Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/First-move advantage in chess

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 04:29, 27 June 2008 [1].

First-move advantage in chess[edit]

Nominator(s): SyG (talk)


I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has already undergone a A-class review (within the WP:WikiProject Chess) and a GA-class review, both with success. The main editor, User:Krakatoa, and myself believe it meets the FA-criteria. SyG (talk) 06:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment Half way through reading this, but three things;

  • Can ye provide cites for the quotes in the image captions.
  • Sections of "Drawn with best play" are over reliant on quotes; can some of these be paraphrased into prose.
Done I have removed most of the quotes, paraphrasing instead. SyG (talk) 10:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The chesscafe.com link is dead.

So far it looks like a very strong and accessible article. Ceoil sláinte 12:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, the ChessCafe.com article is working for me, so I'm afraid I can't agree that it is dead. Also, the quotes in the image captions appear in full in the text as well - with the former it is admittedly quite a bit further down the page, but with the latter it is just to the right of it Perhaps the citation should be included again, though as I'm hopeless with formatting references I'll leave that to someone else to do if they wishCaissa's DeathAngel (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strange; the link checker tool told me it was dead. Anyway, I don't think repeating quotes in both the article and img. captions is a good idea. A summary of their positions in the captions would be best. Ceoil sláinte 16:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, I've changed both. I wasn't totally sure what to put in place of the quote, so please could you let me know if that's ok? I can change it again if need be of course. Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 16:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see you left in the Malaniuk caption - its very witty, good move. I read the full article since, and after the issued raised by Ealdgyth are resolved I'll support. This was a very enjoyable and interesting article to read. Ceoil sláinte 16:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't noticed that actually! I'm not one of the primary editors of the article to be honest so overlooked that one. If you or any other reviewer thinks I should change that too I will, though the other two were more significant. Currently working on sorting out the reliability thing. Most of the references are unfortunately print, so it's proving harder than I instinctively know it should be.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 16:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's the problem with writing about obscure areas, it's hard to find other folks that know the sources well enough to know that they are reliable. Don't feel you have to rush, the FAC won't fail in the next day or two because you haven't immediately rushed to answer my queries (grins). Ealdgyth - Talk 16:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Even so, I'd rather fix the problems sooner rather than later - being a WikiSloth I'll soon lose interest if I don't *grins*. All the publisher omissions should now be fixed, just need to justify the remaining two sites as reliable. Also, it seems Ceoil you were right about the dead link, I've removed it. Two other references make the same point so I don't consider the loss of one as particularly significant.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is it me, or does the page take a very long time to download. Looking at dr pada's script the total article size is 338kb, while text is only 35kb. ie the images must be huge. Ceoil sláinte 19:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just you, alas. Having edited the article over 800 times, I'm all too familiar with how long it takes to load. Krakatoa (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alas, poor "First-move advantage in chess", I knew his download times only too well! Can ye get someone with an image editor to scale them down, please. Ceoil sláinte 20:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Understand that I am not a chess player, so I don't know the sites at all, but what makes the following reliable sources?
Done Based on your "16:20, 21 June 2008" reply to Caissa's DeathAngel below, I understand it is fine for you now. Please correct me if otherwise. SyG (talk) 09:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done Publisher addedCaissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done Based on your "16:20, 21 June 2008" reply to Caissa's DeathAngel below, I understand it is fine for you now. Please correct me if otherwise. SyG (talk) 09:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done Based on your "23:06, 21 June 2008" reply to me below after I have provided a few elements, I understand you are now neutral and let it to other reviewers to decide on this. Please correct me if otherwise. SyG (talk) 09:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done Fixed, dead link removed Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Current refs 14, 15 and 16 are lacking publishers (CEGT ratings)
