User talk:SyG

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[edit] Welcome

SyG, well done with your first article, Four pawns attack! It's really impressive to see a new editor get the hang of wikipedia so quickly and turn out such an excellent article. Kudos to you. Don't hesitate to drop me a line if you need help with anything, though you seem to be rapidly figuring it out on your own. Here's a proper welcome msg (helpful for the links):

Welcome!

Hello, SyG, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Kchase T 08:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Kchase, and thanks for your welcome! I have discovered Wikipedia 4 hours ago and it is becoming fun! Thanks for all your kind words, your advices, and all the usefull links you provided. Of course as a newbi my main problems will be about being compliant with the etiquette.

Also the "grammar stuff": I am not a native English speaker (as you probably realised already...), but I prefer to expand the English Wikipedia for ideological reasons. The danger is that I may make a lot of grammar errors, which would take a lot of time to other persons to get rid off. Do you think I should stop editing because of that, or is it bearable ?

As you have seen I have created my first "article". Well, it is more of a test for the moment but I intend to expland it much further. I have placed it in the "stub" world. I have also tried to create a link from another article towards my article, but it did not work. It is because my article was not reviewed or "too new" or something like that ? Or are the links case-sensitive ?

I have had a look at your profile. Greetings for all the good job you do, and for participating to such an ambitious project, maybe the biggest one since the French Encyclopediae in the 17s !(which kind of brought up the revolution in this country, incidentally). SyG 09:51, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. I absolutely encourage you to stick around. Even if you make minor grammar errors, wikipedia is a work in progress and there are always lots of people correcting grammar, spelling, etc. I would be happy to proofread whatever you do. Feel free to leave a message here or on my talk page and I will get to it as soon as possible. Cheers! Kchase T 18:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic chess openings

In case you missed my response [1]. Cheers, Pete.Hurd 19:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Budapest Gambit

Hello ! The name 'Budapest Gambit' (not 'Budapest Defense') is generally used in chess literature for an opening 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5. Would you be so kind to move it ? (I have just tried but without success). Best wishes, Mibelz 15:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Tx for your answer. I have just written into Talk:Budapest Defence#Requested move: "I agree with SyG that the "Budapest Gambit" is generally better known and commonly used than the "Budapest Defence/Defense". It is the same in other languages (German "Budapester Gambit", Dutch "Boedapestgambiet", French "Gambit de Budapest", Polish "Gambit Budapesztański", Russian "Будапештский гамбит", and last but not least Hungarian "Budapesti védelem"). So, we ought to move it. Mibelz 17:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)". Hope for the best ! Mibelz 17:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		For your idea of creating an infobox for chess openings I award you this barnstar. Voorlandt 21:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review

Thanks for your message on my talk page a while ago, glad it made you happy (it was a great idea). Thanks for your work at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review! I must say, I am getting a little bit demotivated by the lack of participation. But it is nice to see that you keep working on it. Hopefully it is just the holiday season (the Silly season) and things will get more active later on. Voorlandt 09:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Chess

Thanks for your work on the chess project. It's great to have an infusion of new blood and energy and ideas into the project. The chess content on Wikipedia has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, and I think that the chess community will continue to make it even better. Quale 15:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kieninger Trap

Thanks for adding the reference to Budapest Defence. If you think you have enough material, you could create a Kieninger Trap article and add it to Category:Chess traps. The number of named traps is fairly small and I'm always interested in seeing this category grow. Finding good references is the usual problem. Quale 15:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea of an article on the Kieninger Trap, that is a good suggestion. However I have some doubts about the notability of this trap for having an article on its own. I mean, noone has written a whole book on this trap, has he ?

In particular, for the moment I have not been able to find a second source naming this trap. Moreover, it is just a variant for the Smothered mate, which already has an article. Also, there is about the same mate in the 4...Nd7 variation of the Caro-Kann. So probably for the moment I will just let this trap as a "tactical theme" in the Budapest Defence page, but I am of course open to discussion. SyG 17:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks...

