Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/World Chess Championship

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[edit] World Chess Championship

Self-nomination. I've worked a tremendous deal on this page and significantly increased the scope. In my own judgement: Good parts: The gallery; the prose; the pictures; the detail Possible issues: No pictures for women, much less detail on their championship

*welcomes comments*

--Etaonish 02:58, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Object for now. Most of the images lack source and licensing information. Some of them are pre-1922 and hence in the public domain, but several are post-1922 and don't have licensing info. On another note (this is not an objection), can we move the history section above the list of champions? I believe this is the usual convention in wiki articles. --ashwatha 03:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Many of the images I uploaded come from my local stash of images, I don't quite recall where I got them. I'll look for them online. As for the list, I don't know what wiki convention is. I prefer it like this, but it makes little difference to me.--Etaonish 03:15, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Agree on photo sources--every one of them should be tagged. Additionally, consider the need for a portrait with every paragraph, and left-right what's more--with two columns of photos surrounding text, that text can be difficult to focus on. Original research/author's conjecture/style not suitable to an encyclopedia:
    • "Perhaps Anderssen would be able to quickly absorb modern theory and rise to the top again."
    • "Especially in today's world, with hundreds of possible challengers to the championship, longevity is a poor determinant of skill."
    • "Yet another complication in determining who was the greatest is the dichotomy between talent and hard work. Capablanca's natural gift for chess was arguably unrivaled, but he lost his title to Alekhine because Alekhine prepared much more diligently for their match. Is this evidence that Capablanca was in fact a better player who lost due to laziness, or evidence that due to his laziness Capablanca was in fact the inferior player?"
    • "and was surprisingly exciting, leading to a final game which Kramnik needed to win and did"
    • "freeing Kasparov from the grip of the Soviet state"
    • "fought numerous titanic battles""
    • "The general chess public did not take this claim to the championship seriously, since both of them were well past their prime, shadows of their former selves.""
    • "won it brilliantly""
    • "Smyslov had the dubious pleasure of being the shortest-reigning world champion; but this 'honour' soon switched hands"
    • "he was shockingly upset by a new challenger"
    • "his fearsome tactical skill"
    • "a deference to Morphy's supreme dominance"
119 03:26, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Abstain. This is quite thorough and contains most of the things I would expect in an article on this subject. Unlike 119 I do not find the above quotes evidence of original research. Morphy's supreme dominance is an all but indisputable fact. The speculation on Capablanca and Alekhine is standard fare and certainly not original to this author. On the other hand I do agree that the style is slightly too personal and needs tweaking in many of 119's examples. I'd also like any image issues resolved before granting FA status. I guess we should also call for references. I'd suggest Kasparov's book on his predecessors, E.G. Winter's overview book and something recent describing the chaos of the last few years. Overall this is a good article and no worse than some of what is already featured but in the name of tightening the standards I cannot support FA-status for it at this time. -- Haukurth 14:36, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. There is a lot of good stuff in this article, but it still several steps from feature status, IMO. Already mentioned problems that I also noted are: the image copyrights, unencyclopedic/unreference/POV contents, the list of winners before the history text (you may even consider splitting of the list from the article), and the lack of extensive information on the women's and junior/senior tournaments. In addition, I'd like to mention: 1) No references. You probably used several books and websites for this. They need to be listed. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. 2) The entire "The greatest of all time" section may be interesting, but does not belong in an article on World Champions - it probably doesn't belong in Wikipedia at all. 3) The part on the early history is short and vague. For example, on the 16th century "champions", it is said: "are sometimes considered the world champions of their time" - who considers this? If it is only considered, sometimes, are they worthy taking up such a large part of the list? Did they actually call themselves champions, or were these titles retroactively applied to them? In the pre-1886 part, there is more confusion. In the list you write "undisputed" - where their titles disputed? The term "generally considered" is used often in this context. I'm also interested if there were absolutely no self-pronounced World Champions in the pre-1948 era, where there was no governing body involved. 4) In the post-1948 part, the FIDE is introduced without further information. When was it founded, why did Euwe allow them to step in as organisers? 5) Most part of the "chaos" section is good, giving a good overview of the situation. Towards the end, though, it gets into to much detail. It could also use some view from observers - as I understand it, most chess fans don't like the "new" FIDE-style championships. Jeronimo 21:40, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I would like to see "The greatest of all time" section retained, although it might well be moved into an article of its own. I found it an interesting and suitably NPOV discussion of the issues that should be considered when comparing chess champions of different eras (as one inevitably does). GeorgeStepanek\talk 22:49, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Response. Thanks for your comments. I will tone down many of 119's examples, however, there are some places where it is simply completely widespread opinion. 'numerous titanic battles' between Karpov and Kasparov is part of the history of their rivalry.

As for references, much of what I wrote was strictly from memory. In very few places did I actually consult a reference. Still, most of the information is public, such as the years of each reign, etc.

The part on early history is vague primarily because little is known about the time. It is generally accepted these were the strongest players, but we have almost no evidence of the time. Undisputed refers to 1886 on, when the first Championship match was proclaimed and recorded. Unlike, say, even Morphy (Staunton refused to play him so he could maintain he was strongest), no one could dispute the fact that Capablanca was champion. Technically it shouldn't be labeled undisputed, but the point is sufficiently minor to gloss over that.

Greatest of all time is a commonly occurring question among those new to the game. It is an interesting little sideby and I think it's sufficiently NPOV. The only part truly POV would be the list of the ten, but virtually everyone agrees those ten were superbly dominant. It is like saying Babe Ruth was one of the best baseball players: no one disputes it, though they may dispute the fact that he was the best player.

I don't think splitting the list is a good idea: it's a relatively important feature of the article. I will, however, move it to the end.--Etaonish 18:14, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

  • Small question: what to do with images? I have the gallery up, and I agree that the current thumbnails in the article are distracting. However, we can't have a total text article either. Do we pick and choose which champions to showcase?--Etaonish 18:20, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • I feel quite strongly that the "strongest of all time" section does not belong in this article; I'll expand a little on the talk page. --Camembert 23:25, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • (Novote) Apart from lack of references and liscencing issues with photos, the article is quite great. The only other thing I'd suggest is a little more of the main article being summarised in the lead (i.e. the political nature of the contest). --ZayZayEM 06:41, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)