Talk:Chess engine

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I have disambiguated many references on this page that formerly linked to unrelated articles because the chess engines in question had the names of common items. However, as I was in the P's (I was working alphabetically) I began to wonder if this is in the Wikipedia's best interest. Certainly, to add "(chess)" to the links on this page is productive, as it eliminates references to unrelated articles, even if it only creates a redlink in its place. But, as I disambiguated these dozens of chess engines on other article pages, I found that I was just adding redlink after redlink to the bottoms of articles and disambiguation pages. AFAIK, dab pages aren't really supposed to link to nonexistent articles if possible. I also felt really bad tacking on this barely related redlink notice to some wonderfully written pieces of brilliant prose. What should be done here? I know I've left the job half-finished...should I revert or continue? —Ed Cormany 22:15, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Adding red links to disambiguation pages is absolutely fine. I'd say it's quite useful, in fact, because there may be several reasonable ways to disambiguate something, and if you don't add them, people won't know know what other articles are pointing to (for instance, there may be a risk of somebody linking to Adam (chess engine) rather than Adam (chess) unless there's a pointer to the latter from Adam). And putting a link at the bottom of an article (even a really good one) doesn't really take away from the article itself, IMO, so I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with what you're doing.

That said, I wouldn't worry too much about carrying on with it if you find it boring or have pangs of guilt or whatever. Most of the engines listed on this page are rather obscure and I doubt we'll have articles on them any time soon. I doubt we'll even have links to them from any article other than this. So although it's a job that will probably need to be done at some point, it's not a pressing issue, and nothing much will be hurt if it isn't done right now. --Camembert

Thanks. Your words are encouraging. I'm not sure if I'll carry through to the end of the alphabet or not, but I may well now. =) —Ed Cormany 01:38, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

The other thought is that having red links eventually adds up if a topic *is* referenced from multiple places--might appear on a most-wanted list or, when someone is considering whether to create a new page and is staring at a blank "Editing" page, they can click What Links Here and see whether there are articles that reference it. Sometimes helps me decide whether to create an article that will fill in a few red links automatically. Anyway, nice job (as I also said on your user page). Elf | Talk 04:15, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Most of the programs on this list should not have encyclopedia articles. There just is not enough to say about them to ever get a verifiable article that will ever be greater than stub-length. I am going to unlink all but the ones which already do have an article. Please do not re-create the link until you also create the detailed article about the engine itself. (And as a caution to new users, people who create many self-evident articles with the sole content of "XYZ is a chess engine" as a way around this principle have been accused of vandalism for that behavior.) Rossami (talk) 03:08, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a category for computer chess players too? --Malathion 5 July 2005 02:46 (UTC)

Contents 1 Licensing 2 List is of dubious value 3 Uncategorized chess engines 4 Proposed page move 5 Source Code

[edit] Licensing

Is it possible to add information about the license of each engine, such as GNU, BSD, closed-source, or whatever? Nicholasink 15:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the title of the page should be more explicit, and that a phrase in the beginning of the document should present the target of the list and what is allowed. Is the target of the list presenting what is a chess engine and how it works? In this case the list should only contain the most representative engines. Is the target to present the best engine available to the public in order to chose one that fit your need? In this case the list would contain only the best one. I would perhaps let this page in this actual state - open to all chess engines - and create a new one with a link to it. So there would be less problems. Outsiders with new engines could put there engine one the wikipedia and have less excuse to pollute the page you have in mind.

[edit] List is of dubious value

This list is of dubious value. To the layperson, it is just random names. It does not distinguish between software and dedicated computers. It does not distinguish programs of historical interest from those of current interest. Half these engines are non-notable personal projects. Any static list will become obsolete almost immediately. I recommend removing the list entirely, perhaps merging the notable programs into computer chess, perhaps introducing categories instead. --IanOsgood 20:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Listcruft is exactly what I was talking about. I'd propose this page for deletion, but it seems to have a lot of history, therefore interest. Could we at least categorize the links on this page a little? I propose at least deleting every item that does not have an internal or external link. --IanOsgood 00:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uncategorized chess engines

I have moved this section here from the article since it is unsourced, OR. When engines get blue linked they can be moved back to the article.

BlueValour 15:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed page move

I propose that this page, currently at Chess engines should be move to Chess engine to conform with WP naming conventions regarding plurals of nouns. The page cannot be moved by a non-administrative user because the redirect page Chess engine has a history. BlueValour 23:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source Code

It would be nice to list which engines are provided with source code. I know the following do: Amundsen, Amy, Arasan, BBChess, Crafty, Faile, Fruit, Glaurung & Scatha, GNU Chess, Knight Cap, Nero, Pepito, SJeng, Toga II, Witz. (add more if you know)