Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/FAQ/Format

message: Now that Template:Chess position works well and is already widely used, should all old chess position images be replaced by it? --ZeroOne 15:31, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Chess position pictures

message: I've written a sort of how-to at template talk:chess position. Hopefully this covers the basics.  What do others think? Also, I've been trying to figure out how to make chess diagrams with captions look similar to image thumbnails with captions. You can see my attempt at The Game of the Century. I think this looks better than the captions at Kasparov versus The World (not to pick on whoever made those). If someone could help figure this out I think it would be useful. jacobolus (t) 02:17, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: How-to for the chess position template

message: I posted an RFC at :meta:Talk:WikiProject Chess. Please feel free to comment. Cburnett 23:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New SVG format

message: ==Defense vs. Defence==
How should the openings like Modern defense be named? In some talk-page someone stated that the last word (Opening/Defence/Attack) should be capitalized and no one argued. I'm only concerned about the word "defense" - defense or defence? The naming scheme should be consistent. My vote goes to Defense. Many are named as Defences but Defense easily wins the Googlefight and List of chess openings lists way more defenses than defences. ZeroOne 01:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Gender-biassed pronouns in chess articles will expose us to more public ridicule such as the recent American (female) novelists category issue. Tony (talk)  10:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling

message: How should the openings like Modern defense be named? In some talk-page someone stated that the last word (Opening/Defence/Attack) should be capitalized and no one argued. I'm only concerned about the word "defense" - defense or defence? The naming scheme should be consistent. My vote goes to Defense. Many are named as Defences but Defense easily wins the Googlefight and List of chess openings lists way more defenses than defences. ZeroOne 01:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Defense vs. Defence

message: This is something I've been wondering in the chess articles. Sometimes the players' colors are capitalized, like this: A00 is the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings designator for unconventional chess openings with an unusual first move from White. Where does this style originate from? I've never seen it in literature but on the other hand I've only read Finnish chess literature. ZeroOne 08:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: White and Black vs. white and black

message: On the article on the Queen's Gambit Accepted, there have been some edits and some reverts regarding the use of the male pronoun "he". The first one was made by an anon 64.230.179.10 which systematically replaced "he" with "it" . That looked so wrong that I changed it back. Later, User:Iansk made another edit taking off the "he"s in order to make the article gender neutral, . This one looks good so I at least will let it stay.
My use of the male pronoun is of course not to imply that only men and boys can play chess. Although Bobby Fischer probably would disagree, girls and women are most certainly capable of playing chess, and are quite capable of defeating the likes of myself (I lost two consecutive games against girls, aged 13 and 11, last November) and even Kasparov (him at the hands of Judit Polgar). The use is because I want to imply that the players are people and not machines, and because nearly all chess books I have read use "he" when referring to the players. I feel that "he" has almost become a gender-neutral pronoun for use when the gender is undetermined.
Question: Should we use the male pronoun "he", the female pronoun "she", or avoid pronouns altogether to keep the chess articles gender neutral? The use of "it" is the only pronoun I will oppose. Sjakkalle 06:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Gender-biassed pronouns in chess articles will expose us to more public ridicule such as the recent American (female) novelists category issue. Tony (talk)  10:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronouns, should we use male, female or neutral?

message: In Stalemate, there is a sentence 
 In the position shown on the left, Keres played 72. Qe5!!
Should there be a period at the end of the sentence, or does the "!!" commenting on the move count as terminating the sentence?  Bubba73 (talk), 00:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Does chess move punctuation count as sentence punctuation?

message: Should Grunfeld be used instead of Grünfeld? Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) indicates that it should. Bubba73 20:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Grunfeld and naming conventions

message: ==PGN files==
I am wanting to add links to PGN files to a number of articles in Category:Chess_games and possibly Category:Chess_openings.  I noticed that Immortal game has one Media:Immortal game.pgn which was according to the history added by User: Camembert.  I left a note for him asking for help on how to do this just now but though I woudl ask here as well.  From reading through the documentation on uploading files it looks like only a very limited number of file types are supported.  Mostly sounds and images.  Is there a trick to this or can I just upload PGN and it will work?  Also how do you get to the file info page for one of these once its uploaded? Talk 01:57, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Games

message: I am wanting to add links to PGN files to a number of articles in Category:Chess_games and possibly Category:Chess_openings.  I noticed that Immortal game has one Media:Immortal game.pgn which was according to the history added by User: Camembert.  I left a note for him asking for help on how to do this just now but though I woudl ask here as well.  From reading through the documentation on uploading files it looks like only a very limited number of file types are supported.  Mostly sounds and images.  Is there a trick to this or can I just upload PGN and it will work?  Also how do you get to the file info page for one of these once its uploaded? Talk 01:57, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: PGN files

