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Chess self-evaluation: let's get critical!
You love your site and we love your site, but there is a whole world of people out there who might not even know it exists. When they do find it, their first impression will either scare them away or keep them around. Given this, let's take a hard look at the questions and answers here and make sure newcomers see the site at its best!
Below you'll find ten questions randomly selected from this site. What do you think about each of them and their answers? Are they the best they can be or can they be improved? Would they look interesting and inviting to an outsider or are they a little embarrassing?
Upvote the corresponding post here on meta when we're awesome. Downvote when our content just isn't quite up to par.
Oh, and do comment to let everyone know your thoughts and take part in this conversation. :)

Anna, in the past 2 weeks or so the site became much quieter than it had been (in terms of activity at least, as site visits are still about where they were), quite abruptly. So I think this will ultimately yield much less feedback than it might have just a short while ago (though I know that fact itself is a sort of feedback).

Do strong players move their pieces with different relative frequencies than weak players?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Should I recapture the queen with my king or knight in the Scotch Game?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

How should white continue after 5...Qf6 in the Scotch Game?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Piece movement statistics
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Why did Viktor Korchnoi leave the USSR?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Are there statistics on the frequency of tactical motifs?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Joining a league or tournament
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Rivals to the FIDE
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

Prophylactic defenses
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

How is chess viewed in USSR vs Post-USSR?
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

I don't think this post is inherently bad, but as it played out, it resulted in a discussion that was more politics than chess. To be clear, I think that there is some room for talk of chess politics on the site, but here we basically ended up in plain old politics absent any substantial relation to chess.


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Add ECO tags to questions?
Would there be any benefit to tagging questions about openings with the opening's ECO code?
It seems like this would be more advantageous if there were many more questions, but the tag wiki for the ECO code might be a good place to put a summary for the opening as well as some topical variations.

I think there are some benefits.  For example, if I want to follow all questions asked about Alekhine's Defence, I only need to subscribe to tags B02 to B05, though this would require consistent/proper tagging.

This is a great idea.  The only problem I see is someone using the wrong ECO code, but I guess that is what editors are for.

So should we go ahead and do it? Anyone have an Encyclopedia? I'd be glad to help with the upkeep and editing, but I'm not as yet very familiar with the codes.

Not a bad idea, but the taggers need to aware of the nuances of ECO: A00 is generally useless, while E97 may not be adequate to represent the thick wedges of theory that falls under it.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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What avenues of site promotion do we have available?
Judging from our Area 51 report page, this site isn't doing as well as it should be.  I realize admissions have to be made for the youth of the site, but if we aren't proactive about publicizing it, we might in time meet the same doom as Literature.SE just did.  We have excellent answering habits (99% answered, 2.2 answer:question ratio), but we get only about 3 questions per day (we're shooting for about 15 at the end of 90 days), we're on pace for only 54 users with 200+ rep at the end of 90 days (we're shooting for 150), and we have an average of 114 visits per day, instead of the recommended 1500.
As I said, the site is new, so there's no immediate emergency, but if we find some ways of publicizing it, we could catalyze our progress, and not have to fear closure.  So I pose this question to anyone who reads this:
What are our resources?

I sent a twitter message to about 500 different twitter accounts and got a couple replies. One from Claudia Munoz who joined the site recently. So getting the word out there does work.

in addition to all of this main thing which we dont have is we were dealing things theortically,we can request community to provide an chess server so that it would be interactive and people would love to play and clear their doubts,if the user doesn't played or active on chess how can he ask a question which he/she past played so there's an urgence we need to implement server

Few things you can do (some stuff taken from my post here):

Create a community promotion ad and post on a graduated site. Maybe on Math Mathematica.SE and chem.SE have done so on Physics.
Create an A4(or whatever) poster for your users to print out and stick somewhere. We did that on chem
Write an awesome blog post, like this one by a TW mod
Encourage colleagues/classmates/friends(who have a background in chess) to join. Tell them how awesome we are!
Try to get more experts engaged. Remember, the more experts you have, the better the site is (we don't want to degrade into Yahoo! Answers)
Retweet the upvoted questions posted by @StackChess

Unfortunately, the Q&A metrics are not good enough as an indicator of a chess site's quality. At the moment, the site also has very little (of importance) to offer to the chess community. While there's plenty of commentary around trivia on chessgames.com, the viewership would crumble if that was the only thing worth discussing. You could either start offering news and relays of major events or provide some form of statistical function that could be useful to the community, having a real purpose will definitely bring in the traffic.

There are two chess forum sites I can think of which are full of users who would be ideal targets to become new chess.SE users:

ChessPub, the discussion forum for the opening theory site Chesspublishing.com.
ChessForums.org.

(And, by the way, the number of threads/posts at those sites seem to indicate that chess.SE should be able to reach a healthy level of activity if it were to just get noticed.) So one way to get some attention for the site would be to mention it at those forums, not with egregious, overt advertising (which I imagine would be unwelcome), but via the mention of particular posts over here that are relevant to topics at hand over there.

The groups 'Chessmasters' and 'Chess players' on LinkedIn have thousands of members each. It would be easy to post a link to one of our questions over there. Is this something we should do?

These ideas may sound funny but they may attract some users to some extent:

we can announce an yearly chess tournament where the chess.so users and their friends can play around online
we can reward them for winners (as other meta sites usually do)but as we are at beta so we can ask community to promote the tournament
we can ask the chess.se users to join with their friends like team match(similar to matches played between two groups  )
we can start our own chess.se blog
we can announce the winners at the main site (stackexchange community) so that it can attract visitors. (As many people visit the community site about new sites they may develop interest in our site).

Getting the site mentioned on one of the more heavily-trafficked chess news sites might be one of the most effective ways to get word out to a crowd that would welcome the site. (I certainly don't know any traffic statistics, but I have in mind sites like Chessbase, Chessdom, ChessVibes and The Week in Chess.) Unfortunately, the only way to get a notice on one of those sites would probably be through paid advertising.
I actually emailed Peter Doggers, who runs ChessVibes, last week just to feel him out about the possibility of making a post about chess.SE there. He was lukewarm on the idea, to say the least, since it wouldn't really fit in with his site's focus on major chess events, and he instead floated the idea of purchasing a banner ad there, pretty much as I expected.
So while the sites I listed might be ideal in terms of numbers of eyeballs, they aren't very realistic in terms of "fit." One thing to do is take note of any chess-related sites/blogs/fora you frequent, and think about whether there is any chance of working chess.SE into the conversation there, say by pointing to specific questions/answers from here and asking if others have more input on them.

Ed, what was the cost for the banner ad?

@RobertKaucher, Discussions did not get that far, as I was in no position to negotiate such a matter anyway. (Beyond the fact that I don't work for SE, at the time of that email, I wasn't even a temp moderator here either.)

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Can we post questions that seek analysis for our own games?
I recently played a game and I was looking for some human analysis on it.  I thought I played very well despite my opponents higher rating.  There were things in the game that I did differently than I normally would and I was wondering if what I did had a name to it, but I am not sure if it is appropriate to post it as a question that probably could be a wiki?
Personally, I think these make great questions because chess is a lot about analysis and players love to analyze other peoples games and you can actually get answers to a lot of other questions when analysis is done, plus you get the added benefit of improving. I think this would drive more traffic to our site as well.

So long as the position/game isn't boring or too simplistic, I think it's a great idea.  While the specific game will be very localized, some of the themes will hopefully be useful and interesting.
In a game that's decided by a horrific blunder early on in the game, the computer is probably a better source for ideas and guidance.  In a game that's decided based on themes or more abstract ideas, then the game is probably a better fit for this site.
Put another way, if you are embarrassed to show the game because one or both players played poorly, it's probably better to not post the game - maybe try chat instead.  If the game had no overt blunders, post away!

+1 Good point about "themes or more abstract ideas".  Otherwise, it will certainly be too localized.

If we do post a game, should we tag it as analysis or something else or a combination of tags?

@xaisoft probably include the [tag:analysis] tag, but anything else you think of for the specific position should be fine.


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tags: chess-computers vs chess-engines?
I think people are more familiarized with the nonexistent chess-engines than with chess-computers.
I propose to alias them up, and maybe use chess-engines as master tag.

Looks exactly like what tag aliasing was invented for. I'd probably even alias computers (I mean, there's no chess-strategy tag, tight ?)

So you don't feel left hanging, I'm posting this as a notice that in a few days I'll default to a combination of ajax's and Nikana's suggestions, synonymizing the tags chess-engines, chess-computers, engines and computers, and additionally making engines the master of these, unless objections to doing so are raised/supported here.

Can you add [computer-chess] as a synonym as well? I'm not able to do it due to not having a sufficient score in the tag.

I'm new to this exchange and missed this discussion, but I do have a strong objection to using engines as the master tag; it is misleading. Some questions are about specific chess-playing engines, or about comparing them. Use the engines tag for that.
Some questions are about more abstract computational concerns: are there promising AI algorithms? how many moves can we hope to compute in advance? I urge that this is reconsidered so we allow the more generic tag computers for these questions.