Done Not too sure on the formatting, but I've tried to add the publisher anyway
  • Current ref 132 (Hurd Chess Endgame Data Assurance) is lacking a publisher
Done Added publisher - can you please confirm though that it's ok to put Cambrige University as the publisher? That's certain who is hosting the article, and for whom the author works.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 16:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same for Current ref 134 Bremermann Quantum Noise and Information
Done Publisher found, added
Otherwise sources look okay, links check out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the links: ChessCafe.com is regularly contributed to by the world's leading players, and is notable enough to have an article on here. It is reliable. ChessGames.com is also well contributed to by some of the greatest in the world, including former world champions, and is regarded as basically the foremost resource for chess games online. They are well and truly notable, well known to chess fans, and considered significant enough for their own article here (I realise that last part doesn't count for a lot).Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know who is adding graphics. Please see the WP:FAC instructions, and please sign your entries. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The best way to show and demonstrate their reliablity is to have third-party mentions of them as reliable or useful. Usually this is something like a "Best of the web" from some noted journal in the field, or the use of the site as a source in printed media dealing with the subject. (I'd like to repeat that I'm not thinking they aren't reliable, I'm just not seeing the instant reliablity either) Ealdgyth - Talk 15:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm...ChessBase actually publishes its own journal - Chess Informator, but I shall need to find references for that that aren't in print. Chess Cafe was referenced by the US Chess Association in the following locations here: [2], [3], [4] - with the latter, it is noted that ChessCafe sponsors a US Chess Association tournament, although these may be more points towards Chess Cafe's notability than reliability admittedly. Not got the time to hunt down more sources, or for ChessGames.com, though I don't doubt they do exist. As a chess player, there's no question whatsoever for me of the reliability - especially as the very best in the world contributeCaissa's DeathAngel (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC) Wait, found a couple more links, though again not sure as to how much good they are. The Guardian links both Chess Base and Chess Cafe as useful links in its chess section here: [5] and Chess Base references Chess Cafe and its interview with arguably the most famous chess player alive, Garry Kasparov (also current leader of the Russian political opposition) here: [6]Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 15:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm convinced personally, but I'll leave this out for other reviewers to decide on their own about those two sites. The others though, anything on them? Ealdgyth - Talk 16:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I understand, the only other left is www.chessgames.com. Here are some hints of his notability:
  • This website is used in about all chess-related articles managed by the WP:WikiProject Chess, as this is the only one that is notable, reliable and "linkable".
  • It is used extensively in the articles Chess and The Turk, that are both featured articles.
  • An interview of the site manager by the online magazine "Chess Today". The interviewer introduces the site as "one of the most impressive and unusual chess web projects around".
  • A rating of various chess websites. Note that www.chessgames.com is one of the very few to get a "A" rating.
Please tell me if that makes it. I think the difficulty of finding mainstream coverage of this website comes from the fact that mainstream media 1)don't cover chess; 2)when they do cover chess, it's about chess news and they cite ChessBase; 3)when they do cover chess and not chess news, it's about "where to play chess on the internet" and they cite PlayChess. No mainstream media is gonna take an interest into chess history, which is what www.chessgames.com is all about. SyG (talk) 21:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm convinced, myself, but given the nature of the subject, I'm going to leave this out for other reviewers to see and make their own decisions. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment

