Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sample chess game

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[edit] Sample chess game

This one has received many thanks at its talk page. It is very well written and stays tightly focused on the main topic, covering the subject clearly but extensively. --ZeroOne 13:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Weak Oppose. Lead section too short and no inline citations... are there books on that subject? If so maybe incorporate some of their tactics. I would also define certain terms in Wiktionary like logjam?. Lincher 13:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
    • There are at least a few hundred thousand books on the subject of chess. ;o I could copy the references that are used in the main article, chess. Logjam is just a figure of speech there. I don't remember it being a custom that individual words from the middle of an article are linked to Wiktionary. --ZeroOne 17:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, this article feels like a how-to article. --soUmyaSch 13:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Agreed with User:Soumyasch. I'm not even sure why this is on Wikipedia and not Wikibooks. —Cuiviénen (talk•contribs), Sunday, 7 May 2006 @ 14:04 UTC
  • Object. Seems unencyclopedic. Even if it wasn't, it comes close to original research, and has no proper lead section. (The lack of references is a non-issue because obviously this article can't have any -- which in itself makes its topic appear to be of dubious encyclopedic value.) Johnleemk | Talk 14:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Object, needs references. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
    • What if I copy some of the references from chess? They all apply. Would you support then? --ZeroOne 17:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Entirely violates WP:NOR, some of WP:NOT, and, with comments like "White makes another fine move", WP:NPOV. This should be moved off Wikipedia. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose this article is not encyclopedic. Should be transwikied to Wikibooks if they want it. Tuf-Kat 19:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Object. The article has serious POV issues and needs a complete rewrite, but I feel that the content here, or at least the idea of a sample chess game in general, could be justified here on Wikipedia. However, because we say on Wikipedia that every article could be raised to featured status, and featured status requires references, we would perhaps have to make our sample game one that was actually played, such as one that demonstrated a particularly noteworthy level of play or which used a broad range of possible moves. This particular article though,is not of featured quality as of yet. RyanGerbil10 03:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Some paper encyclopedias have full pages which are not mostly text: maps, or diagrams of the legislative process, or little picture galleries with examples of eight different kinds of lace, or whatever. In the more vertical (and more nonlinear) format of a web browser it makes sense to put things like this on their own pages, rather than break up the main text column with them (and they won't necessarily fit to the side of it). So not every Wikipedia page has to be exactly an "article". The page Sample chess game does not belong on Wikibooks because it is not a textbook or part of a textbook. Rather, it is a supplementary document for the encyclopedia articles Chess and Rules of chess. Such supplementary documents should probably never be given featured article status, since they are not encyclopedia articles per se (thus I oppose this nomination), but there is no good reason to delete them, or to transwiki them to other Wiki projects whose stated criteria they are equally unsuitable for, either. (If anyone wants to get gung-ho about every Wikipedia page being an article per se, rather than some pages serving subsidiary functions, they will have to delete or transwiki all "List of" and "Timeline of" pages, to begin with.) DanielCristofani 09:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Don't get me started :-D —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
This is original research, why not change the sample game to a classic game played by one of the champions and give commentaries made by reliable sources? Then this would be an article worthy of an encyclopedia. Joelito (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Complete games are generally too long for this kind of introductions. Then there are these games like Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1997, Game 6 which only few understand - try to make a computer analysis of this game, it will probably agree on every move, yet Kasparov resigned. Besides, this particular example game is hardly original research, as Damiano Defense has throughly been examined to be a poor one. Chessmaster 9000, for example, knows an almost the same game (differs on White's eighth move) that leaves the opening book on move 11, at which point it is a forced mate in three for white: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ Ke7 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ d5 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.Bxb7 Bxb7 9.Qf5+ Kh6 10.h4 g5 11.Qf7 Nf6 12.hxg5+ Kxg5 13.d3+ Kg4 14.Qe6# 1-0. --ZeroOne 20:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah! I knew I had seen that poor opening somewhere. Since the article is nothing more than an explosion of the Damiano Defense then I suggest a merge of the article. Joelito (talk) 21:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Nothing more than an explosion of the Damiano Defense? This article is aimed for people who have never played chess. Those players are not interested in the names of openings and only get confused should you start telling them about King's Indian Opening, Scotch Opening, etc. :) They will not click on Damiano Defence when they want to learn chess. For people who are already intermediate players, this text is just holding them from hand and telling them "this-is-a-rook". They do not need every move commented. Advanced players would appreciate a short and compact form when presented as one line of the Damiano Defense. --ZeroOne 21:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