I believe engines is fine, maybe for those more computer-based questions we can use something like computer-analysis or computer-evaluation, I don't know, just throwing an opinion


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Structure of endgame tags
I think as the number of questions grows, we should divide up the endgame tag according to material (but keep endgame as a top level tag).
What is the best way to do this? Introduce new tags rook-endgame, knight-endgame and so on or use the existing endgamerooks, endgameknights?

3 upvotes  and no one says no so far, go for it

I definitely think that the more specific the tags, the better.  The one catch is that we should probably keep the more general tags as well until they become unwieldy.
There's a limit of 5 tags per question - those should be the best 5 tags for a question.  So if a question has 4 tags, feel free to add rook-endgame as an example.  However, if it has 5 good tags already, then probably leave it.


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Synonymous tags: [correspondence-chess], [correspondence]
(Didn't find a dedicated thread for tag synonyms.)
I suggest correspondence-chess as a a parent.

Ed synonymized the tags under correspondence-chess.


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Should we allow questions about how to get away with cheating with an engine?
This question* asks how to avoid detection when a human player uses an engine to gain advantage against another human. What's the community consensus as to whether such questions are allowed or should be banned?
(Sorry if this has already been discussed. I did a search and - surprising to me - didn't find a previous meta discussion specific to this topic.)
*Since the question has been deleted, it won't be available to everyone. Here is its text:

Of course cheating is wrong and should be discouraged. But I think
it's worth talking about scenarios like this.
Let's say a GM had unlimited access to engine analysis in all
subsequent tournaments and wanted to do somewhat better than he would
by playing ethically. What strategy for choosing the moves would avoid
a guilty verdict from cheat detection? What would that look like?
If someone were to plan on cheating, they'd have to be dumb not to
cover their bases i.e. in case they get suspected and the Chess.com
team or Ken Regan is called up to look over the games.

Would you allow the question "What techniques do people use to cheat with an engine and avoid being detected? As a tournament director, what should I be on the lookout for?". Just playing devil's advocate here.

@FedericoPoloni: My original point of this question was to bring up the topic for discussion, hopefully leading to a community consensus; i.e. it's not about what I would allow, but what the community allows.  Nonetheless, I'll say that personally, that's closer to acceptable, but not quite there. Limiting questions to methods of catching cheaters would be better.

Brian's answer makes good points, and if that's how the community wants to go, I am okay with it. However, I am posting an alternative to allow folks to vote a different way if that's what they want.
Under normal circumstances (and we're very unlikely to ever see a Deep Blue vs. Kasparov type match again) using an engine when playing human vs. human chess is forbidden in the rules of over the board tournament and match play as well as online. Thus we should not allow questions which will aid such efforts.

Cheating at online chess, which is what the question referred to, is not against the law in any country. Hence I think such questions are allowed by SE.
In such cases where the community has strong negative feelings this is likely going to be reflected by a flurry of down votes. This is what happened in the case you refer to and the question was deleted by the author.
This seems to me to be a good outcome and I don't see any need to add legislative weight.

While there was a reference to chess.com, my reading of the question was that it wasn't specific to online chess. Also, I wouldn't call 2 downvotes (including mine) "a flurry".

I'm not necessarily taking position on this matter but -1 for suggesting that whether something's not illegal has any bearing on what SE's policy should be.

I cant see anything that would go against StackExchanges policies, t&c , etc. Though I think it is ethically wrong to cheat , even in online chess, it appears to be within the realm of "acceptable" questions. Unless the community develops a specific standard / expectations specifically citing something against this style of question, I cannot see how we can reasonably reject it.
On a note of legality, it is important to note that laws differ between states , not to mention countries. I can drive 15 minutes do something that would get me a custodial sentence if done near home.

The question, hyperlinked in the original question, is inaccessible to me. It stands probably removed.
However, relating to what I have understood in this matter, cheating using an engine, such as a stockfish defeats the purpose of the game, ruins the integrity and gentlemanliness of the players, and must be discouraged.
However, there is more to it than what meets the eye. At times, out of greed, foolishness, or lack of knowledge leads one to resort to such malpractices. What I suggest is that those who have resorted to such malpractices must not be banned perpetually, but only defined time-bound restrictions should be imposed.

Yes, the question was deleted. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you are discussing in the 2nd paragraph. It seems you're discussing the banning of players for cheating. That is not what I was meaning - I just want to know if QUESTIONS about how to cheat should be allowed on the main site. Banning players is - I think - outside our scope.

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To what degree does the site resemble your original vision for it?
@ETD, @Andrew, @Daniel and others:
Having visited your site a couple of times a month for years, I am not a heavy user; but, apparently, I like the site. I do not know which of you originally organized the site, but you and your friends have maintained it a long time. Thanks.
I am idly curious, though. To what degree does the site resemble your original vision for it?
If you can remember that far back.

4 years ago... For me, it closely resembles my vision. The amount of traffic isn't high, but my hope for the site was simple. The Stack Exchange model is a benefit to any topic, and there isn't any other system of site that meets the standards of efficiency and usefulness that this system does.

I think everyone should be reasonably happy that the site kinda survived, and serves a purpose for some members of the greater chess community, and for some specific topics. I thought the SE model would be both enabling and restrictive, and the results seem to be consistent. It is not a critical piece of the puzzle as far as chess sites go, but maybe this is for the best.


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What else can be done about incorrectly flagged posts?
I regularly see questions related to chess programming flagged as off-topic. As voted on in this meta question, they are on-topic. I vote to leave them open and continue, but is there anything else I can do?
I suspect it's the same user flagging them, but I obviously can't be sure.

You can leave a comment (which I just did – I went to Meta to search for the poll, and found your question already waiting).

The community has decided that questions about chess programming are on-topic. This is also stated in the help center: Chess-specific questions about programming a chess engine or other chess software are welcome.

(see below for the source Markdown)
Hopefully, that will remind the close voter that the Community has decided that this is in scope, it's not a one-sided decision by the ♦ moderators or Stack Overflow the company.
We'll probably get programming questions which would be considered too broad on Stack Overflow; I think that's fine, our standards don't need to be so high; because of the low volume we can handle bad questions with ease. However, I do think it's important to stress the authors to provide a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example. Chess Stack Exchange should not become a debugging service for chess engines.
In those cases, using the standard 'not in scope' reason isn't really constructive. The author of the question will visit the help page, but will see nothing that explicitly says their question is off-topic. I'd recommend using a custom off-topic reason then.

Source Markdown for the comment:
The [community has decided](https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/418/7297) that questions about chess programming are **on-topic**. This is also stated in the [help center](/help/on-topic): *Chess-specific questions about programming a chess engine or other chess software are welcome.*

I  have left a general comment a couple of time, when I've read the question before checking out the review queues, which is why I suspect it's one person.


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Make [postal] a synonym of [correspondence-chess]
I'd like to propose that the new postal tag be marked as a synonym of correspondence-chess

Yes, that makes sense. I've just created the requested synonym. A friendly reminder to all: please do not create new tags if an existing one sufficiently describes the topic.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Why is my question voted for being duplicate of another totally different question?
My question is flagged as "duplicate" of this question. However, what I ask is:

Am I being a stargazer (or simply put, a fool) by attending
  international tournaments, or can I somehow improve my game to compete
  with players around the world?

whereas in the referred question, OP is asking:

I am a very poorly rated player, about 1100 on chess.com.
  Am I too old to start chess?
  I sometimes feel bad after a loss, especially if I lose against a lesser-rated player than me. Does anyone else get this feeling?

These two questions differ on two basic things:

I am seeking to be better at real-life tournaments, whereas the other question as about getting better online.
I already know how to play chess, and play it regularly, whereas the other question asks if it is too old to start chess.

These being stated, why is my question perceived as a duplicate of the referred question?

They are essentially the same question. Your two basic things are actually very minor details, that don't affect the answer.

The rules are the same whether playing online or in person. You're asking to improve at the same game.
If you'd read the duplicate carefully, they said they'd been playing for a year, and hadn't improved much. In fact, they stated a goal of becoming an 1800+ player.

The only similarity between an online game, and a live tournament game is how the pieces move, and the winning conditions. Besides that, every single thing differ such as not being able to use an electronic device, not moving the pieces using mouse, not being able to listen to music, and not being able to talk. This is why I deliberately wrote "tournament" player. The referred question asks about online rating of 1800+. Not ELO.

How the pieces move and the winning conditions are the similarities that matter. Also, it's Elo, after Arpad Elo, who developed the rating system. ELO is the Electric Light Orchestra, an Enlglish rock band.


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Use of "he" when referring to hypothetical chess players - is this discrimination against women?
I've seen the following comment used by a Stack Exchange user on several chess posts.

Please don't assume that a chess player must be male. There is too much discrimination against women in chess circles, and defaulting to male pronouns perpetuates the culture that women are unwelcome.

I wonder if the statement: "defaulting to male pronouns perpetuates the culture that women are unwelcome", with respect to chess circles, is actually true.
Are there any accredited studies/reports to support the commenter's claim? Or is this the user's own opinion/propaganda?

I have never seen any discrimination against women other than that which was  also done against many  more men who are also weaker players.   Certainly nobody does anything to the top players whether male or female.