... for the welcome and the recategorization! Skarioffszky 12:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ana Srebrnič

Ana Srebrnič, which part/word would be a problem? --AndrejJ 13:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest for discussion, I will put my explanations on Talk:Ana Srebrnič. SyG 13:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mig Greengard again

Hi SyG, a few days after the AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mig Greengard was closed, this interview was posted on the site of the United States Chess Federation. Apparently he has now been awarded the title "Chess Journalist of the Year" [2], not merely been nominated for it as was the case during the AFD. I wonder if you think the presence of this interview coupled with the award he got should change the assessment of this person's notability? Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You clearly have a strong point there. Now let's try to think to that, I can see at least two different ways of thinking

We could say that the title "Chess Journalist of the Year" awarded by the USCF automatically confers notability. Why not... But then for consistency I assume we should write an article on all the "Chess Journalist of the Year" which could mean more than 20 if I safely assume there is a different winner every year. Also, as the USCF is not particularly more notable than some other federations (Germany's for example), we would need to write an article on all the journalist titles awarded by all federations that are as notable as the USCF. Assuming that is another 20, that would give us a total of 20*20=400 articles on chess journalists. Sounds a lot to me, but I am ready to discuss.
Or we consider the title of "Chess Journalist of the Year" does not automatically make Mig notable in itself, but coupled with other notable elements (which we still have to find), Mig becomes notable by the addition of a sufficiently large number of such notable features.

I don't know what your inclination is, but I will be happy to discuss it, especially as it could then be generalised for other cases (e.g. I am having some doubts on Sam Sloan as well). SyG 20:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

My basic inclination is that the consensus may well change due to this, and that it would be fair to give it another round of discussion.

I am not aware of so very many chess journalism awards, but for smaller countries which don't have a large independent chess media, I would guess such awards become de facto internal awards within that national chess federation. (I can only speak for the Norwegian Chess Federation, where commendations and honorary memberships are given for achievements of this nature, these are clearly internal and by itself not enough to generate notability.) However the CJA award spans newspaper columns and other chess magazines not directly associated with the USCF, and is probably of greater significance. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

PS. I expressed my opinion in favor of keeping the Sam Sloan article, not because the chess, but because of the judicial history of being the last non-lawyer arguing and winning before the US Supreme Court. The article is currently slanted towards the chess-related aspects, and in fairness, that is where he gets most of the attention, but there is more to the person's notability than the chess. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The "Chess Journalist of the Year" award is given by the Chess Journalists of America and the "Cramer Committee," both of which are independent of the USCF. The CJA members (about 150, theoretically all chess journalists, though this hasn't been enforced in a while) vote on it. Whether this makes him notable is an interesting question. Personally, I think that Greengard, who has quite a large readership in chess terms, is more notable than some of the pretty minor chess figures already listed (e.g., Rustam Kamsky). Eddore 00:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Bughouse chess as Good Article

Long explanation. Articles can be rated as stub, start, B, GA, A or FA. FA is a community consensus rating determined at WP:FAC, and A-class is generally a consensus rating determined by a subject-specific wikiproject. GA is a little more complicated. There is a general, community "Good articles" project at WP:GA/WP:GAC, but some wikiprojects also use the "GA" rating internally, independent of WP:GAC. (As far as I know, all projects which do this consider a project A-class rating to be higher than a project GA-class rating.)

Bughouse chess appears to have achieved an A-rating from project chess, which is great! The "general" GA rating that goes with {{GA}} or {{ArticleHistory}} templates is the community-given rating at WP:GAC, which is had by nominating an article at WP:GAC until a reviewer reviews it. These reviews are separate from any subject-specific wikiproject review. (The reviews at WP:FAC are also separate from any subject-specific wikiproject review.) In practice, then, an article rated as "GA" by WP:GAC may have project-specific ratings of A, GA or in some cases B. Since the article already has an A rating, a GA review would not change the project assessments, though it might possibly generate some feedback faster than the ongoing peer review. I hope that helps explain the situation; if not ask me some more. Gimmetrow 00:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Now my point for putting the article GA-class some time ago (independantly of any WikiPorject assessment) was that it had successfully gone through independent reviews, and it satisfied (in my opinion) the GA criteria.

I understand that you deleted that because it had to go through the whole GA process: nominate, wait for reviews, assess. So my understanding is that it is not sufficient for the article to have been reviewed, having been nominated for GA-class is also compulsory. Please allow me to make my question clearer: is there a way an article can go into the GA category without having been nominated ? are the reviews a necessary condition or also a sufficient one (i.e. bypassing nomination) ?