Resolved comments from Gary King (talk) 19:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Use en dashes for page ranges in the references per WP:DASH.
Done. --Kakofonous (talk) 17:32, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is underwhelmingly short, considering the length of the article. There must be some more information that could be summarized?
Done (?) I have greatly extended the Lead, please have a look and see if it is better. SyG (talk) 08:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Since at least 1889, when Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion, addressed the issue, the overwhelming consensus has been that a game of chess should end in a draw with best play." – This sentence has a lot of commas and therefore the reader has to stop a lot to read it; perhaps it can be reworded or broken up into two sentences?
Done Fixed it by just referring to Steinitz as a world champion, and rephrasing it accordingly. I don't think it's too relevant that he was the first of his kind.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't the section title "Black is OK!" have quotations around it if it is a phrase?
Done Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "fear, as Black is indeed OK, but" – Perhaps it might be better to use italics here instead of bold, as bold is strongly discouraged per MOS:BOLD when formatting text as it has a much higher chance of bringing attention to it, which draws readers' eyes away when reading text around it.
Done Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reading the chess notation gave me a minor headache; also, it appears that some is bold and some is not. I guess there's a reason for this?
It's done for stylistic reasons. Text in bold actually happened during the game, notation that isn't is additional commentary/analysis. There's no way of getting around the use of notation in pages like this, and the boldness is used to give the reader a very clear and instant picture if they only care about the actual moves in the game.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I know that having the chess notation on the page is necessary; I'm just saying that I'm not used to reading it. Gary King (talk) 17:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a difficult one to tackle. Do you think there is something that could be done to improve the readability of the article in this respect ? For example, do you think that if we came back to the line more often (e.g. at the end of each sequence of bold moves, just before the commentary), it would improve ? SyG (talk) 09:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could you give me an example here? I'm thinking at least perhaps colons could be used at places like "2004[44][45] 1.e4" → "2004[44][45]: 1.e4" to separate the two. Just think how the page would look if formatting such as bold was removed, and references were also removed (which is how Wikipedia articles sometimes appear in other forms of media), then you have to think if the page is still readable. A colon or a similar separator would certainly help. Gary King (talk) 19:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have implemented your suggestion to add a colon before the moves.
About my idea, for the moment we have the moves and the explanations interlaced like that:
Lev Polugaevsky-Ľubomír Ftáčnik, Lucerne Olympiad 1982: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.O-O Be7 7.d4 cxd4 8.Qxd4 d6 9.Rd1 a6 10.b3 Nbd7 11.e4 Qb8 12.Bb2 O-O Suba wrote of a similar Hedgehog position, "White's position looks ideal. That's the naked truth about it, but the 'ideal' has by definition one drawback—it cannot be improved." 13.Nd2 Rd8 14.a4 Qc7 15.Qe3 Rac8 16.Qe2 Ne5 17.h3? According to Ftáčnik, 17.f4 Neg4 18.Rf1 is better. 17...h5! 18.f4 Ng6 19.Nf3 Now Black breaks open the position in typical Hedgehog fashion. 19...d5! 20.cxd5?! Ftáčnik considers 20.e5 or 20.exd5 preferable. 20...h4! 21.Nxh4 Nxh4 22.gxh4 Qxf4 23.dxe6 fxe6 24.e5? Ftáčnik recommends instead 24.Rxd8 Rxd8 25.Rd1. 24...Bc5+ 25.Kh1 Nh5! 26.Qxh5 Qg3 27.Nd5 Other moves get mated immediately: 27.Bxb7 Qh3#; 27.Qe2 Qxh3#; 27.Qg4 Bxg2#. 27...Rxd5 28.Rf1 Qxg2+! 29.Kxg2 Rd2+ If 30.Kg3 (the only legal response to the double check), Rg2+ 31.Kf4 Rf8+ forces mate.
My idea would be to get back to the line before each comment, in order to clearly separate the moves and the explanations, like that:
Lev Polugaevsky-Ľubomír Ftáčnik, Lucerne Olympiad 1982:
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.O-O Be7 7.d4 cxd4 8.Qxd4 d6 9.Rd1 a6 10.b3 Nbd7 11.e4 Qb8 12.Bb2 O-O
Suba wrote of a similar Hedgehog position, "White's position looks ideal. That's the naked truth about it, but the 'ideal' has by definition one drawback—it cannot be improved."
13.Nd2 Rd8 14.a4 Qc7 15.Qe3 Rac8 16.Qe2 Ne5 17.h3?
According to Ftáčnik, 17.f4 Neg4 18.Rf1 is better.
17...h5! 18.f4 Ng6 19.Nf3
Now Black breaks open the position in typical Hedgehog fashion.
19...d5! 20.cxd5?!
Ftáčnik considers 20.e5 or 20.exd5 preferable.
20...h4! 21.Nxh4 Nxh4 22.gxh4 Qxf4 23.dxe6 fxe6 24.e5?
Ftáčnik recommends instead 24.Rxd8 Rxd8 25.Rd1.
24...Bc5+ 25.Kh1 Nh5! 26.Qxh5 Qg3 27.Nd5
Other moves get mated immediately: 27.Bxb7 Qh3#; 27.Qe2 Qxh3#; 27.Qg4 Bxg2#.
27...Rxd5 28.Rf1 Qxg2+! 29.Kxg2 Rd2+
If 30.Kg3 (the only legal response to the double check), 30...Rg2+ 31.Kf4 Rf8+ forces mate.
Unfortunately that may leave a lot of white space on the article. What do you like best ? SyG (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't matter to me too much, especially since I don't think the general audience who reads this article will be gorging on the chess moves too much. I don't think they need to be broken up on every line. Gary King (talk) 17:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gary King (talk) 17:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Support Most of the issues are now resolved I think - the GA review took care of a lot of them, and I've sorted most of what the reviewers thus far have brought up. I think it's ready for FA Class.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 17:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Support - a great job has been done with balancing the technical and accessible with the prose. A pleasure to read. Couple of minor things but no deal-breakers.