message: The chess template may provide a way to solve a problem which has been bugging me for a while: links to games collections. In the "External links" section of nearly every major chess player, there is to a collection of their games - sometimes more than one link. chessgames.com seems to be the preferred link to use, but sometimes others are used. Recently there was a discussion here on whether another site's list of games (chessworld.net) was spam. The problem was, these different sites all might have slight advantages over one another. So should every player's page have links to their games at 2, 3, 4 or more sites? So instead, why not have EVERY player's page link to a page called something like "chess games collections", using the chess template? That page could provide detailed links to chessgames.com and whatever other games collections are out there. That way, rather when deciding whether or not an external link to a games page is spam, do it once on the "chess games collections" rather than 100 different times on 100 different player pages. Does this idea have merit? Rocksong 01:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Games Collections" section on the chess template

message: ==Categories for chess player biographies==
Right now WP doesn't consistently use categories in the biography articles we have on chess players.  The master category is :Category:Chess players, with subcategories :Category:Chess grandmasters and :Category:Chess players by nationality.  Naturally the Chess players by nationality category is broken down further, but we're missing a lot of nationalities that we should have.  (:Category:Jewish chess players is also a subcat.  Strictly speaking "Jewish" is not a nationality, but there have been so many important Jewish players including many world champions, so I think this deserves a category and belongs as a subcat to Chess players by nationality.)
Here are my questions/suggestions.
#Currently many chess grandmasters are in both the :Category:Chess players and :Category: Chess grandmasters cats.  My suggestion is to put the GMs only in the GM subcat.  Then the master category can include notable chess players who played before the FIDE GM title was instituted in 1950 (remembering that the Czar named the original 5 GMs in 1914) and other notable chess players like Stanley Kubrick who were not professionals.  Would that be OK?
#We need more categories in :Category:Chess players by nationality.  Unfortunately as an American I'm ignorant of some of the subtleties.  :Category:British chess players probably can include the English and the Scotts, but I'm not sure what to do about the Irish and the Welsh.  There don't seem to be too many notable Irish players, though.
#What should we do with the former USSR?  Should the category be USSR chess players?  Soviet chess players?  Something else?  Just categorize them in their home republic?
#How many cats by nationality do we want to put on a single player?  Boris Spassky can be categorized as a Russian and a French chess player.  Many strong U.S. players are from former Soviet republics.  I think it's OK to categorize these players in both (or sometimes 3) cats that would apply.
Any thoughts? Quale 21:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: Right now WP doesn't consistently use categories in the biography articles we have on chess players.  The master category is :Category:Chess players, with subcategories :Category:Chess grandmasters and :Category:Chess players by nationality.  Naturally the Chess players by nationality category is broken down further, but we're missing a lot of nationalities that we should have.  (:Category:Jewish chess players is also a subcat.  Strictly speaking "Jewish" is not a nationality, but there have been so many important Jewish players including many world champions, so I think this deserves a category and belongs as a subcat to Chess players by nationality.)
Here are my questions/suggestions.
#Currently many chess grandmasters are in both the :Category:Chess players and :Category: Chess grandmasters cats.  My suggestion is to put the GMs only in the GM subcat.  Then the master category can include notable chess players who played before the FIDE GM title was instituted in 1950 (remembering that the Czar named the original 5 GMs in 1914) and other notable chess players like Stanley Kubrick who were not professionals.  Would that be OK?
#We need more categories in :Category:Chess players by nationality.  Unfortunately as an American I'm ignorant of some of the subtleties.  :Category:British chess players probably can include the English and the Scotts, but I'm not sure what to do about the Irish and the Welsh.  There don't seem to be too many notable Irish players, though.
#What should we do with the former USSR?  Should the category be USSR chess players?  Soviet chess players?  Something else?  Just categorize them in their home republic?
#How many cats by nationality do we want to put on a single player?  Boris Spassky can be categorized as a Russian and a French chess player.  Many strong U.S. players are from former Soviet republics.  I think it's OK to categorize these players in both (or sometimes 3) cats that would apply.
Any thoughts? Quale 21:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories for chess player biographies

message: We've kind of danced around how to categorize chess players from the former Soviet Union. So far, we've tried to categorize them in the appropriate :Category:Chess players by nationality subcat for their home republic. I think we should continue to do this, but I also think we need to put them in a :Category:Soviet chess players or :Category:USSR chess players. The era of Soviet dominance of chess is important enough that it should be reflected in our categorizations, and we also have the difficulty that sometimes categorizing by home republic alone doesn't really fit well.  No one should ever forget that Paul Keres was Estonian, but (please forgive me if this is a bad example) Efim Geller seems to be more accurately described as a Soviet than a Ukrainian, although of course both are correct. I think we should use both cats. What do our chess biographers think?  Quale 05:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Chess in the Soviet Union|Chess in the Soviet Union]]

