Talk:Chess

'His' vs 'His or her'

Hi all, I was reading the article and found the use of 'his' to refer to players quite odd, so I edited the article to replace these instances with 'his or her' (this has been reverted but it should still be in the history). I was wondering if there is some sort of general consensus for the use of 'his' versus 'his or her' in articles? Thanks for your input. The Giant Purple Platypus (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Platypus. I'm not aware of any consensus on the matter. I recently made my own edit to a different page which nobody has bothered me about. The context of that edit was that there was a "Man versus Computer Chess Challenge," and the participants were all males but I changed from "man" to "human" because I felt that was more politically correct.

WP:WikiProject_Chess has a section on capitalization conventions. If there were consensus about the "his or her" thing I would expect it to be reflected on that page. I hope this helps.

Mattj2 (talk) 07:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how capitalization is involved at all here. (I think not.) And the "Man versus Computer" article, as you mentioned, was a specific, special context. (So, I don't think that is what Platypus is issuing here.)

The gender "his" versus alternatives regarding chess-related articles has been discussed somewhat extensively at WT:CHESS and Antichess. (Platypus, I asked if you had visited those discussions, but you didn't say.) The issue of gender-neutral has some MOS guidelines, and there is a gender-neutral project board as well. (There is discussion there as well, re chess-related articles.) Nevertheless, the fact this issue continues to keep coming up, I think, makes a very interesting issue, since, it may be festering as "unresolved", it may not be, I really do not know. (I can explain what I mean more fully ... is anyone interested?) Meanwhile, as an interesting and maybe "model" and informative case, try to make the following sentence gender-neutral ... it is a simple sentence taken from article Grünfeld Defence:

White can develop his pieces in a number of ways in the Exchange Variation.

(Would you change it to "White can develop his or her pieces ..."? Personally I think that is atrocious writing style, it worsens the sentence re its message by injecting distracting and unnecessary sex differentiation language. (In chess literature, even beginner books, "he" means either sex. Some authors consistently use "she" to mean either sex, that is fine too, but rarer.)

IMO, the big, big question is, are Wiki chess-realted articles best reflecting how the standard literature (including beginners books) practice? Or a special Engish Wiki-adopted practice, different from the sources? (That question, has never really been addressed per se, and should be discussed at WT:CHESS IMO, to make a consistent conclusion, recommendation and practice. [The reason I don't like "his and her" is not only because it disjoints the sentence by interjecting chromosome considerations when chess concepts are attempting to be described and explained [which are hard enough to do without additional and unnecessary/distracting words], but because it is inconsistent with the vast literature of books, magazines, websites, and speech about chess in the real world [but not the Wiki necessarily]. But it may be fully accepetable IMO, if WP decides a different course from the literature, explicitly gender-neutral throughout, even though that is what would seem "odd" to chessplayers [rather than the reverse, stated by Platypus], vis-a-vis the literature, including as mentioned, beginners books.)

To repeat ad nauseum, I don't think the issue of whether WP wants to diverge from accepted practice in the literature (use of "he" to denote both sexes and even computers, preferrably referred to as/by "it") by introducing blind gender-neutralization, has been discussed, weighed, and decided yet. (There are those assumptions floating in this and earlier discussions, but they are assumptions prefacing decisions, and we shouldn't do that, it produces this kind of contention/confusion. It is possible out of a full discussion with that assumption on table, that MOS should be updated to reflect that use of "he" in games articles represents both sexes without offense or exclusion as a general literature convention in real world, so this contention can be put to bed. If not, then this discussion/argument to make everything gender neutral in games-related articles (chess especially) will continue to fester as it has here and at Antichess. p.s. If gender neutrality is decided upon in spite of literature conventions outside Wiki, then my own preference is to use "they" and "their", instead of "he and she" and "his and hers". (It is less jarring, less sex-chromosome-distracting from the article content attempting to be described/explained.) p.p.s. Sometimes, there are easy ways to circumvent gender-specific, that are consistent with the current MOS guideline to do so if can be done "with precision", however those cases are best identified case-by-case (blanket change is bad; most of the efforts to gender-neutralize I have seen on Wiki are blanket changes, irrespective of article quality, and with disregard/dismissal of the subject literature, stemming from the conclusion from an assumption previously described [that Wiki can/should be different from the practice in the subject literature). Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Meh, I'm just revealing my ignorance. Ok, so it's been discussed at WT:CHESS and Antichess. In the course of following links I found WT:Gender-neutral language. Just for the sake of repeating it again, the quote from WP:MOS is "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision." (And actually in my example, where the chess players were all men, the MOS explicitly says that it's fine to use a gendered pronoun.) Platypus, if this is an important issue for you I suggest you raise it at WT:WikiProject_Board_and_table_games, which is the parent of this project. I won't contest User:Ihardlythinkso's point that most of the chess literature uses "his." So you might as well try to get consensus somewhere where the literature isn't so male-dominated. If there were a general policy/guideline on the "Board and Table Games" project that articles shouldn't say "A player moves his pieces," we could have a very different kind of discussion here on this project. Mattj2 (talk) 19:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I do think the discussion belongs at Proj Board & table games, as using "his" to refer to a generic player is a games thing, not just a chess thing. (The reason "especially chess" is just because there are so many chess-related articles, more than any other boardgame, and, the amount of literature/books re chess is way more than other games.)