In Symmetrical openings, I am not sure that the 'second' etc. ordinal qualifiers are needed for their respective paragraphs. If you tack on para 4 to para 3. Not a biggie and if you find it obfuscates things unduly don't proceed. yep. I feel it reads fine.

Otherwise great read. well done. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I have reworded the paragraphs you mention to avoid the ordinal qualifiers. See if you like it. SyG (talk) 22:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comments - This reviewer, whose chess experience is limited to ESPN broadcasts of Garry Kasparov playing computers, thinks this is a fascinating article. Here are some nit-picks with it.

  • Winning percentages: There are a lot of inconsistencies regarding whether percentage marks have a space before them or not. Audit for this throughout.
Done I think I have succeeded in deleting all spaces preceding percentage signs. Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Data compiled by GM András Adorján, which analyzed" Incorrect grammar; should be "who".
Done I revised this sentence to make it more accurate. Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Drawn with best play: Adorján doesn't need another link here.
Done Deleted this link. Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • White to play and win, Win with 1.e4: This sentence needs work; "Rauzer and Adams thus turned on its head leading hypermodern Gyula's famous statement".
Done I have reworded the sentence. SyG (talk) 09:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately is POV.
Not sure I understand your problem here. I don't think it's POV, since the article doesn't say that Rauzer and Adams, or Gyula Breyer, was right. It just says that Breyer said that White had a losing game after 1.e4, while Rauzer and Adams said the opposite: that White is winning by force after that move. Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done Anyway, I have deleted the whole sentence, as it does not seem to add anything relevant to the article. SyG (talk) 09:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Modern perspective, "Black is O.K.!": A third Adorján link.
Done Deleted this link. Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Black's advantages, Symmetrical openings: "GM Andrew Soltis recently wrote" This should give a time period, because it will become outdated otherwise.
Done Replaced "recently wrote" with "wrote in 2008." Thanks for your comments, and glad that you like the article! Krakatoa (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am quite impressed with this. Assuming that the source situation is okay, this will gain my support once these problems are addressed. Giants2008 (talk) 02:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your review, I hope all your concerns above have been addressed. About the issue of the reliability of sources, that was raised by Ealdgyth above and we have been answering his questions. My current understanding is that he now agrees on the reliability of www.chessbase.com and of www.chesscafe.com, and he is now neutral on the reliability of www.chessgames.com as he would like the opinion of other reviewers. I have provided a few elements to assess this reliability, please feel free to forge your own opinion. SyG (talk) 09:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - It's not easy to get technical articles like this featured, but I think this one is very good. Well done to all of the article's editors. Giants2008 (talk) 00:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your encouragements! SyG (talk) 17:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Prose needs sprucing up a little. The prose is not bad, but needs a careful polish throughout: shouldn't take someone fresh to the article long. Here are random samples indicating that the whole article needs a run-through:

  • "Some World Champions like Fischer or Garry Kasparov, when playing Black, do not strive for equality but instead try to get an advantage by seeking the initiative and creating structural contrasts between each player's placement of pieces." Try this:
  • "World Champions such as Fischer and Garry Kasparov, when playing Black, do not strive for positional equality but instead try to gain advantage by seeking the initiative and creating structural contrasts with their opponent's positions." Unsure whether you meant positional or material equality; does this need to to be specified?
  • "In the last thirty years,"—not wrong, but better as "In the past 30 years,". But why start this para, as well as the previous one, with a time-phrase? "Several established ... over the past 30 years."
  • If the start of a para contains "also", there's something wrong. The second "also" in that para seems unnecessary, even misleading.

