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Multiple off-by-one ratings

I'm seeing numerous incorrectly-populated ratings. For example, according to FIDE, Gukesh's rating is 2763. However, it's being automatically populated as 2764. Greenman (talk) 10:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Chess players' notability

Greetings, all. I suggest the criterion #1 of WP:NCHESS is changed in order to reflect the fact that both men's and women's title of grandmaster is adequate when considering a chess player's notability. (Please take a look at a relevant recent discussion in the AfD page.) The proposed new text would read as follows:

1. Has been awarded the title of Grandmaster through either men, women, or combined competitions.
   

-The Gnome (talk) 12:41, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

• The proposed wording does not add any content to the existing wording. The phrase "through either men, women, or combined competitions", besides being less than perfectly grammatical, does not qualify the previous part of the sentence in any way. So I did not know what you had in mind. I turned to the AfD discussion (thanks for the link), and I now have an idea what you might have meant. Perhaps you would like WP:NCHESS to mention the WGM title as well as the GM title. I definitely don't like this idea, but before I go on about it, I'll stop and check that that is what you had in mind. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:23, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I find the notion that women athletes who compete in women-only sports and achieve the same awards or titles as men (e.g. chess grandmasters, Wimbledon tennis tournament winners, Olympic track and field medalists, etc) should have their awards or titles treated in exactly the same way as men's, as far as their use to indicate notability is concerned. -The Gnome (talk) 11:40, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

WGM titles are not parallel titles. They are lesser titles available to women, on the way to the same titles at the top that are available to everyone. The highest level of women competition does not involve WGMs; they are contested by GMs who are women. Accordingly, sources don't care about women who are WGMs just because they are WGMs; there are enough women GMs to care about. It's better to focus on reasons other than their titles that might generate SIGCOV. Bodhana Sivanandan, for example, meets GNG despite not even being a WGM.
Regardless, NCHESS can be used as guidance when looking for topics to create articles on but it ought not to be used as an argument in AFDs. And it is already too lax. Not all GMs are actually notable. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:14, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Usedtobecool. A crucial point here is that the WGM title is a separate title from the GM title. Hypothetically, as a woman is ascending the ladder of chess, she might get both. Separate certificates, separate lapel pins, etc. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

For most WGMs, the next step on the ladder is to get the IM title (as many women have done, including by playing in all-woman tournaments). The unceremonious treatment of Dutch IM Lars Ootes in a recent Afd shows that IMs are not always considered notable, so presumably WGMs are not always considered notable either. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the deletion of the article about Lars Osten as "unceremonious treatment." It was a 2-1 decision. As to your deductive presumptions, well, they're personal opinions and no more, in the absence of supporting data. A good point about ELO ranges was made, though. -The Gnome (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Some of the replies seem to have some misconceptions. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• Women's titles are parallel titles. If you go to a GM's FIDE page (e.g. [1]), you will see both titles listed, not just GM. I get why because of the rating requirements you want to think of it as just one ladder you can climb, but really it's two separate ladders you can climb together. The FIDE title regulations page ([2]) expresses the same sentiment. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• Regarding IMs, a male player having the IM title may not be inherently notable, but a female player having the IM title is. Every single woman with the IM title already has a page. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• For WGMs, there are ~2000 GMs compared to only about ~500 WGMs. In that sense, the WGM title is more exclusive. I think it's fair that if we think the GM title implies notability, the WGM title should as well. (The reality is probably neither really imply notability. A fairly high fraction of GMs or WGMs are notable, but not 100% in either case.) We already have over 400 (I think 450?) WGM pages out of 500 WGMs. That's a pretty good percentage around 80-90%, probably similar to the percentage for GMs. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

  WP:AfD discussions involving biographies of chess players always revolve around "significant coverage"; the strength of the player or the title held seldom figure into the discussion. This is the widely recognized, but largely unwritten, weakness of WP:NCHESS, which for this very reason cannot even remotely approach authority as a test of notability, but can only serve as a guideline.

  You observation that the WGM title is as good a predictor of notability as the GM title, if not better, is something I hadn't thought of, but it makes perfect sense. Women are still quite rare in organized (adult) chess, and wherever they go, all eyes are upon them. This translates to more coverage, for better or for worse, in publications of all kinds, all the way up to our reliable sources. In spite of what I wrote earlier in this conversation, I could hardly object if WP:NCHESS were revised to reflect this. Bruce leverett (talk) 23:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

While discussions involving biographies of chess players should indeed revolve around significant overall coverage in sources, the additional criteria for notability available through WP:NCHESS can stand on their own. As to your remarks about WGMs, we're in firm agreement. That's why I proposed a change in the wording. Suggestions? -The Gnome (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Your observations, Sportsfan77777, are spot on. -The Gnome (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Style to display chess moves

Recently User:Neo Purgatorio changed a lot of opening articles to go from explicitly mentioning the move number to implicitly using a numbered list to get it (e.g. diff, so :1. Na3 vs. # Na3). We discussed it a bit on their talk page. I realized that it doesn't look like WP:CHESS currently has any guidelines or suggestions on how to display moves? Anyway, I think that maybe we should have such a guideline added.

