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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Letter case for entries and the anchors

This is a thread that started on User talk:Marc Kupper#Glossary of chess about an edit I had made. I decided to shift the thread to this talk page to give editors a heads up on some issues/ideas for this article. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Curious to understand: what was gained by hardcoding deault parm values at Glossary of chess? IHTS (talk) 08:57, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, I landed on the Glossary of chess article via an #anchor link. While the word was in the glossary it did not have an {{anchor}} meaning I was left at the top of the article and not on the definition I wanted to look at. Of the 528 terms defined in the glossary 284 of them had anchors. Rather than adding the anchor for just the word I was interested in I reformatted all of the lines for the terms to match the regexp ^\{\{term\|term= ([a-z][a-z0-9éïó '()–-]*)\|content = [a-z0-9éïó '()[\]–-]+.* \{\{anchor\|\1(\|[a-z0-9éïó '()–./|-]+)?\}\} \}\}$ which was the pattern used by the 284 records with anchors. That regexp now matches 526 of the terms. The other two terms used wikilinks in the term but otherwise follow the same pattern.
The reason for using content= that's the same as term= even though it seems redundant is because you can only do the {{anchor}} within the content= section. I considered doing it using: {{term|term=name|content=content only if it's not exactly the same as ''term''}}{{anchor|''term''|alternate-terms...}} but that would result in two styles of term definitions. As people often copy/paste from an existing record to create a new one it seemed better to use a single consistent format. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:24, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes I discovered the same (i.e. that anchor requires content=). But I guess I was thinking that many term entries don't really need anchors. (I suppose tho that cap'd/uncap'd can always be anchors, in fact I see you did that for some entries; but an anchor that is exactly redundant of the term form is the default and provides no function so is confusing why it's there, prompting my Q here.) Ok, IHTS (talk) 12:21, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I see what you mean. I've learned some things.
  1. {{term}} automatically creates anchors. (I'd assumed it would but when an anchor did not work I then assumed it didn't...)
  2. Anchors are case sensitive in least in Firefox and Chrome though not in Internet Explorer. (I normally use Firefox). Related to this is that the entire anchor string is used "as-is" when looking for a match. With wikilinks to article titles the first letter of the title is silently converted to upper case in the link. Both chess and Chess link to "Chess" and chess#variants links to Chess#variants. Both of the #variants links in the previous sentence will fail as the section name is "Variants" and we are required to use chess#Variants or Chess#Variants.
  3. As article titles always start with an upper-case letter people creating redirects seem to also tend to use an upper case-letter in the first letter of the anchor when there is one. For example en prise is a redirect that links to Glossary of chess#En prise even though the glossary contains an all lower-case "en prise". That redirect fails unless we either fix the redirect to use Glossary of chess#en prise or we have an anchor for "En prise".
  4. Last but not least is there is a fair amount of inconsistency in the capitalization of terms in the glossary.
Moving forwards I'm thinking of:
  1. Review and clean up the letter case in the glossary. The main areas that have issues are the sections for the letters starting at O. I think someone earlier must have cleaned up A-N as the only entries in A-N that seem incorrect are the ones for Black and Novelty.
  2. Review and fix the redirects so that the case in the anchor matches the case in the glossary. There are 83 redirects at present.
  3. Eliminate unused anchors. A while back I did some code that allowed me to download the wikitext of articles. At present 858 articles link to the glossary plus the 83 redirects. It should be fairly easy to generate a list of the anchors that are being used. For example, at present we have:
{{term|term= en prise|content = en prise {{anchor|En prise}} }}
Once we fix the en prise redirect to link to #en prise then we we can use
{{term|term= en prise }}
in this article. Other articles that use #En prise can be fixed to use the redirect.
I thought of making step 1 above a revert of my edit but one thing I did that will later be useful is the "term" lines now all of the same layout meaning it'll be much easier to search/replace them into a more compact layout once the letter case issue is sorted out. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I went out on a bike ride and while doing that realized that it may be better to use an initial upper-case letter for each term. It looks like the list initially used upper-case and in March 2006 you started a project to review and convert the entries to lower case. That broke the redirects. I don't have a strong feeling one way or another other than it's really easy to go back to using an initial upper case letter. Search/Replace (\{\{term\| )([a-z]) with \1\U\2. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:27, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I reviewed 694 articles plus the 83 redirects and found 658 links to anchors.
  • 647 of them link to anchors using an upper-case first letter
  • 11 of them link to anchors using a lower-case first letter (absolute pin, capture, en prise, equalise, forced mate, kingside (2), majority (2), queenside (2))
I was not able to review all 858 articles that link to this one as my script was not set up to handle "/" in article names. It appears though that we should consider going back to an upper-case first letter or making sure we have anchors set up for them. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:13, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, I believe I'm done with the general cleanup. The main open issue is if we continue with lower-casing terms from O to Z and adding upper-case anchors to each of those or to use upper-case for all terms which allows us to remove many of the anchors. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:03, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I really don't understand what you're doing. For example what was the necessity of this edit when (under Firefox) was working fine before your edit?: [1] IHTS (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
I also don't understand why you are considering changing term entries that are and s/b lower-case, to upper-case? (Please see how they do it at Glossary of cue sport terms.) IHTS (talk) 00:58, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
The original edit was based on an accident or mistake. My subsequent edits have essentially reverted the first edit as you can see here. The main difference is all of the entries now have a consistent layout which made it easy to spot issues such as typos anchors, missing anchors, and unneeded anchors, using regexp pattern matching.
I will need to retest the Firefox stuff. Earlier I was getting consistent results in that Firefox & Chrome were case sensitive and Internet Explorer was not. {{anchor}} talks about this in a non-specific way.
In March 2015 you started to convert the entries to lower-case and seem to have abandoned the project. In the letters A to M nearly all of the entries are lower cased. From N on to Z all of the entries start with an upper-case letter other than threat. Of the glossaries listed in Glossaries of sports 12 use lower-case and 28 use upper-case for the first letter of the words/phrases listed. I excluded from the count the three chess glossaries, and Wing Chun terms which is ambiguous.
While I like the idea of using lower-case I've found the process is time consuming as you need to think about each entry. As 99% of the links to a glossary use upper-case the maintainers of a lower-case glossary need to always add both content= plus anchors and to ensure that they are accurate. For example, "back-rank mate" was anchored by "Bank-rank mate" and "loose position" was anchored by "Lose position". We were also missing anchors for a handful of entries. These are all examples of the sort of errors that creep into a glossary that uses lower-case.
I am advocating that we go back to using an upper-case first letter. It allows editors to focus improving the content rather than battling technical issues. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:19, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
When I woke up this morning I had a couple of thoughts. 1) There are far more readers of an article than editors and the lower-case version is easier to read. 2) Using a regexp I can easily and accurately convert entries to lower-case (adding or updating content= plus adding or updating the {{anchor}}s). However, I'd like to know which entries need conversion. Here's a proposed list of 182 terms to convert to lower-case:
Is there anything in that list that should be left in upper-case? --Marc Kupper|talk 19:28, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
This is done. While doing the edit I decided to not convert these to lower-case: O-O, O-O-O, Poisoned Pawn Variation, Romantic chess, White, Wing Gambit, World Champion. There was one word, tabiya, that was not in the list above that was converted to lower case. There's one inconsistency in that we have separate entries for black and Black but only one entry for White. I decided to leave that alone for now. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:53, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Re While I like the idea of using lower-case I've found the process is time consuming as you need to think about each entry. That's right, some terms are lower-case (like "pawn") and some terms are proper noun upper-case (like "Alekhine's gun") - the terms have to be thought about individually and there is nothing wrong with that - even though it takes some work the terms s/ all be lower-case unless they require upper-case (as I think you subsequently discovered).
  • Re "back-rank mate" was anchored by "Bank-rank mate" and "loose position" was anchored by "Lose position". We were also missing anchors for a handful of entries. These are all examples of the sort of errors that creep into a glossary that uses lower-case. They were simple typos and s/b fixed as such. That is not an argument against a mix of lower-case & upper-case entries. A mix of lower- and upper-case entries is informative how the term is properly represented. Anchors for wrong case simply allow for servicability to the term as opposed to "term not found"-type lookup error.
Yes you are correct, I did half the alphabet re upper- vs lower-case. (But quit that project for reason unrelated to the Glossary itself.) IHTS (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Re your list. Yes "White/white" entries s/ mirror "Black/black" entries. "Zonal tournament" seemed to be generally cap'd in the article on Zonal. "Zeitnot" seems to be cap'd in the article too (funny, other German noun terms like "zwischenzug" aren't, in practice). IMO "Scholar's Mate" is a proper noun (ala "Alice Chess", "Grand Chess", "Andromeda Galaxy", etc.); my own second choice w/ be "Scholar's mate"; last choice "scholar's mate". (There is no standard or agreement for WP on the topic. E.g. IMO "rapid chess" is incorrect but might be the practice; Parlett [in Oxford History of Board Games] says "Losing Chess, which is a game, and losing chess, which is a disgrace".) OK, good luck. IHTS (talk) 01:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh, about #REDIRECTs, I see what you mean now (earlier I didn't). The Glossary s/ really be independent from redirects to the Glossary. (Because there is no controlling who or when or how someone might create a redirect.) Probably it is true that every term entry s/ have an anchor containing at least he opposite of the term case, to support either form someone might use in a redirect. (Otherwise a maintainer is doomed to continually scan existing redirects for making corrections.) I added many anchors, but not all, so perhaps that is why you ended up at top of Glossary instead of term. (When I started, there were virtually no anchors.) Personally I don't see the value in #REDIRECTs that merely redirect to the Glossary term, it's a little confusing (because looks like an article when cursur hovers over the wlink), and makes different perhaps inconsistent ways to access the Glossary, but users have created them, I'm pretty sure the reason is because the WP markup is easier & shorter to specify than 'Glossary of chess#_term_'. (When adding anchors I was thinking about case mis-specified Glossary markups in articles, not in redirects, but anchors support both situations, right, so redirects weren't relevant.) OK, IHTS (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I figured I'd crunch through the remaining words that needed thought regarding the letter case. They seem to be:

  • scholar's mate - After reviewing Google Books I used Scholar's Mate. 9 of 10 results on the first page used Mate. The following pages were more mixed. I included an anchor for "Scholar's mate" though not "scholar's mate".
  • zonal tournament - While I normally think in terms of Zonals I'd lower-cased this in the glossary as the definition used lower case. As this is an FIDE thing I looked at their site. The specific zonals always use "Zonal" in their name and they occasionally the lower case form when writing about the zonals in general. Their Annex A. Specific Regulations for the Men's and Women's Zonal Tournaments and Zonal Presidents article are examples of inconsistency. As we had Interzonal I went ahead with changing zonal to Zonal and also modified both as we have not had interzonals since 1993. I decided not to do Google searches on this one as the results will be dominated by mentions of specific zonal tournaments.
  • zeitnot - In reviewing Google Books results sorted by date it appears we started out with Zeitnot and that zeitnot started appearing in the 1980s. For the past past ten years or so zeitnot is more common than Zeitnot in English language commentary.

--Marc Kupper|talk 08:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

You do good research, methinks. Cheers, IHTS (talk) 06:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Drifting

When a player makes a move without a plan, possibly deteriorating her position slightly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:6999:1200:AC17:847A:228:A8C7 (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

PGN

PGN is showing up twice. The edit button next to the "P" section shows just the entry for "pairing" for me, so i cant fix it. KalleKallupke (talk) 19:13, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Hauptturnier

The proper translation of this is not "candidates tournament", it's "main tournament" or "premier tournament" or "A" tournament, i.e. the most prestigious of several concurrent tournaments at the same congress. Modern examples include Corus, Aeroflot and Hastings. MaxBrowne (talk) 23:14, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Looks like Lombardy got that wrong then. I see from Google translate that haupt = head. Okay, consider it changed. Brittle heaven (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Re-reading Lombardy's book, I had missed his word 'freely' when he talked of the German translation. I think this is key, and I've now added it. My assumption is that the 'haupt', in this context, means 'head of the peripheral tournaments'. In other words, the congress may also have featured an international tournament (the real main/premier event) and this would be followed by the 'candidate for a master title' event. And so, in this sense, alluding to the hauptturnier as the main or head(line) event would be at best, confusing. Happy to change it if anyone disagrees, but what I have written stays true to the source, which is a major plus. Brittle heaven (talk) 01:01, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Glossary Term - Arbiter

The term "arbiter" in this article has a link that says "see International Arbiter." The link is supposed to link down the page to the term "international arbiter."

On my computer, at least, the link doesn't do anything. In my opinion, the link should either be fixed (if it's broken), or should link directly to the article for international arbiter (as there already is one).

I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't want to try and fix it myself, because I might just end up breaking something even more. Could someone more experienced check this out and fix if needed?

Thanks.