Just for the heck of it I pulled a random games book off my bookshelf and turned to a random page ... The book was Starting Out in Checkers by Richard Pask, published by Everyman Publishers, London (2001). The page was p. 64. It's an anlysis of "Key Endgame 2" on p. 63, with no "he" or "he and she"s. But on the very next page, p. 65, which begins to analyse "Key Endgame 3", there is one only text paragraph, which says: "In order for Black to draw, it is vital that he can freely occupy squares 9 and 13 as required. His defence then consists of a perpetual see-saw movement between these two squares." (So, the gender thing is a games thing, not a chess thing. And the real literature has no problem with "he".

I don't think the MOS can be interpreted literally for areas it couldn't or didn't anticipate (specifically, games contexts). Nevertheless as mentioned I think discussion is needed to either exempt games contexts from blanket application of gender-neutral efforts as was attempted here at Chess, or it should be decided that Wikipedia wants to go its own way re gender-neutral in games contexts/articles, inconsistent with real world games literature. Again, agreed, that discussion belongs at Board & Table games, not here, not at Antichess. If the discussion is at Proj Board & Table Games, then discussion focus would be on what is best for articles and how this relates to MOS or changes to MOS. I think a presupposition at Gender Neutral discussion board that games articles should not be any different from other articles exists, and the focus there is on gender-neutral language, with games contexts and games articles (quality of) a secondary (or even non-existent) consideration. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the feedback. The Giant Purple Platypus (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

• "They" is plural and here correctly means both players together. Using it also as singular makes ambiguity and is confusing. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:07, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

  I agree those are drawbacks. (I just think other alternatives are even worse.) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Players

I have just noticed that both the infobox and lead describe chess as a two-player game. But this is not accurate, as team games can be played (and have been). I'm not sure how to adequately modify this, though. Toccata quarta (talk) 15:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

That still seems like two players to me, even if a group of people decides on the move. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:50, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't Chess being from India be mentioned earlier?

The first sentence of a Wikipedia article should be like "Chess is a game originating from India (or something like that). Why is it all the way at the bottom? Who decides these thigns? How come some articles mention thigns like this earlier and some don't? 108.13.86.182 (talk) 07:25, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The introduction of the article is a summary (see WP:LEAD). Discussing the origins of chess in the introduction of this article is a bit of a problem, since it is disputed (the Indian theory being one possibility). However, it is mentioned in the lead of the article History of chess. Toccata quarta (talk) 08:16, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Reruns are so boring: Talk:Chess/Archive_5#Question_here, Talk:Chess/Archive_6#Why is the Indian version part after the European_part?, and Talk:Chess/Archive_7#why is this article back to mentioning euarope brefore India?. The next time this is trolled the list will reach five. Quale (talk) 08:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Excuse me, I'm new

Hello, I'm new to wikipedia, still learning the basics. I like this article about chess, not sure how could I contribute. I appreciate any advice, thank you. ~~GreyWinterOwl~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by GreyWinterOwl (talk • contribs) 09:59, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello and welcome. It's not clear if you are just new to Wikipedia editing or to chess as well. If you have a good knowledge of chess and some time to spare to contribute to chess articles, I would say probably avoid this main article Chess, which has been quite finely tuned over the years. Changes here often spark quite fierce debates, so it would not be a good training ground! A good place to visit however, is WP:CHESS where you can add your name to the participants of 'Wikiproject Chess'. You will see there are many suggestions for improving chess articles on that page and if you have any questions or seek a communal view on something, that can be achieved on the associated talk page (see the 'Talk' tab at the top of the Project page). Then just choose a topic area you are interested in and share your specialist knowledge and/or encyclopedic facts, wherever you feel an article can be improved, always including good quality references to support your edits. Above all else, enjoy the experience! Brittle heaven (talk) 10:34, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

