text:
Diagram viewer bug: starting moves greater than 9 do not work
When a diagram is created using FENs, and one tries to add variations that continue from the given position, the viewer only works if the starting move number is between 1 to 9 (included). For instance, both following examples work: (when copy pasting these to test, make sure to have the 5 spaces before each line)
Using the mover number indicated in the FEN:
 [title "starting at a move number <10"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 7"]

 7.h3

Using any number as long as <10:
 [title "starting at a move number <10"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 7"]

 9.h3

However, as soon as the starting move is a 2-digit number it no longer renders the diagram, for instance:
 [title "starting at move number 10 or above"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 7"]

 10.h3

There has been related discussions before, e.g. here, but I haven't found any posts that pertain to this particular behaviour of the diagram viewer.

Is there possibly a workaround, other than using the full game PGN + [startply ""], to create a diagram with a starting move number greater than 9?
This may not ultimately be a bug, maybe the viewer is designed to only consider 1-digit starting move numbers, and fails to render when not satisfied. Maybe @Andrew knows more about this (?).

This part of the fen string "w Kq - 0 7" is copy and pasted between posts (not least by me) often without understanding what the different elements mean.
The "w" means it is white's move (and is important if adding moves)
The "Kq" means white can still legally castle king's side and black queen's side.
The "-" means en passant is not possible
The "0" means there have been zero moves since the last capture or pawn move (used for the 50 move rule) and
The "7" means that there have been 7 full moves.
That means that strictly speaking this fen should also not work and the fact that it is does is also a bug
 [title "starting at a move number <10"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 7"]

 9.h3

I have never come across the working part of the bug you report because when I have tried it I have always used a move start number greater than 9. The work around I use is to ignore the designated use of the full move counter and always code like this:
 [title "starting at a move number <10"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 1"]

 1.h3

It has the benefit of working while only offending the pedants and purists (like myself) who know what the stuff at the end of the fen string is supposed to mean.

You can just copy/paste the examples to recreate the bug for yourself, and make sure you get same output as I do. Yes starting the move number from 1. irrespective of the actual move number is what I had always done because of the described issue.


text:
Weirdly disappearing comments
Recently I've noticed some of my comments and exchanges under posts end up disappearing without any reason. What is happening? I reckon a moderator might be deleting them, or they are being randomly flagged, but these were neither part of an extended discussion, which typically get removed after a while, nor eligible for any of the common comment flags (such as being unkind, spam, etc).

Has anyone else experienced this? It would be nice to know at least why they are being so promptly deleted. I understand that sometimes when a comment has been addressed and therefore is no longer relevant, then it can be removed. But other times when it's praising a good answer, or suggesting an edit, or criticising something, it would be nice to not have them deleted, as after all it's mostly via comments that we discuss/communicate here in SE and form a cohesive community. Additionally, commented suggestions might also be useful for other and future readers that might also write questions or answers.

I think it would be helpful not to have comments aggressively removed if they are not part of extended discussions, nor mean-spirited. Moreover it's often difficult to judge if a comment is truly no longer relevant, so maybe, it might be best to simply leave them be.

I might have deleted some of them; especially when cleaning up large comment threads, it happens that I inadvertently delete the one that was worth keeping. Other comments might have been deleted because they contain certain keywords like 'thanks' or '+1', causing them to be deleted after a single comment flag by any user. There's no official list of those keywords (it varies per site) but you can find more information in this Meta Stack Exchange post and related topics.
It's worth keeping in mind that

Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer.

(emphasis mine)
and there are some guidelines about when and when not to comment:

When should I comment?
You should submit a comment if you want to:

Request clarification from the author;
Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).

When shouldn't I comment?
Comments are not recommended for any of the following:

Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, make or suggest an edit;

...

Compliments which do not add new information ("+1, great answer!"); instead, upvote it and pay it forward;

...

Secondary discussion or debating a controversial point; please use chat instead;

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Is it possible to consult site statistics somewhere to see its evolution with time?
I was wondering if I can find somewhere the temporal evolution of statistics on site usage (number of visits, answered question and the rest). I have been away for some time and the site seems quieter than it used to be. I was wondering if this is real or it was just me.

We recently launched the "access to site analytics" privilege, which lets you do just that.
On beta sites, this privilege is accessible to users with >= 5K reputation on the site (you can track your progress here) (it's raised to 25K afterwards).
There are quite a few users with 5K rep on Chess Stack Exchange. One of them might want to share some of this data with you!

According to this meta post and comment, the numbers on quantcast.com are accurate:

So trending upwards, now solidly above 2k uniques per day.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Deleted questions and answers because of unclear writing
Occasionally there are posts being flagged to close, the most recent one I can think of is this one, that appear to be so because of unclear writing. In their original form, these posts should be deleted and are rightfully flagged. However, the post is legitimate and the writer simply expressed himself in a poor way, changing the meaning of the post in an undesired manner that made it worthy of a flag.
The majority of the instances I encountered were posts flagged as off topic, usually because they are too broad, where the writer only intended to ask for a particular situation but ended up asking for multiple ones.
Besides editing the post after deletion, which would seem unpractical for both the website (since the post would need to be reopen) and the writer (since a legitimate doubt got shut down), is there a way to identify these posts and are there guidelines to deal with them?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
An idea to improve and help others
First of all - it's not a question, I'm not sure if I can make posts like this here (forgive me if I'm not supposed to) but let me explain. What I've been thinking recently is that we have so many chess-players or enthusiasts here. Most of us play chess online, a lot of people are asking for advices, analysis etc. Wouldn't it be great to create some kind of group @ one of chess platforms? We could organize weekly tournaments, analyze games live on chessboards, lots of stuff. Firstly chess.com came to my mind because many people are reffering to that site, it's mentioned frequently. What do you guys think? Would you mind creating new accounts with prefix like stack_? I think that we can spin it, we may grow fast and make it useful and helpful. Waiting for your calls!
Cheers!
p.s. I've just created my account called: stack_Justp0 . Feel free to add me, anyone!

I find this is a nice idea, but I would rather make a private group and let people in only if they have a chess SE account or something similar.


text:
Drawing arrows and coloring fields with a flipped board is broken
Normal orientation works:
[FEN ""]
[StartPly "2"]

1. e4 {[%draw arrow,e2,e4,red][%draw full,e1,green]}

Flipping sides doesn't move the drawings:
[FEN ""]
[Startflipped "1"]
[StartPly "2"]

1. e4 {[%draw arrow,e2,e4,red][%draw full,e1,green]}

Tested in Microsoft Edge 104.0.1293.54 and Firefox 103.0.2.

... I've been using the PGN viewer for six years, but this feature is completely new to me :)

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


text:
Are question about selling chess equipment on topic?
I own a payed 'lifetime' subscription to a popular chess playing site which I'd like to sell.
I want to ask on the main site what are the best places to sell chess stuff, in particular recommendations for selling my account. Since Ebay doesn't work for me, the question would point out that an ideal answer will offer some alternatives.
If the community decides it is on topic, I also want to ask what tags I should add to the question.
Below I leave a sketch (which might or might not be final depending on the answers/vote score to this meta question).

I own a payed 'lifetime' subscription to a popular chess playing site which I'd like to sell.
  What are the best e-commerce websites to sell chess stuff, in particular my account? Since Ebay doesn't work for me, an ideal answer will include other alternatives.

I do not think your question would be on topic. Some moderator should verify this, because I am not 100% sure...

@AlwaysLearningNewStuff I suspected so. In any case the general disinterest for this question on meta is possibly an indicator that it would be ignored on the main site too. I decided to assume it is off topic until contrary evidence. Thank you for your input.

Best regards, and god luck in selling your account...


text:
Why was the endgame post deleted 9 minutes ago?
Here's the post:
https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/35641/practical-endgame-resources-whats-next-after-josh-waitzkins-series-in-chess
I was just submitting an edit for re-opening after this close reason Why was my shogi question closed and then later re-opened? Who was wrong, and why?. Then now what?

The post was deleted because the edits were simply trying to game the review queue.
It's not reasonable to expect site users to spend time and review questions after changing numbers.


text:
What is unclear here please?
Farmbitrage: Fixed starting rating for chess960 causes loophole to easily get 2000 rating?

Many of your questions have the same problem. You need to get to the point and keep your questions short and focused.
Find a way to express yourself without 12 separate sub-points, links to multiple YouTube videos, and linking to eleven different stackexchange questions. And don't waste words arguing against hypothetical answers you haven't seen yet. Your question should not be so long that it requires disclaimers about what parts of it are necessary or optional.
To be clear: it is not just the elaboration takes away from the focus and clarity of your questions. Your entire style is not focused on brevity and conciseness. The more you say, the less it is clear what aspects are important.

' short and focused' --> there is already an 'in short' there. If the elaboration is problematic, then why not ignore the elaboration?

@BCLC if you can make the question with the "in short" part, then you can get rid of the rest of it. Please remember that Stack Exchange's objective is not only answering the specific question a user is posing, but rather creating a repository of knowledge that can be useful for people reading your question and its answers in the future


text:
How is asking about the difference between 2 variants opinion-based?
Do chess960 and chess differ for reasons 'far beyond just opening theory'?
I'm simply asking what features of chess960 are there that make chess960 different from regular chess besides openings. I can't see how this is opinion-based anymore than asking the difference between eg 2 opening variations in regular chess. There's literally just the mathematical definitions of the pieces, how they move and their starting positions. I'm not asking if some positions are more 'beautiful' than others or something.

