text:
Specify complete piece name in posts
After this post https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1583/king-bishop-and-knight-versus-king got closed as an exact duplicate, I began wondering if we could establish a community guideline to avoid writing piece abbreviations (K, Q, B, N, R) in the title, and instead specify the complete piece name.
You see, I expected that the above question had been already asked and searched for it before asking the question. Since the other post did not appear in the search results, I thought I could ask the question. If the other post had expanded "K B N" in the title, I think it would have appeared in the search results.
Let me emphasise I am not "upset" at my question being closed and I do not intend to "blame" the person who made the other post. (In other words, this is not a rant post.) I found the answer to my question (which is more important), but it would have saved time if I had found the post in the search.
By the way, I did search for this topic here on meta using a variety of keywords, and did not find anything, so I hope this post does not get closed as a duplicate too. :)

Sounds like a good idea.

I'd add that as a non native speaker, noting games with other letters, seeing such letters almost never help me understanding what is the post about (I mean I could work it out, but I'd rather not read the post, in fact). Sadly, I can't up-rep you for having such a good idea. Oh wait I can.

I actually did this with the question that was a duplicate.

What about replacing them by their corresponding beautiful Unicode forms ?

♜♞♝♚♛♟
  ♖♘♗♕♔♙

Granted it's a single character, I think as small as these are, they're still understandeable with greater ease, especially for beginners. I mean, kNight, really ?
Either way, I think a script automatically replacing them would be better than a best practice.

Thanks for your answer. An automatic script is even better than what I suggested. I did not know it was possible. Regarding replacing with Unicode, I am sorry to say but either you are missing my point, or I am missing yours. It would be even harder to search. The other problem is when you want to refer to a chess piece generically ("two pawns", for example). You only have unicode symbols for a "white pawn" or "black pawn". Not trying to shoot down your idea, but trying to think of potential problems which have to be addressed.

Yeah, I agree my answer is not adressing the problems you raise. It's really more of an extended comment being open to downvotes. It mostly raises the fact that where we have (or keep) single-letters, Unicode could be a nice replacement. Maybe that belongs to another post that'd be heavily related. It does adress the understandability issue, and may be an option if your idea is rejected because we want to keep titles short, or something (not that I'd support such a rejection, mind you).

Ah I see, fair point. So looks like the problem is more complicated than what I originally thought.

"N" is used to avoid the archaic and awkward construction "Kt". ;) Using the Unicode symbols as a pictorial aid in posts seems like a fine idea. I really wouldn't want them automatically replacing the single characters, but perhaps an option to automatically insert them could work. (It needs to be optional, or else copy/paste on PGN in posts would get annoying.)

@NikanaReklawyks I like the idea of potentially using pieces in the body of an answer/question, but the titles are text-only, so spelling out the piece names at least there is probably best.
Additionally, the unicode pieces aren't necessarily friendly to search engines...

@Andrew: Apart from the very good search engines argument, I don't see what you mean by "text-only". In what sense is Unicode not text?

@NikanaReklawyks I simply meant that most people when searching will enter "knight and bishop mate" or something like that as opposed to " and  mate", although for all I know google is smart enough to figure it out automatically....

No, it currently isn't. "[Unicode piece] mate" simply strips the Unicode and searches on "Mate", while "[Unicode piece] checkmate" comes up with rather seedy results relating to life investigations. As to Unicode, is it possible we could put the Unicode representations into the appropriate tags as images? Stackoverflow's Android and Facebook tags both have a logo, after all.

N = knight.  Yeah, because K is reserved for King :-P  In English, we have the same problem when people abbreaviate days of the week = Tuesday is abbreviated to T and Thursday becomes R!  I like the Unicode chess symbols but wouldn't know how to type them and probably could not remember them.  Looks like spelling names out in titles is the best overall.

@TonyEnnis: I copy/paste everytime (after making them easily accessible on my system). Thursday = Th, I would have guessed ? (In French we have Ma and Me for mardi and mercredi, tuesday and wednesday.)

Sometimes the abbreviations are to make the words fit into small spaces, only one letter can be used.  Regardless of whether we think it is a good idea, it is common practice.  By the way, your posts are full of little square boxes:   what are these?

@TonyEnnis: Narrow no-break spaces, used in French typography — for some reason detailed here, which I see no reason to restrict to French ! Here should give you some hints if you see them as squares. I sure agree with having to live with common practices, as long as I can use what I found best practices ;·)


text:
How to insert move comments in the replayer
I am unable to figure out how to put move comments into the PGN file here. I have tried putting them within {  } after the move, but they get ignored. I also looked at the games posted by others, but none seem to have comments.
Does the replayer here does not support comments? The discussion here How do I add a replayer to my post? seems to suggest that it does.

I've now highlighted the part of the post that you link to which points out that comments aren't functional yet.

The ability to insert comments is a feature of the PGN viewer that Andrew created; however, comments are not currently enabled on chess.SE's implementation of the PGN viewer. At some point (I don't know when exactly) there should be a rebuild of the site which will incorporate the features such as comments and arrows/highlighting into the PGN viewer.

Thanks for clarifying that. I was worried I had missed something.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What enhancements do we need for the replayer?
We expressed the need for a replayer, and thanks to Andrew's replayer and balpha's implementation, this is now totally operational. Awesome, how could it be better ?
How could it be better ?

This initial version is a starting point for discussion. Please let me know what makes sense, what doesn't, what could be improved, etc. (Almost) nothing is set in stone yet.