message: Our page for Dragoljub Minić currently says that he was Croatian, but an anon commented that he was a Serb.  His places of birth (Titograd) and death (Novi Sad) strongly suggest Serb is correct.  Does anyone know for sure?  I have also asked at WikiProject Serbia hoping to get some help. Quale 03:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Yugoslav chess players]]

message: ==Links to chessworld.net==
Hi all,
I have a question regarding links to chessworld.net. In September, one-purpose accounts User:Juicy Plums and User:Son of Zeus started to add them in huge quantities. I tried to stop them, and had a long discussion with them and with User:Kingscrusher (Tryfon), who is the webmaster of chessworld.net and appeared to defend them (he looked like their puppetmaster, read the discussion on my talk page). The negotiations were hard and ended with an agreement in the sense that Tryfon will not add the links in the future and I will not remove them. Then after two months or so, a new one-purpose account User:No65560 appeared and started the link-bombing again, in the same style as the late Son of Zeus/Juicy Plums/Trifon. Later, two "normal" users started a conflict about this: User:Eagle 101 removed all the links as linkspam and User:LittleOldMe added them back because he thinks that they are legitimate. 
Now, my stance is slightly against the links, at least in cases where there is already a link to Chessgames.com. But this is only a weak opinion. What I think is that we should discuss it now and decide: Either
*Chessworld.net links are legitimate and should stay and we will defend them (and perhaps create a template similar to the Chessgames template), or
*We will tolerate them but not support them, or
*We will regard them as spam and combat them.
I should add that the ChessWorld.net article has been deleted (PRODed, not AfDed).
What is your opinion? Ioannes Pragensis 16:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Hi all,
I have a question regarding links to chessworld.net. In September, one-purpose accounts User:Juicy Plums and User:Son of Zeus started to add them in huge quantities. I tried to stop them, and had a long discussion with them and with User:Kingscrusher (Tryfon), who is the webmaster of chessworld.net and appeared to defend them (he looked like their puppetmaster, read the discussion on my talk page). The negotiations were hard and ended with an agreement in the sense that Tryfon will not add the links in the future and I will not remove them. Then after two months or so, a new one-purpose account User:No65560 appeared and started the link-bombing again, in the same style as the late Son of Zeus/Juicy Plums/Trifon. Later, two "normal" users started a conflict about this: User:Eagle 101 removed all the links as linkspam and User:LittleOldMe added them back because he thinks that they are legitimate. 
Now, my stance is slightly against the links, at least in cases where there is already a link to Chessgames.com. But this is only a weak opinion. What I think is that we should discuss it now and decide: Either
*Chessworld.net links are legitimate and should stay and we will defend them (and perhaps create a template similar to the Chessgames template), or
*We will tolerate them but not support them, or
*We will regard them as spam and combat them.
I should add that the ChessWorld.net article has been deleted (PRODed, not AfDed).
What is your opinion? Ioannes Pragensis 16:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Links to chessworld.net

message: I've brought this issue up here, since lack of communication among chess editors in the past has hurt the quality of articles.
 added links to chessbook.net on several chess opening articles, which User:Silly rabbit and I reverted.  reverted our changes, citing similarities between chessbook.net and chessgames.com - see comments here.
I removed the links to chessbook.net in the first place because its homepage states it is a "database of online blitz chess games", which aren't treated seriously by most chess players, and particularly not as a source of opening theory. On the other hand, chessgames is a general database, and almost all the games it contains are serious tournament games, which are much more valuable. Judging from the widespread use of Template:Chessgames player, there seems to be consensus that chessgames.com is indeed a useful resource, but I'm not convinced that chessbook.net is nearly as helpful. Thoughts, anyone? youngvalter 04:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Links to chessbook.net

message: ==Help on a Knight's Tour image==
Hi!  I'm working on an article on The Turk, the chess playing automaton hoax. The machine was able to do the knight's tour, which we have an article of with a free image of a way to solve the knight's tour. I'm not good with images, but if I were to provide a picture from the book to someone to create an image of the knight's tour (I'm assuming since it's simply a chess puzzle that was completed by someone 300 years ago, copyright isn't an issue for the derivative), would someone be able to help? Thanks. badlydrawnjeff 02:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Other

message: Hi!  I'm working on an article on The Turk, the chess playing automaton hoax. The machine was able to do the knight's tour, which we have an article of with a free image of a way to solve the knight's tour. I'm not good with images, but if I were to provide a picture from the book to someone to create an image of the knight's tour (I'm assuming since it's simply a chess puzzle that was completed by someone 300 years ago, copyright isn't an issue for the derivative), would someone be able to help? Thanks. badlydrawnjeff 02:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Help on a Knight's Tour image