Actually, I'm taking this opportunity to follow-up on:

What is our criteria for deciding opinion-based questions? Are they applied consistently?

which is still unanswered. I actually had planned to make a whole other post on the matter. Afaik, the purpose of opinion-based is to avoid 'What's your favourite (...)?' kind of questions.
If you find this opinion-based, then I have a list of many more unclosed questions that are as well.
The main site post that started the above meta post is
Why is this question too opinion-based?
What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?
which was incorrectly closed by a moderator before 5 votes.

Unfortunately I make mistakes from time to time (read: often).
Looking back, I do not recall the specific reason the question struck me as opinion-based. I wish I could as I would explain it, even if I now don't see it the same way.
Reexamining the question, I think the question will essentially be soliciting Chess.SE opinions as I don't think most users have the chess skill to truly answer this question.  However, it also seems clear we can't be closing every question as opinion-based if there's not a super GM to answer it.
If I made a mistake on this one, please forgive.


text:
When I ask for motivations, what I really mean is an assumptions check
Why don't Hikaru, Fabi & Nepo buy out Liren so the 3 of them have a playoff to face Gukesh?
Like I already said:

It's most likely. 1 of my assumptions is wrong. I mean to ask which of the assumptions are wrong. However, if none of the assumptions are wrong, then I think this could be an answer like

None of the assumptions are wrong. Beyond this is speculation.

So what I'm really asking is eg

legality of the matter.
if Hikaru would be the runner-up instead of that there's a playoff

What's opinion-based about this? I find it very factual:

Is it legal?
What happens if ever?

Don't disguise your question about the rules as a question about motivations. If your question is as straightforward as you say it is, make that clear to us.
If you mean to ask if it is legal, just ask that.
That takes about two sentences, not seven hundred words and a dozen numbered assumptions.
The more you write, the more likely people are going to misunderstand you.


text:
Please consider reopening or otherwise give suggestions for improvement: Are the chessmaster lectures (insert antonym of outdated)?
Are the chessmaster lectures (insert antonym of outdated)?
There was only 1 question really mainly. 1 was a follow up of another and 1 was a side question. In any case I now literally have only 1 question mark in the body of the post.

This has been reopened. Thus the question is completed and accounted for.


text:
How can I make a chances question not opinion-based?
Perhaps this is different for sports / gaming SE sites, but I notice similar questions on say Law SE or Academia SE eg

Asking the chances of a particular legal strategy: Would it be / have been unhelpful for Hans Niemann to bring up Magnus Carlsen's own cheating?

Asking about the chances of a particular academic strategy: Is doing two PhDs a good path?

Asking about chances of admission: How can an undergrad from a country with little 'international' research improve his chances of being a "good fit" for a top PhD program?

Also, IMHO, there are some kind opinion-based questions...yeah like soft questions maybe

Does chess improve our intelligence?

Does playing gambits improve your tactical skills?

Does playing correspondence chess improve your game?

Should I switch to a different opening?

And then this question which is indeed close, but I'm not really sure is too different from the above Should I switch to a different opening?

Question: Given that I have a feeling my question isn't opinion-based or that I can somehow make my question not opinion-based. Or not really?
2022 WFRCC - Wesley So's chances and time control conversion

Why it might not be opinion based: You could answer something like

1

'Don't put too much weight on those 4 chess960 tournaments. More weight should be given to that Hikaru's peak rapid rating is only 1 point higher than Wesley So's. (Then again Magnus' peak rapid is at least 60 points higher than both Hikaru and Wesley So sooooo....) At lower time controls like fast rapid, chess is not that much different from chess960.'

The thing is the weighting of the chess960 tournaments vs the weighting of the peak rapid chess ratings is ... objective I believe. Subjective would be like 'Is fast rapid chess960 more fun than slow rapid chess960?' But I believe experience of following chess or chess960 should mean that people can decide which data is more important and even how much more important.
2
You could also answer that 25-for-30 + 5min+5sec increment is not so far from 45-for-40 + 15min+0sec increment based on some historical precedent eg when the rapid WCC changed in 2012 from 25min to 15min, this was a 40% drop.

But if it is opinion-based, then maybe a different question I could ask is...oh say

If I were (working for or actually) an evil overlord of FIDE and wanted more sponsorship for chess960, then would I actually get more sponsorship with Magnus or Hikaru as champion, and are they more likely to win if I lower the time controls from 45 to 25 given Wesley So didn't do so well (again, palindrome acronym WSDDSW) ?

?

Using the phrase "do you think" or anything to that effect may send the wrong message.

Don't focus so much on the specific close reason but more on the fact that the questions are being closed.
Ultimately, the linked question is not very good.  It's way too long and doesn't get to the point succinctly.
If the question was instead something like this:

Would So benefit more than other players from a longer time control for the FRC world championship?

With perhaps one or two sentences giving his blitz and standard ratings, the question would have a much higher likelihood of success.
Asking a question shouldn't be a place to share your research - if you already have an answer or know all of the information, then a blog post or maybe a community wiki post would be better.


text:
Question is about Kramnik Topalov how come there's an answer in general?
How do Kramnik and Topalov indicate a resignation when they play together?
The question:

Which raises the question - how do they go about resigning when playing each other without creating confusion about their intention?

There's no indication that I see that asks how players in general do this.
How is one allowed to answer in generally eg

Knocking over your king has always been a perfectly acceptable way of resigning.

?

I am not sure what you are trying to ask here.

Technically, the question says:

how do they go about resigning when playing each other without creating confusion about their intention?

and not (what the answer is implying):

how could they go about resigning when playing each other without creating confusion about their intention?

Still, that's so close to the original; what harm does it cause to leave the answer like it is? The score says enough: the other answer is much better. And we don't edit out the bottom half of it because it asks and answers another different question.


text:
Please give suggestions to improve question on data hunting for titles further
Ok fine, how do I answer questions like records for youngest to obtain a certain title?
6 downvotes in 4 hours. that's gotta be a record.
Anyway so far I just cut down the non-IM stuff and highlighted the 2 parts of background and questions.

A few things about this question:

"Ok, fine" in the question title.
it contains 2 questions: where to find data and how to analyze it.
here, you have been suggested to use the FIDE ratings database, which is a reasonable suggestion. In the comments section, you elaborated a bit why this is an incomplete source of data. There is no explanation and mentioning of these efforts in the question we are currently discussing. Currently, this question shows a lack of research and lack of the information\limitations that were already discussed.
Before you posted 10+ questions on big lists which were mostly downvoted and are generally very frowned upon on Stack Exchange network. Now we have 10+ of the old question +1 new. I am sure some "record-speed downvoting" comes from this frustration.

thanks. your bullet 1 is, imo, related to your bullet 4. do you see why (i would think so) ?

big lists are frowned upon? are you sure? https://mathoverflow.net/questions/401493/theorems-with-many-distinct-proofs

@BCLC you left out "generally". I specifically placed it in. Moreover, this is community-dependent.

@BCLC my bullet number 1 is my bullet number 1. I prefer to avoid guessing games.

anyway, look the 'ok fine' is BECAUSE i already posted all those questions. what did you expect/did you think should be the case, that i don't acknowledge the previously posted questions? i could either not acknowledge or delete the old ones, but i don't see how i risk avoiding downvotes anyway. damned if i do, and damned if i don't, so i'd rather just acknowledge, so if i'm wrong then i'm wrong in a good way. it's kinda like the debate on giving to beggars vs giving to charities. i read somewhere like giving to beggars is like 'i could be wrong, but at least i'm wrong in a good way' idk

but anyway anyway back to the chess: as i said in comment above: what did you expect/did you think should be the case, that i don't acknowledge the previously posted questions?

The title should convey a short message about the question. "Ok fine" assumes that people know the history of the myriad of your questions. That should not be the case. Also, "ok fine" is a condescending phrase in my opinion, which I translate to myself as "ok, you wanted a question of this type -> here you are". I might be wrong in my interpretation, but I don't believe this serves well to the question itself at all.

Anton Menshov thanks for the insights. 1 - . "Ok fine" assumes that people know the history of the myriad of your questions. That should not be the case. --> but the downvotes suggest that they DO know right? also they will know the history when they read the post...? 2 - condescending --> really? i wanted to do like the opposite. like i'm surrendering to them. that i admit i was wrong. i thought it was pretty mature or humble of me. so what did you think i should do: delete the other questions and post this new one? don't delete and post this new one pretending the others don't exist?

i think the pretend option is pretty...like not genuine or something. idk.

@BCLC in this meta question, you asked about particular problems with this question. I answered them. If you have a different question, please, post a new meta-question.

what do you mean? my question is about your answer. am i forbidden to use comments to ask for clarifications?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Anton Menshov cannot chat anymore. my question about your answer was already given with those (1) and (2) above

@BCLC I certainly would support deleting those question and posting a more general one (very similar to the one you have done at the end, which probably can be edited to be clear and inclusive). Other options could include closing those questions yourself as duplicates.

doesn't seem to directly say anything about improving this particular post. seems you just want me to improve my overall approach by deleting/closing the other questions. for this particular post do you have anything to say re the (1) 'ok fine' and (2) the condescending?