Initial display of an arbitrary position in the variations tree.
Here, a position is asked for analysis, with a few history moves. I edited-pending- the question for it to include the background moves mentionned in the following text, but the result of it is readers must go through the moves to see the position the question is really about. “The position shown” can't make sense anymore.
The workaround is obviously not to include the moves and only display the final position, but having such a nice replayer and not including the background moves in it would be rather disappointing.

The first example at @Andrew's github demo page for the replayer appears to exhibit exactly this behavior (if I understand correctly what you're after). I'm not sure of the usage, though, or whether this is a feature that is currently implemented at chess.SE in any case (in the same vein as {PGN comments}).

Oh, interesting, I didn't went there to notice it. The source says [StartPly "13"] (under [Title …] in place of [FEN "…"]), I'll try it out. […] It seems syntactically allowed (the replayer is still displayed), but not taken into any consideration, even though I did not try it from a starting position  (and from the post preview).

[StartPly], [StartFlipped], and [Title] are all things that I added in a more recent version than the one on the site (so they're not active here).  If the replayer is updated, I'll post a full explanation of all 3 in the [meta-tag:faq] post.

This sort of in-depth analysis could make good use of comments inside variations, at least assessing final positions results. Here, I tricked¹ the engine with no-break spaces, so it would consider my comments (-+, etc.) as part of the previous move², but it feels like a hack.
I read comments belonged to curly braces, but are not displayed yet. Looks like the way to go ?

Or it would be great to be able to insert target points inside the variation, and refer to these targets from within the text explanations on the side. Clicking on the in-text reference would make jump to the corresponding position in the diagram. But that sounds like asking way too much.
¹ I feel sad for tricking such a nice engine :(
² That makes them highlighted in final positions, which might be desirable, but rather done on purpose.

I just wanted to add some of my thoughts to your post here:
First, you are correct that comments usually go in {braces} but are not currently supported.
Second, the non-breaking spaces will add a space visually between the move and the evaluation (eg. 1. e4 +-), but usually there is NOT a space there (eg. 1.e4+- is more common).  Finally, take a look at NAGs, you can get the same result with 1. e4 $18.

Also, the idea you have about target points is great, that's not currently supported at all because of how the replayer was designed to be self-sufficient and not interfere with other parts of the page, but it's a cool idea.

I'm a french typographer, I sow spaces :·) (for some reasons). NAGs are interesting, thanks ! I'm afraid they're just as supported as comments, i.e. not ?

NAGs are fully supported right now :)

Ah, I see that, great, thanks. For the further interested reader, by default, they are right next to the move, but you can still space them out with an unbreakable space before an actual space before the dollar sign : 1.e4␣ $13 (␣ being unbreakable).

Support hiding moves for the purpose of puzzles.
Not sure how other sites do it but I assume a custom PGN tag.

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

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


text:
Weird amount of views on a question
The question Are there moves in chess that are considered unsporting? :

The question got 3k views somehow. I want to know if it got viral somewhere? or someone had too much time on his hands?

It was on the Stack Exchange "Hot Network Questions" list today. :)

Yes, it went slightly viral when it showed up on the Hot Network Questions list in the right sidebar. Also, views are only counted once per user per day. So one user would have to have a lot more time on his hands than you imagined in order to rack up 3K views by himself... :)


text:
Chess Beta: Proposed Move Generator

Possible Duplicate:
Can we implement a replayer for chess analysis on the site?

I was just at the chess stackexchange and saw this post:
Very Aggressive Openings
The GIF of the chess moves would make understanding the moves much easier by visualization.
A board could be setup with a FEN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth-Edwards_Notation
and then use the notation they use now to animate the moves such as 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2 could be applied to animate it.

Didn't know each SE had it's own meta. Can someone please move this over to chess meta? @Yannis, that's a good one - the idea was to bring something like that to make it easier on the SE so that most answers start using it. I guess why reinvent the wheel, besides making it a tad easier and perhaps bringing uniformity

Displaying FEN is more important than having a GIF, which I find distracting without a means of controlling it.

The related idea of a tool that would allow PGN input to display a game board was brought up a while back here on meta. Incorporating the ability to input positions via FEN was mentioned in comments there as well. This would indeed be a very useful tool to have on the site. It would greatly streamline the inclusion of diagrams, and would greatly improve the inclusion of analysis/variations in posts. And the added uniformity and aesthetic appeal might help make the site more immediately attractive to new users too.
I don't know what the best way to go about implementing such a tool would be. One idea - I don't know how feasible this would be - is to incorporate use of the Chess Tempo PGN viewer on the site. I know that viewer is used by sites such as ChessVibes (see it in action in this post, for instance). Anyway, like I said, I don't know what the best way to do this would be, but you're right that it would be a fantastic addition to the site.


text:
Ability to mark/highlight squares in the PGN viewer
I recently found that someone used pawns to mark key squares. I didn't find it funny to start studying the position to later read "I marked these other squares with white pawns"...
But maybe the PGN reader can be improved to allow us to mark squares? maybe even draw arrows, something like this example, the example was created using 1.e4 d5<Ad7d5B><Ce4R> 2.d4 Nc6<Ad1h5B><Cf7R><Be4R>.
As you can see, their shortcut is something like (A for a-rrow, B for b-order, C for background c-olor) + (target square) + (first letter of common colors) wrapped in <...> just after the move.
Is it possible to do something similar?

