after-exhumation-dna-test-bobby-fischer-paternity-case-closed
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/18/iceland.bobby.fischer/index.html
https://archive.nytimes.com/gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/fischers-body-ordered-to-be-exhumed/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bobby-fischer-not-girls-father-lawyers-say/
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/a-demand-further-tests-bobby-fischer%E2%80%99s-dna/?srsltid=AfmBOopsUoc-LPZ5x6S8g_ngy9TUsjDRivZy_uttk_wIS8GuMpVKyo0h
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/7951268/Chess-champion-Bobby-Fischer-did-not-father-girl.html
Interestingly I didn't see Wikipedia show up until the 4th page of Google results -- these are all appear earlier. Most of these are news sources, but she also has an IMDB page (result #3). As Bruce noted, she is also in Brady's book on Fischer. Quale (talk) 02:38, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
This definitely doesn’t establish the girl’s independent notability per WP:N, but that’s not even what’s at hand here. Nobody is suggesting we delete a nonexistent article about her. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:03, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree that neither the mother nor the daughter merits their own article.  If that is the standard of notability that is being used, then the passage about the removal of names of non-notable minors from articles about their notable family members is clearly not applicable. Bruce leverett (talk) 11:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
It's not the standard being used. See this comment for clarification and this comment for the policy basis. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:53, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

This edit added a mention of Fischer's appearance in the Panama Papers. Here is a link to the article that was cited.
I don't think that there is enough context here to justify mentioning this in our article. If there is something interesting behind the legal transaction that was mentioned (Fischer was granted power of attorney over a company, three months before he died), we are not told what it was, and there is no clue how this was connected to anything else in Fischer's life (or anybody else's life, for that matter). Unless we can place this in the larger picture of Fischer's life, there isn't a place for it in this biographical encyclopedia entry. Bruce leverett (talk) 15:18, 21 November 2025 (UTC)