50.78.130.121 (talk) 16:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done The problem was, the go-to term entry (International Arbiter) lacked an anchor. (The same problem occurs for other term links too, but I leave that to another editor to fix, now that solution is known.) IHTS (talk) 18:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

absolute pin

Even if a piece is pinned to the king, it may still be able to move (e.g. wRa1, Kb1; bRa7, Ka8). In this position, Black can move his rook vertically, but not horizontally. (And if we added a black pawn on b7, one might wonder if the rook is really pinned since it would have the same legal moves anyway.) Double sharp (talk) 15:58, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that that counts as a "pin", given that the black rook can capture the attacking white rook. I don't know what the sources say, but intuitively it wouldn't ordinarily occur to me to call that a "pin". --Trovatore (talk) 08:00, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
OK, for a more intuitive example, how about a bishop pinning a queen to the king?
This glossary entry, like the entry for relative pin, is a reference to the Wiki article Pin (chess), which in turn relies mainly on two references, Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess and Hooper and Whyld's Oxford Companion to Chess. I would be happy to correct these entries, but not before first taking a look at Golombek and at Hooper & Whyld, neither of which I have at my fingertips. Prior to looking at these Wikipedia entries, I had never encountered the terms "absolute pin" or "relative pin" in my own reading of the past five decades. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, yes, I hope you'll have a chance to follow up on that. I never heard of them either but I'm not very serious about chess so it didn't occur to me to question it. It could be someone's neologism or idiosyncratic usage, and in that case should be removed. --Trovatore (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I found Hooper & Whyld in my attic, and they don't have "absolute pin", or "relative pin", or "partial pin", or "situational pin", so I don't know where the editor(s) of Pin (chess) got them; maybe from Golombek. If I don't find them in Golombek, then what do I do? But even if I do find them in Golombek, isn't it cheating to be cribbing from another encyclopedia? Aren't we supposed to be going to a lower level of the food chain for our ideas about what terminology is notable?
Oh well. The original question was whether was an error in the glossary, and there is, and if I get tired of arguing philosophy I will just fix the error and go away. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I think the correct fix is probably to remove the challenged terms. Right now there's a concern that someone is promoting a neologism, which we definitely don't want Wikipedia used for (mainly because it's too easy — if you want to make up a word, you ought to have to get it published somewhere peer-reviewed). If you're really ambitious and careful, you could do a binary search on the history of the article to find out who inserted the terms, and contact that person if he/she is still around. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Brace, Edward R. (1977), An Illustrated Dictionary of Chess, Hamlyn Publishing Group, p. 157, ISBN 1-55521-394-4 "The term absolute pin or wholly pinned is used by some authors to indicate that the piece behind the pinned piece is the King. ... Mr. C. Mansfield of England used the term half-pin when the pinned piece has one or more squares along the line of the pin to which the pinned piece may move." Quale (talk) 02:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Fine, Reuben (1952), The Middle Game in Chess, David McKay, pp. 14–15 "In one type of position the pin is absolute, i.e., the piece screens the King and any move with it is illegal. ... A second type of pin is a relative one, in which the pinned piece may move, but by so doing exposes the player to a greater loss." Quale (talk) 03:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
These two examples, particularly Fine, are just what I needed; thanks! I will make appropriate changes to both Glossary of chess and Pin (chess) as soon as I have time. Bruce leverett (talk) 06:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the refs, Quale. There does still seem to be a bit of a problem, though. As Double sharp pointed out originally, it's not true that a piece that screens the king can never have a legal move.
Fine's comment could be saved if taken literally; that is, a pin is absolute if the piece screens the king and any move with it is illegal. So in that case, Double sharp's example would not be an absolute pin, even though the piece screens the king. But I doubt that's what Fine meant. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Oh, as an afterthought, maybe that is what Fine meant — Double sharp's example is not an absolute pin because it's not a pin at all, since the screening piece can capture the attacking piece? But then what to do with the queen pinned by a protected bishop? --Trovatore (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I think you're correct. Fine never says that a piece pinned to the king can never move. A term sometimes used for the situation in which the pinned piece can move is half pin. For example, in the 1930 English translation of My System, Nimzovich classifies pinned pieces as being either wholly pinned or half pinned. "The pinned piece dare not move since if he did the piece behind him would be exposed to the attack from which it had previously been screened. If this immobility is absolute, that is, the pinned piece dare make no move whatever, he is said to be wholly pinned. If on the other hand the pinned piece has any squares at his disposal in the line of the pin to which he can move, he is said to be only half pinned." (My System, Aron Nimzovich (1930), trans. Philip Hereford) This seems to be a little more subtle than I expected. Although Nimzovich uses the word "absolute" to describe wholly pinned (in this English translation), "wholly pinned" is not the same as Fine's absolute pin. Every absolute pin (Fine) involves a wholly pinned piece (Nimzovich), but the reverse is not true. Wholly pinned requires only that the pinned piece cannot move without suffering loss, whereas an absolutely pinned piece has no legal moves.
In practice, I don't think these terms are used very often outside of writings intended to teach chess tactics. Chess players simply say "pin" and "pinned" without further qualification and the situation is usually clear from examining the position in question. Precise terminology might be helpful for pedagogy but it isn't common in everyday use, which is probably why experienced chess editors have said they aren't familiar with these terms. As a possibly interesting aside, Encyclopaedia of Chess (Sunnucks, 1970), gives a definition of "pinned piece" that includes only Fine's absolutely pinned case (pinned against the king, no legal moves). The entry notes that this term is defined in the Laws of Chess. I don't see it in the Laws on the FIDE website today, so I'd have to check to see if I have a copy somewhere of the language used around 1970. I do have a book by Harkness that might include the USCF rules of that era. This is not the standard definition of "pin", and restricting it to this narrow case is not common nor useful. Quale (talk) 03:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Glossary issues

Are there Wiki guidelines or policy specific to glossaries? For instance, the idea that instructional material doesn't belong in a glossary entry -- makes perfect sense to me, but if some other editor wants to add instructional material, is there chapter and verse that I can cite in removing it?

I also wonder about entries like Professional Chess Association. Is it OK to have proper names in a glossary? (This one in particular bugs me because it's ancient history.)

Regarding the recently edited entry for "attack", it seems goofy to me to define "attack" in terms of "assault". It wouldn't be to hard to rewrite this entry to use the same examples, but without defining a common term in terms of a less common term. Or maybe this is some British usage and I am being too American.

Come to think of it, books have been written about how to attack (e.g. "The Art of Attack in Chess") -- wonder if there is a way to nudge the reader toward this literature from this glossary or from Wiki generally. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

An excellent question. I don't have a good answer. Judgment is required, but my judgment and yours may not agree so guidance based on policy would be helpful. MOS:GLOSSARY is more concerned with presentation issues than content, but it does say that glossaries should use explanatory (encyclopedia-style) definitions. I would say that a nine-point list of possible responses to an attack on a piece is not an explanatory definition. You could also argue that listing the three types of moves that are legal responses to a check is not a definition either, but it's short and might aid in understanding. Plus I hate to fight about these things, so I try (not always successfully) to let little stuff go. Quale (talk) 00:05, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
There is of course WP:NOTGUIDE which makes me worry that large amounts of chess content could potentially be removed. MaxBrowne (talk) 02:58, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't see the problem – anything that fits the criteria there should certainly be removed. Cobblet (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
It is a concern that has been raised a few times over the last decade, although fortunately it has never reached the level of an existential threat. Chess coverage is a lot more extensive now than it was in 2005 (thanks, chess editors!), which might draw more unwanted attention. On the other hand, Wikipedia has grown a lot too, so maybe chess is actually a smaller part of the whole now than it was ten years ago. It would be interesting to compare the growth in chess pages to the growth of the encyclopedia as a whole. In any case, chess articles haven't faced those sorts of attacks recently, but WP:NOT has occasionally been raised at WP:AFD and on article talk pages. For a not-so-fun trip down memory lane, take a gander at Talk:Sicilian Defence in 2007 to get an idea of the kind of energy we had to expend fending off damaging nonsense, energy that could better have been used by us (and him) to improve the encyclopedia. (That was just one of many chess articles that Mister Manticore was disputing around that time. Even worse, his disruption briefly spread to other articles on technical subjects before he retired from Wikipedia.) Quale (talk) 04:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Trolls will be trolls, but I don't see anything troublesome about WP:NOT or WP:NOTGUIDE in the chess context. I think they're reasonable policies. Cobblet (talk) 05:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The entry for PCA, the Professional Chess Association