I think this is a pretty good idea.  In my opinion, the syntax for arrows or highlights should be the SCID syntax since it's just a specially formatted comment (ex. [%draw arrow,c4,f7,red])

I added support for SCID style annotations to the replayer project on github:
http://andrewphoy.github.com/chess-replayer/
The first and last games on that page have arrows.
SCID annotations
Inside a comment after a move, you can choose to either draw a line or color a square:
For example, the following would show a red square on f7 and green arrows from c4 and g5:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6
4.Ng5 {[%draw full,f7,red][%draw arrow,c4,f7,green][%draw arrow,g5,f7,green]} *

Assuming that the site's version of the replayer gets updated to support these changes, I'll write a more verbose explanation of how to use the media annotations.
As an additional note, if you go to the site, you'll see that you can copy the entire game as well as the position by clicking on the arrow in the upper right of the title bar.


text:
Should we edit questions to use the chess replayer?
Now that we have a chess replayer, there are a bunch of questions (like this one) that have ugly plain PGNs in them, should we edit these to display to display them with the replayer?
And, what about incomplete games (e.g openings with just few moves), or FEN positions? Should these be edited too?

Yes, with some exceptions. In general, it's a service to passing visitors, in that they don't have to play blindfold. Isolated FEN positions and short or long games should definitely be edited.
However, there are some answers with numerous variations. While the linked example is a fine answer, I don't think it would benefit from a replayer for each individual variation. At that point reading it would be a chore, particularly on mobile devices.
Thus, I think the answer should be "almost all, but only to enhance".

I would say YES, if you have the time, go ahead and edit the question to use the replayer.  It is so much better.


text:
Constructive topics and question-asking practice
Over on Stackoverflow, I happen to have given 145 answers and asked only three questions.  On this site, however, which I like, I probably cannot answer many questions.  For the most part, I can only ask.  Such is my level of chess knowledge.
The first two questions I have asked here have stirred some minor, unwelcome controversy, which I regret.  The flaw in the questions is clear to me in retrospect, and I mean to avoid the topic of those questions in the future.  I gather however that the site, now in beta, does presently want more questions.  I can indeed think of a few questions to ask.  I should like to make such questions more constructive than the first two, however.  If any specific advice or guideline occurs to you to which to draw my attention, I should be glad to learn of it.  The object, after all, is to build the site up with constructive questions, not to tear it down with destructive ones.
The next question I have in mind regards chess programs and chess programming, and is nonpolitical.  Are such questions likely to be constructive on a site like this?  (The answer might be that such questions are not about chess as such.  This is why I ask.)
I admit that I am unlikely to have many questions to ask here about chess strategy and tactics, openings and endings, etc.; and if those questions are what this site is about then I will read the site with interest but probably will not be able to contribute much.  There are fine books on my bookshelf for strategy, tactics, openings, endings, etc.; and I would likely rather consult those, first.  The questions I would ask here mostly regard things not in the books, such as chess programming for example, or ratings systems, or the biographies of chess masters.  How well do such questions fit the site's format, in your view?
(By the way, Area 51 has a metaquestion with answers regarding chess programs and chess programming.  Since I don't really understand Area 51, I do not know what relevance that metaquestion has to the present discussion, if any; but you can find it here.)

For the record:  It has been two years since I asked the question.  My questions do not seem to have stirred unwelcome controversy since, thanks in part to the advice of @JamesTomasino.  So, one can learn.  Thanks for tolerating the mistakes I made two years ago (hopefully not to be repeated), and for affording me the chance to correct my approach.

The first guideline for what questions should or shouldn't be asked can be found on the FAQ.

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

You'll also see that the question of chess algorithms and programming has come up in meta discussion before. I'm clearly on the side that if a question is about any aspect of chess, it belongs on this site. Others disagree.
My advice would be, tailor your questions as best you can so that they can be answered specifically, factually, and without "political" arguments. If you can do that, and if it's some what related to chess, post away.


text:
What's the policy on brain teaser/puzzle questions on Chess.SE?
Like most Stack Exchange sites, the FAQ states:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

How should we interpret that when submitting puzzle questions to the site?  Should only positions that are reachable in an actual game be considered, or are contrived examples okay too?
Or am I wrong in assuming that puzzle questions are on-topic here at all?  After a quick look through the top questions on the main site I don't see any.  I'm talking about the "black to mate in 3" style puzzle questions that you often see in books and magazines.

I wouldn't post the question if you know the answer, or the answer is obvious to you once you see the solution.
However if the position is complicated and the thought process to find the solution isn't immediately apparent, then it's probably a good problem/question.
For instance the following position is not really a good problem IMO because it's relatively simple to understand once you find the key idea.

Solution:

 1.Qh6+! Bxh6 2.Ng5+ Kh8 3.Rh7#

This, on the other hand, is a much more complicated position (taken from Quality Chess Puzzle Book)

Solution:

 1.Rxc6!

Here I think that asking about how to find the move and the evaluations of different variations that come out of the position is very useful.  There is no immediate mate, so understanding the nuances of the position is required and there is a real answer to the question that is not trivial.

I'm bumping this question up because this seems to be the trend on chess.SE; questions that are basically - 'hey look at this cool puzzle'. Example: Can you solve this chess problem of a single pawn against numerous opposing pieces?
I don't think there's great value in having chess.SE just becoming a sub-category of puzzles.SE, though positional analysis is often needed to properly analysis practical questions posed.
I propose adding a community-specific close reason along the lines of "Puzzle questions that amount to simply posting for solutions is not well-suited to chess.SE, and may be better placed on Puzzles.SE with a 'Chess' tag".
Others may disagree, of course.