@BCLC that is why I asked you for a separate new meta question and was against of continuing a discussion. You are asking questions about other posts in the comments.

@BCLC (1) whether they downvote or not does not make a difference. The question should be good on it's own. And "a history + personal feelings" should not really be part of it, particularly in the title. (2) you still keep editing and offering bounties your questions. I do not see the opposite. Thus, my view of it as condescending.

I also have a feeling of a discussion that does not lead to anything, that's why I offered chat originally. I am not sure I am willing to continue this anywhere in chat or on meta, as I feel that my feedback goes nowhere (which is fine), but I am not really willing to spend my time on it in this case.

On the Question:
Even though these questions are not "Duplicates" they are poorly structured and could be easily addressed as one questions. I can look past the data source , how to analyze aspect. Data without analysis is meaningless.
Sample Question
Is there a source for the list of FIDE titled players which contains the date of which they obtained their title?
Ideal critical data elements would be ;
 - Player Name
 - Date of Birth
 - Title
 - Date Title Obtained

Could even add on the end (if it is a concern)
FIDE publicly available records only appear to date back to YYYY.

On the likely hood of the question ever being answered accurately
I think its extremely unlikely these questions are going to be answered accurately. Chess records regarding titles, date obtained etc have historically been atrociously managed. Hasn't existed 100 years yet. In addition to this FIDE focus more on "Ratings" than titles with their statistics. This is further compounded by different time structures. Classical , Rapid , Blitz.
Given that FIDE statistics pre 1970 don't appear to be publicly available it seems extremely unlikely that other data sources out there have more complete records.
Final Thoughts
I understand that its frustrating that these questions have been poorly received. My suspicion on why this is the case is due to the "repetitiveness" of the questions primarily. The "Ok Fine" doesn't necessarily need for people to be aware of the history of your posts etc. It is a argumentative remark leading into the question. By default responses are going to be negative. When I first read the title my immediate thought was regardless of what follows "Ok Fine" I'm certainly not answering or assisting.
On downvoting. I think downvoting is generally a good indicator of the communities thoughts on the quality of a question. Granted we have a large number of "Is Position X better than Y...what is the outcome with 'perfect play'" sort of questions which personally irks me. These questions would be far better directed as "How to analyze the Following position". Teach a man to fish sort of stuff. Yet for some reason these questions don't receive similar response.

Yeah I'm rolling back that edit. It's a proverb. Not a political statement in gender.


text:
With what kind of tag can we describe knight vs bishop endgames?
(In some ways, this is a question about both chess stackex and chess/chess960 in general.)

Consider this post: Interesting knight vs bishop endgame
Question: what tag could possibly describe 1 knight vs 1 bishop endgame?
Some thoughts/observations:

There doesn't seem to be a specific tag for knight vs bishop or minor piece endgames in general. Closest I found is rook-and-minor-endgame.

While in lots of endgame courses, there are specific sections about knight vs bishop games, perhaps tags like knight-and-bishop-endgame, minor-endgame and even knight-vs-bishop-endgame aren't very good tags because these may include things that are like late middlegame or something.

To be fair, it's sad but lichess doesn't even have a tag like this (even though they have queen and rook endgame tag). I can't think of a way for lichess to do this though. If they did have like a knight-and-bishop-endgame or minor-piece-endgame tag, then probably there will be things like 2 knights vs 2 bishops or knight and bishop vs 2 bishops and then somehow these are like late middlegame or something (no rooks or queens but still counts as late middlegame? hmmm...) instead of the usual like 1 knight vs 1 bishop like you see in the josh waitzkin endgame series in chessmaster.

But we're humans not computers though. Lichess I guess will have difficulty to identify that it's exactly 1 knight vs exactly 1 bishop, but as humans I figure we can correctly tag posts that are just like 1 bishop vs 1 knight if we go for knight-vs-bishop-endgame

Both chess stackex and lichess have each of a knight endgame tag and a bishop endgame tag: knight-endgame, bishop-endgame, lichess bishop, lichess knight

Do we really need one?

@Herb well...'in lots of endgame courses, there are specific sections about knight vs bishop games,'

Potentially use End Game Table Base labelling eg NvB , NBQvBBRR etc
Dont think that it would be overly helpful though from a searching perspective though.

@Herb oh wait incomplete response. i meant to add however that lichess technically doesn't have a kind of tag like that either. eh


text:
When is it OK for somebody to delete a question they have asked?
With reference to this question when the OP answered a question, hit submit only to be told that the question had been deleted by the questioner while he was writing his answer.
Clearly there are situations where a question has gained enough answers, votes or maybe even been there for long enough that the OP cannot delete it. What are these criteria? Can they modified for Chess? (I'm guessing the answer is "No"). Should they be modified to make them stricter?

The way it works now is explained on Meta.SE:

You can't delete your own question if it:

has an answer with upvotes (even if that answer has a net zero or negative score)
has an accepted answer
has multiple answers (even if there are no upvotes)
has an answer with an awarded bounty
has at least one other question that is marked as a duplicate of your question

It seems unlikely that these criteria will be changed only for Chess, but the moderators and users with access to the moderator tools could decide to (vote to) undelete any question that has been deleted and they think is worth preserving. Recently deleted questions are accessible in the moderator tools. Keeping track of this is quite inconvenient though,but at least reacting to individual requests on Meta is possible.


text:
Acceptability of ChatGPT generated answers on Chess SE
Chess is different when it comes to forms of artificial intelligence. We use chess engines all the time (except when playing serious games) and using them to answer questions is so normal that it is more usual to make the excuse "I didn't use an engine" to highlight that any errors in presented analysis are human not silicon ones.
ChatGPT, however, is entirely different. The answers to chess questions are banal and useless. They are usually, at best, of the form "God, motherhood and apple pie are good". At their worst they are just silly and wrong. Here is one example in response to this question. Actually, that answer is just plain wrong and illustrates just how incompetent ChatGPT is when it comes to chess.
The overall site policy is given in this Meta post. It is that individual sites must decide their own specific policy as to whether such answers are acceptable but that in any case all such answers must include attribution to ChatGPT because they are not the author's own thoughts.
What do people think about this? Should we allow ChatGPT with attribution? Should we ban it? Should we allow in only certain special cases?
FWIW My view is to ban ChatGPT altogether while strongly encouraging the use of real chess-based artificial intelligence like Stockfish. LeelaZero, et al. Even GNUChess and Crafty.

Over-Meta reference: Is there a list of ChatGPT or other AI-related discussions and policies for our sites?

Does "banning LLM altogether" mean "banning verbatim reproduction of end-to-end LLM-generated answers", or does it cover other use cases that involve generation of the complete answer text by LLM as well? E.g. I could imagine someone answering a question based on their knowledge in bullet points, or in their native language, and then having an LLM turn this into a proper answer in English, maybe after discussing possible objections to their content with the LLM. I would expect that such workflows will often lead to better presentation and more factual answers than pure human generation.

Do not allow attributed ChatGPT answers for any questions
Vote up if you agree

What is wrong with reasonable human checked GPT answers. Like with humana nswers, user will quickl y be banned for posting nonsense

@Starshipisgoforlaunch Using ChatGPT to assist you is not a problem, but simply posting what it gives you is what is not what allowed. Crediting ChatGPT for helping fill in a few gaps in your otherwise human answer is at your discretion.

Allow attributed ChatGPT answers for all questions
Vote up if you agree

I personally think that ChatGPT generated answers should be allowed, but no copy-pasting. You must check it over and change it. Also, if it really similar you must attribute it, otherwise that is plagarism

Allow attributed ChatGPT answers for some questions only
Vote up if you agree and post a comment describing which type of questions to allow this


text:
2021: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2021, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Chess over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
6
11

Users destroyed³
7
0

Users deleted
1
0

Users contacted
9
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
416
301

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
88
116

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
133
83

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
136
46

Tasks reviewed⁴: First questions queue
73
42

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
409
151

Tasks reviewed⁴: First answers queue
64
69

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
227
298

Tags merged
1
0

Questions reopened
22
12

Questions protected
6
32

Questions migrated
1
0

Questions flagged⁵
34
129

Questions closed
236
30

Question flags handled⁵
121
40

Posts undeleted
3
18

Posts locked
0
18

Posts deleted⁶
211
317

Posts bumped
0
20

Comments undeleted
11
0

Comments flagged
595
424

Comments deleted⁷
3,594
714

Comment flags handled
913
106

Answers flagged
54
335

Answer flags handled
330
59

All comments on a post moved to chat
27
0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Chess without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2020: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2022! ^_^

I'm still not too familiar with the cogs of SE - does this contain the plain "Questions asked" and "Comments written"? It would be interesting for me how many questions didn't need actions.

We shall look forward to another year of sucess. Happy stat crunching over the course of 2022!


text:
Community Promotion Ads — 2020
You lost your “beta” label in 2019, so welcome to your very first edition of Community Promotion Ads, for the year of 2020!
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be shown.
Why do we have Community Promotion Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. For example, you might promote the following things:

interesting blogs
helpful resources on the subject matter
cool events or conferences
anything else your community would genuinely be interested in

The goal is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join.
Why do we reset the ads every year?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. We reset the ads once a year, every December.
The community promotion ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a year of exposure.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored.