“Are there any accredited studies/reports to support the commenter's claim? Or is this the user's own opinion/propaganda?”  This is a bit of a false dichotomy.  I doubt there are any accredited studies showing that throwing eggs at chess players puts them off their game, but if I suggest it’s unwelcoming, would you say that was just my opinion?  People generally react negatively to about having eggs thrown at them, so the burden of proof isn’t on me to show that it causes problems in chess.  Similarly, you can find plenty of women reporting how unwelcome default “him” make them feel.

To clarify: I’m not saying that we can’t or shouldn’t question the claim.  But it’s not reasonable to suggest that unless there are “accredited studies”, we should dismiss it as pure opinion/propaganda.  We should weigh the reasons to believe it against the reasons to disbelieve it, rather than holding one of those directions to a high standard and not asking about the other.

I'd throw in that anecdotal evidence is still a form of evidence. It takes effort to take many N=1 datasets and give an "accredited study/report", though a quality which good communities share is their ability to make decisions and consider information which isn't widely agreed upon. If done incorrectly it'll be unwise and tyrannical, but I've been in communities where unpopular but wise changes have proven effective and popular after enough time.
I'd say change is reasonable, but being nasty and tyrannical in enforcing a policy like this isn't. For me the benefits outweigh the costs.

I played a high school girl in a tournament.  After nearly 5 hours of play she won.  It was a great game and my only regret was that we didn't have time to go over it together since they were waiting on us to start the next round.   Some guy came over and asked with a bit smile how it felt to be beat by a little girl.  Turned out to be her dad.

As a non-native speaker. To me "singular they" sounds weird. It's already confusing enough that you can't distinguish singular and plural "you". If this makes more people happy, I'd rather use generic "she" than singular "they"

The Code of Conduct says:

Be inclusive and respectful.
Avoid sarcasm and be careful with jokes — tone is hard to decipher online. Prefer gender-neutral language when uncertain. If a situation makes it hard to be friendly, stop participating and move on.

What is meant by 'gender neutral' is explained in one of the FAQ:

5. "Gender-neutral"? Does that mean like "he/she"?
Not quite. While “he/she” and similar compound pronouns are better than a default masculine “he” alone, gender-neutral writing works to avoid gendered terms entirely when gender is unknown, either through rephrasing statements to avoid pronouns or through the usage of singular (or plural) “they”. For examples and other methods, see Kate Gregory’s answer to a related question - Define "gender-neutral language"? (CoC FAQ)

One could interpret that as only pertaining to the author of a question, answer or comment, not to a hypothetical chess player mentioned in the post under discussion. However, even in those situations, gender-neutral language is preferred:

But sometimes you find yourself referring to a poster or a person that a poster mentioned:

IMHO (but I could be interpreting the CoC wrong) it's not required to do so.

Thank you for sharing this information and the suggested edits to the OP. @Glorfindel I found this to be the most helpful answer here.

To add to this answer, if I may: the CoC FAQ directly states that ... it is not a CoC violation to use gendered pronouns as long as you use stated pronouns once they’re made known., so @Glorfindel's interpretation in the last line of his answer is correct.

@Universal_learner "they" has been used as both singular and plural since at least the 14th century, more than 600 years. It is often not taught because some people believe it is incorrect. You will find that it is very common for native speakers to use singular they, however.

You is both the singular and plural. If it's acceptable and sensible in the second person, it should be just the same in the third person. @InfiniteFlash

Just to add a longer-form explanation to the comments I made above. I think what we're seeing now is not so much an increase in the acceptability of the singular 'they' in the english language as a decrease in the acceptability of the generic 'he.'
We had a minor revolt recently (hey, when you're as old as I am, you can call events from the last couple of centuries "recent" with only a modicum of irony) demanding that firm rules be applied to english usage that had not been in existence previously, along the lines of the ban on split infinitives and the terminal preposition (language rules up with which we should not put). But for the most part writers of the language from Chaucer to Dickenson were quite content to use the singular they, and people spoke it every day ("I'll leave a note for the next occupant telling them what happened before I leave").
But for almost as long as the English language has been around, 'they' has been capable of a singular meaning. Often it was paired with "one" to help establish the singular context, as in "one might think they had strayed from the path when confronted with that sight," but it's been acceptable usage for at least 80% of the timespan that generic 'he' has been. And as for agreeing with the verb, if you don't like 'they is' use 'they are,' after all we say 'you are' all the time without ever getting confused over how many of you there are by the second person singular construction.
The generic 'he' has followed right along and generally been accepted as well, but of late that is changing, and as the living thing it is, the rules of the language will change along with it. As such, the days of the generic 'he' are, I suspect, numbered. It may linger around, but start to feel as stilted as constructions like 'one wonders what to make of this' feel today.
As to whether feeling excluded by the generic 'he' has been the primary cause of the sad deficiency in the numbers of female chessplayers, I doubt there's been a study, and I would probably also doubt the veracity of that statement, as well. As a chess coach I have seen enough bad and exclusionary behavior by males toward females to believe there are far stronger reasons than a simple pronoun for that, but I also think that's beside the point.
The point is communicating effectively. Since both the singular 'they' and the generic 'he' have been acceptable usage for most of the lifespan of English, and one is causing more of a ruckus, and more of a distraction, shouldn't we be using the other, if not out of courtesy then out of a simple desire to communicate efficiently?
I'm not going to grammar-police someone's use of the generic 'he;' they can use it if they want to (see what I did there?). They just shouldn't use some non-rule foisted recently upon English speakers to justify it, and should be aware that a growing number of readers will simply stop listening and turn to the next writer if they do. The point of language isn't to follow rules made up by someone sitting off in an ivory tower somewhere; it's to communicate. And if a speaker's choice of words loses their listeners, they would be well advised to revisit that choice, eh?
(With that the old man steps down, folds up his portable soapbox, sticks it into his coat pocket, and trundles off into the darkness.)

"As to whether feeling excluded by the generic 'he' has been the primary cause" The person quoted in the question never said that it is the primary cause.

It is excellent that this is being talked about, it is a positive sign of growth in our chess community! I recall one of the moderator candidates in the last elections brought up this topic in their presentation and explained it quite concisely in my opinion. So I will simply quote them here:

Sadly, in many cultures there is a clear (not even implicit) bias
  against women playing chess, and when already one's tone and choice of
  pronoun (irrespective of the language) assume a hypothetical chess
  player to be male, that bias gets perpetuated, and finds its way into
  influencing choices made even at an individual level.

Also pertinent here were the follow-up discussions:

For instance in terms of gender assumptions, at least one instance can
  be found in nearly every post! These are wrong habits that have been
  established as normal in the chess community, starting from chess
  literature all the way to live commentaries. The general choice of
  pronoun in referring to a chess player is merely an example that
  reflects poor and sexist conventions. Often these are dismissed on
  account of practicality or tradition, when in fact, referring to a
  side in chess, it makes far more sense to simply speak about the
  pieces w.r.t their colors, and as such being a plural term
  (white/black pieces), it can be subsequently referred to as "they".
  Otherwise, simply using "they" and "their" instead of "he" and "his"
  respectively, is a perfectly valid way of maintaining the discussion
  gender-agnostic. This takes minimal effort to improve upon, but has
  far reaching consequences in breaking poor habits and sets an example
  for putting an end to such commonly perpetuated biases. With a
  community such as chess SE, filled so many great people, all gathered
  here for their love of chess, we can be setting that example!

Language habits are just an example of behavior and consideration. Their point of poor habits building their way into assumptions and people's judgments is oh-so-important. Even at the level of local clubs, I have often times (still to present time) witnessed male players e.g. resigning to their female opponent with disrespect [*] and acting in complete dismay that they are losing to a female player. And these behaviors are also witnessed by the kids playing around them and unsurprisingly this gets passed on: the typical chit-chat being "you lost to a girl!"
[*]: e.g., not shaking hands, playing until the checkmate when they would have otherwise already resigned against a male player, laughing in dismay and mockingly, not accepting to stay to post-analyse the game together, etc.
So I believe this question of how to talk about chess players and our adopted language for describing a chess game, has far reaching depths than it just being a question of the English language: it is just an example of something that takes minimal effort to incorporate into one's habits in order to break poor sexist habits. Clearly, this alone does not solve the aforementioned problems in the chess world, but it is a start showing commitment and will as a community to become more open-minded and inclusive, and talking about it matters as it creates more awareness.

For me, it is simply ENGLISH. I care more about subject-verb agreement, and your opponent is singular. If you want to use a pronoun, you either have to write he/she, or just one of them for it to agree with the verb.
I am not going to bend to the PC police, and if a woman, or anyone, is that put-off by this, how are she, or he, going to deal with the real world, let alone, play chess?
See, how silly that starts to look when you try to make the PC police happy? They are the ones, who are making incorrect assumptions.
I also cannot imagine that it has any real affect on female participation in chess so maybe they should mind their own business, and worry about themselves, and their posts.

If you think that looking silly is bad, why do you show your belief in something you call "the PC police"? That is just name-calling. It looks silly, and it's not a nice way to respond to people who are just trying to promote better alternatives to "he" when the person isn't known to be male. "He/she" which you mentioned is one alternative, but there is another: "they".

The same in Russian, and many other languages, since gender is built in to the word.

"I also cannot imagine that it has any real affect on female participation in chess" [citation needed]

That is opinion. The same as the people claiming it. The onus is really on them to back up their claim.