Chess problems are relevant to chess. You can't just shut down a big portion of people's interest. And at that rate, you might as well close EVERY single question tagged "problem" and "puzzle" This is simply an absolutely unacceptable idea.

@RewanDemontay Surely there is a difference between asking about a concept conveyed in a puzzle, and merely posting a puzzle 'as-is'? This is what I take issue with. I fully accept this is my personal preference, so if it is not shared by the majority of course I don't want such questions stricken from the site.

Mixed feelings from here. Simply tactics puzzle that could as well entered into an online engine are fun to solve on flyby, but methinks not that good on CSE. (Note that the engine answer might give the beginner no "why" - in blitz I play Rxc6 without second thought, but even on third thought I haven't found out why it actually works!) Puzzles that also Rewan would like (e.g. the one with maximally many pieces needed for a mate) methinks definitely are well placed on CSE. Grayzone is gray, use best caution.

@HaukeReddmann I completely agree - I would much rather see a question like "This is the position [either from the user's play, a found game, or a puzzle], and I don't understand why the answer is 'x'", because explaining why a tactic or position is chosen by the engine is something that the engine itself is bad at.


text:
Do we need a "soft question" tag?
In a postscript to a question on the main site, user Nescio asked why chess.SE doesn't have a "soft question" tag. One answer, of course, is just that no one with the rep to do so had yet seen fit to attach such a tag to any post, but the real question is whether we need/want such a tag. Ordinarily I just add a requested tag to a new user's post, but for this particular tag I thought it might be worth asking here on meta whether it's needed at chess.SE.
I know what purpose "soft question" serves at, say, math.SE or MathOverflow, where it is used to distinguish their atypical questions that don't have a cut-and-dried answer. Given our site's particular scope, where it not at all unusual (and is perhaps the norm) for there not to be a single, definitive answer available to a question, I don't know whether we need to have a sharp dividing line like this for questions.
Thoughts?

I don't think it's necessary.
As you stated, Chess.SE does not have a large number of binary yes/no or single-answer questions. There is very little in the game of chess as a whole that is "hard" in the first place. (Define "control of the center", for instance.) Given that most answers will be either anecdotal or statistical, I think it's safe to say that 80-90% of questions are "soft" in the first place. And what's the point of a tag that encompasses 90% of the site?
(Hence why SO, SU, and SF don't have a "problem" tag, for instance.)

I think that a "soft question" tag is not needed, and is potentially harmful.
It is a "meta tag", meaning that it doesn't describe the content of the question, but rather the question itself.  For example, tagging a question about rooks with the rook tag is useful, but tagging it question is just silly, anyone reading it knows that it's a question.  That's a very contrived example, but it illustrates the point well.
This very issue has been discussed on meta.so before and it led to a blog post that focuses on the issue of "meta tags": http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/.


text:
Can we get inline comments implemented in the PGN viewer? [Done!]
EDIT 9/19/14: As noted in the answer below, this has now been put into effect on the main site, so annotations can be included with PGN games/variations.

A while back we got Andrew's fantastic PGN viewer implemented on the main site, and I think it's safe to say that has greatly improved both usability and aesthetics around here. But there are features built into the PGN viewer that didn't get implemented when it got set up initially, and one in particular that would be another great leap forward if it became functional is the ability to display inline comments/annotations that are included in the PGN. (Examples of this and other existing features yet to be featured on the site can be seen at Andrew's github demo page.)
The reason this particular feature is so crucial is that it would greatly enhance the ability to offer thoughtful, verbal explanations along with concrete variations and analysis in answers. As things currently stand, that's quite a difficult thing to do; one is basically forced to clumsily approximate chess-book-style typesetting, e.g. as in this old post of mine, and maintaining/conveying clear lines of thought is much more taxing than it should be. (More than that, I think it's simply not possible to structure things on the bare, linear page in such a way as to be comparable with when comments are directly linked to the moves contained in the richer tree structure of a game and its variations.) All of this means it's very hard to have threads that get into any truly detailed analysis of particular positions, which I think means the site is missing out on a whole swath of potentially meaty and interesting questions/answers.
In the earlier thread requesting implementation of the PGN viewer, I made a comment to the effect that while we could talk about chess without a PGN viewer on the site, we couldn't really talk chess. That dramatically improved with the addition of the viewer, but I still think this additional feature would increase our ability to communicate in chess terms as much again as that initial implementation has. It seems recently that the site is attracting more visitors (including several strong players whose chessic thoughts I for one would like to enjoy as fully as possible), and I'd like for all of our users to be able to share as much chess content as possible in their contributions to the site. It would make the site just that much better, and would also serve to draw in more folks who might appreciate this unique place.

Long story short: can we get the inline comments feature of Andrew's PGN viewer implemented on the main site?

Ed is spot-on.  I like to run computer chess engines for analysis, and it would be very helpful to be able to go back and comment the moves.

@Shog9: Any reason SE has not responded to the request above publicly? Appears to have been 8-months and 18-days since it was posted... :-)

Yeah, @blunders - I forgot about it. Will look into this.

+1 @Shog9: Wow, awesome; thank you for the quick reply, and offer to followup too!