Just a final question: now if I still want to have this article as GA-class, all I have to do is nominate it through the process you have indicated to me, and wait for reviews, correct ? SyG 08:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

For the general GA-class assessemnt, yes all you need to do is list the article at WP:GAC and wait for a review. But of course, there is no need or obligation to have this general assessment, especially when it already has a project-level A-class assessment. I'm not sure which other independent reviews you are referring to, other than the reviews at wikiproject chess. Gimmetrow 17:23, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of chess articles

I'm pretty sure that you misinterpret the guidelines on priority assessments. The assessment that matters for WP:CHESS is not how important the article is in the whole scheme of human experience, but how important it is within the community of chess articles. Did you read this on the page that you quote:

Importance or Priority must be regarded as a relative term. If importance values are applied within this project, these only reflect the perceived importance to this project. An article judged to be "Top-Class" in one context may be only "Mid-Class" in another.

I think you've made this mistake in prioritizing other chess articles as well. Also, you probably shouldn't put days on the date= tags you've added to articles. If you look at the bottom of those pages, you'll see that you're putting the pages in categories that don't exist. Instead just use "September 2007". Quale 18:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fortress (chess)

You rated Fortress (chess) as a stub. Do you think that is the correct rating for the article? Bubba73 (talk), 00:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

No, that is clearly much too harsh, I will change the assessment. Still I think the article would gain from a Footnotes section. SyG (talk) 19:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was clearly not a stub. It does have five references, but no footnotes. Bubba73 (talk), 00:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed links

Hi SyG. You're doing a great job as an editor! I like very much the chess section of the wikipedia and I use it everyday. Congratulations!

I have noticed you removed some links to 365Chess.com from sections like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings and others.

I would like to explain my pont of view.

Why 365chess.com should be present at wikipedia project?

Mainly for two reasons:

1. 365Chess.com is completely free. There are links related to sites that are not completely free because you get only part of the features they offer if you decide not to pay a monthly fee. In the other hand you can browse the entire database of 365chess.com without paying anything. This is much like the wikipedia inspiration.

2. 365Chess.com has the biggest searchable database online It has more than 2.5 million chess games and you can search and browse it completely free. I'm sure it's a great contribution to the chess community.

It's true that the link I mentioned is similar to the other external links that the article already have but from 365chess.com list of openings you can reach an entire collection of games played with that opening. I think it's a very relevant difference.

I tried to be not so extense in my thoughts. Thank you for your time and I will wait your response in order to add that links again. Masugly (talk) 13:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello Masugly! I understand you are a new editor, so thanks a lot for the keen interest you put in Wikipedia and in chess. One of the issues we have to run Wikipedia is to avoid it becoming a giant advertiser for websites. I mean that a lot of people run various websites, blogs, FaceBook pages, and add some links to some articles in Wikipedia as an attempt to increase traffic. That means we are often very prudent about what kind of internet link is worth enough to be added to an article.

Now I am not saying in any way that www.365Chess.com does not deserve to have links on Wikipedia. I have briefly looked at this website and it seems to be very serious and useful. However I would have at least two concerns about it:

Most of the links were added in articles where there were already some similar links to www.chessgames.com, a well-known website that has about the same informations as www.365chess.com. In that sense the link to www.365chess.com was not adding a lot of value to the article.
The website www.365chess.com has just been created a few months ago, so there is a slight danger that it could disappear soon. In this case all the links would be broken, meaning we would have to spend a lot of time removing them one by one, which is tedious. Including links to fresh websites is contrary to the Wikipedia:External links guideline (see "Longevity" paragraph)

Now if you think I am eventually wrong in my opinion, I would suggest to bring the matter to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess so that we can have some opinions of more people. Happy editing! SyG (talk) 17:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chess (application)

Hello, this particular application is made for every Mac OS X release. I believe it's a notable game because it is a software packaged for a notable computer system. I am also comparing this game with others such as Minesweeper (Windows). RaNdOm26 (talk) 22:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for this explanation. I am not sure I have completely understood the point here: the Super NES is notable but that does not mean all the games for this platform are notables themselves. I mean, it could just be mentioned in the article on Mac OS X, why should it have its own article ? SyG (talk) 10:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA-Class