All answers should be in the exact form of:
[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]

   [1]: http://image-url
   [2]: http://clickthrough-url

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.
The question must always be tagged with the magic community-ads tag. In addition to enabling the functionality of the advertisements, this tag also pre-fills the answer form with the above required form.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels, or double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF or PNG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Score Threshold
There is a minimum score threshold an answer must meet (currently 6) before it will be shown on the main site.
You can check out the ads that have met the threshold with basic click stats here.


text:
2023: a year in moderation

It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here might be aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks — folks like you. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference in ensuring Stack Exchange sites remain a valuable source of high-quality content on the web.
So as we say goodbye to 2023 (and January 2024… ahem) and move into 2024, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Chess over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community User¹
Community²

All comments on a post moved to chat
3
0
0

Answer flags handled
258
38
0

Answers flagged
44
81
166

Bounties canceled
0
0
0

Comment flags handled
282
26
4

Comments deleted⁸
521
3
331

Comments flagged
119
11
181

Comments undeleted
0
0
0

Escalations to the Community Manager team
1
0
0

Posts bumped
0
42
0

Posts deleted⁷
199
111
116

Posts locked
0
21
0

Posts undeleted
0
0
18

Posts unlocked
0
0
0

Question flags handled⁶
85
65
0

Questions closed
135
11
0

Questions flagged⁶
24
3
129

Questions merged
0
0
0

Questions migrated
0
0
0

Questions protected
1
5
6

Questions reopened
15
2
0

Questions unprotected
0
0
0

Revisions redacted
0
0
0

Tag highlight language set
0
0
0

Tag synonyms created
1
0
0

Tag synonyms proposed
1
0
0

Tags merged
1
0
0

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Close votes" queue
179
0
199

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First answers" queue
203
0
87

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First questions" queue
239
0
78

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Late answers" queue
132
0
35

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Low quality posts" queue
139
0
56

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Reopen votes" queue
36
0
44

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Suggested edits" queue
123
31
98

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Triage" queue
0
0
0

User banned from review
0
0
0

User review-bans lifted early
0
0
0

User suspensions lifted early
1
0
0

Users contacted
12
0
0

Users deleted
2
0
0

Users destroyed⁴
6
0
0

Users suspended³
8
13
0

Footnotes
¹ This refers to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² This refers to the membership of Chess without diamonds next to their names.
³ The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
⁴ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁵ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁶ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes). The community² can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
⁷ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁸ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2022: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2024! ^_^


text:
I received several downvotes on chess stack exchange without an obvious reason. What should I do?
On chess stack exchange, I recently received several downvotes without any reason I can think of.

What should I do ?

Should I flag the questions ? Ignore the downvotes ?
The problem with the latter is that many forums punish users for downvoted questions no matter of the reason why they are downvoted.

Actually posting here is probably the best thing to do, to bring it to the attention of moderators.

Downvotes should always be accompanied by a comment explaining why. If there isn't you should post a comment or make an edit asking for an explanation. The main problem then being that there is no way the downvoter will see your comment except by chance.
Perhaps downvoters should be automatically notified if a downvoted question/answer is edited?

The down vote reasons are given in the tool tip on the down arrow. If every voter would leave a comment, the comment list would become a mess very fast. Comment only if you have an actual request for clarification.

@toscho " If every voter would leave a comment, the comment list would become a mess very fast." Can you explain to me how you get from my "every downvoter" to your "every voter"? Does the phrase "strawman argument" mean anything to you?

I meant downvoters. :) These comments also tend to be rather … suggestive, attracting more down votes until the author loses any interest in fixing the post.

Downvoters do not need to defend themselves. Vote anonymity is a voter privilege, and this cannot simply be "revoked" only because your ego got hurt. (And if I see someone commenting on his own post that he thinks his answer has been unjustly downvoted, I usually downvote just for that.)

@TMM: Why would you downvote just because someone thinks their answer was unjustly downvoted? That just seems unnecessary and counterproductive, since the person commenting doesn't even know how they can improve, because they asked why they got downvoted.

First, assuming that the downvote was unjust is a sign of arrogance - as if your answer cannot be wrong, or that people cannot have valid reasons to disagree with what you said. Second, like I said, voters do not have to "justify" their actions, to you or to anyone else. Voting was intentionally made anonymous - otherwise they would have put a public list for each question/answer showing who voted up/down. (It is somewhat similar to Clinton calling Trump voters "deplorables" - it's just a bad idea to attack anyone who disagrees with you.)

@Qwerp-Derp And of course I won't downvote everyone who wants to know why he received a downvote, but in my experience these comments more often than not come in the form of such an a priori attack on the downvoter, without even knowing his/her motives.


text:
Your input is welcome for the Anniversary blog
Chess Stack Exchange is turning 10 years old this quarter, so it's time for a big party an entry in Stack Exchange's quarterly anniversary blog post! As you can see, we'll be getting a paragraph describing our site and community, together with one or a couple of interesting questions.
We (the moderators and staff) know you'll come up with some ideas about this; please post them as answers to this question, and vote on submissions by other users. To make voting easier, please nominate one interesting question per answer. Ideas for the paragraph are welcome as well, in a separate answer (which can be edited/commented on by other users). Otherwise I'll try to draft one in the coming week (and post it as an answer as well).

Paragraph idea

Chess
Many Stack Exchange users love a good game now and then, and it's no wonder that they regularly check out our community. We can help you improve both your gameplay and your self-made chess engine. If you're interested in the history, present or future of chess, visiting Chess Stack Exchange is definitely the right move.

(sorry, couldn't resist the puns ...)

Question idea
How has chess managed to remain a competitive sport despite engine dominance?
It's always good to see why your sport is still relevant, and there are various answers covering different aspects of the topic.

Question idea
What are examples of very aggressive openings?
Not only is this the most upvoted and second most viewed question on chess.SE, it gives people an idea of the "openings" in chess! (aggressive I might add) :)

Question idea
Fastest possible checkmate by en passant
A large part of the questions on our site is about puzzles, problems and records. This is one with a couple of good answers, with a 'definitive' answer and an answer to a natural extension of the question.

Question idea
With only the King left, how can you get a draw?
A lot of views, and an interesting element of chess.


text:
Out of date FIDE rating question/answers
There are many old questions about FIDE ratings that are now misleading.
If we edited them all, they would fill the front page for well over a week.
Many of them stil contains useful content, so a delete does not seem like an good option.
I don't know if this site has a system for locking/closing historical questions.

Care to share the links?

@SecretAgentMan 2 that I edited this week.  https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32673/why-was-initial-rating-of-fide-calculated-that-strangely  https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/39204/what-was-the-justification-for-calculations-of-fide-unrated-player-having-differ


text:
New FEN diagram changes?
I noticed diagrams seemed to have changed from gray and white to a much more vibrant tan and brown scheme as of today or so. What others change have been implemented, if any?


text:
How do you hide links within a few words or a phrase?
The question says it all as to what I want to know. I know it is possible, as I have seen a person edit my spot before to make it happen.

Based on your recent answer, it seems you want to add a link description. You can use the link markdown like
[Demonstration](https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/?m=e4_d5_exd5_Qxd5_Qh5_Qxa2_Qxh7_Qxa1_Qxh8_Qxb1_Qxg7_Qxb2_Qxg8_Qxc2_Qxf7_Kd8_Qxf8_Kd7_Qxe7_Kc6_Qxc7_Kd5_Qxc8_Qxc1_Ke2_Qxd2_Kf3_Qxf2_Kg4_Qxf1_Qxb8_Qxg1_Qxa8_Qxh1_Qxa7_Qxh2_Qxb7_Ke5_Qf3_Qxg2_Kh4_Qxf3_Kg5_Qg4_Kxg4)
to show the link as
Demonstration.

However, perhaps you might be interested in converting your external link chess diagram to replayer, our on-site chess diagram by copying the generated PGN and FEN as a code-block, like
[Event "Chessboard Editor at Apronus.com"]
[Site "https://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php"]
[Date "2019.02.28"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Qh5 Qxa2 4. Qxh7 Qxa1 5. Qxh8 Qxb1 6. Qxg7 Qxb2 7. Qxg8
Qxc2 8. Qxf7+ Kd8 9. Qxf8+ Kd7 10. Qxe7+ Kc6 11. Qxc7+ Kd5 12. Qxc8 Qxc1+ 13.
Ke2 Qxd2+ 14. Kf3 Qxf2+ 15. Kg4 Qxf1 16. Qxb8 Qxg1 17. Qxa8 Qxh1 18. Qxa7 Qxh2
19. Qxb7+ Ke5 20. Qf3 Qxg2+ 21. Kh4 Qxf3 22. Kg5 Qg4+ 23. Kxg4 *


text:
What is our stance on (arguably) unethical questions/answers?
In recent days, we have encountered two instances of postings with questionable moral content.
The first instance: a user uses an engine on a chess gambling and still loses, so asks how to better use the engine in the live games. While there is a definite ethical issue (unless for whatever reason the gambling site itself permits engine use), the question itself is on-topic. It could be reworded to be a fine neutral question (along the lines of "How exactly do some chess engines beat others?").
I would have edited it, but refrained from doing so under the StackExchange Acceptable Use Policy, which explicitly prohibits the use of the SE network for illegal purposes. I propose the topic therefore be deleted, and want to clarify that this should be our proper response moving forward.
The second instance is perhaps less clear-cut. A user suggests intentional, repeated early resignation as a solution for chess addiction (answer(s) deleted). This is, factually, a valid answer. However, it promotes undesirable behaviour elsewhere on the internet or in real life. While not illegal per se, this is behaviour that is against the Terms of Service of lichess.org, for instance (see Fair Play and Community Guidelines, point 2 on artificial rating manipulation.)
If this kind of relevant but morally dubious posting crops up again what should be our response (with justification)?