Thank you for your request, and sorry for the delay. I've implemented this and it will be live in the next build (meta > rev 2014.9.19.1873, q&a > rev 2014.9.19.1875).
Basically if there are no comments, the re-player will appear and operate identically to how it did before my changes. If there is at least one comment in the replay, the appearance will be as follows:
Current move has no comment:

Current move has a comment:

Let me know if you encounter any issues with it!


text:
A thought: accepting answers too quickly
I've answered a few questions so far in my short time using chess.SE, and I've been flattered that a number of them have been accepted rather quickly. I do think these were pretty good answers, probably worthy of being accepted; that's why I posted them, after all. However, I've noticed that this quick acceptance is a trend occurring with many of the questions getting asked, and I think that those active users who are asking a lot of questions (and thus doing a great service toward growing the site!) might be able to do a further service by waiting a spell before actually accepting answers. (Sometimes it might make no sense to wait, but I'm speaking generally here.)
Once a question is marked as having an accepted answer, I think folks will be somewhat less likely to post additional answers. Maybe it only makes it a little less likely, but my point is this: we're hoping to grow the site right now, and as new users come by, the more "open" questions around, the more likely they are to start joining the conversation. Moreover, aside from the growth aspect, accepting an answer too quickly (even one you think is nice), might just lead you to missing out on some other great, better answer, say from a slightly different perspective no one else has thought of.
So my suggestion to superstar question askers: once you've posted a question, maybe hold off 24 hours before clicking "accept." This will encourage more answers from more sources. I also think this could lead to more voting, as users will be keen to support one option over others (or support them all!). It's great that you want to put a further stamp on nice answers beyond voting them up, and it's a good thing to do so, but there's really no rush. It'll still be there for accepting tomorrow, and maybe some better alternative will be too. :-)

+1.  I usually am slow to accept an answer on SE.  The reason is precisely as you suggest.

Real focus now needs to be in my opinion on the matters that are important:

15+ Questions a day, that are "expert" chess question that meet SE rules
Expert answers, honestly think that's covered
Grow the community

SE ecosystem is design and tested - and while I understand the urge to want people to vote, and questions to get the best answer, right now this seems like over optimization. Beyond that, it would be an issue is users were not selecting answers, so my suggestion would be to focus on matters that will lead to the success of the site, and to me, I don't see the issue of telling people to wait to select an answer as being of value. (Also, I might note that the top user rep wise post answers even if an answer is selected; which is to say, there's nothing to stop you from posting a great answers, and I don't believe it would go unnoticed, especially given the volume of questions.)

+1. My main focus with bringing this up at all was just on trying to have as many "loose ends" available as possible to make it more inviting for brand new users (who might be less inclined to add additional answers than Andrew is) to dive into the topics they find. But, like I said above, I suppose folks might only be slightly less likely to do so when there's an accepted answer. In any case, meta doesn't seem to think this is a big deal.

What about doing something like stackoverflow where you can only accept an answer 10 minutes after it was posted.  This would give others time to come up with answers and it would also give others incentive to write answers because one was not accepted yet.  The first answer is usually the accepted on, but this shouldn't be the case.

I hope it's not a 10 minutes matter.


text:
What would be a good community promotion ad?
As suggested in an answer to the earlier meta question about site promotion, one method is to craft a site promotion ad for use on already graduated SE sites. So the purpose of this question, which I based directly on the analogous one at mathematica.SE, is to solicit potential ads which are designed to promote chess.SE on more established SE sites.
Each graduated SE site has a meta question where people can submit these ads (here is the one at physics.SE, for instance), and if they receive enough upvotes they will be automatically shown by the system on that site.
If we get consensus on something good here, then we can submit it to the community promotion ad questions on other sites for potential use.
When an actual community ad is submitted, it is required to be in a particular form (detailed in the mathematica.SE question linked to above). In particular, the image must be exactly 220x250 pixels, in GIF or PNG format (not animated), and hosted on SE's Imgur account. It's not strictly necessary for answers to this question to follow that format, but it would be convenient. Answers posted here should definitely include the three required elements: image, tagline, and URL.

@iglvzx here! What do you guys think of this as a community ad?

What should the title attribute (hover text) be?

@iglvzx, let me know if I've overstepped by posting this here. I'm just a fan of it.

No problem! I made an ad with the proper dimensions.

Ed, I think you were thinking of something like this? 220x250 png using the "Got Milk" font.

Currently posted on:

Gaming (Arqade)
Game Development
SuperUser
SciFi & Fantasy

When it gets to 6 upvotes, it will be displayed on those sites on the right sidebar.

Nice! .........

This is awesome!

So how do we get it posted around?

@Danielδ. Well, we can submit this image (along with the appropriate links) as an answer in the "Community Promotion Ads - 2012" meta questions at SE sites that might be appropriate (e.g. Arqade and GameDev spring to mind). Once we post it as an answer at such places, it is up to those communities to decide, by voting it up/down, if it should get any "airtime." If it gets to +6 at a given site, it will show in that site's ads.

I say go for it!

I just noticed that your image has a transparent background rather than solid white. Some sites that might be good tries for the ad (e.g. http://meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/) have dark backgrounds against which the current version looks poor. So I'm switching the pointer here to a white-background version. I'm also going to switch the image links at the sites where we already posted. (If this is a bad idea for some reason I'm not thinking of, we can always rollback.)

I don't see this on SuperUser SE.

I have no marketing or graphic design sense. I just made this one to break the ice, using James Tomasino's very nice logo.


text:
Is this historical question off-topic?
As the title asks, is this question about Alekhine's WWII-era articles off-topic? My first impression (of the current, edited version) of the question was that it was like most any other chess history question from the site. But Istvan Chung's comment points up the fact that the question, while obviously centered on one of the most famous chess players ever, doesn't really seem to be about chess history, and is rather a purely historical question about a chess player.
The closest precedent I can think of from the site is a question asking why Korchnoi left the Soviet Union. That question was well-received, though it's also the case that it has answers that directly pertain to chess.
Anyway, there are currently 3 votes to close the question, and I am curious what the community as a whole thinks:

Should this historical question, which is about a chess player but has little pure chess content, be considered off-topic for the site?