Umm, no. I cannot let such misinformation stand. The use of the singular "they" goes all the way back to the 1300s and has long been acceptable usage. (Don't take my word for it, ask Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they). I keep hearing this same old tiresome canard about they being plural; I wonder how it started, because it certainly has no basis in fact.

"For me, it is simply ENGLISH. I care more about subject-verb agreement, and your opponent is singular." It should be "being singular", you have extraneous commas in "let alone, play chess", "See, how silly",  “They are the ones, who”, and "themselves, and their posts”, and you used “affect” instead of “effect”. So I guess you are inflexible about grammar only when it serves political purposes?

"I am not going to bend to the PC police" Is anyone threatening to arrest you? "if a woman, or anyone, is that put-off by this, how are she, or he, going to deal with the real world, let alone, play chess?" You don't understand how someone could find the behavior worth criticizing, and be capable of playing chess? Seriously? “See, how silly” No, I don't see how silly it is. Simply asserting that you find something to be silly is not an argument. “I also cannot imagine” I don't see why we should find your level of imagination to be a matter of interest.

I think it’s incorrect these days to use he when the gender is unknown. The meaning of he has changed. I would normally prefer to use “they” or “one”.
If you spot that I get it wrong in any of posts please forgive me and feel free to make the change.

No.  It is standard English usage. Chess does not yet kowtow to the political nonsense some people are using to try to change how we talk, think, and what we believe.

Maybe 50 years ago, it was standard English usage to use "he" without consideration for whether women were to be included.  Fortunately, English usage has evolved a little since then.

It is still standard English usage no matter what the hard core lefties are saying as part of their strategy to be able to tell us all how to speak and think.

No, it really isn't.

@DawoodsaysreinstateMonica It was not about consideration, but grammar and semantics. It was grammatically and semantically correct to include women in generic "he". "he" had (and still does occasionally) a neuter meaning: "Every man for himself!" (both "man" and "himself" are being used gender neutrally, and there is no commonly accepted phrase that replaces this). Most instances of gender neutral "he"/"him" can be replaced with "they"/"them" nowadays. The meaning of "he"/"him" is changing to become even more masculine, but has not completely lost its gender neutral meaning yet.

Weellll. I'll give you that it's common usage. But it's no more correct than using "they" and the generic 'he' is more likely to give offense or cause a ruckus, so why use it? Singular 'they' has been accepted usage since the 1300's for a person of unknown gender; it's only in recent years that people have been inventing the rule that 'they' is always plural. It's not, and never has been true.


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Wrong chessboard size in revision history
When viewing the revision history of a post, the chessboard has the wrong size:

This is caused by the following CSS rule:
#revisions table {
    width: 100%
}

Tested on a Mac, with Safari and Chrome.
EDIT: the size is also wrong in the review queue:


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Pieces from PGN viewer are displayed above review bar
A picture + freehand 'circle' says more than a thousand words:

You can reproduce it e.g. by clicking here and scrolling down. Expected behaviour is that the pieces disappear behind the bar, just like the board does. The problem is that both the pieces (.chess-replayer .board .chess-piece) and the review bar (.review-bar-container .review-bar) have a z-index value of 10. Changing the z-index of the pieces to 9 solves the problem and does not introduce other issues, as far as I can see.

Is this still a bug?

@GaurangTandon yes, I can still reproduce it.


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Should the tag "advertisement" be removed?
The tag advertisement has no usage guidance and has no meaningful question tagged under it. Should we remove this tag?

Perhaps, but the problem is it's currently tagged on 2 questions: 1 and 2. Q1 will be automatically deleted by the system, but Q2 won't because it has an accepted/upvoted answer. On the other hand, a question always needs to have at least 1 tag. So there are 2 options to burninate this tag: replace the tag on Q2 to something else or delete Q2.

@AndrewT. for Q2 the tag seems rather irrelevant IMO. Surely we could find something better while allowing this tag to be removed?

@Brandon_J well, it could be [tag:meme], but... do we want that instead? I prefer to delete the question since I don't see any value on it...

@AndrewT. I agree

I agree with both of you, I think that the tag and both questions could be deleted.

Both questions have been deleted by a ♦ moderator and the tag is gone now. So this request is status-completed.


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How do I find attribution for a chess problem I have come across and want to ask a question about?
Let’s say I wanted to ask a question about a chess problem I found, to learn about the strategy behind it, but I also want to give attribution to the author. However, I don’t know who the author is and extensive searching hasn’t brought up anything useful. What can/should I do to find the author then? Are there any known tools that could help aid me?

One way that you can find who created a chess problem is by using chess problem databases, which are more or less giant Wikipedias for chess problems. Here are a few that are easy to use and widely used, along with small guides on how to use them.

Yet Another Chess Problem Database

Note: Instead of the English notation “N” for knight, YACPBD (the site’s acronym) uses “S” for the knight, as it reserves “N” for the fairy chess pieces called [nightriders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrider_(chess).

Die Schwalbe Chess Database Server

Forewarning: The Die Schwalbe database is a German site that uses German chess notation.
(More coming soon)


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Is there link to the chatrooms in the Android app?
As per the title, is there a link anywhere in the mobile app that leads to the chatrooms? It's annoying to have to Google it every time on my phone. If not, it would be a useful feature.

See also Where is the chat in mobile application? on Meta Stack Exchange.

No, there isn't. The iOS app offers this functionality via the 'More' tab:

but the Android app has a different navigation structure.
In your case, I'd probably just bookmark the URL in Chrome: https://chat.stackexchange.com/?tab=site&host=chess.stackexchange.com or even make it a shortcut on the 'desktop'.


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What is our stance on chess riddles?
This question is a chess riddle that seems to have been fairly well recieved, although there is doubt about it being on-topic in the comments. But I haven’t seen anything like it since then.
I have an idea in mind for another chess riddle, but I’m not entirely sure if it would be on topic.
Here’s an example. Say I post a riddle that goes as follows: “A knight can’t fork a king and a ____?” The idea for this riddle is to fill in the blank with the answer, which is “Knight.”
To what extent are chess riddles allowed, and what are our confines for what can and can’t be posted as a riddle?
While question askers generally don’t know the answer, and in this case they would, I feel that the CSE communty could have a little fun with chess riddles if it is carefully mannaged (as not to not open unwanted floodagate.)

“A knight can’t fork a king and a ____?” The idea for this riddle is to fill in the blank with the answer, which is “Knight.”
And that answer, of course, is wrong as this example demonstrates NxN is forced for black (although "resigns" would be a better "move") whereupon white retakes and then queens the pawn.
Knight forking king and knight

In general I'm against riddles like this, not least because as this example demonstrates they can often be contentious.


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Please merge this duplicate about old FIDE laws
This question about copies of old FIDE laws is a duplicate of this question, but it has high-quality and helpful answers that I think would be beneficial for the older question. Can the duplicate question please be merged into the older one?

Done, it's merged now. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

It's fine to open a Meta question for these kind of unusual requests; another option is a custom ♦ moderator flag.


text:
Two questions that need to be closed as a duplicates
I’ve noticed that this question, which is about if an en passant capture can be delayed, and this question, which is about if an en passant capture can be done on the seventh rank, are both answered by this much older question.
The two younger questions need to be closed as duplicates of the older one. Since they are old questions, I felt that the review queue simply wouldn’t be adequate for these  so I am pointing it out here. Please post an answer when they are closed so it can be accepted and this question’s business is completed.

I felt that the review queue simply wouldn’t be adequate for these so I am pointing it out here.

I'm curious as to why. The Close Votes review queue is pretty fast and reliable for a site the size of Chess Stack Exchange; if you expect other users (reviewers, but also people visiting the question and let's not forget the author) not to see why it's a duplicate, you can always edit the auto-generated "Does this answer your question?" to include some additional information.
I can probably hammer the question, but I'd prefer if you do this the regular way.

Well I have voted to close them before but to no avail, hence why I brought it up on Meta to bring attention to the matter. I have now done it the normal way as you requested.

There's no indication of a prior close votes review: https://chess.stackexchange.com/posts/14195/timeline

Hm, probably just a false memory then. Sorry for any confusion.


