Template talk:Chess

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Is there anything else people think should be included on this template? Remember 18:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Players" section

Is this section really useful? There are hundreds of chess players on Wikipedia, perhaps thousands. Rocksong 00:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact, it should be "Important leading players who were not undisputed unrestricted OTB world champions". But this title is too long for a template, so the title is "Players", but only the leading, often cited masters can be listed here. I think that this can be useful, because these important players are often interesting for readers.--Ioannes Pragensis 08:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Then have a chessplayers category. Just who to include on a limited-size template is extremely subjective. Rocksong 11:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

On the other side, the chessplayers category is too crowded to be easily used. It may be a bit subjective, but I think that in most cases the reasons are clear: These players are noted in many anthologies, books about history of chess etc., and they cover the timeline of chess since Middle Ages till today, and moreover I included the two most dominant female players of history, Menchik and J.Polgár. BTW most lists are in some sense "subjective", even the champions list in the same template - why just "undispusted, unrestricted, official"? We must live with the unavoidable subjectivity somehow, I guess. The reason for the template is to provide the reader with an easy access to the most interesting chess articles, nothing more and nothng less, so I do not see a need for strong definitions and pure objectivity here. --Ioannes Pragensis 11:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. Obviously some thinking and work is going into this template, something to be encouraged. But in this particular case (the chess template), personally I'm not convinced. I think it's too open to random edits which aren't thought through. Still, I'll let you and others work on it, and hopefully it will turn out useful. Rocksong 11:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Rocksong, you should also note that if you click on the players portion of the Template you bring up the players category from Wikipedia. Hopefully, that will help quell your concerns. Remember 12:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I quite like it, but would suggest that it (1) be better spaced from the text above and below (2) be differently titled - eg. 'Overview' or 'Summary' - maybe prefaced by the word 'Chess'. As it stands, I think it conflicts with the main page title (3) not include 'Reshevsky'. Of course, I realise that this is where it gets highly subjective, but I would have put Reshevsky on a similar plateau to the likes of Geller and Polugaevsky. Would Tartakower and/or Eliskases not merit a place here? What do others think? - I'm certainly happy to be outvoted 82.39.117.137 13:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

(1) agree; (2) I think that "Chess" is better because of clarity and brevity; (3) I agree that Reshevsky is a bit subjective, but I added him because he was really in the top five in the unhappy years around WW2, and because this is an English Wikipedia, so I preferred English speaking players over the others in cases of doubt. But I agree that he can be removed if other editors think so.--Ioannes Pragensis 14:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The "players" section should absolutely go, in my opinion. It's not a bad list (though I'd personally get rid of Reshevsky and Larsen), but simply giving a bunch of names without a criterion for inclusion will only cause confusion: why them? "Important leading players who were not undisputed unrestricted OTB world champions" doesn't help either - "important" is just too subjective and unverifiable. Skarioffszky 15:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There are players which belongs there without doubt (e.g. Paul Morphy - in his time there was no WCh title, but nobody doubts that he was the most powerful player of his time) and in the borderline cases, we can perhaps discuss or make a strawpoll. Many lists of people are a bit subjective here - look for example at the list of persons with historical importance "A"; but we must live with it.--Ioannes Pragensis 19:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, we mustn't live with it. NPOV policy is perfectly clear. I know there are some lists left (mostly dating from pre-category times) about major Xs and important Ys, but those should go too. I don't know what "list of persons with historical importance" you are talking about, but if you direct me there I'd gladly nominate it for deletion. Anyway, a subjective list is one thing, a subjective template, placed in dozens of articles, goes a lot further than that. Paul Morphy was a very important player, no doubt, but for almost all of the others we can have an endless discussion. The standards for inclusion are not only subjective, but also arbitrary: Menchik and Polgar are there as women, Nimzowitsch because of his contribution to the theory of chess strategy rather than his results, Larsen and Reshevsky would not be featured so prominently had they been Soviet players. And where is Pillsbury? Maroczy? Maia Chiburdanidze? It will always be random. Skarioffszky 20:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about WP:COREBIO, and I wish you success in deleting it as I think that it is biased in many regards. - Regarding the chess template: You are of course true that the list of players is arbitrary and subjective to some degree. What you do not see is that even the rest of the template is also arbitrary and subjective - why for example only "undisputed" OTB champions and not also the disputed? The unofficial? Correspondence chess champions? And you do not realize that also all other similar templates are arbitrary and subjective about to the same degree. Take for example the Template:Team Sport. Why is there pétanque and not much more important team chess, which has its own olympiades? Et cetera. So I thing that you must either delete all similar templates (I would be against it as they help to readers) or try to have them as relevant as possible knowing that human beings are not capable of perfection (which is what I am trying to do). - If you think that Larsen should be removed and Pillsbury added, OK, let us talk about Larsen and Pillsbury, but this does not mean that we should delete the whole category.--Ioannes Pragensis 14:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:COREBIO is not in the main namespace (i.e. not part of the encyclopedia proper), so I don't think that comparison is to the point (and I'm not going to send it to AfD!). More importantly, it is simply not true that the rest of the template is "also arbitrary and subjective" - at least not to the same degree. Yes, we can argue whether or not we include a section "undisputed world champions" in the template, but once we do include them, there is a verifiable standard to decide who these world champions are. Excluding Petrosian would be simply wrong, not a matter of taste. In the players section, however, such a standard is lacking and every name is a subjective decision. I also disagree that this part of the template is helpful to readers; just putting an arbitrary list there, without a reason why they are there, is not giving them information of very high quality. On the contrary. Skarioffszky 17:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