The entry and definition for PCA, (“An abbreviation for the Professional Chess Association”) has, I think, been improperly deleted twice. It belongs in this glossary. It is a term that occurs in a large number of recent books, newspapers, and periodicals. If you consider a person who uses wikipedia they might want to look it up and know what it it stands for. The PCA is a notable organization, whether you have a positive or negative opinion of it. The glossary contains a good number of abbreviations for chess organizations, including USCF, WCC, WIM, BCF, ECF, ECO; this indicates that PCA can’t be barred because it’s “not a chess term”. When content is removed from WP without supporting such an action by referring to WP guidelines or policies, it opens the door and sets an example for anybody to edit WP according to their whims or prejudices. That’s disrespectful of this glossary. In this case, it appears that editors may be editing out of loyalty to FIDE and may not like the idea that a rival organization existed. PCA contributed a very remarkable and dynamic chapter in the recent history of chess: The Professional Chess Association (PCA), created Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short, began in 1993. It was a rival to FIDE. It held various tournaments and matches. It ended with a re-unification match between PCA champion Kramnik and FIDE champion Topalov, which was won by Kramnik in 2006.

The reasons given for deleting it, (according to the two editors Bruce leverett and MaxBrowne) are that it is “long forgotten”, that “it's not a chess term”, and that it was “a bit of a phony organization.” If Max or Bruce or anybody wants to comment on this, please do. Handthrown (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit "according to their whims or prejudices": but you are doing the right thing by not engaging in edit-warring. The PCA folded in 1996; the championship Kramnik won was financed by Braingames. I think "occurs in a large number of recent books, newspapers, and periodicals" is a distinct exaggeration, and I don't see entries for the GMA or its modern incarnation, the ACP which is still very much active. In fact I personally don't believe this glossary should contain any chess organizations at all – create a List of chess organizations if you must, but I don't think Wikipedia is well served by having this glossary include the acronym of every national and regional chess federation listed at Geography of chess, to say nothing of subnational or private organizations. However, as noted above, Wikipedia has no established policy on what a glossary should include. Cobblet (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
It seems to me there are two reasonable paths here. It's defensible to get rid of all the acronyms for organizations on the grounds that they're not really "chess terms", but it's also defensible to keep them on the grounds that they're terms that someone interested in chess might want to know about. If the second path is taken, then I think PCA should be kept, per Handthrown. --Trovatore (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I was being kinda bold in deleting it. I thought that the PCA was notable enough to merit an article (which it has), but I was not comfortable with having it in the glossary. Of course, I'm being somewhat intuitive in my thinking of what goes into a glossary and what doesn't. There are other chess organizations and acronyms in the glossary, such as ECF (and BCF) and USCF, and it's plausible to me that a non-chess-knowledgeable person would look in the glossary for one of them, although it may be more likely that he/she would just type the acronym into the Wikipedia Search box, and find the article. With PCA, on the other hand, I think it's highly unlikely to be useful in the glossary.
But, I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, and when Handthrown undid my delete, I didn't lose any sleep over it. Then when MaxBrowne undid the undo, I thought, wow, what have I done? I need to stay and watch the fireworks. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I think the concern is that leaving out PCA for those reasons looks like picking a side in the (past) controversy between Kasparov and FIDE. I think that's a legitimate concern, though I admit I might be a little biased because I sympathized at the time with Kasparov (at an emotional level, not a detailed one — I didn't follow the kerfuffle in detail).
Deleting all the orgs might be reasonable, but I don't think it should be done just to avoid including PCA. And really it seems to me that readers might well look in a "glossary of chess" for what these abbreviations mean, even if they're not "chess terms" in the strict sense. --Trovatore (talk) 02:54, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I'd imagine that a reader who does not know what PCA stands for would most likely start by going to the PCA disambiguation page first, which would lead them to the answer. I personally would never have imagined that a chess glossary would contain acronyms of organizations. Does one look for IBM in the Glossary of computer hardware terms? Cobblet (talk) 03:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, if you're fine getting rid of FIDE as well, then I think that's a defensible position. It's not the one I would pick but I can see the argument for it. --Trovatore (talk) 03:24, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm not even slightly bothered by the removal of FIDE when you can type FIDE into the Wikipedia search box and immediately find what you're looking for. The FIDE website is also Google's first search result for the acronym. I don't think it's likely that anyone first found out what FIDE meant by going to this glossary. I see this glossary as primarily a collection of terms that don't have enough to be said about them to merit a standalone article. Cobblet (talk) 03:54, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion on inclusion of PCA, but in my view FIDE is an essential entry in this glossary. You can look up most of the other terms in this glossary by googling them, so what? That is not a useful inclusion/exclusion criterion. How would it improve this glossary to remove terms such as back-rank mate, backward pawn, blindfold chess, blunder, etc.? A person doesn't have to use a glossary to look up a specific term. A glossary can also be read to gain an overview of the key terminology in a field as a whole. This really the only way to learn terms you haven't encountered yet, which can be enormously helpful. Quale (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I'll grant you blindfold chess, but having read the other articles you mentioned I don't believe they should exist as standalone articles, so for me it would make sense to put them in the glossary. I'll concede that a summary of important terminology is also a reasonable way of conceptualizing a glossary and FIDE would qualify as such. However, that criterion would also disqualify many of the items currently on the list. Cobblet (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Given that wikipedia's standards for glossaries are not well defined I don't really feel all that strongly one way or another. If consensus is to include PCA then include it. MaxBrowne (talk) 05:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
The idea that a glossary is more than just a place to look things up, but might be read end-to-end by a reader trying to get up to speed, implies that terms such as PCA, which no longer appear in the news, might still be useful. There must be a place to draw the line, but I don't know where it is, and I will refrain from edit-warring if someone wants to put PCA back. Bruce leverett (talk) 15:48, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
It seems, at this point, that PCA may go back in for now, though concern has been reasonable expressed in this discussion regarding the inclusion of abbreviations for organizations, and it would be worth thinking of that and considering it further. I appreciate that everyone has given such thought to the question I raised. Handthrown (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC) Done. Handthrown (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

draughty

I think “draughty" is a proper chess term. I added it to the glossary, and I think it was wrongly deleted, so I will put it back and ask for discussion. The term is defined as:

“When a position opens up, so that there are empty squares exposing the king, and those empty squares give that part of the board an appearance that resembles the game of draughts, and suggest as well that the king might metaphorically be exposed to breezes.” [amended below … ]

That definition is supported in the article by two reliable sources. The first one is a chess book: Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage, published in 2017. The second source is an article on on chess in the London newspaper The Independent, published in 1992.