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What can we offer that other chess sites don't?
After reading this post about the scope of the site, and also seeing how this other one got closed (see this meta post for discussion), I started to think about what is it really that this site can/should offer and whether it is worth being part of for the ordinary chess player. There was another meta post discussing whether the Stack Exchange format is suitable for chess, but I don't see any of the answers really addressing the question.
First, let's be honest, there is no feature in Chess Stack Exchange that the average chess forum does not have. Ratings are a great alternative to reputation, or even better. More importantly, any type of question asked here could also find its answer on a regular chess forum, whether it is about game analysis, engines, rules or anything else.
However, there are things that a chess forum can offer that this site does not. In an ordinary chess forum, you start a thread and people begin to debate about the subject in question. Here, they begin to discuss whether the question is or is not off-topic and most of the time eventually putting the question on hold as it is enough if 5 people want to close your question regardless of whether other 100 are OK with it.
I do understand that the Stack Exchange communities are not forums, but the point is: why would I ask anything here if I can do it in a forum, given that the forum will always help me and the Stack community will only in a very few particular situations? And all of that while you see programming or Shogi questions being well-received!
Another way forums tend to be useful is reading random questions. You go to a thread started by another user and learn from the discussion that is going on. The problem is that you hardly ever find a good chess question on this site, and when there is one, it's often either put on hold or unanswered.
There is also the problem of not being possible to do a long sequence of replies. Comment provide some kind of workaround, but it is quite uncomfortable.
OK, now we know there is nobody here. We also have a grasp on why that may be the case. Let's find the solutions! Should this site be reserved to programming nerds who like chess? Should we have more flexibility towards "opinion-based" or "too broad" questions? Should we close the site altogether?
By the way, I am asking this with a great fear of the question being closed for some reason (I had to squeeze my brain to turn this into a question format, and I know I kind of failed!), which is a bit discouraging and almost leads me to not asking it at all. After all, why should I take my time to make a contribution that has a great chance of receiving bad critics and rejection? Maybe I should just save my thoughts for myself! I am sure this is the thought process behind the behaviour of many new contributors that are about to ask their second question!

Due to sub-optimal fit for SE format, this site operates in a degenerative form and cannot be compared to other chess sites, or even SEs in general. Reputation scores here for users or content have very little to do with the actual value.

Check https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24882/novice-capitalizing-on-players-not-knowing-their-openings a non-duplicate question closed as duplicate, for further seeing how this site treats newbies. The policy is "first shoot, then ask"

This SE is overly attractive to non-experts and in return attracts disproportionate amount of 'juvenile' content that a normal site with a regular mix of experts and non-experts will not see nor entertain. That question is pointless because as a 1400 player, his tactics are too poor for 'opening knowledge' to be of much significance. He can dictate a 20-line theory and fall straight into a three-mover..

The fact that this question serves him to no good does not mean that we should close it. We are not his parents

I'm trying to address a few of your points, since most of them are a matter of personal taste (and therefore neither right or wrong, I just happen to disagree with some of them and agree with a few others). I'm writing this as a community member, please don't pay attention to the ♦ behind my name.

In an ordinary chess forum, you start a thread and people begin to debate about the subject in question.

... which makes an eventual best answer hard to find. Here, the answer deemed most useful by the community receives the most upvotes, and the author can choose which answer helped them the most by accepting it. In a forum, you often have to dig through the initial motions (e.g. scoping the question, which is done here through comments which can later be flagged as No Longer Needed and eventually deleted) before finding anything you can use. Sometimes, it's helpful for your own thought process, but many times it isn't.

Here, they begin to discuss whether the question is or is not off-topic and most of the time eventually putting the question on hold as it is enough if 5 people want to close your question regardless of whether other 100 are OK with it.

If only 5 of those 100 people have the reopen votes privilege, they can choose to reopen it again. It's possible to have so-called close/reopen wars; those can be carried over to this Meta where we can have a debate over the scope of the site and whether a particular question fits or not.

And all of that while you see programming or Shogi questions being well-received!

You might not find them useful, but apparently other community members do. These scores say something about the people here, and people are hard to change (nor, IMHO, should we try to). It's a gross oversimplification, but when your ideas about raising taxes aren't well received at a Republican party convention, maybe you should switch to the Democrats?

Should we have more flexibility towards "opinion-based" or "too broad" questions?

We are already more flexible than other sites. I'm pretty sure a question like this one (taken randomly from the front page) would be shut down on first sight on the technical Stack Exchange sites. I'm confident that the regulars (not just the ♦ moderators, au contraire) are moderating the site well enough to keep the trouble arising from these potentially problematic questions to a minimum (that's why I didn't close the question mentioned in your other recent Meta post), so we can afford to be a little more flexible.
Remember that we are part of the Stack Exchange network; we have a little bit of flexibility in how we interpret the network rules, but it's never going to be a discussion forum. Our DNA (read: the software) just isn't wired that way.

By the way, I am asking this with a great fear of the question being closed for some reason

Why? This is exactly what Meta is for, it's for

...Chess Stack Exchange users to communicate with each other about Chess Stack Exchange (asking questions about how the websites work, or about policies and community decisions)

It may happen that other users downvote your question because they don't agree with you, but closing it would be wrong and I wouldn't hesitate to reopen it with the modhammer.


text:
Reopen question 'Chess principles for beginner'
The question Chess principles for beginner has been closed as too broad, but it is a very precise question about the validity and relevance of a particular set of principles. There is, in my honest opinion, no reason why this should be closed.

If you think this question should be opened, you can cast a reopen vote; you have enough reputation to do so. This will send the question into the Reopen Votes review queue where other community members will judge on the fate of the question.
Before doing that, ask yourself whether the following article in the Help Center applies:

What types of questions should I avoid asking?
...
You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.
If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ______”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ______ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)

I'm intended to say it does; people have written books about lists like these. Though to be fair, they'll expand each point with examples, otherwise it'll be a small book.
In general, list type questions don't fare too well in the Stack Exchange format. If you strongly agree with one item in the list but are vehemently opposed to another, should you up- or downvote? If you have a new item, should you add it to the list or write a new answer? What if you have multiple items to add?

Thank you! I was not aware of how that priviledge works!

You're welcome. It'll end up in the review queue after ~15 minutes (here it is); I'll skip that review since my decision would be binding and this is one of the instances where I prefer not to act (as mentioned in my nomination).


text:
Are the Winter Bash hats permanent?
I know that it says that the hats "get put back in their boxes on January 2nd", but do they ever come back, or are they just gone forever on the second?

They're gone. If they are ever reused in later years, you have to earn them again. The leaderboards will remain for a while after January 1st.
If you want to keep your hat on afterwards, you'd have to make a screenshot of your avatar with the hat, and reupload it.

Thank you. Bummer.
Also, thanks for the link to the leaderboard. I didn't know about that.


text:
What is the difference between the [problems] and [puzzles] tags?
Both the problems tag and the puzzles tag seem to have very similar definitions, with problems being a little broader - perhaps puzzles ought to be a subset of problems?
problems

A chess problem consists of a board position and a task. Most often the problem asks to find a line of play that mates black in a given number of moves, or to find a combination that guarantees a winning position. There are many other kinds of problems, some far removed from standard chess play. Tournaments and championships exist for both the composition of original problems and for speed-solving."

puzzles

A problem in which a tactical or positional solution is required, like 'White move and gives mate in two'.

Also worth reading: https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/577/7297

Good question; one of the items on my TODO list was to organize these in a better way, together with the related tags study (where it concerns endgame studies) and studies.

In my opinion, we should follow the Wikipedia definitions. This article lists a quite exhaustive type of chess problems, of which the most common are:

Directmates (straightforward mate in n)
Helpmates
Selfmates

That list contains endgame studies, but they  are (in my opinion) sufficiently different enough to warrant their own tag. Note that the tag excerpt for puzzles is actually something that I would definitely call a 'problem', and Wikipedia agrees with me:

Problems can be contrasted with tactical puzzles often found in chess columns or magazines in which the task is to find the best move or sequence of moves (usually leading to mate or gain of material) from a given position. Such puzzles are often taken from actual games, or at least have positions which look as if they could have arisen during a game, and are used for instructional purposes. Most such puzzles fail to exhibit the above features.

Puzzles would be a good for the (often) tactical middlegame puzzles 'White to play and win', where the solution is often a line winning a piece or so. On the other hand, it's also a good determiner for chess-themed puzzles like this one. I haven't found a good solution for this problem dilemma yet.

I completely agree with you, except that the example you give of a chess-themed puzzle is very definitely a retrograde analysis chess problem and I am sure the author (who I know) would not call it a puzzle, because of his artistic intent. “Rebuses” are a well-known sub-genre.

I'd say that "puzzle" should be the broader term. Puzzle is not a term in chess jargon, so it is as generic as it is in English.
A chess problem is much less generic, e.g. it has very strict goal (a problem would say "Mate in 2", a position with the stipulation "White to play and win" is a puzzle but not a problem).
Studies are puzzles, but not problems.
So the definition for puzzle should be improved.

Puzzle is a word which composers avoid using to describe their work because it kinda denies their artistic intent.

From a problem composer's perspective, "problem" = "composition" means something that someone has made with artistic intent. In contrast, composers use the word "puzzle" to refer to (usually tactical) conundrums which are intended to show good plays in the game, or how to win. This is not intended to be pejorative: there are some really good and taxing puzzles around, e.g. chess.com. These two areas of chess endeavour have been essentially separate for 150 years,
But composers would say that their work isn’t “puzzles” - a puzzle to them doesn’t have artistic intent. So the word “puzzle” is not available as a cover-all term.


text:
How to safely contribute answers?
Recently, a question I answered was "protected" because it was attracting spam and low grade activity. I'm older and don't use the Internet that much so I may be a bit ignorant regarding these subjects. The content was solid; I used a G.M.s name and the initials of a major city. Did this attract spam?
Suggestions and information are appreciated.

Are you referring to this question? Yes, I protected that question because I'm not sure that question needs more answers. Stack Exchange is a Q&A site, focused on getting answers to questions, and not a discussion forum where everybody can chime in and post their opinion. I now see that this isn't covered in the list of reasons mentioned in the notice:

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users.