But what about including Susan Polgar? Or Tunc Hamarat? They were also undisputed chess world champions. And where is your "verifiable standard" in the other sections? Why we have "Traps" and not "Sicilian Game" in the first section? I love to be exact where it is possible to be exact, but at the same time I know that there are cases without this possibility. - BTW to be helpful to readers does not always mean to give them an information; these templates exists because we wish to give them a navigation tool. This is why templates are not in the main namespace and are not the part of encyclopedia proper, just like WP:COREBIO (see Wikipedia:Namespace); think about it.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

You're grasping at straws now. No, the template itself is not in the main namespace; but the articles in which the template is used certainly are (if the template was unused I wouldn't bother with this discussion). The first section doesn't specifically mention the Sicilian Defence, because that falls under Openings, just like the Légal Trap falls under Traps. And when people speak of the "Undisputed World Champion" you and I both know exactly what they mean, and it's not a "Women's World Chess Champion" (Susan Polgar) or a "World Correspondence Chess Champion" (Tunc Hamarat). The simple fact remains: a navigational tool should not be used to introduce a highly subjective selection of "important" players. Skarioffszky 21:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Traps fall also under Openings, just like Sicilian. And Women/Correspondence champs are also undisputed. - I think that this discussion is blocked, because I do not believe in absolute "objectivity" and you do not believe that subjectivity can be useful; so if you insist on the change, you should try to involve more editors to discuss it. I suggest you to open a discussion on the page of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess.--Ioannes Pragensis 08:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to discuss it there, go ahead. I will now change the template, as you have not even made an attempt to show how your list of personal favourites is NPOV or verifiable. Skarioffszky 10:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overall impression and aims of the template

I would just say that I prefer the new slimmed down format of the template. Generally, I think it's looking useful, without being too bulky or in your face. Whether you include a notable players section or not is not such a life or death thing (just leave out Reshevsky please) - but a compromise that avoids the whole 'favourites' debate would just be to link a heading 'Players' to List of chess players.

At the risk of sparking even more controversy, how about links to 'Topics', 'Games' 'Quotes' etc. Shouldn't the template in effect replace the "See Also" section of the main page as part of its raison d'être? In some respects, it's also an alternative to the Portal and that's not such a bad idea either!. Brittle heaven 00:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)