I have heard the word often chess contexts, including the recent internet coverage of the 2017 Chess Grand Prix in Paris, where “draughty” was used many times, by GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Maurice Ashley, and IM Jovanka Houska — in fact those three had a discussion of the definition of the term. In all cases the definition describes a situation on the board around the King.

The reason that was recently given by an editor for deletion is: “draughty is just drafty and has nothing to do with draughts. It also isn't chess jargon, but just an ordinary English word …”

That is not true, because draughts and checkers always have empty spaces around the pieces. Drafty (with an “f”) doesn’t mean “checkers”, and drafty is not used in the same way to described a position on the chess board.

It’s an important concept in the sense that if your King has empty spaces around it it is important to be aware of that. I think that a person who follows chess and reads about it will come across the word being used in regard to the King, and is going to wonder what it means, and they may turn to the glossary on Wikipedia to find out. It should be here. Handthrown (talk) 02:23, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that “draughty” is a good and useful chess term, but considering another editor’s suggestion that it does not have a “double meaning”, or a second meaning, I will amend my original definition, and include only the one meaning, so in a more limited sense “draughty” is synonymous with “drafty”. Also I have found, that the word is used very often as a chess term in many books, articles and chess blogs. So, here’s is my new altered version of a definition that I think should be considered for inclusion in the chess glossary.
Term: draughty or drafty
When a position on the board has an abundance of empty squares, especially near the king, which may represent openings for potential intrusion by enemy pieces.
The reason I think it needs to be a part of the chess glossary is that the term is often used — and when used it is rarely or never defined. So if you put yourself in the shoes of someone relatively new to chess, who runs into this sentence in the chess column from 2010 in the Guardian newspaper: “1...0-0-0 looks too draughty.” It may not be obvious to that reader exactly how a castling move can look “draughty”.
The same is true when Mikhael Tal uses the word in his book Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match for the World Chess Championship: “His position is a bit drafty.”
And when Larry Evans in his book 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes uses this phrase: “A Drafty Kingside.” He uses it as a heading — but still doesn’t define what it means.
Of course those who edit the chess glossary may not need the glossary, or at least not as much as the average reader, or the novice player, but I think it’s important to sometimes be inclusive of chess terms — even those that are well known by the WP editors. And just as “armageddon” doesn’t always mean the “end of the world”, the word draughty doesn't suggest that someone opened a window and let a breeze in — which may be ridiculous to point out, but it does illustrate that the term qualifies to be considered a basic “chess term” — it has a meaning in the world of chess that it has nowhere else. Handthrown (talk) 17:41, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, we already have 'exposed king' in the glossary, which I think is the more generic term, and is possibly equally popular. No problem, in principle, with expanding the description slightly to add synonymous terms like 'draughty' (Am. drafty). The definition is currently very brief, and of course, brevity is a virtue worth keeping in mind. Nevertheless, it could be worth chewing over phrases like 'facilitating the incursion of enemy pieces', 'opening up lines of attack', 'loss of pawn cover', 'weakening the king's protection' etc. and deciding on a succinct, yet more expanded wording. Brittle heaven (talk) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
If the term is never defined in a reliable source then it can't go in Wikipedia by the rule against original research. That really isn't negotiable. It isn't acceptable to guess at a definition based on what the editor thinks it means based on context. The text originally added to the glossary claimed that "draughty" describes chess positions that resemble "draughts", or what I would call checkers. I'm pretty sure that is wrong and not found in any source. I think people have a hard time distinguishing between actual jargon or terms of art and descriptive language that is used to add color to prose. A similar (but certainly not identical) example is the use of "horse" to refer to the knight. There's no question that chess writers sometimes use "horse". There's also no question the English name of the piece is "knight" and that "horse" is not the name of a chess piece in the English language. Two red flags: 1) the term "draughty"/"drafty" is not defined in the usual chess dictionaries and encyclopedias (Hooper & Whyld, Golombek, Brace, Horton, and Sunnucks), and 2) other sources that use that use the term don't define it either. This suggests that it is not actually a term of art in chess, and that authors consider the meaning to be so transparently the same as the word has in common English speech that they don't need to explain it. This includes chess books aimed at instruction which tend to explain any unfamiliar terminology, yet they don't feel the need to explain "draughty". If chess authors don't feel the need to define a term of supposed chess jargon then Wikipedia can't take it upon itself to invent a definition. (Shades of undue weight to emphasize a definition that no chess authors feel the need to give, as well.) When the meaning is the same in chess writing as it is in common speech then it's just a word, not chess jargon. Quale (talk) 02:31, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

