Talk:Jonathan Berry

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[edit] POV/References

I have just returned the POV tag that I first applied on 24 May. My apologies for not having then discussed the reasoning behind the original application. My issue with this article is that is it appears to violate the policy concerning neutral point of view. Statements such as: "He is the most multi-talented chess personality that Canada has ever had" - found in the opening paragraph, no less - run counter to the policy as covered under 'Characterizing opinions of people's work' and, possibly, 'Attributing and substantiating biased statements'.

Similarly biased statements include:

  • "Berry is Canada's most experienced arbiter, is generally respected as that country's best, and is also highly respected around the chess world."
  • "The World Chess Festival, Saint John 1988, was the grandest chess event ever held in North America."
  • "The column [Berry's] is skillfully written in a general-interest style, yet also appeals to serious players."

Rather than allowing facts to speak for themselves, the second first section, describing the subject's tournament appearances, describes "a good result of tied fourth", a finish "in the middle of a good field", and "a very solid 9/15". Speculation also comes into play in this section: " Work pressures likely contributed to a below-standard result of 5.5/15 at the 1978 Canadian Closed / Zonal in Toronto."

I believe that many of these problems, though not all, may stem from the fact that this piece is completely unreferenced. Recognizing this, I will be adding an 'unferenced' tag. Victoriagirl 15:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


I am the writer of this piece on Jonathan Berry. Perhaps some background and explanation on the disputed statements would help alleviate the concerns, which have some validity.

The statement on Berry being the most multi-talented chess personality is completely accurate: Canada has never had anyone remotely close to Berry in terms of excellent achievements in different areas of chess. There are two other titled Canadians in over-the-board chess who are also Grandmasters in correspondence chess; these are Duncan Suttles and Jean Hebert. Berry is not as strong in over-the-board achievements as either Suttles or Hebert, but he is at least as strong in correspondence chess achievements, having won two Canadian titles, and having earned his Correspondence GM title in 1985, ahead of any other Canadians. No other Canadian internationally titled chessplayer, in the 57 years since international titles were first officially introduced, has also earned the title of International Arbiter of chess, as Berry has. Berry served as Executive Director of the Chess Federation of Canada during some of its best years, the late 1970s, before the split with the Quebec Chess Federation caused a rift which has still not healed. He managed the office efficiently while simultaneously serving as Editor of the Chess Canada magazine; the role currently employs two different individuals, and has done so since the mid-1990s. Berry has been the chess columnist for Canada's top newspaper, The Globe and Mail, since 1981; publishing a weekly column on Saturdays; the Globe has generally been regarded as Canada's most outstanding daily for many years, and has been ranked as such by international surveys. While Berry was involved with the publication Inside Chess, that magazine had the respect of the entire chess world for its timely news delivery and high quality.

Speaking of the 1988 Saint John Chess Festival, this event had the following events organized over a period of one month: a) seven simultaneous World Championship Candidates' matches (the only other Candidates' matches held in North America have been Fischer -- Taimanov, Vancouver 1971, Fischer -- Larsen, Denver 1971, and Karpov -- Hjartarson, Seattle 1991. The 1990 World Championship match was partially staged in New York. The PCA World title match was held in New York 1995, but this was only one match, and it did not involve the World Chess Federation, but a breakaway group, the PCA. And the Steinitz vs Lasker world title match was held in Canada and the U.S. in 1894, touring around between different cities); b) two International Swiss Open tournaments, each of which had more than 20 Grandmasters playing; c) the World Blitz Championship, with a $50,000 first prize, with many of the world's top players such as World Champion Garry Kasparov, former World Champions Anatoly Karpov and Mikhail Tal, all taking part; d) many Open events for amateur players, with high prizes which were sponsored by outside funds, as opposed to players simply playing for their own entry fee money. The Saint John event had a budget of over $2 million, and it had total prizes of nearly $500,000. However, perhaps it would be more precise to state that the 1988 Saint John Chess Festival was the grandest non-world championship event ever staged in North America, or to state that it was certainly the grandest chess event ever staged in CANADA. That is certainly true. So, point partially taken.

Berry is definitely highly respected as an arbiter in the chess world, or else he would not have amassed the length and breadth of achievements he has over the past 32 years, or the high reputation to be so free of controversy in an activity (chess) which features strong egos and combative personalities, along with occasional outrageous behaviour by certain players. No less a figure than GM Nigel Short, former 1993 PCA World Finalist, recently stated that he felt there was no better arbiter to be in charge of the 2007 Canadian Open in Ottawa, set for July, where Berry will direct and Short will be the star attraction as a player.

The comment explaining Berry's style as Globe chess columnist is completely accurate, since his presentation is professional, thorough, fluent, yet not out of reach of the average player, unlike many other chess writers. This description accounts for his popularity and long standing in that post.