I would have edited it, but refrained from doing so under the
  StackExchange Acceptable Use Policy, which explicitly prohibits the
  use of the SE network for illegal purposes.

I understand that English may not be your first language, but what you have written makes no sense. Editing the post would not in itself have been illegal.
Secondly, the behaviour the OP is asking about is not illegal in the sense meant by StackExchange. The user doing what he does is not going to result in a legal case against StackExchange. Nor is answering the OPs question. The rules of other platforms are their business not the business of StackExchange. Those rules carry no independent legal weight.
To reiterate. This is what the StackExchange acceptable use policy states on the question of legality:

Illegal Use. Stack Exchange may not be used for illegal purposes. Examples of this include using Stack Exchange for fraudulent purposes or operating a phishing site (used to obtain account and password information).

That is very clear. I don't think I have ever seen anything on StackExchange which violates that. Certainly not the post in question.

A user suggests intentional, repeated early resignation as a solution
  for chess addiction (answer(s) deleted). This is, factually, a valid
  answer. However, it promotes undesirable behaviour elsewhere on the
  internet or in real life. While not illegal per se, this is behaviour
  that is against the Terms of Service of lichess.org, for instance

StackExchange does not set itself up as an international policeman. Its policies are designed to promote its best interest and with it the interests of its various communities within the law. Outwith those guidelines, which include respecting differences, it does not try and legislate thought and areas of ethics which may be individual.
Going further, there may very well be questions which you or I (or any of the other forum users) consider to be just plain stupid. StackExchange policy does not warrant that these posts be deleted.
There is a perfectly right and proper way for you to register your displeasure in these kinds of posts and that is to downvote. That should be enough. Adding disparaging or rude comments, while hard to resist, is not encouraged and should be avoided. There has been far too much of that recently.

English is my first language, thank you very much. Although I do sometimes suck at writing clearly. What I meant is that I would not edit the post to "hide" the unethical intent behind the question, which appeared to me to violate the SE Acceptable Use Policy. I don't quite grok the precise meaning of said policy either -- am I allowed to ask for explicit help developing malware on Stack Overflow, or tips on illegally overstaying a visa on Travel SE? It feels like the answer should be no, and it feels like the Acceptable Use Policy should come into force, but I don't know.


text:
About today's spam "rampage"
Today, a series of new users, whether by one person or many, spammed/is spamming a series of useless "answers," flooding the front page. Moving forward, what is going to be done about this and how can it be prevented/limited in the future? One idea I have, if it can be done, is to remove anything that is deleted from being labeled as "active."

what is going to be done about this

Your ever vigilant and trusty mods deleted them shortly after they appeared.

how can it be prevented/limited in the future?

It can't be prevented completely. New users can always answer unprotected questions. That is part of the attraction of StackExchange.
It can be mitigated by ordinary users flagging spam. The Community bot will sometimes do this in very very obvious cases and this time even went on to protect the question in question (if you see what I mean) after I had confirmed that the answer was spam and deleted it.
This is far from the first time this forum has been spammed. The fact that this is the first time you have noticed is a tribute to the vigilance of the mods.

It's worth noting that there is a project by the Stack Exchange community (not the company) for fighting spam across the network: Charcoal (disclaimer: I'm a member). Most of these posts were flagged automatically, which helps in drawing attention and only one of two other additional flags (either by us moderators, or by you!) are needed to remove the posts.
It never hurts to hop over to Charcoal HQ and ask if they already know about the spam wave.


text:
What should done about my mistake?
A while ago, I asked the question "How long can a player hold off a draw by the 50-move rule?" However, I forgot a crucial detail in that the prolonging side shouldn't be able to win at any time. Editing the question now would invalidate both answers. What should be done here? I feel that the question should be closed and a new one asked.

Editing the question now would invalidate both answers.

Exactly, thanks for taking that into consideration.

I feel that the question should be closed

Why? The question as posed seems to be on-topic.

and a new one asked.

I feel that's the way to go.


text:
Should different tag be used for questions that are essentially the same but with different move orders?
Say I would like to ask a question about black's options after

e4 e5
f4

I would tag my question as "king's gambit" (perhaps with other tags, depending on the question itself).
On the other hand, if I would like to ask the same question after

f4 e5
e4

I would still tag my question as "king's gambit", but I would also use the tag "bird's opening". The questions are essentially the same, the only difference is in move order. Furthermore, if I would like to attract attention from those users who are interested in bird's opening, I may even purposefully use this order and thus the tag "bird's opening" for the same queston. (Is it proper to do so?)
Another example, for

d4 d5
c4

I would tag "queen's gambit"; on the other hand, for

c4 d5
d4

I will also tag "english opening".
So should different tags be used for the same question if the move order is presented slightly differently?

In general to decide on the name of the opening used, you start at the end of the game and then work backwards; the first position with a well-recognized name is the one you use.
So unless your question is specifically about the move order 1.f4 e5 2.e4, that position is a King's Gambit and not a Bird Opening or From Gambit.
So no, the move order is irrelevant for what opening it is and should have no effect on the chosen tag.

Thanks! Then the name From's Gambit will cease to exist as the position is always named King's Gambit.

@Zuriel: No, 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 is still the normal From Gambit.

This is not an answer.

@JossieCalderon: the answer is basically No, added a line.

Essentially such a question would be about a certain position, which can be reached as a variation of multiple different openings. In such a case I see no harm in tagging it with more than one relevant opening tag.


text:
Is the site going inactive?
I know there are many questions daily, but as someone with the privilege of having access to review queues, this seems concerning. The review queues, whenever I check them, are always completely empty. Either Chess SE has very good quality questions, or the site is going inactive. Is Chess SE going inactive?

I would argue that the site is actually more active than it usually is. I have seen more questions asked for the past couple of weeks than I have seen an average (although the exact numbers may be subject to revision, as I am relying on memory here.) Heck, we had 5 questions on Sept. 25! That’s a lot for us by our standards!
I don’t think that the fact that you have seen few reviews can be used as definitive proof of the site being inactive. For one,  any review that there is gets snapped up very soon. Secondly, registered users with a few hundred reputation or so and higher are the ones asking most of the questions, and they know how to make a high quality posts. That overall rules out most review sections from even having a review. And with a vast pool of active editors such as I, users with 2k+ rep, suggested edits are less likely to appear (that and we are a smaller site.) It may also well be a slow income of new users currently, further restricting seen reviews. Finally, we do have EXTREMELY active mods (I spy a Brian Towers edit here, there, and everywhere!).
I welcome others to chime in with their thoughts and reasoning.

I can provide some information with SEDE queries.

Is Chess SE going inactive?

Not likely. If you look at the average number of questions per day, it's between 2 and 2.5, and (with some exceptions) it has been that for a long time:

The review queues, whenever I check them, are always completely empty.

This SEDE query indicates how many review tasks of each type are created each day. First Posts is our largest queue, but it only requires a single review. I see 10 different reviewers in the last six weeks, which I'm really happy about; together we share the load and keep the site healthy.


text:
Should the tag "Fischer" and the tag "Bobby-Fischer" be merged?
Here is the description of the tag "Fischer":
Robert J. Fischer (1943-2008) was an American grandmaster and world chess champion. At the height of his skills (1972) he was peerless. He was known for his meticulous preparation, deep understanding of the game, and mercurial temperament.
Here is the description of the tag "Bobby-Fischer":
Questions related to the American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (Robert James Fischer, 1943 – 2008), who became world champion in 1972 and never defended his title.
Am wondering if it is a good idea to combine these two tags.

You're completely right about this.
Given that most of the tags about players (e.g. kasparov, karpov, carlsen) only contain their last name, bobby-fischer should be synonymized into fischer. I've proposed a tag synonym here; now we need four users with score 5 or more in the [fischer] tag to approve the synonym, or a ♦ moderator.


text:
Do we want a reference question about the basic rules of chess?
So I noticed this question about the basic rules of chess has a (current) score of -3, but it has no close votes. I myself can't find an objective reason to close it based on the current standards.
Would it be good and on-topic to have a reference question on the essential rules of chess? How should we go about having an established question-and-answer?
Alternatively, do we expect that users coming to Chess.SE already have a basic understanding of chess rules?

So I noticed this question about the basic rules of chess has a
  (current) score of -3, but it has no close votes. I myself can't find
  an objective reason to close it based on the current standards.

I agree. I also can't find any objective reason to close it although I see that, perhaps based off this question, 3 people have voted to close it.
The reasons for downvoting a question are not the same as those for deleting it although clearly there is some correlation. If you hover over the down button the pop-up "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful" appears but "not useful" is not one of the reasons to delete. Nor is "does not show any research effort".

Would it be good and on-topic to have a reference question on the
  essential rules of chess?