To respond in part to the previous comment by Quale: A lot of what you’re saying I can’t find in the Wikipedia guidelines. Your first sentence for example. You’re claiming that every term must be defined by a reliable source or it can’t go in Wikipedia. Is that true? I don’t think so, because if I click on the two links in your first sentence I can’t find that “must be defined” idea in either of them, or your “If the term is never defined …” idea. Much of what you say that follows after seems to be based on your first sentence. I don’t mean to be a stickler about this, but I think it’s better to try to follow the rules or guidelines as they are actually stated, and not invent rules that don’t exist. Regarding your suggestion that a new entry should be found in the sources you mention — It appears that the word “drafty” has gained ground especially in the last two decades, which would be after those books were written. All of those sources you mention were written in a previous millennium. One of them is more than a half-century old. They have value, but the Wikipedia chess glossary has the advantage of not being fixed in time. If I may move on and make another comment — if you look at the chess glossary itself, and consider only the entries under the letter “A” for example, to see what percentage of those entries are supported by reliable sources; as it stands now, the percentage is exactly zero. That situation is not ideal, and it’s of course tolerated by those who edit this page. I suppose editors could try to fix that and go back and find reliable sources to give support to the entries that are there now. I wonder if this has been discussed or considered as a kind of project. Handthrown (talk) 11:44, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I’ve found a reliable source that can support the word “drafty” as a chess term, and that can be used as a citation or reference, which is what Wikipedia requires. I’ve actually found a few, but one is Yasser Seirawan’s book, Play Winning Chess (2003). It describes a “drafty” position as one that has “holes” around the king, and it indicates that a drafty position can be a liability that can lead to “a quick and violent checkmate”. That’s on page 167. A computer search can show that the word is widely used in chess books, chess columns, etc. It is often described by demonstrating it on the board, using symbols and graphic images. Fortunately some sources resort to English. I don’t know when it first appeared, but I think an early use of “drafty” with it’s specific chess meaning is Mikhail Tal's book Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match for the World Chess Championship (1970).
It appears to be concept that chess authors, including Jeremy Silman, Larry Evans, Michael Rhode, Susan Polgar, Roman Dzindzichashvili, and many others, seem to consider important to enough to explain and demonstrate in their writings — when they are writing to help improve their reader’s game.
My personal experience is that when I heard the word being discussed among the commentators at the recent Chess Grand Tour in Paris, I turned to the Wikipedia chess glossary to look it up — to see if Wikipedia would either confirm the definition that I thought I knew, or to see if there were something new. When I looked in the Wikipedia glossary, I found the term is not there. That’s partly why I’ve suggested it be added. Handthrown (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I think that the reference to Yasser Seirawan’s book (mentioned just above) is a better reference than what was there before, as it’s more defining. Thanks for that improvement are perhaps due to the prompting found in this discussion so far, and to Ihardlythinkso’s suggestion regarding WP:BRD. Also I think Brittle heaven has some good points (above) about the term exposed king, and also about connecting this term with that one — adding a link might be the way to make that connection. So, I will see what I can come up with. Handthrown (talk) 10:29, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but a WP:RS source is required for every claim made in a wikipedia article. That's a basic, bedrock, foundational, non-negotiable principle of wikipedia. Glossary definitions are claims that need WP:RS sources. I don't understand why you would think you can put anything at all in a Wikipedia article without a reliable source. That just isn't how it works, and there is no special exemption for glossary definitions. Without a source, you can't put it in the article.
I disagree that Seirawan provides a glossary definition of "drafty". The precise quote on page 167 is "... the holes around White's King allow Black's pieces to infiltrate. Drafty positions of this kind often give rise to quick and violent checkmate." To my reading "drafty" is used here as a descriptive term and not a term of chess art. Chess writers also sometimes describe compromised defenses as "creaky", but creaky is not a chess term. Tellingly, the book actually has a glossary, and drafty is not in Seirwawan's glossary. If Seirawan thought that drafty was a chess glossary item he could have put it in his glossary. He didn't, which is precisely the point I made before. Quale (talk) 23:56, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Quale, you are inventing rules that are not found anywhere in Wikipedia’s guidelines, and then you are insisting that these rules, that you made up, must be followed. This results in you saying things that are not true. For example you say that “If the term is never defined in a reliable source then it can't go in Wikipedia!” That’s not true — the biggest problem with what you said is with the phrase “never defined”. This mistake on your part you repeat three times in three different forms. And then when you extrapolate or expand on false statements, it spawns addition false statements. Wikipedia has basic rules that are relatively simple. Of course if you were to create your own internet encyclopedia, then you could invent any rules you want.

The word “drafty”, or in the British spelling, “draughty”, is used in chess discussions extremely often, in books, magazine articles, and chess sites where games are analyzed. Every single time, when it regards a chess position, it always has the same specific meaning. It is an important concept, that chess players need to understand if they want to improve their game. It is indeed a “term of art” among chess players. My dictionary defines a “term of art” as “a term that has a specialized meaning in a particular field or profession.” Drafty is a term that many noted authors describe and demonstrate in books and articles. There are plenty of reliable sources that use the term in a way that would support an entry in the Wikipedia glossary. Seirawan’s book does indeed qualify as a reliable source, in spite of what you claim, and his description contains details that could certainly support the term in the WP glossary. Wikipedia should be “encyclopedic” and inclusive. There are readers who will turn to Wikipedia to find out what this word means, and there’s no reason to exclude it. A book author may have various constrictions regarding space, but Wikipedia does not share that same concern.

You not only incorrectly suggest, as I said above, that “If the term is never defined … etc.”, but then you include a link, which suggests that the rule you invented can be found there. That’s not true — it’s not there. Then you say “If chess authors don't feel the need to define a term of supposed chess jargon then Wikipedia can't …” I interrupt to point out that you are again insisting that reliable sources must contain a definition. You are again making up a rule, and insisting that your invention must be followed. Your latest complicated comment on Seirawan’s book is more of the same, it’s another version of the same incorrect idea that a reliable source supporting WP content is not good enough, it must be defined. Not true. You keep beating the same drum. Handthrown (talk) 14:17, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I fear you may be misinterpreting my previous comment. I was not in any way endorsing 'drafty' as a new term in the glossary. I was saying that I would regard 'exposed king' as the correct entry, but could see no harm in giving a fuller description of that term. In my opinion, a fuller description might include a word like 'drafty', as well as elements of the other phrases that had been proffered. However, I would not want to see 'drafty' appear separately as a new glossary term, because it means broadly the same thing as 'exposed king', which I think is more generic. Brittle heaven (talk) 21:32, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Brittle heaven, I didn’t misinterpret your comment, my interpretation was to say that you have some good points. I think the “exposed king” entry could be discussed more in a discussion devoted to that term. However, your ideas and suggested phrasings for “Exposed King”, just like the definition itself, are not yet properly sourced. And things may change if sourcing is found and added. So, first things first, that entry needs to be supported by a reliable source. Also I would ask you to consider your idea that a term should not have a separate definition because it is not “generic” or that it’s less “generic”. The word “generic” is used in different ways by different people, and I’m not sure what your use of the word means exactly, and why you think that it should be a Wikipedia criteria. Does your “generic” idea regarding the king exist anywhere in Wikipedia’s guidelines? Handthrown (talk) 04:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't agree. I've already said this before, but my sense is that I'm not being understood. I'll try once more, but since I don't think I have any more to add, this may be my last attempt.
  1. All claims in Wikipedia must be supported by reliable sources.
  2. Wikipedia editors are not permitted to infer or surmise their own theories based on sources that do not directly support the claims being made. This is the prohibition against synthesis.
  3. An entry in this glossary is a claim about a definition of a chess term, not merely its use. A glossary entry must be supported by a source that defines the term, not merely uses it.
  4. Your exact words were "The reason I think it needs to be a part of the chess glossary is that the term is often used — and when used it is rarely or never defined." If "draughty" is rarely defined, then finding a definition may require some work, but if you find a good source then it might make a suitable entry for this glossary. But if "draughty" is never defined, then we can't invent a definition for Wikipedia and it simply can't be put in the glossary, period. I'm not prejudging whether there is a satisfactory definition of "draughty" to be found in a source we haven't yet considered, but I do find it telling that it isn't easily found in the obvious sources devoted to defining chess terms.
  5. I never said that a term is required by Wikipedia guidelines to be found in another chess glossary for it to appear here. I did say that given the satisfactory number of chess encyclopedias and dictionaries as well as glossaries found in instructional chess books (Silman, Seirawan, Burgess, etc.) I think it would be an uncommon case that would deserve mention here that could not be found defined explicitly in a good source whose central purpose is defining chess terminology. Chess encyclopedias, chess dictionaries, and chess glossaries are obvious places where we should expect to find all important chess terminology already defined, avoiding the need to try to synthesize our own definitions based on usage examples. (An unfortunate example in that vein is "overworking", which is claimed to be a synonym of overloading (chess). I find that to be utterly moronic, but it is found in at least one online chess glossary for children, so it has a source.) This is not a Wikipedia rule, it's just my opinion of common sense applied to this situation. I can't prove it, and naturally you're free to disagree with it if you like.
  6. All this said I don't want to suggest that I am 100% certain that "draughty" is simply a colour word used to enliven writing. It is used in chess writing and it might be considered chess jargon, although my personal judgment tilts in the direction of considering it to be colourful language rather than a term of chess art. Making the decision of whether usage of a word or phrase in chess writing elevates that word or phrase to chess jargon can be hard and can be contentious, as this disagreement shows. If you would permit me to offer a suggestion, I think it might be a good idea to rely on the judgment of the expert authors of reliable sources rather than our own. We can do this by considering the chess jargon that is defined in chess encyclopedias, chess dictionaries, and chess glossaries....
Finally, thanks for your work improving chess articles, including recently citing some glossary terms that did not have sources. Although I'm sure I seem overly prickly in this disagreement, I appreciate the effort of every editor who improves the coverage of chess on Wikipedia. Quale (talk) 20:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
To be fair, lots of current entries probably need to go, on that basis. And too, digging up refs isn't the most enjoyable task for most editors which probably explains why even obviously good entries have no refs! --IHTS (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks IHTS and Quale for the good words. I find it a good and interesting experience to try to add sources to the glossary where they’re missing. Quale, I respectfully cannot agree with you when you create rules that are not found anywhere in Wikipedia’s own rules & guidelines. As an example from your comments above: In your number 3, you say that “A glossary entry must be supported by a source that defines the term, not merely uses it.” I believe, instead, that glossaries are subject to all of the same rules as other content on Wikipedia. Which is also expressed on this page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries. Also regarding your suggestion that if a word “is never defined …”, etc — similarly that idea is not found in Wikipedia’s rules & guidelines. One reason it can’t be found may be because it would be impossible for an editor to demonstrate that something is “never” done, “never” being such a big word. Instead Wikipedia’s rules & guidelines are concerned with what is said in reliable sources. The word “drafty”, or in the British spelling, “draughty”, is used in books and magazines by notable authors extremely often, and every single time, when it regards a chess position, it always has the same specific meaning. I myself turned to Wikipedia to look it up, and found that it is not in the glossary. I think it should be there. Sources do consider it an important concept. Handthrown (talk) 12:44, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your continued work to improve the glossary. I think "friendly game" and "casual game" belong since they are found in Hooper & Whyld with the same definition given here, so I restored it and added that citation. But you removed some other truly awful stuff that never should have been allowed into the glossary to begin with, so you're making it better. Quale (talk) 00:13, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Quale, I’m glad to yield to your judgement on “casual game”, and of course giving it a source, as you’ve done, makes all the difference. I appreciate it. I suppose since this discussion is headed “draughty”, I should find a way to connect it, and I’d say that when Hooper and Whyld first published, a quarter century ago, the use of the word draughty (or drafty) as a description for a chess position or pattern may have seemed a bit green to them — it was barely out of its twenties at that time, which might be a reason it would have been overlooked by them. Handthrown (talk) 11:42, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate the discussion on this topic that has gone before. And just to let anyone who might read this know -- I’m going to make another effort to have this word, “drafty”, included in the glossary. And then of course other editors may respond as they choose to. Thanks. Handthrown (talk) 20:23, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Changing the citation format