How to get the whole chess articles easily

Hello, I'm new to wikipedia, still learning the basics.So, I want to get all the chess articles in the english wikipedia. This for the localization purpose as offline. Is there any link or method to get the whole articles as single or multiple pdf files. --Arjunkmohan (talk) 02:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

On the left menu of every article is a book creator option that allows user created books, see Help:Books for assistance. The books can be downloaded as a pdf. An almost complete list of around 4000 chess articles can be found at Index of chess articles. Books normally contain about 100 articles so it's conceivable that some limit could be reached if you actually want ALL chess articles in one book. The organization in Outline of chess could be a useful for selecting articles. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 10:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion

I suggest changing "Chess matches" to "Chess games" in section Time Control. Speling12345 (talk) 2:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Please add info on the history of chess

I would like to know who invented chess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.193.214.62 (talk) 23:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Did you overlook the Chess#History section? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:28, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Change "correspondance" link to "by correspondance"

Hello, I think that the "correspondence" link at the top of the page should include the word "by" so that people don't think the link is to "correspondence", but to the Chess by correspondence page. I am unable to do this myself since I'm on a public computer and don't want to enter my password. --69.157.240.246 (talk) 01:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"Chess" as "Chess variant"

I see that "Shogi" (Japanese Chess) is in the category "Chess variants," but "Chess," which refers to Western (or Mad Queen) Chess that was developed in Italy during the Renaissance, is not. I argue that this is western-centric, because Western (or Mad Queen) Chess most certainly was not the original variant of chess, and adding Japanese Chess, which is not at all based on Western (or Mad Queen) Chess, to the category "Chess variants" while not doing the same for Western (or Mad Queen) Chess, makes it seems like Western (or Mad Queen) Chess is the default, proper, or even misleadingly, the "original" Chess. I argue that "Chess" should also be added to the category "Chess variants," the same as "Shogi," as like Japanese Chess, Western (or Mad Queen) Chess is not the original variant of Chess (which arose either in India or China).

If there are no objections, then I will make the addition. --Beneficii (talk) 15:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Chess shouldn't be listed as a variant, since "variant" implies a divergence from a standard, and the standard is in this case orthodox FIDE chess. Personally, I would keep games historically related to chess separate from chess variants. Shogi is no more a variant of FIDE chess than FIDE chess is a variant of shogi. — Gwalla | Talk 21:51, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Be careful reading in your own definitions what "variant" means. All the regional and national chesses have entries in Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants and The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, and each of them also has an entry for "orthochess" (FIDE chess). Gollon's Chess Variations has chapters for the major regional and national chesses. Also see noted French chess historian Jean-Louis Cazaux's site [1]. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) From The Oxford Companion to Chess (1987):

Variants of chess, see unorthodox chess.

Unorthdox chess, versions of the game that do not conform to the Laws of Chess. Forms such as chaturanga, chatrang, shatranj, and medieval chess were normal in their time and some like chinese chess and shogi are still normal in their regions.

Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:43, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

It does seem rather western-centric to refer to Shogi and Xiangqi, highly complex games in their own right with organised competition and a very different character to western chess, as "chess variants". MaxBrowne (talk) 09:44, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

List of chess-related deaths

FYI - an intriguing minor article related to chess (List of chess-related deaths) may be deleted: check out the voting if you're interested: [[2]]. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It has been deleted. It was rather odd at the best of times.

Automatic players' ratings update

I have an idea concerning chess articles in general; since it is somehow time-consuming to update FIDE rankings manually, maybe it would be possible to write some kind of program which would automatically update them directly from FIDE website? If bots can eliminate vandalisms with such stunning efficacy, this can certainly be done. With so many articles on chessmasters, it is and will be simply impossible to keep Wikipedia up to date if nothing is changed. If that is not the best place to propose such an idea, tell me where I should've done it Philodemos (talk) 04:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a very good idea, and there is a system in place for automatic updates of the ratings in the infobox that covers players rated 2400 and above. I think it is a clever design, as it doesn't actually update every chess bio page. See WT:WikiProject Chess/Archive 21#Automatic updated FIDE rating in infobox (by bot) for details. If you want to discuss this or other issues that pertain to many chess articles, consider posting to WT:CHESS, which is the Chess WikiProject talk page. That page is watched by quite a few chess editors and you may be more likely to get a response. Quale (talk) 04:31, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

@Philodemos and Quale: In my opinion, Wikidata would be better for this task. Bot updating on Wikidata is much easier than here.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:16, 3 September 2014 (UTC)