"Low quality" isn't in that list, but it could very well be. In any case, your answer isn't attracting low quality activity; it's low quality in itself. Let me explain why:
The problem with your answer (and all others you've posted) is that they're hard to read due to the lack of capitals, improper punctuation (/), not having paragraphs etc. This isn't an Internet skill, or unfamiliarity with Stack Exchange; it's about general writing skills. Contrary to what you might see on other places on the Internet, proper grammar and formatting are very much appreciated here.
Other users might help you by editing your answers (like I did to this question), but you are first and foremost responsible for the content of your posts.
edit: it seems somebody jumped on the bandwagon.


text:
Chess diagrams and games in app
Is it possible to see games or diagrams in the app? It works fine for me in a browser, but in the official Stack Exchange app it only shows me the moves and no board.

No, this is not possible. Of the many site-specific post formatting features, only MathJax is enabled in the Stack Exchange app. The reason for this is probably that it's lots of work, so they did it just for the one feature which is widespread across the Stack Exchange network.
As a workaround, you can click the 'Share' button, open the post in a browser and switch to the full site if necessary:


text:
What is the point of closing "off-topic" questions?
People often vote to close questions at the intersection of chess with some other discipline, arguing "that's really a [math|programming|etc.] question". Two recent examples are How do you calculate error bars on elo rating? and Latex, chess board, skak and pluglossia for arabic won't work together.
Referring people to other sites where they might also seek an answer to their question is fine, of course, but what do we gain by closing these questions? The worst that could happen if we leave them open is... someone might answer them!

see this meta.se question: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56616/what-is-the-benefit-of-closing-off-topic-questions

First of all, different people may have different opinions about what is in scope and out of scope for the site. This is quite normal, especially for interdisciplinary questions, that's why closing a question can always be countered by voting to reopen (and every user, except ♦ moderators, has only one close vote and one reopen vote per question).
I had already voted to reopen the first question; while it does require some mathematics, I don't think it will beyond comprehension for most users here. At least not the results of the answers. I've answered this question which is also at least as much about mathematics as about chess, but the Elo rating is so ubiquitous in chess (and little used outside) that I feel they belong on the site.
Now the second question is different. Most people are not using LaTeX for diagrams; the author indicates the chess part in itself is working, it's the combination of that package and another which leads to problems. Sounds like a complicated TeX issue to me (not a TeX user) which is more likely to be solved on our sister site TeX & LaTeX Stack Exchange; it might not even require chess expertise at all, just somebody who can install both packages, check some log messages or has general experience about how TeX packages can (fail to properly) interact.

Broken window syndrome, Google it


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We need a "play" button in the replayer chessboard
I need a "play" button in the replayer chessboard. Often, I want to watch the whole game, without having to press a button 100 times to replay 50 moves.

You don't have to press a button 100 times to play through 50 moves.
You can use the scroll button on the mouse to move rapidly forwards and backwards through the game. This is much better than a "play" button because it stops when you want it to and has a reverse gear.

Tablets, cell phones...


text:
Over 9000, or: Karma perks on (C)SE
Actually, over 10000 :-)
I remembered I got some editing privileges on CSE when going over whatnot - can someone point me to a list? Are the numbers always the same on all Stack Exchange sites or varying?

Congratulations!
The list is here. Chess Stack Exchange still uses the privilege levels of a beta site, which cap at 5k instead of 25k. You get the access to moderator tools privilege, normally awarded at 10k, at 2k already. A complete overview can be found on Meta Stack Exchange: What are the reputation requirements for privileges on sites, and how do they differ per site?
We're not in beta anymore but that post says we "retain beta reputation levels". Only once we get a custom design those privilege levels may change (see here, bottom paragraph), but it depends on whether the community can support it or not. Right now, IMHO we're fine with the current levels.

THX for the detailed answer (which confirmed my suspicion that my question wasn't SO trivial that I could have easily googled around the SE FAQ myself - I probably wouldn't have found the linked Meta SE question).


text:
Preemptive close reason watch
Who can watch the close reasons for a question which has some, but not yet sufficient close votes? And how to watch? (Moderator tools, probably. For the obvious reason to preemptively improve the question. I myself have encountered enough "stray" close votes.)

On your own questions you need 250 reputation points to see close votes.
On other people's questions you need 500 reputation.

Ah, now I see. Close button is quasi-overloaded, on an own question it does a different thing. Guess why I never tried it :-)

There are no moderator tools for this, but you can keep an eye on the Close Votes review queue; questions with active close votes will appear there ~15 minutes after the first vote.


text:
Should questions asking "which side is winning" be closed?
There are many similar questions on Chess SE. Examples are:

Who is winning?
Who is winning is this game of chess?
Who is better here? [hard]

Those questions can be easily answered by feeding the given game/position to a chess engine. They have no value to future readers. Should I vote to close such questions? If yes, what reason should I select?

Unrelated to this discussion: if only the title of that kind of questions can be made more informative...

I think this question (and the answer provided by fuxia) point out why this site will never work as a useful resource for chess players. Analysis should be the main focus of any chess discussion site! Let me explain myself:

Sometimes, engines get it wrong. There was a game during the Carlsen-Anand match for the World Championship (2014, game 7) where, in a clearly disadvantageous position, Anand sacrificed a piece. Most commentators were looking at their engine, seeing how its evaluation shifted towards a Carlsen win, and even suggested that Anand should retire, pointing at him with their fingers. Obviously, Anand achieved a very easy draw with his fortress.
A chess engine will tell you which side is better, even give you a hint for a continuation, but it won't explain you any of the reasons that justify that. When people ask "who is winning?", it's reasonable to assume that they imply "why is so?"
Chess engines assume "perfect" play by both sides, which is not the case in real chess. An engine evaluation will not have into account which side has it more difficult to find the right moves.
Sometimes, engines disagree. Which one should we trust in that case? With a detailed explanation, you can judge yourself, but if all they tell you is a number, it's tougher
Talking about numbers, what on Earth does +1.14 mean in a BPPP - NPP endgame? There is no such thing as a +1.14 result, it's a win, a loss or a draw! Not every +0.80 position is more "likely" (whatever than means) to finish in a win than every +0.60 position.
Not everyone is aware/willing to use a chess engine (I'd personally advice it only for professionals, as, for amateurs, it does way more harm than good). They also may not known which ones are more reliable, or how long/deep should a position be analyzed before the conclusion is meaningful

The grandmasters commentating at major chess events do not use chess engines. This is because it's more interesting to hear their human analysis, which helps over-the-board players to develop their own analytic skills further.
So the goal paradoxically is not to find the absolute best answer in a given position: but to practice strategic analysis, which can perhaps best be done in a concrete position.
Such strategic discussions of interesting positions are a valid part of the chess.stackexchange experience. Even though I am not really an over-the-board player, I would always vote to keep such discussions open.

Absolutely right! If those questions were not allowed, then what would be the point of the site?  Asking questions about how to integrate some API into Python? Looking for "stalemate in 327" problems? We should close the site altogether!

I think these question are what we once called too localized: They will never help anyone else, and the answer can usually be found with an engine.
I don't see how they add any value to the site.

This is simply wrong! Analyzing an interesting position is the main source of improvment. If you believe the answer to that question can be found by a chess engine, either you don't see that these questions often come with a "why?", or you don't understand chess at all


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What to do with questions which are duplicated from another site?
This recent question is identical to a puzzle I posed on Puzzling.SE here.
What, if anything, should be done?

This happens from time to time; it's unavoidable when Stack Exchange sites have overlapping scopes. Here is another instance:

Five Knights Problem
The same problem on Puzzling Stack Exchange

Now, if the author of the questions copied it without properly attributing it, attribution should be added (please don't assume malice, not everybody is aware of the rules). But given the picture in the first version of the question, that doesn't seem to be the case. (If anything, it looks like it's copied from somewhere else.)
You left a comment linking to your question on Puzzling, which is not required, but nice to generate some traffic. I've posted a link back; some users here might not be aware that a Puzzling site exists and vice versa.

The questions you linked are actually completely different. The (current) top rated answer of the chess SE question does not answer the OP's question; Noam Elkies' answer (the Korolkov study) seems more correct.

Ah, you're right. Too bad, I'll have to find another example. The following one involves Chess but not Chess.SE: I posted this Movies.SE question without knowing this one existed on BoardGames.SE. I only looked here ...


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Any way to reduce the noise in the right sidebar?
I'm trying to find out how to annotate a game. I can't find this in any sidebar. Its inclusion incredibly helps as a reference.
Instead, I see many links that are trying to take me off of the site! I should want to stay on this site, and it would improvably help me focus on my task if I didn't venture off into wondering what Il Est means, even if that knowledge does help a lot!
How can I remove this sidebar?

There are a couple of ways to avoid the Hot Network Questions, including ad-blockers and userscripts/stylesheets. They are listed on the main Meta.
For the replayer, you can just favorite this Meta question or bookmark the corresponding answer in your browser. It has already been suggested to add it to the Help Center, but as the Help Center is a shared feature among all Stack Exchange sites, it's unlikely to change.
If you want to dive into the world of userscripts, you can also write one which e.g. adds a special Replayer help button to the post editor.