At this moment the article has 450 citations. A quick sort and removal of dupes in the citations suggest that there are only 150 different works used as references, and that number seems higher than necessary to me as I suspect we could adequately cite 80% or more of the terms with a dozen standard references. Anyway, I think the References section is too large. Wikipedia guidelines require that an established referencing style not be changed without consensus (WP:CITEVAR), so I would like to discuss a change now. I see three options:

  1. Leave it as it is using the standard footnotes and accept that we may have 500 or more entries in the references section. Even formatted in 4 columns this occupies almost two full screens on my 1920x1200 desktop monitor.
  2. Use parenthetical referencing. This is the inline Harvard-style referencing you can see in most of the pages in category:chess endgames, for example king and pawn endgame.
  3. Use reference pages citations. These use template {{Rp}} to include the page number in the inline citation, so even if a work is cited many times with different pages it appears in the reference list only once.

I don't favor inline Harvard cites (option 2) for most articles on non-academic subjects since I think they are distracting and a bit ugly. I suspect most readers of chess articles would not recognize most chess authors names and do not care about the citations. I especially don't like inline Harvard in articles such as this one with many short sentences to cite. Because entries are short, Harvard cites would lead to many cases where the citation text would be larger than the glossary definition itself.

An example of reference page citation (option 3) is John Griswold White. This perhaps isn't the best example since I think that article would be fine it used the more common simple footnote style, but it shows a bit of what reference page citations look like. If we use {{Rp}} I suggest the parenthetical AMA style. It uses a little more space, but I think the AMA style makes the inline citation superscript text easier to understand because the page numbers are identified with p. or pp. rather than simply appearing bare after a colon.

My preferences in order: 3 (reference pages), 1 (simple footnotes, status quo), 2 (inline Harvard cites). I would like to switch the article to reference page citations using the AMA style. The Bibliography section would become References, and any works in the current bibliography that are not cited would be moved to Further reading or simply removed if they aren't directly relevant. (I'm not sure if there is anything in the article that isn't used as a reference, so there might not be any changes to make.) What think you? Quale (talk) 05:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

All good ideas, and the situation is well described by Quale. The first one #1 is tempting, partly because the references are all at the end and don't get in the way too much. Although, 2 or 3 might actually be improvements. Handthrown (talk) 15:30, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Domination

Domination is generally considered to be a chess problem term, so I think it belongs in Glossary of chess problems (it is already there) and should be removed here. It does get use in regular chess writing, typically when referring to B vs. N in endgames, but although I have sources that use "domination" in this way I don't think any of them supply a definition. Also, contrary to both the original and current glossary definitions, a dominated piece in this sense isn't necessarily lost, it just doesn't have any safe moves. (For example, a bishop dominates a knight when it threatens all the squares to which the knight could move, but the bishop can't capture the knight if the knight doesn't move.) What do you think? Quale (talk) 01:14, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Gardez

I have some issues with the gardez entry. The term is not found in most chess dictionaries or encyclopedias (at least not in the ones I have). It was a real thing, but it died out completely over 100 years ago. As a historical footnote it is appropriate to mention it in the queen (chess) and rules of chess articles, but I don't think it's a useful addition to the article. There are other issues with the rewritten definition. The definition used to say simply that "gardez" is French for "look out!". Now it says it's a shortened version of the French "gardez la reine", which is not correct, since the French name for the queen is "dame", This is noted by the cited reference (A History of Chess) on page 389, which also offers that "gardez la reine" was used in Belgium and Germany, and "Guard" or "Queen" was used in England. Hooper & Whyld give the usage "check to the queen". This is all of historical interest I think, but not enough practical significance to warrant an entry in the glossary. How about we put this in queen (chess) and remove the gardez entry from this article? Quale (talk) 02:04, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Overprotection

I apologize for flooding this talk page with new topics, but I think we should clean up overprotection. The old definition was bad

The strategy of protecting a pawn or specific square of the chessboard more than is immediately necessary. This serves to dissuade the opponent from attacking that specific point and provides greater freedom of movement for the pieces protecting that square. This can cause an opponent to pursue a faulty plan or no plan at all.