Hi, GA class does need a review I am afraid, please see Wikipedia:GA and Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations. Basically A class is a rating within a wikiproject, while the GA is a wider recognition of quality. So I have reverted two GA chess articles back to B class. Voorlandt (talk) 21:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I understand your concern, as GA-class does need a review indeed. However we should not mix up the GA-class for a particular WikiProject (Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess in our case) and the GA-class for the general Wikipedia, as these are two things that are slightly different in my understanding (although I am not completely sure). See for example Talk:Endgame tablebase which has both GA-class, one being attributed through the Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess and the other through the formal GA nomination process.

Moreover, even for the GA nomination process, I would tend to think that the reviews we are doing (in the scope of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess) could be good enough to serve also for the wider GA scale. In order to be sure, I have raised the question to User:EyeSerene in this paragraph, as he is a mentor on the GA system. SyG (talk) 22:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I am absolutely sure that there is only kind of GA-class. Perhaps the "Good article" template makes this confusing. The GA template is simply there because some articles belong to no wikiproject, but can also get GA class. I am sure EyeSerene will tell you something similar (and I hope, because two different GA-classes, that would be confusing!) Voorlandt (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, then I would like to put the two articles that you reverted in the whole GA nomination process, but unfortunately I cannot do it myself alone, because the person reviewing the article must be different from the one who reviews it, as far as I understand. Maybe you would agree to nominate these articles and I could do the GA review ? SyG (talk) 22:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re 'In house' GA reviews

Thanks for the message, and apologies for the delay in replying (busy weekend!). Official Good article status is currently only awarded via the GA WikiProject, although there have been discussions regarding some WikiProjects assessing their own material - this may work for the larger, more active projects (eg MilHist), but nothing has yet been decided. Of particular relevance, one condition of reviewing an article is that the reviewer has not contributed in any meaningful way to that article - this was introduced to avoid any accusations of articles getting an 'easy ride'.

Regarding Alexander Alekhine, this impressive and fascinating article is not quite fully GA-compliant yet. Although I have not read it comprehensively, from a GA review standpoint the lead needs a bit of work to fully summarise the rest of the article (more on WP:LEAD).

If you decide you want GA recognition for your articles, I would recommend that you nominate them at WP:GAN for outside review. We have no problem with you arranging personally with someone else to perform the review, as long as that person is familiar with the GA criteria, has not contributed to the article, and can review impartially. Following the GA procedures helps ensure the process has been transparent and can avoid subsequent delisting or argument on WP:GAR.

I hope this helps! If you have any more questions, or need a hand with the nomination procedure, let me know. All the best, EyeSerene^TALK 12:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, many thanks for these great explanations! SyG (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome! Get in touch if you have any more questions. EyeSerene^TALK 22:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject template

Is there something special about this template? I'm looking to integrate it's contains into a WikiProject Chess header. ChessCreator (talk) 21:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello ChessCreator, and thanks for the impressive work you are doing on chess articles! What is special in this template is that it is exactly the same for all the WikiProjects, so that the reader knows at first sight that the page he is viewing is a WikiProject. If you would like to propose an alternative, I would suggest to realise the tests in your sandbox and then to present the alternative to the members of the WikiProject chess in the Talk page. Happy editing! SyG (talk) 21:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Many WikiProjects do use it, that's true. Will leave the WikiProject template at the top.

PS Where would I find the sandbox if I have something else to test out? ChessCreator (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

You can find some sandboxed here or there. You can also create one as a subpage of your User page. Sandboxes are useful to make some tests until the result is stable and satisfying enough. SyG (talk) 19:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Those options seem rather basic. I do have a User Test Page, it does for some very basic testing things, but it can't test say template intereaction with existing pages, without it going live. What I was really asking for is a Sandbox where the testing is isolated from the live system but also contains something akind to to a live system(normally a week old backup or similar), but perhaps wikipedia don't have such a thing. Regards. ChessCreator (talk) 21:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is possible to create a template in a sandbox and to use it in another sandbox, to see how it works. Apart from that I do not know if something more structured exists for testing. SyG (talk) 09:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maintenance pages in mainspace