Please vote this post up if you consider the question to be off-topic, or down if you consider it to be on-topic. And of course feel free to offer thoughts as answers below.

I hope this should be good Q&A for reason some historical questions were need explanation when it closed.

if that question is off topic then please take another look at this its not about chess besides the user claims that fischer became crazy, which is a big debate as i explained in my answer... otherwise don't close any one of them

@Fischer, I agree that the question you linked to is similar to this one in that both are about potentially contentious topics. But to my eyes, that question does appear to be about chess in a way that this one isn't. Though your answer to that question doesn't mention chess (which is fine, because you were addressing what you think is a mistaken premise in the question), the OP itself asks rather directly about possible connections between mental illness and playing chess ...

... And answering that question itself would require someone to say something concrete and authoritative about negative side effects (or lack thereof) involved with (over)performing the cognitive tasks that go into playing chess. In that sense, the two questions seem rather different in terms of their chess content. In any case, if you'd like to ask the community whether that earlier question should be considered on- or off-topic, do feel free to open a new meta thread about it.

I consider the the question to be off-topic, because it deals with political side of Alekhine, not his chess side. If we go to the main StackOverflow site and post a question with emacs tag asking about whether some Richard Stallman's (Richard Stallman is the inventor of emacs and a political activist) political articles are published, I don't think it will be long before the questions is closed.
Moreover, I think that this question has a potential to spark a debate (even though it was much, much better after rephrasing), even though it is not the original posters intention; any topic that has to do with racism accusations tend to have that.

please read my comment above

I claim it is on-topic. For this particular question there IS Chess content because the  issue of Alekhine's collaboration had repercussions against possible championship match arrangements.
But more importantly, any serious historical fact about Chess personalities adds a dimension of interest to the game. Or do we exclude interesting questions about

Chess problems,
Chess psychology,
Chess variants, or
Chess engines

because they are not about Chess as it is played over the board?

Silman's recent article on Chess.com about Alekhine (part 7) talks somewhat to the articles. From what little Silman says about the content, the articles are at least chess history and about chess politics and players.
Silman also casts some doubt on the authenticity of authorship as there are errors that Alekhine was unlikely to unintentionally make.
Silman may have access to copies
Silman on Alekhine part 7 "The Dark Years"

can you link to his article? And is there a way to contact him and maybe get a copy from him and then you post an answer to that question?

This is a close one, but I would say that the question is off topic because it is not about chess, even though it is about a chess master.
What would make the question on topic is if the articles in question made references (good or bad) to e.g. "Jewish" chess. Or that Alekhine expressed a distaste for matches against masters from ethnic group X (as reflected in the fact that he did his best to avoid them).
Alekhine's love life would be similarly off topic. Unless the argument is that a particular romp inspired e.g. a particular "queen's" opening.

please read my comment above

In my answer above I argue why this is about chess. It influenced potential sponsors for the World Championship. Alekhine's love life would be on topic if it had had a similar influence.


text:
When should chess.SE questions be made community wiki?
In the comments to a recent question, the issue was raised as to whether a moderator should convert that question to community wiki (CW) mode. There are different criteria which could lead one to favor/disfavor using CW for a question such as that one. If you have an argument one way or the other, please make your case in an answer below. Ideally, an answer here won't speak only to the particular question linked to above, but will also articulate points that lend themselves to a general approach to employing CW at chess.SE.

Going through some of the linked posts from that, I came across this post on SO, which seems very relevant.

Conclusion:
  A question should not be marked CW if it is possible to write valid, helpful and knowledgeable answers which contribute to SO.
Even if there is more than one valid answer (in open-ended questions), individual answers may still have value, and so they deserve the rep gain when they're upvoted. Marking such a question CW just discourages people from putting any effort into their answers.
The other consequence of CW is that posts can be edited by more people. Usually, I don't think that's a big deal. I think that's a vestigial property, it was useful before the creation of Meta, back when CW posts served as a repository of howto and faq's about SO itself. Today, I can't think of many cases where it's desirable.
I know this brings me at odds with a large group of people who seemingly get a kick out of demanding "THIS SHOULD BE CW" whenever there's even a hint of subjectivity to a question. I still don't understand why, but it seems to be a cult created around some vague statement Jeff may have once made back when the site was in its infancy.
Mark a question CW if answers have no correlation to their authors' contributions to the community. If it is a poll thread, one answer is as good as another. The value is in the entire set of answers, not in what individuals chose to vote. So mark it CW. If it is a joke thread (although those seem to be getting rare), mark it CW. There may be good and bad answers, sure, but none of them say anything about the answerer's technical skills or contributions to the site. No matter how funny my joke was, it doesn't mean I'm any better at answering questions on SO, or that my account should be given broader moderating powers (as happens when you gain rep)
But CW is grossly overused in my opinion. Outside of joke/poll style threads, I really can't see a use for it any longer. It was largely made obsolete with the creation of Meta.

So going by his first criteria, I think it's a valid question that doesn't need to be CW, and if it gets to the point where it has 30 valid answers it enters CW automatically, so I think as it stands, it's fine for remaining a regular post.