No idea where greater freedom of movement and faulty plan or no plan at all came from. The new definition is better

The strategy of protecting an important pawn or square more than is apparently necessary. This serves to dissuade the opponent from attacking that point, and the latent power of the “over protectors” assembled around an important point, is a significant threat that can bear fruit at a small tactical change in the position.

This is correct, but I'm not fond of the "can bear fruit at a small tactical change in the position" phrasing. It's true that the latent power of the overprotectors can be unleashed, but the particular phrasing doesn't sit well with me. Short of cutting down the definition to simply the first sentence "The strategy of protecting an important pawn or square more than is apparently necessary", what can we do? I'm actually OK with the very short one sentence definition, but more detail would be good too. Quale (talk) 04:10, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Big pawn

Big pawn is another synonym of bad bishop.

Sunny3113 (talk) 09:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you have WP:RS sources for that claim? The usual term for "bad bishop" is "bad bishop". Quale (talk) 06:22, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, you can ignore my challenge. A quick search of Google books shows that Soltis is not the only chess writer to use the term "big pawn". Other examples include Daniel Naroditsky, Mastering Complex Endgames: Practical Lessons on Critical Ideas & Plans, p. 99, Victor Bologan, The Powerful Catalan: A Complete Repertoire for White, p. 22, and Alexander Kotov, Play Like a Grandmaster. I apologize to Handthrown for summarily and incorrectly rejecting his glossary addition. Quale (talk) 06:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Big pawn appears to be the fashionable way of saying bad bishop. Sunny3113 (talk) 10:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Anti pair needs citations

Do we have a good WP:RS for "anti pair"? I'm dubious over whether this is really a term used in regular chess. It looks like perhaps this term might be used in conjunction with Capablanca Chess or similar variants. If that's the case it probably doesn't belong on this page, since chess variant terminology isn't on topic here. If it were to be kept here the entry would need to mention the context, namely that the term is used in conjunction with a chess variant. Quale (talk) 06:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

  • Anti-pair is the exact opposite to the bishop-pair. anti pair was used by Harm Geert Muller when referring to two bishops of same color. I don't know of any serious game featuring this except for endgame studies. Most human players associates two bishops of same color as bad asset. Half a pawn less than any other minor piece combination, effectively opposite to the bishop-pair. Sunny3113 (talk) 10:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

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Plural of "tempo"

Re this, I based this on this; Ish ishwar is usually good editor, knows what he's doing, & I'm no lingist. Also I noticed Tempo (chess) currently uses "tempos". Ok, --IHTS (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi. The -s is the productive plural. In my native idiolect, plural of tempo is naturally tempos. In all my experience of playing classical and jazz music, i dont recall tempi being used much. This is, of course, my personal experience and thus anecdote. Wiktionary says that tempos is the usual plural and that tempi is only used in the musical context. This is wrong obviously in all cases since Zugzwanggambit is citing a counterexample for chess contexts. However, maybe it's true generally. But, wiktionary isn't a true dictionary anyway: dictionaries are scholarly. So, i'd disregard it. (It also contradicts my experience in musical contexts as well...) Consulting published dictionaries, several (including the Oxford English Dictionary) list both tempos and tempi as the plural. So, both are clearly attested. For frequency, i looked at the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, which is the largest balanced corpus of English): tempos gets 227 hits, tempi 43. COCA actually is not the best corpus in terms of correlation with lexical decision experiments (where subjects press a button 'yes' or 'no' if what they hear is a word in English). SubtLexUS is based on TV and movie subtitles/closed captions is the best: tempos occurs twice in two films/episodes, tempi is absent from the corpus. Given the smaller size of SubtLexUS, you can worry about error. But, that's two data points that align with my internal lexicon which is that tempos is the natural form and tempi is not. These corpora counts are on the frequency generally. It's possible the chess world can differ. The only way to know is to do a wide survey of chess books and poll chess players. You can't do the latter since it would be original research, but i dont think the former is objectionable to Wikipedia policy.
(I also have a feeling that tempi users are pedantic, but that's probably related to all the other cases of these rare plurals borrowed from Latinate languages like hippopotami vs hippopotami. Some folks loves this pedanticness, but i have a bias against it.) – ishwar  (speak) 18:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Thx for that! Over my head; I'll let Zugzwanggambit evaluate. Cheers, --IHTS (talk) 19:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ihardlythinkso: @Ish ishwar: The idea of Wikipedia is for content to be based on reliable sources that can be verified. Since “tempi” is used by a number of notable chess books, it should be included. (This conversation really belongs on the talk page of the article.) Zugzwanggambit (talk) 03:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Evaluation entry

I added an entry for evaluation and I see it got deleted. Which is fine, but I added it because I had an experience being part of a small tournament, which I don’t do often, and there was a bit of jargon going around that I didn’t know, and I heard the word “eval”, and then I heard that the “evaluation” was a plus 2.5, and I had no clue what they were talking about. I know the dictionary definition, but I was in the dark about the chess meaning. So I clicked on this page — the chess glossary — and it was no help because it wasn’t here. I eventually found the answer in a book on chess, and in an article. Then the terms came up another time in the live broadcast for the recent Chess 960 tournament in St. Louis, when they discussed the “eval” of the starting positions. I think this needs to be considered, it might help someone get a leg up on some of the terminology. Thanks.Tugbolster (talk) 21:57, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Certainly the shortened "eval" is internet slang rather than a chess term. You won't find the term "evaluation" in this sense in any classical chess books but I agree that it is part of modern chess terminology. Perhaps a note of caution that engine evaluations are the result of one program's algorithm rather than an objective reality, that real chess evaluations are more complex than simple numbers etc would be appropriate. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:11, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay, so I'll take another crack at it and editors can consider it. Thanks. Tugbolster (talk) 12:14, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for sticking with it. I struggled with whether or not deletion was appropriate, and although I did delete it I wasn't sure that was best. I was concerned about the previous text which started "Evaluation is a common term for analyzing a game" since evaluation always applies to positions not games. (We often talk about evaluating a move, although this is really an extension of evaluation of the position resulting from the move.) The current definition is nice; it includes the most important things about computer evaluation (a numeric indicator in fractions of a pawn, usually hundredths) and this is very important in contemporary chess. Quale (talk) 03:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Winning material

What's up with the winning material entry? The concept described now is insufficient material, and I've never heard anyone use "winning material" as the antonym. "Winning material" in the other sense isn't sufficiently important or difficult to understand to deserve a separate glossary entry. If the phrase requires explanation it can be mentioned in the material entry where it is in context. Quale (talk) 03:12, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

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