Can you locate a double-nerd (words and chess) from relevant, good WP articles? Search edit history pages; edit summaries give the copy-editors away. Good for future collaborations, too. TONY (talk) 11:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately my level of English is not high enough to do some good copyediting myself. I will try to get a volunteer to review the article with fresh eyes and improve the prose. SyG (talk) 13:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a double or triple nerd, I'll give it a go today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Going to bed, I'll do it first thing in the morning. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now that Dank55 and Krakatoa have done some copyedit (many thanks to both!), would you think the prose is spruced enough ? SyG (talk) 17:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Question I'm doing a copyedit now; as always, feel free to revert anything I do, but I'd appreciate an explanation in the edit summary. I got stumped on the phrase "winning percentage", which to a patzer like me sounds like how often you win; you're using it to mean the percentage of the time that you win, plus half the percentage of the time that you draw (based on the obvious scoring in chess for a draw, half a point to both sides). This "winning percentage" jargon is not defined in the List of chess terms. I don't mind if you use the phrase, if it's a phrase in common use among chessplayers, but if so, it's non-intuitive, and I'd like to see it defined at the first occurrence of the phrase and also at List of chess terms. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response Footnote 1 in the article defines the concept, I've added an entry to List of chess terms defining winning percentage as you requested, and I link the first use of "winning percentage" to that definition. Is that OK? Krakatoa (talk) 19:09, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't enforce the "one phrase or clause only before the main clause" that some copyeditors like, but this is just too much: "At the slowest time control (40/120), as of May 4, 2008, out of 17,742 games played among 33 of the strongest chess engines, White had won..." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response You're right; the way I'd written it is very cumbersome. For that sentence and the similar sentences following it (for the 40/20 and 40/4 time controls) I've tried to rewrite them much more tersely, relegating the details (exact number of games played, number of wins/losses/draws) to the references. See what you think. Krakatoa (talk) 19:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Gender neutrality: how about "that the objective is to extend..." instead of "that his objective is to extend"? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response I rewrote the sentence in the following gender-neutral way: "The traditional view is that White, by virtue of the first move, begins with the initiative and should try to extend it into the middlegame, while Black strives to neutralize White's initiative and reach equality." Krakatoa (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Although "signally" gets 344K Google hits, and Websters doesn't deprecate it, it's old-fashioned and not well-known. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response - deleted offending word. Krakatoa (talk) 20:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't like the switch from past to present verb tense referring to the same work in First-move_advantage_in_chess#The_System; can someone share what, in general, you'd expect to see in the references in order to justify the switch from one tense to the other? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response No good reason; I've changed it all to past tense. Krakatoa (talk) 20:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I see you changed my "Claims that white should win" heading to "White wins". Your way is shorter, which is worth a lot, but WP:MOS, that mother of all evil, recommends nouns and phrases that act as nouns for section headings. Anyone want to vote on this? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response Others are welcome to weigh in, of course. I vote for "White wins" because it (1) expresses the point much more tersely than "Claims that white should win," (2) parallels the previous section title ("Drawn with best play" -- btw, using the same logic of using nouns and phrases that act as nouns for section headings, shouldn't that be changed to the ghastly "Claims that the game is a draw with best play"?), and (3) avoids the problem of having to either (a) put "White" in lower-case, as you've done, which offends the eyes of chessplayers like me or (b) put "White" in upper-case, which looks good to chessplayers (those who think as I do, anyway), but offends another Wikipedia bugaboo (not capitalizing words in section titles other than the first word). WP:MOS ought to be a set of guidelines, not a straitjacket. Krakatoa (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What say you all? Quote: IM Jeremy Silman wrote, "the sheer insanity..." The source starts off with an inoffensive clause before "the sheer insanity", so we can't capitalize the "t". Do we need an ellipsis, or is the lowercase "t" a sufficient clue that the sentence doesn't start there? (I'm fine with it, provided, of course, that what comes before doesn't change the meaning of the rest of the sentence.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I get the similarity to sports journalism. It would be silly to say, "Michael Jordan expressed an interest in dunking over Charles Barkley, but Charles replied that he thought it unlikely"; you'd want to quote the colorful language they used, because the language is part of the sport. So I decided not to let all the quotations bother me...but at some point, it did seem to be too much. I think it was somewhere around Countervailing advantages that the quotations seemed not to add a lot. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response I like quotes because (at least if they're in context) they're NPOV, while someone's paraphrase of or gloss upon them may not be. But I think you're right that some of those in the article don't add much. I've shortened some of the text in Countervailing advantages and moved a number of quotes into references instead. See what you think. Krakatoa (talk) 04:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Quote: Black should strive for "[e]lastic and non-symmetrical pawn structures." Was it a capital E in the source? Was it in a list, or was that a sentence that continued on past "structures"? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response The quote was, "In order to make a real fight out of chess we must look for:
  • 1. Elastic and non-symmetrical pawn structures.
  • 2. Pressure or control towards the centre. [etc., through points 3, 4, 5, and 6]" Krakatoa (talk) 04:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support, after the above issues are addressed. The one that will take the most work is that there are too many quotations; as I say, I follow that hearing what the grandmasters said themselves is part of the interest of the game, but there are more than a few boring quotes in this article as well that could be rephrased, generally starting around Countervailing advantages. - Dan Dank55 (talk)