What you are describing is a how-to of chess and this explicitely one of the things that this encyclopedia is not. I am merely trying to save the article. Joelito (talk) 21:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey, this is just a Featured article candidate discussion, which, I gather, has come to the conclusion that this will not be made a featured article. We'll discuss about saving the article should someone nominate it for deletion... --ZeroOne 21:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but I would hardly call an example game of chess an instruction manual. It's not a "how to win a game of chess" or even "how to play chess" article. As DanielCristofani pointed out, it's rather a supplement to Chess and Rules of chess (the "how to play chess" article, should you want to call it that). Should you counter that Rules of chess is not an encyclopedic article either, we would have to strip the rules out from most of our sports related articles. See, for example, Laws of the Game (soccer), too. --ZeroOne 20:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Storng object If this can even be considered an article, this article is a poorly written, unencylopedic, unrefrenced indisciminate collection of information. I wouldn't be surprised if this wound up on ADF. At the very least this should be removed from FAC per WP:SNOWTobyk777 04:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not an article; it's not poorly written; it's not a "collection", discriminate or indiscriminate. It's an illustration to show what chess games are like. Not being an article does not make it unencyclopedic; encyclopedias have things other than articles in them. I've mentioned a few already. Just as the printers of paper encyclopedias will sometimes make a map or other illustration big enough to take up a full page, or even two, when it is necessary for including enough information to give people a clear idea of the subject, we should be able to do the same. And yes, go ahead and take it off FAC. I think we have some consensus on that, anyway. DanielCristofani 09:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
  • oppose, but support the concept. I agree this is an edge case, but I certainly don't understand the level of vehement opposition here. Remember that our goal here is to improve Wikipedia, not to fight off nasty, invasive bad articles.
    1. Would this article survive AfD? I think it should. Chess is a complex game, and not easy to grasp from a simple list of rules. This is -- or at least could be -- an illustration, not a how-to, and as such I think an article like this belongs in Wikipedia.
    2. I don't understand why people have a problem with this as an illustration of how the game works. Would you delete the animated diagram and explanation from Internal combustion engine? It walks you through the sequence of steps in an engine cycle, just as an article like this could walk you through the sequence of stages in a typical chess game.
    3. Given that it belongs in Wikipedia, it must be possible for it to become featured.
      • It could certainly do with a lead which summarises the article.
      • With good discussion of the implications of each position and move, this article could be comprehensive and well-written.
      • If based on a well-known game which has been discussed in at least a couple of reference works, it can be factually accurate, verifiable, and NPOV.
      • References could then be provided (eg. to the page where a move is described by a respected authority as being "fine", and why).
      • Given the above, this would not be original research.
      • "Stable" should be achievable...
      With all of these, I think it would meet the criteria for an FA.
    4. Would people find this a useful aid to understanding chess? I think so. So, with virtually unlimited storage, why not?
    So, the trick is to find a short, clear game which satisfies the above criteria. Address the above, and I would support. — Johan the Ghost seance 10:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I think this article would survive AfD, on inertia alone if nothing else, but I don't think it should. Being useful isn't sufficient. How would you feel about these hypothetical pages:
  • A recipe for chocolate cake, to illustrate how cake is made.
  • A sample poem, to illustrate issues of meter, rhyme, etc.
Specifically regarding the idea that this article could, in a better form, be an FA, I would argue that the choice of what game to discuss -- what game is the best sample? -- is an inherently POV matter. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I think being useful and meeting the FA criteria, which I think this article could do, is sufficient. As for your examples, I don't think these are totally accurate analogies. A cake recipe is something you would make for its own sake; a poem is something you would read for its own sake. But a sample chess game is not something which you would read, and then play for its own sake, even if you could find a willing partner -- it's only use is as illustration, which is why I don't agree with the "instruction manual" comment. I don't think the choice of a sample game based on the criteria I outlined above (which specifically don't mention "good", "interesting", "skillful", etc.) would be POV, any more than the choice of poem fragments in poetry is POV -- in fact, less so, I would say.
Still, as I said, it's certainly an edge case. No, I wouldn't want to open the flood gates to pages of sample recipes. To me, this example is just on the right side of the line. But perhaps the safest thing is to do what cake and poetry both do (not to mention tea); include a sample game fragment in rules of chess. — Johan the Ghost seance 16:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)