My initial reaction was that people who come here should already know how to play chess but then after reflection I changed my mind. We should be more welcoming.

the "more welcoming" nonsense has done irreparable damage to the entire SE network over the past six months or so

Don't need one. This is not a place to teach people how to play the game from scratch. LQ questions draw in LQ users and LQ meta questions!


text:
Moderation bias against short answers
My answer to this question was removed by a moderator for no apparent reason. While brief, it provided the correct answer to the question. I'd like to know why it was removed. Could it be that there is a bias against shorter answers?

I'd agree that there is a bias, since I find short, comment like answers distasteful myself, but I do agree with you that moderator removal is not nessecarily the right answer.

@RewanDemontay I'd say that "size doesn't matter" in this case. If a question can be answered with a short, direct answer, then that answer is preferrable to an unnecessarely wordier one

Short, low quality answers are automatically flagged by the system. From there they go into a review queue. If two reviewers (or one mod) agree then the post is deleted.
Here is an example which is halfway to being deleted as you can see from the comments and the timeline.

How does the system determine if an answer is "low quality"? The example you link shows an answer (chess24.com) to a question (where to find certain type of videos?)


text:
Why are so many old question suddenly getting new low-quality answers?
For the last few weeks I've logged in to this community and seen time and time again a lot of already answered old questions in the front page that got a new unnecessary low-quality response. Are mods thinking of any plans to take measures?

I have now protected one of the many such questions. The only help I see right now is to go  through some of the old, highly upvoted questions and protect then.

@RewanDemontay that's not an old question, it's a HNQ which tends to attract bad answers sometimes. But note that protecting them prevents this answer; while not great (yet), it offers a unique example we'd otherwise miss.


text:
Non-duplicate question closed as such
I've recently seen regarding capitalizing on opponents not knowing their openings. As you can see, it was closed as a duplicate of What is a good way to learn opening theory. While it is true that some answers discussed the impracticality of the OP's approach to openings, which is related to the second question, the original intention of the OP was a very different one.
What is really disturbing to me is the fact that the people who voted to close the question did not even give an explanation or post a link to the "related question". I think this "first kill, then ask" approach is very bad for the site, so I would like to at least know the reasons why this question should be considered a duplicate if the only thing they have in common in being somewhat related to opening theory.
I've voted to reopen the question and I'd like to encourage you to do the same thing.

I think there is a point to be made for both sides here, but I tend to agree with @David, as the questions focuses on knowledge about learning to punish mistakes in the opening, rather than learning openings itself (which, I guess, incorporates learning this).
I was not able to find anything general about this topic (searchwords "punish, opening") - only questions about specific lines. While I cannot confidently state that the questions share no similarity, I think it (when specified to this) would make a valuable contribution to the ChessSE knowledgebase.
On a side note: I always advocate to incorporate new users as much as possible (hence why I tried to give some starting points in the comments). Getting your first question deleted after joining a site can be a slap in the face - even as it is not intended to go against you. If you do not know how SE works, how its culture works, it is quite hard to take this as the learning experience it can be - an not just say "Frick this site, I'm going somewhere else". I imagine this to be hard to balance with the general structure of the site, but I consider it important if we want to create a community that is somewhat open for newcomers.

I would like to at least know the reasons why this question should be
  considered a duplicate

From the question marked as duplicate:

what I struggle with is knowing what to do when my opponent plays a
  move that is not part of any studied line

This seems to be the nub of the question.
Now from the question which it is a duplicate of:

What's a good strategy to deal with my opponent suddenly going out of
  book or playing a novelty in an opening that I've memorized?

As you can see the OP is basically asking the same question.

Right, but that was only a tiny part of a "multi-question" that didn't receive much attention either. Apart from "learn the plans rather than the moves", there is not too much knowledge to be gained there.  I think there is a lot more to say about the topic, so I don't understand why I should be prevented from answering (and the OP from reading my answer)

I'm afraid I also don't understand. You are perfectly free to add an answer to the original question and I'm sure the OP is perfectly capable of reading it. What we want to avoid is answers to basically the same question scattered throughout the forum.

I think that question is a typical XY problem.

What is it?
The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem.
That is, you are trying to solve problem X, and you think solution Y would work, but instead of asking about X when you run into trouble, you ask about Y.

The author of the question thinks (Y) they can gain advantage from opponents not playing deep theoretical lines, but they can't (at least not at that level); they should concentrate on (X) how to learn opening theory as a beginner, which is something way different from learning long and deep lines.

What is really disturbing to me is the fact that the people who voted to close the question did not even give an explanation or post a link to the "related question".

A comment explaining the XY problem would be helpful here, that's true. The Stack Exchange system already provides a link to the original question, via the "Linked" widget in the sidebar and the banner above the question body, so posting another link is not necessary. (In fact, the first duplicate vote will automatically post a comment with a link to the question; the system automatically cleans it up when the question is actually closed as a duplicate. Then, the comment is just no longer useful.)

Well, if the user is interested about Y rather than X, then why shouldn't we discuss Y? A remark that maybe he should focus on X instead is useful, but that's one thing and closing his question is a very different one

There may be details in the text which could be better focused (editing is allowed) but the headline question is completely different from the alleged "duplicate". The main reason I don't come to this forum more often is I hate witnessing the frequent immoderate "moderation", particularly the bullying of newcomers. These poor folk won't come back: why should they, when they see the group tolerates the dogpile rejection and shaming of their first tentative forays here? And then people moan that we are still only Beta.
EDIT: I look at other forums: many of the questions are quite naive, yet are treated kindly. The gentle education of the original poster is the most important goal of such a thread. A broader benefit to other, future readers is then also likely, if this first task is properly executed. In the mean time, at least one person has been helped.

In my opinion, if some users puts on hold/closes a question that should not have been, they should be restricted from voting to close questions in the future

Well, that would prevent future closes that's are right. And that goes against the entire system of how all Stack Exchange sites work, @David. I would say that if a question is reopened, those who voted to close it can't vote to close it again as a fair compromise.

@RewanDemontay Maybe, but I still think that, if you vote to close 20 questions that are reopened, maybe you are not that qualified to determine what should or shouldn't be closed. I don't see why it goes against the Stack Exchange philosophy. (you need reputation to do certain things, maybe there should be an "answerer reputation" and a "moderation reputation"

I wouldn't go as far as @David to suggest restrictions on voters. And their original votes to close remain valid, so do not need to be recast as Rewan proposes

@RewanDemontay I would say that if a question is reopened, those who voted to close it can't vote to close it again as a fair compromise. That's already the case (except for ♦ moderators): Questions can go through multiple close and reopen cycles, but each individual user may cast at most one close and one reopen vote per question.

@David "if you vote to close 20 questions that are reopened" a user can only vote once and it needs 5 votes to close a question (unless they're mods, or gold-badgers for duplicate). If those 20 questions get closed and reopened, perhaps there's something unclear with the site policy? (In fact, it was a mod who closed that particular question)

The title is not part of the question. It is only a short synopsis that aids in finding the appropriate actual Q&A, which are placed in the body of all posts. This is an argument for understanding how SE works, not against closing questions as duplicate that are attempting to obtain the same answers.


text:
Replayer breaks when the first fullmove number is 10 or more
First fullmove number is 2:
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 2"]

2. Nf3

First fullmove number is 10:
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 10"]

10. Nf3

AFAICT, both of these should show the replayer, but only the former does.

That the replayer does not accept beyond 1 is a generally known fact.


text:
Replayer freezes the entire webpage
[fen ""]

1.  g4 f5 2.  gxf5 g5 3.  h4 g4 4.  h5 Kf7 5.  f6 Ke6 6.  fxe7 Kf6 7.  e8=Q g3 8.  Nf3 g2 9.  Rh4 g1=B 10.  a4 b5 11.  axb5 a6 12.  bxa6 Bb7 13.  axb7 Nc6 14.  bxa8=Q Qe7 15.  Qeb8 Qd6 16.  e4 Kg7 17.  e5 Qd5 18.  e6 Qe5+ 19.  Qe2 Qf6 20.  exd7 Qf7 21.  d8=Q Nce7 22.  Qdxc7 Nf6 23.  Qea6 Nfd5 24.  Qac8 Nf6 25.  Ne5 Ned5 26.  f4 Kg8 27.  Nc6 Ng4 28.  c4 Ne5 29.  fxe5 Qf6 30.  e6 Qf7 31.  e7 Qf6 32.  e8=Q Qf7 33.  Nd4 Qe7+ 34.  Kd1 Qf7 35.  Qea4 Qg7 36.  Q4a7 Qf7 37.  c5 Qe6 38.  Qd6 Qe7 39.  c6 Qf7 40.  c7 Qe7 41.  Qcb7 Qf7 42.  c8=Q Qe7 43.  Qdc7 Qf7 44.  Nf5 Nf6 45.  d4 Ne4 46.  d5 Bc5 47.  Ne7+ Kg7 48.  Bg5 Qg6 49.  Nc6+ Qf7 50.  Bd8 Nf6 51.  Re4 Nd7 52.  Re7 Kg8 53.  Rxd7 Kg7 54.  Ne7 Bb4 55.  Ra6 Ba3 56.  Rb6 Bc5 57.  Ba6 Ba3 58.  b4 Bb2 59.  b5 Ba3 60.  Nd2 Bb4 61.  Nb3 Qe6 62.  h6+ Kf7 63.  Kc2 Rg8 64.  Kd3 Rg7 65.  hxg7 Kf6 66.  g8=Q Ba3 67.  Qg1 h5 68.  Qgc5 h4 69.  Q5c6 Kf7 70.  Kd4 Qh6 71.  Nc5 Qf4+ 72.  Qxf4+ Kg7 73.  Qfd6 h3 74.  Qf4 h2 75.  Qxh2 Kf7 76.  Qhc7 Kg7 77.  Ke5 Kf7 78.  Kd6 Kf6 (1/2, 1/2).