(mistakes) 23:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response I've now addressed all your issues as best I can, and hope I've done so sufficiently. See what you think. Thanks for all your valuable and painstaking work on the article! I think it's a lot better now. Krakatoa (talk) 08:59, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The two comments above that ask for a response from the "jury" didn't get any, so I assume we're good to go. Thanks for rewording some of the quotes, and I considered doing some myself, but you're right. This is one of those subjects where it's hard to say that changing a word in the quotes won't alter the meaning, so let's just leave them. Excellent work; you're a good copyeditor. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment You'll probably need to change the {{reflist}} template to display 2 columns, not 3. Per discovery of a browser bug. -- VegitaU (talk) 05:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC) Never mind, it's more a Firefox issue than a Wikipedia issue. -- VegitaU (talk) 05:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response Thanks for the heads-up. I am a technical ignoramus, but I was sure the article was using reflist 2 rather than reflist 3. Upon looking at the notes, I see that someone switched to reflist 3. (Neanderthal that I am, I use IE, under which the notes look the same with either.) I have no idea about the relative merits of reflist 2, reflist 3, and the alternatives, but I see that 19 out of 26 articles (73%) so far in the Featured Article queue for June use reflist 2, so I assume they're on to something. I have accordingly switched the article back to reflist 2. (Of the other articles in the queue, one uses reflist, four use reflist 3, one uses reflist 4, and one uses a custom design.) I hope the switch back to reflist 2 solves your problem. I'm sure more knowledgeable users will enlighten me if reflist 2 is in fact bad for some reason. Krakatoa (talk) 06:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A "custom design"?! Which one would that be? That shouldn't be the case... Gary King (talk) 06:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My reference to "custom design" was probably incorrect. I believe I was referring to the June 9 article, Jurassic Park (film), which apparently uses a variant of reflist with a column width of "30em", whatever that means. Krakatoa (talk) 15:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That means that the number of columns will vary depending on the width of the browser, which I think is better than having a fixed number of columns. Gary King (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Support. This is among the very best chess articles I have ever seen on Wikipedia. The article scores very high marks on information, with a number of high-quality sources. It does an excellent job of binding the different viewpoints of the "Does White have a forced win?" controversy with excellent prose. The addition of full games is unusual in an encyclopedia, but in this case it enhances the points made in the article, and since the best paper chess encyclopedia (Oxford Companion) does the same thing to illustrate its articles, I have no problems with it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments to the intro:

  • "World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz" - two links "next to each other in the text" are prohibited by WP:MOSLINK.
    • No, MOSLINK says "An article may be overlinked if any of the following is true..." One of the things I look for in a copyedit is whether the links actually add something to the article; for this article, they do. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I copy edited that sentence, and I really don't think I can improve on the way it's phrased/linked just now. While not ideal, there's no way of improving it without overloading it with commas (the original problem) and I'm not doing that again. Besides, as Dan says both links add something.Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Many contemporary players, including World Champions Fischer and Garry Kasparov..." - Fischer is dead and Kasparov inactive - why "contemporary"?
    • "contemporary" is fine (it doesn't mean "now"), but the present tense with Fischer and Kasparov doesn't work; fixed. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Modern writers also argue that Black has certain countervailing advantages." Almost all chess writers are "modern" in the general sense, since chess itself in its current form started about AD 1500. Should be more clear, e.g. "Since 1980..."
    • I wouldn't mind a substitute for "modern", but I'll be happy with whatever Krakatoa wants here. See the latest thread at WT:LEAD. It's a given that the lead section will sacrifice precision; providing more precise answers is what the rest of the article is for. The word "modern" has a specific meaning to historians, but for most people, the meaning is closer to an ambiguous "in recent years". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The introduction says that "The advantage is about the same, however, for tournament games between humans and games between computers." and that "Adorján ... forcefully arguing that the general perception that White has an advantage is founded more in psychology than reality." Since computers do not have a psychology, one should try to clear the inconsistence of the two sentences. I would drop the word "forcefully" to make clear that the Adorján's theory is rather unproved.

Best,--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 09:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I like your point; I removed "forcefully". It's a bit POV for the lead section, anyway. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Saying Adorján argues "forcefully" is not POV in the least; he's quite over the top in his 2004 and 2005 books. E.g., "The tale of White's advantage is a delusion , belief in it is based on mass psychosis ". Adorján 2004, p. 5. "How I deserved to be chosen by God to get his message 'BLACK IS OK!' through to chess-playing mankind, I know not." Adorján 2005, p. 7. Rowson observes that Adorján "sheds more heat than light" on the subject of whether White has an advantage, and a section of Rowson's book is entitled, "Is Adorján OK?" Evidently not: "I do have a nice bipolar, rapid-cycle depression ... . ... it's like Hell in miniature!" Adorján 2005, p. 7. As for computers, Adorján explains that, " The figures of computer battles . . . are a reflection of their Masters - who are PEOPLE! And that is also - as I see it -- the explanation." Id., p. 145. All of that said, I don't particularly care about the "forcefully", particularly since I don't get into all of this in the article. Krakatoa (talk) 16:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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