The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Redirect to List of chess variants#Unorthodox rules on a standard 8×8 board, where it is listed. Putting aside the specifics of the dispute that led to this for the time being, we have only one relatively reliable secondary source to use for this article: half of one paragraph in the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. That's simply not enough -- as we've seen, it doesn't even clearly present the rules, meaning we either present a partial ruleset based on a single source or turn to less desirable sources (e.g. primary sources of sites that host the game). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 04:52, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Half of one paragraph" is nonsensical, an attempt to argue "insufficient length" and therefore "insufficient depth". When (as I've already explained and you already ignored), the game rules are ultra simple, not requiring length to precisely elaborate, and Pritchard is a master of writing efficiency. And I've provided plenty of relevant context (Chapter 10 head, Chapter 10 intro, subsection 10.3 head, and subsection 10.3 entries) demo'ing Pritchard's writing style, which you've summarily ignored as well. --IHTS (talk) 05:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's not nonsensical. It's quite simple. There is a paragraph. Three sentences within the paragraph -- about one half -- are about this game. I don't care about your personal interpretations/reviews of his writing style. We're not compiling pithy quips such that we should consider three sentences a wealth; we need enough material to write an encyclopedia article, and we need multiple sources so we're not just basing our permastub on these three sentences. There is absolutely no way to say that those three sentences constitute in depth coverage. That's not to say they count for nothing. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. But I object to your "I don't care about your personal interpretations of his writing style". (The fact is, it's your continued personal/WP:OR interpretations of same that I've repeatedly objected to, when you're uninformed and wrong. But yeah, the fact "[you] don't care" has been repeatedly demonstrated by you WP:IDHT-style. See again below.) --IHTS (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are very few books on chess variants (CVs), few sources in general, and that is the nature of the beast regarding the entire CV category, so multiple sources with significant coverage isn't realistic for the category, and GNG is intentionally written flexible to allow for such situation. Andreas Kaufmann, originator of this article and respected member of WP:CHESS, has said, consistent with that context, that inclusion in Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants is sufficient for WP:Notability for chess variant articles like this. That has been the ongoing precedent at WP:CHESS for as long as I've been here, and for numerous years prior. (Bringing an axe now is appropriate? Axing one article in isolation of many similar others following the WP:CHESS precedent is appropriate?) Thanks for consider. p.s. Pinging Seraphimblade for real-life example of this. --IHTS (talk) 06:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A condition like "inclusion in encyclopedia X" can indicate notability and appears in one or more SNGs when the encyclopedias it's talking about are the sort that are highly selective and serve as an indication of importance -- an indication that there are other sources covering the topic. Inclusion in most subject-specific encyclopedias is not a guarantee of that, however (except for certain biographical dictionaries, say), as they're often much more inclusive and/or more likely to include primary research and/or less subject to peer-review and/or less of a big deal (for whatever that's worth). In this case, it seems he was trying to include basically every variant he could find that he could write a little bit of content about. Even if he was a little selective, there's no indication (at least for this example -- I'm not trying to generalize) that there's any other coverage in secondary sources. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There you go again, mouthing off your own WP:OR re how Pritchard writes (again), when in fact you don't know what you're taking about (again). From the Introduction to The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, p. vii:
[...] The length of this book might suggest that I have included everything on the subject I could find. This is far from being the case: hundreds of games have been excluded, and in many cases files have been compressed into an entry of just a few lines.
I have applied certain criteria to selection. To earn an entry, a game must have been published in some form, or at the least played by a significant number of people outside the inventor's circle of family and friends; alternatively, it must have some historical or other good claim to inclusion. [...]
Keep. The rules are covered by two other RSs, the documentation of Lichess and Chess.com (which was the actual reason I came to the RS noticeboard) There’s also some basic strategy stuff on Chess.com written by Daniel Rensch, which we could incorporate into the article. This isn’t quite a “gold-standard” source like a peer-reviewed journal, but for chess purposes it’s reasonable.
Regarding notability, it’s also notable that through Chess.com and Lichess this game is widely played. Lichess records 2m games, I’m not as familiar with Chess.com to get similar records, but it’s the bigger site. There are plenty of articles about chess variants that exist due to mention by Pritchard but have little or no evidence of actually being significantly played—and could probably be nominated en mass—but this isn’t one of them IMO. —LukeSurltc06:32, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A published set of rules on a website that hosts the game may be reliable to cite for the rules, but it's very much a primary source and doesn't really add to notability (being primary, and not being actual coverage in the first place but rather a reproduction of the rules that, recent discussions aside, are the same everywhere on the internet). We don't necessarily need journals, but we need more than 3 sentences in one book and a bunch of primary sources. I think atomic chess and bughouse might be a decent example. They lowers the bar a little for the quality of sources, and thus should probably never be a GA/FA (bughouse being GA based on a bunch of SPS is bizarre, but that's another story), but there's enough coverage to make an article beyond what would be mentioned in the list article. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of chess variants#Unorthodox rules on a standard 8×8 board. 43% off the variants listed at List of chess variants have no Wikipedia page. 57% do. Sovereign Chess has no Wikipedia page, but has a 97-word description at List of chess variants. Three-check chess has a Wikipedia page and an 80 word description that could easily be trimmed to 60 words or so if moved to List of chess variants (no need for "is a chess variant; it plays with the same rules as chess, with the addition..." or "It is catalogued in David Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants" -- a cite will do). There simply is not enough to say about three-check chess to justify a stand-alone article. Everything in the article could easily fit into an entry on the list without it being anywhere near the size of the longest existing description on the list. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:30, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Single short entries" in the encyclopedia The Oxford Companion to Chess have been considered adequate WP:RS for many WP:CHESS articles for many years. --IHTS (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a reliable source, but being mentioned in a reliable source is not the same thing as establishing notability. Last time I checked, WikiProjects couldn't just declare that general notability guidelines don't apply to their subject. --tronvillain (talk) 20:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