I wonder why do you create these introductions in mainspace ? These pages are generally placed as subpage of the portal. I don't see the point in creating them in mainspace, it's not an article, it's used for maintenance. I moved the page, I hope you don't mind. Cenarium^Talk 13:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I create these pages in the mainspace because I want to be able to do multiple transclusions on them from some Portal pages, which I cannot do if the text is directly in a Portal page. Thus I do mind about your move and I will have to change it :-)

You can see what I want to achieve here. If I am mistaken in my method, please explain me how I can do what I want to achieve in another way. SyG (talk) 13:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you can create a page with a name like this: Portal:Chess/The Turk for an introduction or Portal:Chess/Introduction/The Turk, so that it's in portal mainspace. The Mainspace is used only for articles, all the maintenance pages for a portal should go to its subpages. Well, it's the experience I have about this. Cenarium^Talk 14:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, if that is more in line with Wikipedia structure, I will displace all the Introduction articles I have created to things like Portal:Chess/Selected article/Introduction/The Turk. Please tell me if that solves the issue you raised. SyG (talk) 14:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it solves the issues, you can tag the introductions left in Mainspace with {{db-author}}. If mainspace is used only for articles, it's also because it's very visible (in search engines etc), and we try to hide the maintenance work and things like that from the reader's view (for example, the maintenance categories are "hidden".) Cenarium^Talk 14:16, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Budapest Gambit aka Budapest Defence

I hope that was an oversight rather then a deliberate act of vandalism to rename Defence to Defense and claim it was to 'harmonise name'. ChessCreator (talk) 13:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

You should hope so, because you have to comply with WP:AGF :-)

According to the Manual of Style, it is fine to use either defense or defence, as long as you remain consistent throughout the whole article. Currently in Budapest Gambit both spelling are used, which is not good. That is why I harmonise. SyG (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you don't normally make mistakes, so seems you make an error here and hence the question above.

For this article the variety of English was established and was in place. Firstly very clearly by it's naming 'Budapest Defence' and secondly by it's history, thoughout this year [3], [4] etc

You didn't realise with your edit on March 9th that you introduced a none harmonising wording.

Simply because it's morally and ethical to do so and also because it's required by WP:Manual_of_Style#Retaining_the_existing_variety, I return this article to it's existing variety and respectfully ask you to assist with this also. Anything else could appear that one would be in favour of a rename just to sabotage it's British English spelling into American English. ChessCreator (talk) 19:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The Guideline WP:Manual_of_Style#Retaining_the_existing_variety that you rightly cite states that If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety. Whereas I had tried to uniformise all the spelling, your last reverts reinstalled a situation where both varieties cohabit, which is not compliant with this Guideline. Please fix that. SyG (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bird's Opening

I've removed the extra section headings from this topic. I thought it would be an improvement to add headings for what it missing, as it encourages others to add the missing information but somehow adding extra headings degrades the article. SunCreator (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. Giving to everyone some hints on how to improve the article is a good thing, but it is best done on the Talk page. I do not understand the purpose of the "cleanup" tag, as it could be applied to basically almost all articles in Wikipedia, which means it is useless. SyG (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reassessment

I think as you are using minor issues like lead to short, not enough references, to much missing etc; you are soon going to end up reduce the 225 B-Class articles down to about 50-100 articles. It was said before that articles are being marked to hard (see User_talk:Bubba73#WP:CHESS article ratings). So I recently became a bit more relaxed about what is B-Class (after re-reading the B-Class criteria in Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment), it seems a duplication if you are going to revert them all back from B-Class to Start-Class. SunCreator (talk) 18:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't desire especially to reduce the number of B-class articles to 50-100, but that would not cause me a great trouble either. My point was that the description of the Start-class included the sentence "The article [...] may lack a key element", hence my remarks about the Lead too short or others. However I may perfectly be wrong in my understanding of the criteria, so if you think I misjudged some articles please feel free to revert my change. SyG (talk) 20:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'm planning to leave all existing ones alone and only re-assess those I've not re-assessed before (like first time today Chess in China) and those where there has been significant changes since I last assessed it. Any that you re-assess I will leave alone with whatever Class you choose to give it. SunCreator (talk) 21:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alekhine GA review

Hi, SyG. I've summarised the outstanding items (Talk:Alexander Alekhine#GA_review) and there's one on which I need your input - how to present in the main text A.'s tournament results 1927-35. Philcha (talk) 11:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Philcha, and thanks for all the efforts you put in this review! I will think to your point and see how we could improve this part of the article. I will write my proposals directly on the Talk page of the article. SyG (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, SyG. I've re-inserted text about San Remo 1930 and Bled 1931 - they're A's most famous tournament wins.