I had come across this as well, and it jibes with my sense that your question shouldn't be made CW. (By the way, your question is a very good and valid and welcome one, regardless of the CW aspect of things; I hope that is clear.)

@EdDean - Thanks. I'm on a few SE sites, so I tried to structure it to avoid debates, but rather encourage the type of posts I got. Now if I could just figure out scid, I'd be ok. :p

FWIW, I use scid and love it. I'd bet you will too once you're used to it.


text:
"Big-list" questions
Since Andrew and Ray have been talking about the acceptability of certain types of questions, I want to broach the subject of using community wiki in order to have some "big-list" questions. What I mean is this: while questions that ultimately just solicit opinions are to be generally discouraged, I feel being too rigid about that can lead to chess.SE missing out on some questions that could be useful, popular, and just plain appealing to potential users of the site.
To give you an idea of what I mean by seeing it in action on another site, this was an exceedingly popular (and useful, and enlightening, and ...) "big-list" community wiki question that was asked over at mathoverflow (the only other SE-type site I've ever spent much time on). This grew to an enormous list, and as you can see from the vote counts (especially relative to mathoverflow's typical base level) this question and its answers were seen as a great contribution to the site.
Now, while we wouldn't want to encourage such a broad, useless question as "Who's your favorite chess player?" or other such nonsense, I honestly could see the following as being a potentially useful (and attractive, and engaging, and fun) question to have on chess.SE: a community wiki question that solicits a list of books that users have found personally useful for improving their chess games. The question text would stress these aspects for potential answers: (1) one book per post, (2) list any book you have used and found useful (and why), (3) if such a book already has a post, vote it up, and feel free to elaborate on its usefulness.

This mathoverflow question, being a request for textbook recommendations, gives a good model for the sort of focused question, and list of answers, that I have in mind in all this.

This sort of list could be a great resource for someone to get an idea of books that others rate highly, get a sense of the relative values of similar books, and see what people liked/disliked about them. And what I have in mind could be narrowed down quite a bit from how I stated it above. You know, the question could solicit feedback on general endgame treatises, for instance. (I would in fact like to ask that particular question.) I think that this sort of question could be a very welcome addition to the chess.SE landscape, so long as some of us are vigilant in guiding others toward a proper approach, both by modeling appropriate answers and offering positive/negative feedback on new ones. I for one am keen to do so. So:

Good idea? Bad idea? ... Great idea? Terrible idea?

+1, I think good subjective questions would really add a lot to the site right now, especially as community wiki.  Later on it might be prudent to close them, but those are most likely the questions that will draw google users in to the site.

The FAQ explains What kind of questions should I not ask here?
The reason for even having this site in the first place is to create an "expert-level" Q&A. That's a pretty big ask — We specifically forgo these types of "generalized populous questions" to ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.  It's that practical, low-noise approach to Q&A that drives experts to these sites.
Don't throw that away so early in your development.
The relative popularity of these "poll" questions is a fallacy. It doesn't drive quality. I could just as easily solicit LOLCats and get similar results. That's a bit dramatic, but these discussion-class questions are simply fodder for users who don't have a specific problem but only wish to open a dialog to discuss generalizations and relative merits of some broad issue.
There's nothing inherently wrong with those questions — they have been asked hundreds of times on every other forum on the subject — but in the context of a Q&A system like Stack Exchange, they should be closed as [not constructive].

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.

You cannot fix this problem by "making them wiki" or "cleaning them up later" or any of the other tried-and-failed strategies used by sites that are no longer with us. The questions you ask now will set the tone and topic of the site for a long time. "Drive traffic now, worry about quality later" — This sort of "bait and switch" campaign will not work.
What you are teaching your users is "Why should I ask hard, intriguing questions when the "What's your favorite book?" -mongers get all the 'reputation'?" Don't do it.
Real Questions Have Answers

This might be a bit much for a comment, but what would be the correct way to ask for a list or should it just not be done?  For example, "What are good games for a professional instructor to teach a beginner?"  Like that, it seems to be subjective, but for a chess instructor, there are probably 5-10 games that must be taught to new students.  Is there a way to phrase that question so that it is acceptable and a single answer with those 5-10 games would be the "correct" answer?  Or is that just never going to be on-topic?

I would certainly defer to your greater experience here Robert. I was definitely not thinking of driving traffic now at the cost of quality; I was intending something of quality. The instances I pointed to from mathoverflow, which I think functions very well, indicate that it manages to include good, useful questions of this sort. But maybe it can only handle them because the place really is swarming with experts, in which case I think your point is well-taken and, at the least, it's not a good time for this. Glad I asked; thanks!

Four years later, replace "Not Constructive" with "Too Broad", perhaps?


text:
Use of ellipses in chess notation
When notating a single move by black, or a sequence of moves that starts with a move by black, an ellipsis is generally used. There is no one universally accepted convention as to its appearance though. For instance, one might write 2. ... Nc6 or instead prefer 2... Nc6. Both are in use: an instance of the former at wikibooks, an instance of the latter at wikipedia. I happen to prefer the former, but the purpose of this post is to propose:

Either convention is perfectly acceptable, and we need not seek uniformity across all posts in this regard.

If a poster prefers one over the other, I think there is no reason to change it in either direction. Thoughts?
(What brought this topic to mind is that my recent question was edited to switch from the first convention to the second, and I decided to roll back that edit, because I prefer the way the first convention looks.)