Perhaps the comment on work pressures contributing to his poor 1978 Zonal result is justified criticism.

As far as the lack of sources goes, many of Berry's most important competitive chess results for over-the-board play can be found at chessmetrics.com, and the rest can be found at either chess.ca under 'ratings' (since 1996), and / or at his own chess site, and in the collected issues of Chess Canada magazine. Berry's own chess site lists his arbiter credentials, of which I have selected the most important. His title in Correspondence Chess is validated in the wikipedia category Chess Grandmasters. His title FM in over-the-board chess can be validated at the site fide.com; check under ratings. His title IA as an arbiter is validated at the site fide.com, check under arbiters for Canada. There is also a file of many of his games at chessbase.com.

The insight into Berry's wide-ranging achievements comes from a very experienced chess person (me), who has been involved in Canadian chess as: a) player for more than 30 years (reaching the rank of Candidate Master, with many regional and university-level titles); b) arbiter for 20 years (having the rank of national arbiter for Canada, and being well on the way to earning the International Arbiter title); c) journalist (columnist on chess history, and copy editor, for Chess Canada magazine, and past contributor to that magazine); d) organizer (I served as a Canadian governor for three years from 2002-2005, and helped organize the league for Canadian post-secondary chess, as well as the 1992 Zonal tournament in Kingston); e) coach and trainer (I coach the Queen's University chess team, which was the top Canadian team at the 1999 Pan American Intercollegiate Team Championship, and my top student is Raja Panjwani, the current Canadian champion for Boys Under 16).

Best regards, Frank Eldon Dixon Kingston, Canada May 27, 2007, 1435 EDT

I appreciate the considered response and your efforts to clean up the article. And I do hope that my comments haven't been misunderstood. In the interests of openess, I'll begin by stating that I know precious little about the world of chess. Speaking personally, I assumed that Jonathan Berry's stature, as portrayed in the article, was essentially correct. But this is Wikipedia, and personal opinion doesn't count. My issue, again, concerns statements, such as "He is the most multi-talented chess personality that Canada has ever had", which run counter to neutral point of view. The policy page provides a solution to this problem under 'Attributing and substantiating biased statements'. I recommend replacing those claims that violate the NPOV policy with similar, sourced statements. The matter of the subject's tournament appearances, is more easily rectified: "a good result of tied fourth", becomes "a result of tied fourth", and so on. One further suggestion, if I may, references should be included within the article, not described in the edit summary. Wikipedia's citing sources guideline page provides info on how this is to be done. Hope this helps. Victoriagirl 16:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

So I did some reshaping along the lines suggested by Victoriagirl. {I also have ties to Victoria, as my parents live just north of there, in Sidney, and I visited them last summer for two weeks. Incidentally, the subject of this piece, Jonathan Berry, is also a Vancouver Islander, living in Nanaimo.} Subjective statements have been minimized: for example, work pressures contributing to a below-standard 1978 Zonal result has been removed; but I rearranged the 1970 Canadian Open description, since for a 16-year-old, a result of tied fourth in a player's national Open tournament is pretty impressive. I fixed the typo in the administrative section around British Columbia Chess Federation, and added that his 1975 Calgary Zonal result missed the International Master standard by only one point (at the time this was 2/3 of possible points, so his 9/15 fell one point short). But considering Berry's exceptional merit as an arbiter, I believe that the statement categorizing him as Canada's best and most experienced arbiter is completely justified, so I have left that as is, since I believe that my expertise in chess is sufficient to be able to claim this plausibly, without stretching the truth and without offending anyone. Also, I have left the multi-talented chess personality description in, since this is also right on the mark. He has written two chess books, served with one of the world's top magazines (Inside Chess) for 15 years, edited Canada's chess magazine for close to ten years (most Canadian chess people believe that his standard has not been topped since), has written the Globe and Mail chess column for 26 years, has contributed as a freelance writer for the Canadian magazine, has excelled at chess in both over-the-board and correspondence formats, and is one of the world's top arbiters. Quite honestly, no one else in Canadian chess has approached this polymathic, Leonardo da Vinci approach, of being very good to excellent at everything he has taken on. There are a fair number of Canadians better at chess over the board. And he is only 53 years old, with still many more productive years ahead in chess, since he has shown no sign of slowing down.

Cheers, Frank Dixon, Kingston, ONT., June 11, 350 p.m. EDT FrankEldonDixon 19:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have satisfactorily addressed the POV issues as raised by Victoriagirl. I also modified the description of the controversy over Berry's innovative pairings; this has been blown way out of proportion, by people who simply don't know what they are talking about. Berry has been defended by his peers, other Canadian arbiters, on Canadian chess chat boards.

Cheers, Frank Dixon, Kingston, ONT., August 22, 425 p.m. EDT Frank Dixon, (UTC)