I think it should recommend the existing style and discourage the numbered list style. Reasoning: chess moves are not really a numbered list. The move number is a primary part of the text, not just a count of items - imagine if there's 4 buildings with names prepended with "1/2/3/4", we wouldn't use a numbered list but rather include these as part of the name. It is surprising and confusing to go into edit source and have the move numbers "disappear". Additionally, most browsers copy & paste will exclude numbered list counts, which is explicitly not desired. Try going to Descriptive_notation#Example and copy pasting the move list (which uses the numbered list style); you'll end up with no move numbers. Copy-pasting a directly written version works fine, though. The two styles display basically identically, so why would we want to go with the harder-to-edit, harder-to-copy version? (Also, machine ingestion is mostly not our problem, but automatic analysis of text also probably wants to see the move numbers explicitly.) And while it can be worked around, it's extra-annoying to use a numbered list style if the move list doesn't start at 1 (doable, but why are we doing this extra work again?). I don't really see any advantages of using the numbered list style, but I'll let Neo Purgatorio or others make the case for why they're worth considering. SnowFire (talk) 15:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm personally fine with either being done here; my impression on the articles, since I'm not all that familiar with chess notation but have grasped the basics of it, was that they were meant to be numbered but simply were not and thus could have used numbered lists. I was looking at it through a formatting standpoint, but I did try to check WP:CHESS to see if there was anything specific on it. I do think the point you've made about not being able to copy chess notation as a result of numbered lists has merit. Neo Purgatorio (talk) 16:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reverted the changes I've made; this discussion should still probably play out, however, since there aren't any guidelines here relating to what to do. Neo Purgatorio (talk) 05:10, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Gadgets now loadable on a per-category basis

I know that there was work in progress on creating a chess game extension, in place of trying to deploy the chess game gadget. Note it is now possible to trigger a gadget loading by placing a page in a configured category. mw:Template gadgets has a bit of description. The first request on English Wikipedia is to support a gadget that implements Conway's Game of Life; see Talk:Conway's Game of Life#Template gadget request. Thus it is finally possible to deploy the existing chess game gadget, with it being loaded only on the pages where it is needed. isaacl (talk) 23:26, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Izaak Appel

Appel was a strong Polish/Jewish player who "disappeared" while living in Lviv (or possibly Kyiv) following the 1941 Nazi invasion of Ukraine. He was almost certainly killed in 1941, but as is often the case the precise circumstances of his death are unknown. Currently we have a very unsatisfactory situation where his "disappearance" is sourced to a self-published Bill Wall page. Can we find something better? Gaige maybe? It would be better if we could say something like "Appel died in unknown circumstances following the 1941 Nazi invasion of Ukraine". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately all that Gaige says on page 12 of Chess Personalia is

Appel, Izaak         POL

   *    c1905

   †    c1941

Quale (talk) 02:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Akira Watanabe (chess)

Would someone from WP:CHESS mind taking a look at Akira Watanabe (chess) and assessing the subject's notability (as chess player)? I'll ask something similar at WT:JAPAN given that the subject might possobily be notable for reasons other than chess, but the current focus of the article and claim of notability seem to be the subject's chess achievements. The article also appears to be a translation of the Japanese Wikipedia article ja:渡辺暁 (based on User talk:Ebefl#Ways to improve Akira Watanabe (chess)) but is lacking proper attribution per WP:TFOLWP. A lack of proper attribution cn most likely can be "fixed", but a lack of notability can't. For reference, the Japanese Wikipedia article does seem to be pretty much the same content-wise and is also basically only supported by a single WP:PRIMARY source (the other sources listed as "references" seem more like "explanatory notes").-- Marchjuly (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I made a couple of quick searches but didn't find anything interesting. There is a book, "How to Play Chess Like Akira Watanabe", by John C. Murray, which I thought might be promising, but it is "independently published" (roughly equivalent to self-published). I also found an article in the Yale Bulletin about him, but it was from when he was a visiting scholar at Yale, and I would hesitate to call that "significant coverage". Bruce leverett (talk) 02:08, 24 June 2024 (UTC)