GNG isn't inflexible, it's a guideline. "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." There's a dearth of RS for CVs in general, unlike many other topic categories. --IHTS (talk) 20:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's a guideline, but it's not obvious that chess variations should be a blanket exception, especially not just because "there's a dearth of RS for CVs in general." Why does this specific variation deserve an exception? --tronvillain (talk) 21:02, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
At least we agree: 1) there can be GNG exceptions; 2) a dearth of RSs for the topic category is an argument for flexibility (I think you're saying it's just not sufficient). I'm not trying to add add'l argument for it (others might), so am neutral (no vote). Thx for the discuss. --IHTS (talk) 22:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain, in detail and without personal attacks, why you think that a dearth of RSs for the topic category is an argument for flexibility. You seem to be claiming that the fact that other things in the cat don't meet our standards for notability means we should lower our standards. Why would we want to do that instead of simply deleting the rest of the non-notable pages? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:46, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Answer: per GNG, common sense. (Now stop attempting to interact w/ me, anytime, anywhere, as you pledged to do on a public board long ago.) --IHTS (talk) 22:52, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Request denied. Keep asking and you might end up blocked -- again. That agreement was contingent on you staying on the (non-computer-chess) chess pages. Now you are on a page where I am a regular, posting invalid (and rather silly) arguments like "per common sense". You don't get to suppress those who disagree with you. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:09, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree that a dearth of sources for a topic category is a good argument for flexibility. In fact, it's a pretty good argument for being non-notable. You can't just say WP:ONLYGUIDELINE (or assert "common sense"), you have to make an argument for making an exception to a guideline, and given that notability is an extremely important guideline, it better be a great argument. --tronvillain (talk) 22:59, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking re topic category. (If it's the nature of the topic category that RSs are in general hard to find, IMO it's common sense to give that consideration re GNG flexibility. I thought you said it's an argument but not a sufficient one. Now you're saying the opposite.) --IHTS (talk) 23:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anywhere where he said it was a valid argument. Could you give us a direct quote where you believe that he indicated that? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:09, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect, noting that all of the content that is presently in the stand-alone article is probably fair game for merger, as it's not a terribly excessive amount of information. Even if we ignore for the moment that this article is unsourced and fails WP:GNG (no, a set of rules posted on a website are not RS for the purposes of establishing WP:Notability), this would still be a pretty straightforward WP:NOPAGE/WP:SUMMARYSTYLE analysis, as I see it. Snowlet's rap04:28, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Assuming merge, my suggestion is to keep the current language at List of chess variants (i.e. Three-check chess: A player wins if he checks the opponent three times.). Or, a summary of the current lead text (proposed by LukeSurl @ Talk, and agreed by Reyk and me). My obvious concern is that Rhododendrites will alter to reflect his "checkmate is an additional winning objective" WP:OR. That's fine too, as long as it doesn't imply it comes from Pritchard, which it decidedly does not, which I've demonstrated at length elsewhere but won't repeat here. (Since I no longer edit List of chess variants, Rhododendrites knows there w/ be no challenge from me at the target article. And in addition, there's an editor going out of his way looking for ways he thinks will antagonize me, based on long-term held grudge. So thx, & good luck.) --IHTS (talk) 05:39, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect Personally I would rather keep, its one of the more popular and widespread chess variants out there. But if merging it means we dont have to deal with IHTS attempting to use what a book doesnt say about the rules to argue for not including them, well its probably better in the long run. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:11, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
His manner of expressing himself obscures the fact that he generally knows what the hell he's talking about, certainly when it comes to chess. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 11:59, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As far as writing an encyclopedia goes, knowledge of chess is pretty worthless when coupled with an unwillingness to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:50, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If merged, I'm not arguing to "not include" checkmate as a winning condition, only that it not be attributed to Pritchard. (Include it or not, just don't imply it comes from Pritchard.) It's not clear to me why you think merging changes anything. --IHTS (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Sufficient sourcing for a brief standalone article. The calls to merge redirect seem to me to not be very well considered. The material in the article would have to be severely cut down to only two or three sentences to fit in the suggested target List of chess variants#Unorthodox rules on a standard_8×8_board. Either encyclopedic information would be lost or the redirect target page would have unbalanced and lopsided coverage of just one variant in a list of dozens. That's just a very bad idea, but "merge and redirect" is such an easy knee jerk reaction that I suspect many editors don't even read the pages in question or consider how the merge might affect the target. Everything seems easy when you don't have to do it yourself.... Quale (talk) 08:32, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How is there "sufficient sourcing for a standalone article"? Nothing there establishes notability. There are four sources, two of which are essentially ads for playing the game on Chess.com or lichess.com, while the main source is a few sentences in an encyclopedia of chess variations. --tronvillain (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The claim "The material in the article would have to be severely cut down to only two or three sentences to fit in the suggested target" is factually incorrect. Zonal chess has five sentences. Chess on an Infinite plane has six. Anti-King chess has eight. Three-check chess has a grand total of four sentences (based upon three sentences in the only reliable source). The rest simply says things like "It is catalogued in David Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants where it is noted as being of probable Soviet origin, and that Anatoly Karpov was an "invincible" player in his youth" which simply duplicates what is in the references section [1] --Guy Macon (talk) 17:09, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
References
^Pritchard, D. B. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. p. 304. ISBN0-9524142-0-1. Probably of Soviet origin. The first player to deliver three checks wins. Said to be very skilful: two checks can be achieved fairly easily at the expense of piece sacrifices after which the prospects of a third check with severely weakened forces are close to zero. Karpov is said to have been invincible at the game in his youth.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.