The above replayer, from Open problems in chess involving maximum material imbalances, works fine up to 46.d5. If you try to advance it beyond that, to 46...Bc5, the entire webpage freezes up. I tested this in both Firefox and Chrome, on both macOS and Linux.

There's a bug because the bishop on f8 is pinned so the replayer can't figure out the legal move.  I think this is fixed in a later version, but I'll confirm whether or not that's the case.


text:
Is this an abuse of power? I believe it is
Moderator Brian Towers in response to the question "New Fritz 17 User" used the term "RTFM" as part of his original answer.

In the comments, a user called him out for using a profanity.
In response, he told the user something close to "he should get his eyes checked".
In response, I said that I have owned an IT company for 24 years now, and that the "F" is generally considered to the F-word", and said that if he Google it, it returns that as the first result.
He replied that "as a junior programmer" his "spinster" supervisor told him that it was "Read the flipping manual", but he did not edit his answer.
I responded that a "spinster" would not be likely to use profanity, but that it did not change what most people would take that to mean. There was absolutely no trolling, or abuse on my part. I did edit his answer to simply "Read the manual" at that point.
I then called him out on this second deletion, and he claimed it was a "vendetta" and trolling. Weak excuse to cover up his censorship.

Shortly after, he used his moderator powers to delete the conversation. I responded to that and left a message that I believed he abused his powers. He deleted that message too.
Sorry, but if you cannot be called out because you are a moderator, that is wrong. He abused his power to delete a conversation where he was simply in the wrong. There was no trolling or anything else going on there.
Moderation is not censorship, and does not give one the right to abuse the power. This is SO wrong!
What do you think?

P.S. I wonder if the moderators can restore the deleted comments so people can really see for themselves.

I can testify as being a witness to this comversation.

And Rewan, was I at all abusive? I just pointed out what it meant, and that the spinster was likely to clean it up, no?

You were perfectly nice.

Moderator behaviour is the most important factor to Stack Exchange success. Moderators set the leadership standards for the forums, and a high level of conduct is expected of them. if a moderator is having a bad day, they should maybe give chess.stackexchange a miss, rather than taking it out on the poor juniors here.

rtfm stands for read the FINE manual.  getting all bent out of shape over the usage of RTFM is just another example of bullying by those with too much power on stack exchange sites.

One of the great improvements in helping each other online of the last 20 years is the decline of RTFM.  In usenet or mailing list days I estimate it was a response to about half of the questions for technical groups.  I will not belong to a group where RTFM is common.

I'm a bit late, but related SE overall meta question: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8724/how-should-we-deal-with-google-questions

@MichaelWest Indeed... in fact, sometimes the best adjective for the manual might be "head scratching" and in such cases telling me to read the manual when I already have and still have the question is less than helpful.

Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct

Moderators should know it by heart. I don't mean to take sides here, but I see no reason for a moderator not to (try to) empathize. Moderators should not have the excuse of a bad day or the laziness of not writing clearly what they meant. "RTFM" is, at the very least, ambiguous. The interlocutors are not required to know what it means; they may even google it and find out an unintended meaning.
Even in the case of quickly having typed "RTFM", they had a simple and friendly solution at hand: edit the answer (regardless of what the initialism meant for them, and regardless of any abusive comments they might have received).
Writing "RTFM" (and standing by it) is comparable to writing “You could Google this in 5 seconds.”, cited in the Code of Conduct as unfriendly.

Arguably, RTFM is an even unfriendlier version of "You could Google this in 5 seconds"

Assuming the facts in question are undisputed, this is quite clearly a character fault on Brian's part. However, it is not an abuse of power. This may be confusing, but let me explain.
For a moment, let's set aside Daniel's (valid) point that RTFM is akin to "You could Google this in 5 seconds" which is against the code of conduct.
As a moderator, you will be exposed to people who view the world through a different lens than you, and you should defer to the least objectionable lens when possible. Thus, it does not matter if, for example, you've learned that RTFM is not rude or profane. But if others feel it is, then you should defer to that. If there were literally no other way to express the view, then perhaps it would be up for debate. But since clearly there are other ways to express the view without introducing profanity, there's no need to "stand your ground" on the issue. "Oh, I learned it different, my bad!" is a gracious way to exit, or just simply deleting your comment and the other comment is a less gracious but actually acceptable way to go about it.
The reason it isn't an abuse of power is that comments can be deleted at any time, for any reason, and we should never get emotionally attached to them. They are footprints in the sand, and we can expect weather closer to Mars than the Moon. They can and will disappear, and it doesn't really matter why.
So implying that it's too simple of a question is a CoC violation. Standing ground when called out is a character fault. And I believe that, everyone being adults, we can find a solution and move on. But from a moderator abuse perspective, I'd hesitate to call it an abuse of power simply because comments are so fragile. This is speaking from my 8 years as an SE moderator (wow time flies...)

The problem is that he was informed of the primary, and profane, meaning, and given proof. He chose to delete the conversation instead. When you are a moderator, just because you can, and have the power, when it is something that makes you look bad, it is wrong.

That is, unfortunately, irrelevant. The truth is they distract from the question and should be removed. So he took the correct action for the wrong reason. So you did the absolute right thing to bring the discussion to meta.

You will never get me to agree that he was right, morally, or "legally". I disagree that it is irrelevant.

Besides the discussion around comments, did I understand correctly that PhishMaster edited the answer to "Read the manual"? In that case, it is not a comment what was deleted, but an edit to an answer, and it is not as easily justifiable.

@DanielAlfredoSottile Moderators do not have the power to remove edits. There is a redaction power that can alter a question or answer's edit history but a single moderator cannot exercise that power. A redaction request creates a flag that a second moderator must approve. I find it highly unlikely that a second moderator would approve such a redaction. If it was just an edit, that would clearly be shown in the edit log, which one can debate as a separate point.

The use of RTFM isn't necessarily profane or rude; it depends on the context. I sometimes use it at the office (spoken language, and just the initialism, not the words); everybody knows what it's supposed to mean, but when used in the appropriate situation, especially with non-verbal cues, nobody takes offense.
That said, I can imagine there are people who do find it inappropriate for a Q&A site like Stack Exchange. The solution is simple: edit the post:

When should I edit posts?
Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so.

You should respect the original intent of the author (see the sidebar widget on the edit page), but changing 'RTFM' to 'Read the manual' does so. And that is exactly what happened.
Now, regarding the deletion of comments: they are by nature [temporary] (https://chess.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment); once they've served their purpose, they're noise and may be cleaned up.

What are comments?
Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer.

There are simply too many comments on the site to clean up the ones which are no longer needed, but when it happens, please don't assume censorship. Also, they're not meant to hold a discussion:

When should I comment?
You should submit a comment if you want to:

Request clarification from the author;
Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).

Constructive criticism could here be "please change RTFM to something which is less likely to offend users" but it's easier just to edit the post directly; most active users here have enough reputation to do so. Discussions should be held on Meta (this question is a good example) or in chat. Therefore, I'm going to clean up the remaining comments as well.

Sounds like excuses to me. It was a normal back-and-forth that has been in MANY other conversations, and he deleted what he didn't like because it did not agree with him. Most comment do not get deleted ever. And, sorry, you are wrong. The most common and accepted definition is a profanity. That is like saying "WTF" is not a profanity.

I also have serious questions as to whether I will get a fair shake from the moderation team. You guys have been together for too long, and are tight. It is like trying to get cops to so anything about other cops.

Too long? Brian and I have been elected six months ago. We're not tight; I'm just trying to keep peace here. Hopefully everybody learns from this episode and the best course of action is just to move on. Having a bunch of comments deleted over a different interpretation isn't the end of the world.

You have both been on here for years,  even if not as moderators. Maybe the best course of action in to simply never delete comments unless the are unequivocally over the line, and abusive.

Deleting stuff is wrong

What makes a post 'better' is very subjective. There are some who go around making trivial changes just because they can.

@Laska On stack exchange, deleting comments is very, very rarely wrong. They are dust in the wind.

@PhishMaster "Maybe the best course of action in to simply never delete comments unless the are unequivocally over the line, and abusive" is not Stack Exchange's policy, and you're not going to be able to change it. You don't have a leg to stand on there, and continuing to focus on the deletion is diminishing the strength of the rest of your argument.


text:
Illegal rook move?
While typing out a replayer example game for What are the most possible total pawn captures for a game?, I came across the following rook move that is seemingly not allowed, 14. Rc6
[FEN ""]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nd5 Nd4 4. Ne5 Ne4 5. Nb6 Nb3 6. Ng6 Ng3 7. axb3 axb6 8. hxg3 hxg6 9. Ra4 Rh5 10. Rf4 Rc5 11. Rf6 Rc3 12. Rh4 Ra5 13. Rc4 Rf5 14. Rc6

But moving it one square shorter seems to be allowed
[FEN ""]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nd5 Nd4 4. Ne5 Ne4 5. Nb6 Nb3 6. Ng6 Ng3 7. axb3 axb6 8. hxg3 hxg6 9. Ra4 Rh5 10. Rf4 Rc5 11. Rf6 Rc3 12. Rh4 Ra5 13. Rc4 Rf5 14. Rc5

I can't manage to figure out why moving the rook to c6 is not allowed.