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Rating displayed on site
I am an active player on Lichess. I noticed the feature where they show the real life chess title besides the name. Could this be implemented on Chess Stack Exchange? Or is it just not feasible due to low activity of chess masters as compared to Lichess? Could we have a vote for the same?

It sounds vaguely infeasible but, of course, I am not a StackExchange insider, so what do I know? If it were feasible, the idea sounds to me as though it would substantially benefit the site. It would elevate the site's prestige in the world of chess. In concept, I like it.

Perhaps this could be a feature in the "expandable usercard" section of the site. I'm no expert on the coding/work required, but perhaps we could implement the expandable usercard for users with enough reputation and/or have a verified FIDE title. This way, a title, once verified, can always be seen.
Not sure how well the verification process would work. Lichess seems to handle large amounts of request fairly well; it might be a good idea to require a user to be a member of Chess.SE for at least 10? 30? days to minimize spam requests.

Actually, having FIDE ids would be a good start for users who wish to disclose their membership.


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PGN Viewer not working for me- what have I done wrong?
I asked this question just now and the PGN viewer won’t appear. I have read some posts in meta under the tag pgn-viewer and specifically the thread Tool used to create chess analysis interactive diagrams in many chess stack exchange answers. I had problems in my past questions also. Any help is much appreciated.

You used clever quotes rather than normal quotes and you added an extra space. I've fixed it for you.

I don’t know what a clever quote is, but thanks!

@insipidintegrator Your quote had a slight angle on it. Some programs like Word will automatically change your text to those angled quotes while you're typing.


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Badges that I earned on other sites show up in Chess.SE style in the trophy dialog
For some reason, when on Chess.SE and checking my little trophy thing, the badges show like they would for Chess, even for other sites such as Space Exploration:

This is a bit confusing indeed, but it's more or less status-bydesign. Performance-wise, it's not a good idea to load many stylesheet documents which would be necessary to give those icons the right shape (it's not just Chess and Space Exploration, all sites with custom designs could end up there). It was noted on Meta Stack Exchange: Badge symbol in notification is of the site you're on, not where badge was earned and the comments of staff member @AdamLear make clear it's not really a priority (though I do think the situation would improve by using the default circles as suggested by @Raphael, at least for the badges not from Chess.SE, and that wouldn't really hurt performance).


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Why there is no tag for classical chess related questions?
I wanted to ask a question related to the classical format of chess. To my surprise, I did not find any tag for the classical-related chess questions. It would be really great if any mod could create a classical tag for the same.

No, it wouldn't. Almost all questions on Chess Stack Exchange apply (or at least could apply) to classical chess. This would be an intrinsic tag and have absolutely no value.


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Is it necessary to put backticks for moves?
E.g. Rg6, is it better to put backticks so it becomes Rg6 instead? Especially for longer moves e.g. 1. e4 e5 2. ...
I think it looks nicer and more readable with the backticks. Any opinions?

Possible duplicate, though the answers here may be considered more thorough.  Do we want to use this formatting for reproducing chess moves?

Is it necessary to put backticks for moves?

Certainly not.

is it better to put backticks?

It is neither better nor worse.
When it comes to spelling there is both US English (color, meter, organize, etc.) and British English (colour, metre, organise etc.). Both are acceptable.
Consequently if I had to review a proposed edit which only changed one form to the other I would decline the edit. It would not be an improvement. If there were other useful edits I would probably let it pass (maybe I should revert the culture specific edits).
The same applies to backticks. If I have to review your edit which only changes to or from backticks I will likely decline.

Related posts on Chess Notation:
Do we want to use this formatting for reproducing chess moves?
Universal style suggestion - use figurine algebraic and bold chess moves
Use of ellipses in chess notation (only about ellipses)
Personally I think 1. b4!! looks much better than 1. d4?? but if I saw plain formatting such as 1. c4, I wouldn't think it necessary to add backticks. As Brian Towers points out, I would reject edits to simply add backticks to invoke code formatting.
I've seen chess books use bold font to denote moves when in a paragraph and thought that works well.
I understand Glorfindel's point that such use of code formatting "is some kind of code" though I think it looks marginal at best but that's just my personal opinion.  For clarity, it should probably be avoided if there is actual computer code in the same post.
My suggestions:

Backticks are not necessary. (both other answers agree)
Backticks are not better. (both other answers agree)
Don't suggest edits to alter formatting style and create needless work for reviewers.
Reviewers should reject such edits as "Makes no improvement whatsoever."
If a user makes a habit of suggesting such edits for review and wasting reviewer time, mod flag and put a custom comment so mods can gently correct such behavior.**

** Note:  Probably a rare case given the site's traffic (2.6 questions per day, 4,675 visits per day).

My two cents:
It is some kind of code, so that formatting is (in my opinion) appropriate. It is used inappropriately quite often: Inline Code Spans should not be used for emphasis, right?
On the other hand, most chess books and online articles only use special formatting to display a couple of moves (which are then also in tabular form). If they're part of a paragraph, they just use the normal font (OK, with figurines instead of K, Q, R, etc.). So it's definitely not necessary.

But its still useable if one prefers it right?

Yes, but I wouldn't edit other users' posts just to add that kind of formatting. Just like one shouldn't convert British English to American English or vice versa.


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Received downvotes for most of my questions
Is someone targeting my questions and downvoting them all? Basically all my questions have downvotes.

Is someone targeting my questions and downvoting them all?

I don't think that anyone will target somebody else's question and downvote them. There's a script that runs every day that'll check for unusual voting activity and invalidate it automatically. So generally, when you see something odd, give it a day and see if it clears up. If not then it probably means something is wrong with your question. Try to ask for clarification. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) people might not give a reply but this is the only way.

Now, let's talk about why your questions have downvotes.
Is there a strategy to win chess960 games? Your this question was a duplicate which means you didn't go for enough research.
What openings are best for white or black in fast games of chess The reason was already specified that it was an opinion-based question.
Is it possible for black to win this? Well, this question wasn't interesting at all. You just gave a puzzle and asked for the best solution (which is right according to me). The problem was that it wasn't a really good puzzle. One could have easily turned on the engine and found the answer. As @PhilipRoe commented on it To make a claim on other people's attention you should be sure that it is interesting.
How would you feel if everyone else starts posting questions like the best way to finish the game or find a mate in 11?
How to learn endgame theory This one is having several downvotes too. I would suggest you add more details on why your question is different from the related one, and try to explain your question more(so that the reader has almost no doubt while answering. )

I personally don't downvote questions unless they are off-topic. I hope you don't take these downvotes seriously (even though sometimes, it becomes frustrating). If your question is good you will automatically get the upvotes.

If your question is good you will automatically get the upvotes.  (+1) Good posts generally get positive scores, especially over time.

Full disclosure: the troll in me really wanted to downvote this question, just for the lolz, but I managed to resist :-).
Seriously, you can only downvote a post once. 5 downvotes and no upvotes is 5 different people telling you the same thing, that there is something seriously wrong with your post. Time to take the message onboard.
The problem you have with that particular post is that with 2 answers both with positive scores you can't just delete it. It is there for posterity.


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Why did my reputation go from 941 to 937?
My reputation suddenly went from 941 to 937, and the following things happened right before the rep change

I did not receive any downvotes
I received an upvote which leads to +10

The upvote should have got me 951 rep, any reason for getting 937?

You can audit your reputation via your profile. One of your questions was deleted (through an automatic process) resulting in the loss 14 reputation (the question had two upvotes and three downvotes).

Btw the -14 rep did not show up anywhere on my side

That is by design.

Ah ok thx for the info. Does it show up on the reputation tab in the profile?

Yes, that's where the screenshot is from.


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Does it matter if British or American English is used?
Once someone edited my post due to changing British to American English, e.g. 'memorise' to 'memorize'. Does it really matter?
I am not criticisng that it is wrong, just curious if American language is default or something.

This topic comes up now and then on different sites, and I always refer to this Meta Stack Exchange question: What should the standard spelling be - British or US?
The highest scoring answer by @devinb says:

At the risk of starting torrents of angry comments, I'd say the correct one is whichever one the OP uses. It is acceptable to fix spelling and grammar errors in someone's response, but if you feel that their favourite spelling of 'behaviour' colours your judgment, then I'm afraid they should just get over it.
It is not acceptable to change American to British spellings or British to American.

so about the edit you mention: feel free to roll that part back.

Yes. Both are acceptable.  (+1)


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Is there a "sandbox" for Chess.SE?
E.g. on Code Golf, there is a sandbox where people post their posts first inside there for people to review and see if it's interesting before the user posts it. Does Chess.SE have something like this?

No, like most sites in the network we don't have one. On most Stack Exchange sites, it's pretty straightforward to ask a decent question; there's plenty of guidance in the Help Center. On Code Golf, questions have all kinds of written and unwritten requirements, that's why they decided to have a Sandbox. IMHO we don't need one here.
We do have another kind of Sandbox: the Replayer Sandbox, because that's a unique Chess Stack Exchange feature and it's good that you can experiment with it somewhere (other than the preview window).