At Talk:Alexander Alekhine#GA_review I've suggested condensing A's Olympiad results as we did for tournaments (details in table). What do you think? Philcha (talk) 21:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea, everything that can be in a table should be in a table, as the text is better for prose. SyG (talk) 13:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, SyG. Many thanks for your help in clearing up the loose ends in the article. I think we have a misunderstanding about the Alekhine-Capa negotiations. Fine (World's Great Chess Games) writes words that are equivalent to "Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight," so I have re-inserted that sentence. The problem is that at the time there was a big blame game, and it still seems to be going on. This is not a situation where sources Wall or even Fine can be trusted on the details (it is similar to the Nazi issue, where the only source I could find that I would trust is Winter). I was hoping for references that reproduce parts of original documents such as letters from lawyers or financial backers or prospective organisers / hosts, or contemporary reports of such transactions. Even so, many thanks for your help. Philcha (talk) 17:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello Philcha, and thanks for the tremendous work and sourcing you put in the article. If we reach the GA-class it will be thanks mostly to you.

Sorry for the misunderstanding on the Negociations issue. Unfortunately I do not have any source that could clarify this one way or the other, so probably Fine is the best we have for the moment. At least, one source is better than none. On the other hand, if there is only one source and you do not trust it, why not scraping the statement alltogether ? SyG (talk) 18:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

What Fine actually says is "Time and again the negotiations seemd to be on the point of succeeding, whebn something went wrong." That statement is neutral, and does not blame either side. There are other things I've read over years where authors refer to one side or the other discussing details with them. So I'm happy with that sentence of Fine's. But for anything that blames either side, I would want to see the writer's sources, (which Winter shows in the Nazi issue). The real problem is that in my opinion the idea of a reliable source is not absolute - for example Fine is good on matters of chess play, but should be used cautiously in controverisal issues (and not at all on Howard Staunton - all USA writers appear to have a strong anti-Staunton bias). Philcha (talk) 18:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

OK then the Fine citation is, well, fine :-) SyG (talk) 20:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Alekhine and NKVD (later KGB)

Hi! There are rumours of Alexei Alekhine's and Alexander Alekhine's death, and different interpretations. Please see, for example works of Pablo Moran, Tomasz Lissowski, etc., and such a person as Alexander Kotov who had been a KGB agent. I hope you are not a defender of Soviet propaganda. -- Best regards, Mibelz 9:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello Mibelz, and thanks for your contributions to Alexander Alekhine. I am definitely not a defender of Soviet propaganda, but I am a defender of the Wikipedia Policy that facts should be referenced, so unless you have some reliable sources regarding NKVD's involvement (even phrased in a conditional or sceptical way), I am afraid we cannot really let rumours or "probable facts" into an article. SyG (talk) 10:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First-move advantage in chess

it looks like you are in a edit war on this article and it looks like you are close to a 3rr rule break which could lead to a ban for you so be carefulOo7565 (talk) 17:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you have not noticed Krakatoa and myself are actually busy working on improving this article and my revert was only when I thought Krakatoa had done an unintentional mistake (see my comment in the revert, to explain him why I have done the revert). Please do not see edit wars where there are none. By the way, could you please explain to me where I have done several reverts ? (I thought I had done only once) SyG (talk) 18:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry it look like you were in a edit war now looking again i can see you not so i am so sorry to bother you with this sorry again.Oo7565 (talk) 18:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem, patrolling on recent changes is a difficult and valuable task, and certainly my edits could be interpreted in several ways. I will try to make clearer description in the "Edit summary" for my future changes, so that this kind of misunderstanding has less chances to occur. Keep up the good work! SyG (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)