It's white's turn
A white rook is standing on c4, no piece is on c5 or c6.
Neither king is in check, or gets checked by the move.
Castling, en passant, insufficient material, or the 50 move rule do not seem to apply.

What am I missing?

The move is illegal because it is not specified which rook moves to c6 in the notation. You have to add the rank or file from which the rook comes from. Adding in extra "c", for the c-file rook, fixes the problem.
[FEN ""]
[startply "26"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nd5 Nd4 4. Ne5 Ne4 5. Nb6 Nb3 6. Ng6 Ng3 7. axb3 axb6 8. hxg3 hxg6 9. Ra4 Rh5 10. Rf4 Rc5 11. Rf6 Rc3 12. Rh4 Ra5 13. Rc4 Rf5 14. Rcc6

Sometimes the solution is so easy when you know it...


text:
Copy/paste games from Chess StackExchange to lichess.org
When I encounter an interesting question on Chess StackExchange, I would like to import that game to http://lichess.org, to be able to analyze it with Stockfish. When I use the "Copy game" option (for example from this question) and paste that PGN into https://lichess.org/paste, it does not work (I get an empty board).
It seems that the problem is the [FEN ""] tag: if I remove it, it works. If I replace that tag with [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"], it also works.
Is this a bug in lichess or in stackexchange? In other words, is the empty string a valid FEN position?

Is this a bug in lichess or in stackexchange?

That's an easy one. The answer is "No".
The StackExchange replayer works with [FEN ""] as per StackExchange spec, so that is certainly not a bug. As for whether it is a bug in Lichess, I doubt it very much. Surprisingly as it may seem there is no requirement for your requirements for how these things should work in your opinion to be reflected in the way the different organizations implement their own requirements.

I would expect that those requirements are based on some standards. I asked whether the [FEN ""] tag is a valid FEN position, according to the FEN standard. I have looked in the https://ia802908.us.archive.org/26/items/pgn-standard-1994-03-12/PGN_standard_1994-03-12.txt page and I don't find any mention that says that an empty FEN string would represent the starting position. I also looked in https://www.chessprogramming.org/Forsyth-Edwards_Notation. Do you have access to the StackExchange replayer specifications? Did you find there any mention about an empty FEN string?


text:
Editing Questions for more inclusive language
There were suggested edits to the following question.
What is the status for EIGHT man endgame tablebases?
The edits were to replace "man" with "piece". The reason for the edit "change to inclusive language". This isn't the first time this has occured there are often edits for gender neutral language.
These edits are the only edits, otherwise the question remains unchanged, and these edits aren't improving the quality of the overall question in most cases. In some cases it actually detracts from the question as it confuses technical term.
My question is what are the community expectations on edits for inclusive purposes only, is there a moderation standards that exist ? Generally speaking I am all for more inclusive language when it's appropriate.
I'm curious of people's thoughts

In this can, piece is the more accurate word to use as is.

Generally feel the same. I see the general vernacular has changed and I missed the memo.i have only ever known them as N-Man Tablebases

I should preface this by saying this isn't some "anti-woke PC" rant. I just prefer the technical names. I declined the edits in said post on the grounds that I believe that the terminology in the edit was incorrect. I'd be most curious on the mods stance though.

It seems this user has made a habit of this.   Some of these edits are trivial, require reviewer time, etc., the hallmarks of edits that are best made when one is 2k+.

"Piece" unambiguously excludes pawns; "unit" unambiguously includes pieces and pawns. What is the problem with replacing "man" with whichever unambiguous noun is appropriate to the question?

Possible duplicate of: Is it acceptable to edit a post just to change the pronouns?

"Chess men" is still standard terminology I believe, if less popular than "chess piece". "Piece" can be a little ambiguous since it can refer to non-pawns or just minor pieces. On the other hand, you could argue while the chess army would be mostly men, the queen is a clear exception.
I find such minor edits to be unhelpful. Maybe this is an interesting question on terminology for the main site. Some tech organizations have changed "whitelist" and "blacklist" to "allowlist" and "blocklist", but these are not industry standard terms.

The wiki page on editing questions or answers states:

Edits should be substantial, leaving the post better as a result.
Common reasons for making edits include:

Fixing grammar and spelling mistakes.
Clarifying the meaning of the post (without changing that meaning).
Ensuring the post includes all relevant information by including additional information found only in its comments.
Correcting minor mistakes or adding updates as the post ages.
Adding related resources or hyperlinks.

The ONLY one that even peripherally fits is "adding updates as the post ages", but in this case nothing has changed except societal perception of gender usage and preferred pronouns.
As Shog has said, what is the spirit of the rule? To actively improve the post. I would argue that while it is currently the trend towards neutralization and pronouns, these edits are not actively improving the posts in question. I would probably have declined the edit on that basis as well.

Please do not use codeblocks for anything that is not actual code. Quoteblocks explicitly exist for a reason.


text:
Submitting multiple answers to a puzzle question
For puzzle questions / construction challenges like this one: Longest sequence of moves where number of available moves increases
one may first come up with an initial answer and then later come up with an improved, better solution. What is the correct way to do this in practice? I presume if I added a third yet improved answer that would be quite spammy, so is it correct to instead edit my second post to include the better solution (at the top, or at the bottom)? Should I have already done that for the first post?
(also, is this the correct place for this sort of question?)

If the second answer is an extension or minor modification of the first answer then I think it should be an edit.
If the two answers use different approaches then I think there is value in having two answers to preserve the different approaches to the problem.

Not sure why this is being downvoted. As a resident challenge taker, I often re-edit my posts if I find errors or extensions, sometimes multiple times in one day if needed.

@RewanDemontay Probably downvoting the man not the ball, to borrow from football. Downvoting answers on meta is free.

@RewanDemontay voting on Meta works differently.  Users often downvote to express disagreement with a post. One shouldn't presume a Meta downvote is about the person, though that is possible.


text:
The Pgn reader controls are far down the page
When accessing the website on mobile, I find that the pgn controls are far down the page and it takes a second to scroll down, meaning that I can’t go through the moves while viewing the moves. I instead must press ‘next’, scroll all the way up to see what happened, then scroll all the way down to do it again.

I have the same issue!

If you can click on a computer, you can click on the first move and use your arrow keys.

I mentioned that I’m on mobile.

@fartgeek My bad.

I proposed replacing the current PGN viewer with something less buggy since it doesn't seem like the current viewer is being maintained.
Proposal: replace current PGN viewer


text:
Where is the line on opinion-based and discursive questions?
Sometimes I encounter the closure of threads like
Illustrative puzzles of chess themes
Now I certainly agree with this closure in line with practice elsewhere on SE. But what about threads like this:
How do I spend my time on chess in boring meetings?
Aren't these equally discursive and subjective? I refer to 'threads' rather than questions because, to be honest, both strike me as open invitations to discussion, without the sort of carefully defined parameters that are usually called for on other SEs.
How do we draw the line and distinguish the kind of question that belongs here from one that doesn't?

Good question! If you ask me: the first question could have dozens of equally valid answers. The second one is narrower in scope, so I voted to reopen it (along with three other community members). But I can see why people would vote to close it as well.

@Glorfindel I can't agree there: the first is at least interesting and properly researched, if too open-ended for SE.  The second is equally open-ended (not so much as a specific area of chess the user wants to work on in meetings is specified) but has the added deficit of not being even being about chess in any strict earnest way. (You can swap out "chess" for "tetris" and leave the question almost unchanged to solicit ideas how to spend time in meetings playing tetris.)

Citing community opinion is one thing but we need to figure out some principles here so that people don't end up voting antisocially - in other words, knowing how to vote properly is important: these don't strike me as borderline cases, where we could debate particulars, but clear closures on most SEs - if for some reason (such as welcoming new users) we need a different protocol, we need guidelines to implement it equitably across all posts. As things stand I have to wonder for instance whether, were the users' reputations swapped, the verdicts on their posts would also have been opposite.

Where the line is is a matter of opinion!  Sometimes it seems that a question is inviting opinion based answers but the answers have specifics and example games are not so opinion based.  I am sorry to see those closed.  I didn't find an example just now so didn't write an answer.


text:
Chess Stack Exchange web page not loading correctly
Whenever I go to the Chess Stack Exchange web page, it looks like this:

I've done my time on stack overflow, and if I had to guess, I'd say the CSS is not loading correctly, but I don't know why.

Yeah, that's a lack of CSS. There's nothing wrong with the site, it must be something on your end. Try emptying your cache. Perhaps your browser tools will tell you why it doesn't load? How do other sites on the stackexchange.com domain look like?

@Glorfindel No just chess, I restarted and its seems OK, but the thing is that this is not the first time this has happened, it randomly loads like this and I have to restart my computer, but I suppose its just a inconvenience