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Top right drop down menu bug

This menu on the top right -I suppose- should be a drop down. But sometimes when I click it, they send me to another page. For example when I click review menu button, I go to this page instead of seeing the review drop down, or when I click the most right button, I go to stackexchange.com instead of seeing the drop down.
I am not even sure if this is a bug. I tried to reproduce it but couldn't, it feels very random. Maybe someone here can reproduce it.
Note: I am on Firefox latest version and Windows 10
Edit: I think it might be possible to reproduce it by clicking the menu buttons at the very start of loading the page. I enter the site and instantly click one of the menu buttons, they usually go to the related page instead of drop down.

You are right, that icon leads to https://stackexchange.com. If you hover over it, and have the status bar of your browser enabled, you'll see the proof:

However, there is some JavaScript which disables that behaviour, and opens the 'site switcher dialog' instead. But that only works if the JavaScript is loaded; it's a separate (cached) file and if you have a slow internet connection, it might not load before you click that icon.
The behaviour is the way it is because some users have JavaScript disabled, and the site is still functional for them. For more reference, see Clicking the top bar sometimes loads the SE homepage, sometimes shows the site switcher on Meta Stack Exchange.


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What happened to the @stackchess Twitter account?
I don't know if @stackchess is an official Twitter account for Chess SE but there are links in the edit parts of the posts to this Twitter account so I assume it is official.
It seems to be suspended for me, is it really or is this a regional thing for me?
If it is, then why was it suspended?

This issue came up about a year ago on the main Meta as well. I'm quoting an answer by @double-beep:

It seems that Twitter suddenly and randomly started blocking those accounts because they were bots posting automated tweets and that resulted in SE not creating new Twitter accounts for new sites since 2015. It's still not known why Twitter has deleted only some of the accounts.


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Can board square letters and numbers be added to the PGN viewer?
I'm not completely familiar with all the squares by heart yet and I think having board square letters and numbers along the files and ranks is a good feature for beginners (who ask most of the questions) to have in the embedded PGN viewer. (For comparison, this is supported on major sites by default on lichess and chess.com.)

Perhaps not by default, but with an option to turn this feature on and off?

I found my question was a dupe I missed earlier

@Glorfindel also I don't think it will hurt to have it always present. The popular sites I listed have it on by default and this site is used more for learning anyway.


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How big of a problem is it that upvotes are received not by the quality of the answer but by the popularity of the question?
I noticed quite frequently already, that answers that I consider very good and where I (or others) have put in a lot of effort and research are not (only) rewarded by upvotes by their quality but by a far more important factor: question popularity.
One of my answers with the most upvotes was on a question with 23k views. While I did research and think the answer is good, I feel that I have given better answers already with significantly fewer upvotes.
Not only when a question is closed people do not open (and vote on) a question, but also for example when the question is about an opening many people don't play.
Sometimes, people read and even modify questions and answers without voting at all, even if the answers or questions are good, constructive, or helpful.
Why is that? Am I "too generous" with giving upvotes to each answer I consider to contain new, constructive, and helpful material?
I feel that there is a massive disproportion of upvotes on answers to popular questions vs. quality answers to less popular questions. This is an incentive to amplify this effect, at it might not be considered worthwhile to open and answer a question that is expected not to be viewed frequently enough.
Is this a problem for this Stack Exchange - and would some questions get (more) answers if people were "more generous" with upvotes on good answers to "unpopular" questions ?

Yes, this is one of the problems with Hot Network Questions. There has been a lot of input from the community throughout the years, e.g. the answers to
Revisiting the "Hot Network Questions" feature, what are our shared goals for having it? and some improvement has been made: Updating the Hot Network Questions List - now with a bit more network and a little less "hotness"!
I forgot whether and where I mentioned this, but one thing the Hot Network Questions list does is to enable newer users to catch up in reputation with users who have been around since the beginning, when you could ask 'simple' questions and post 'simple' answers which due to their age (and perhaps because they appeal to a larger public) have received (arguably) disproportionately many upvotes.

Is this a problem for this Stack Exchange - and would some questions get (more) answers if people were "more generous" with upvotes on good answers to "unpopular" questions?

I doubt it. Yes, I'm mildly addicted to the reputation gain, but the reason for me to write answers is to share knowledge. Otherwise, why would we post answers on per-site metas, like here? Over the years, I've accepted some of my answers get less votes than they deserve, and others will get more. In the end, it will all even out.
A little analogy to conclude: there must be a lot of artists whose most popular works are not the ones they value themselves the most, or which took the most effort to produce.

I like the analogy. It is very true, and it even happened very frequently. It is no wonder it happens to me. Think of all the works artists wanted to be burned after their deaths and that got published posthumously anyhow and people loved it. I remember learning that Schubert was irritated that the work he considered his best wasn't his best received at the time by his audience.


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Are chess learning tools on topic?
I am an old SO/SE contributor, but new on chess.SE, so please pardon my question.
I just posted:
More visual display of possible moves in opening explorers / databases
but it was closed as "opinion-based".
This is quite strange because, by definition, discussions and advice about chess positions/games (>50% of the content on this site?) is highly subject to subjective interpretation ("this is a good move", etc.)
I am maybe sad because I spent 30 minute writing the question and doing a mockup graphic, and I really thought it could be interesting for many learning situations, but more generally:
Are questions about chess learning tools on topic for this site?

how would it be possible (either with this website or another) to see it like this

and

It would be great to visualize in the blink of an eye the top-4 options for a given position in an opening

both invite discussion about hypothetical feature requests for other platforms.
This is not a discussion site.
It is also not a support site for other sites. Make your feature requests and suggestions directly to those sites not this one. Your question could equally have been closed for being off topic.
Feature requests for this (Chess) site, if that is what you want to do, belong on Chess Meta not the the main Chess forum.

Thank you for your input. There could be a helpful answer like "Yes, this well-known open-source software XYZ does this visualization, and it is useful for opening learners", so there are potential answers on-topic. It's not only about websites.


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How should we serve users who cannot access images?
Suppose we accept that images are allowed, at least sometimes, as discussed in Whether or not images instead of FEN/PGN are allowed. Now the question is: How should we serve users who cannot access these images?
This seems to have been covered already in Editing Help:

The word in square brackets is the alt text, which gets displayed if the browser can't show the image. Be sure to include meaningful alt text for screen-reading software.

But users rarely (if ever) comply with this advice. And it is hard for them to do so, even when they want to. Whether or not images instead of FEN/PGN are allowed gives examples of where images are useful, all of which involve chess positions. What is a “meaningful alt text” for a chess position?
Does this question have a good answer, or do we need to rethink our policy on images?

Yes, I'm guilty of not adding alt texts most of the time (not here, I mean across the network).
As said in the question you linked to, feel free to convert an image of a chess position to the built-in PGN viewer if that does not constitute a loss of information. If it does, the FEN may be a meaningful alt text (if it's not elsewhere in the post already). Perhaps with additional information like "White's last move was Nf3-e5". Alt texts like "position under analysis" aren't helpful, that can most of the times be deducted from where the image appears in the post.
As with all edits, they bump the posts to the homepage, so be careful not to make too many at the same time (3 per day is a good rule of thumb).

This answer does not really clear things up, and makes me question again why we would use images in the first place. Why not just include the extra information as plain text next to (above or below) the FEN viewer?


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Questions Tagged Puzzles - Bounty Immediately
Is it possible to enable bounties on questions tagged puzzles to be set immediately?
eg; I post a puzzle and then set a bounty on it immediately after posting?
How do people feel about this as a "Feature"?

This is not possible, and I doubt the company would enable it. It's simply not what bounties are meant for:

When should I place a bounty?
In order to get good answers, you have to put effort into the question. Edit the question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer the question. This will naturally bump the question and get more people interested in it.
However, if after doing this, you feel a particular question still isn't getting enough attention, adding a bounty may help.

On our sister site Puzzling Stack Exchange, users usually post hints if a puzzle isn't solved within two days, and seldom resort to bounties.
Also, posting a bounty on new question doesn't mean much in terms of visibility; right now, the homepage covers almost a week of activity (when set to the maximum of 50 questions) or almost two days (when using the default).

thank for the prompt response. I thought as much based off my experience with other subcommunities :D


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Would chess variant identity questions be on topic?
On boardgamegeek someone thrifted a copy of a chess set that is unusual. Most of us cannot nail down what it is. To be fair it is possible it isn't even chess but it really looks like it could be one. I would be able to provide pictures and piece breakdowns.
Would a question like this on the main site be viable/on-topic?
If on topic I will make a proper question in main as to not distract the purpose of this meta question. If off-topic I will take it to chat although that looks to be not too busy.

Link to the BGG post if you dare: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/276021/item/7825120#item7825120

Since you have some doubts already if it's really a chess variant, I propose you ask this question on our sister site Board & Card Games. They have an [identify-this-game] tag which is quite popular (and successful). And if does turn out to be a chess variant, well, they do not exclude chess from their scope.

One of the answers I expected. I will give it a shot over there. Wonder how many folks here are also on that stack.


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Integrating a live Chess board
When I visited the chess section I am only seeing the PGN & FEN. To analyze the game properly I have to copy the PGN's and paste it into Lichess.org to visualize the board. The process is very cumbersome and many people do not love this process.
Why people are not integrating a chess board inside the app for instant visualization and evaluation of the positions?

Possible duplicate of Board in mobile app

That said, mobile app development is frozen.