I prefer 1... Nf6 for concision. (And might have also seem 2. .. Nc6 in some books.) At last, I recommend the meta practice of posting questions and answers as separate posts, for clarity, e.g. I think the matter is important, but I disagree with your proposition. I'd like to upvote your question, and downvote your answer, but can't : as is, I'm constrained to post arm-long comments (not that I don't enjoy it, mind you).

This distinction between styles doesn't appear to cause any confusion for readers, nor does one style provide any real benefit in readability over the other. Since they're both acceptable in the wild and any choice we would make between them would be purely for uniformity without functional benefit I think I have to agree with you, Ed. We should probably just leave these alone.
(BTW, I prefer #2 :) )

Being the one who perpetrated the edit in question, I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.
I agree with you, Ed, though my position is slightly closer to James', since I also happen to prefer #2.  I posted my opinion in chat, and I'll put it here too:

I personally like the following: e4 (for a white move w/o numbering); 1. e4 (white, with numbering); ...e5 (black, w/o number); and finally 1... e5 (black, with number). That system just seems more concise to me. Nothing to quibble over.
...
But I call the whole thing tomato/tomato. Same as white/White and black/Black.

I've decided that it will be good to keep this formatting consistently in use, and to keep an individual post consistent within itself, but I won't edit to change 2. ... Nc6 to 2... Nc6 or "black" to "Black" or "bishop" to "Bishop", or vice versa.
What I'm still not sure about is 1.e4 or 1. e4 - should I edit in the space, or should I add that to the list of personal preference?  (You can comment with your opinion.)

The space looks nicer, but can be felt to take a lot of space. I'd insert it in an altogether poorly formated post, and leave it to the author if there's a chance he didn't put it out of personnal preference. Join us at typography.SE for more fun !


text:
Moderator Pro Tem Announcement
Throughout the beta, we need members from the site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community to act as temporary, provisional moderators. You can read about the program here: Moderators Pro Tempore.
I am pleased to announce that these members have stepped up and generously volunteered their time to help us assure that this community’s issues are properly addressed.

We want to make this site a huge success, and these members are great examples of exactly the type of people we need to make this site succeed. Please welcome them for the hard work and time they contribute.
Did I overlook anyone?
Almost certainly. There are members who are actively involved and very deserving of recognition. My failure to account for everyone this early on is in no way a slight against them. Ideally, moderators are elected by the community and that's why you'll have your elections once your site has graduated.
Most of all, be respectful and understanding of the Moderators Pro Tem. Members of your community are volunteering their time and learning on the job. It’s a learning experience for everyone.


text:
Whether or not images instead of FEN/PGN are allowed
Example: Why is this a checkmate?
Are images instead of FEN/PGN allowed? If so, then should they continue to be allowed?
I believe Stack Overflow and Mathematics Stack Exchange will not allow images and will require its askers to post their code or MathJax. This makes a lot of sense: answerers can just dig up the source of the post and then copy + paste to answer.
In the above example, I guess there's not really a need to dig up the FEN/PGN.

Sometimes, additional information in images can be helpful, e.g. to indicate which piece made the last move. It's difficult to convey that information with the replayer (I guess Black's last move was something like Qa4xpc2). At other times, arrows may be helpful annotations as well.
If this is not the case, by all means suggest an edit to replace the image with a FEN string which activates the replayer. (Not both, we don't need duplicated information.) The only disadvantage I can think of is that users of the mobile apps see the PGN instead of a diagram, but the mobile apps are deprecated anyway.

I believe Stack Overflow and Mathematics Stack Exchange will not allow images and will require its askers to post their code or MathJax.

Please don't forget that there are many novice chess players out there who don't know algebraic notation, let alone FEN. It doesn't take much effort to copy code from your IDE to a Stack Overflow post; learning chess notation is a lot harder. Mathematical formulas are often MathJaxed by veteran users as well.

Comment re the edit: 'learning chess notation is a lot harder' --> Well why is it not their problem to have to learn FEN/PGN? I mean if they really want an answer here, then I think they should really have to learn FEN/PGN. i figure if they don't want to, then they can ask on board games se or something https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/949/beginner-question-gets-29-upvotes

'Mathematical formulas are often MathJaxed by veteran users as well.' --> what do you mean? you mean non math jax posts are ok there because other users will just do math jax for them? Ok that's fine i guess: the question can be closed but then be re-opened AFTER it is math jaxed, regardless of who does the math jaxing

If the FEN/PGN is necessary to answer the question, you can close as 'unclear what you're asking'. But in most cases I can think of, an image + additional information is clear enough (but PGN is usually better, of course).

Posting in a relevant image is fine, mostly it's done by newcomers anyway. It just happens that I, and other long time users, such as the mods, change it to the FEN on our own time. It's to create a "standard," I'd say.

The only answer so far, Glorfindel’s answer, mentions that additional information in images can be helpful. Here is another example: The PGN/FEN viewer’s orientation can vary¹, and it is not always clear what the orientation is. Some images, like the one in If player A is in check but has a move which will checkmate player B without exiting check, is that move legal?, include rank and file labels.
This does not answer the main question: Should images of chess games/positions be allowed? I do not have a clear answer to this, but see How should we serve users who cannot access images?.
¹ This is also described in A list of “unknown” features of the replayer and How do I make the viewer 'flip' the board?.

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


text:
Why was my shogi question closed and then later re-opened? Who was wrong, and why?
I did spend a lot of time to write that 2nd xiangqi post.
The Chess960 analogue in shogi, xiangqi, etc
The Chess960 analogue in xiangqi
Hope this site will not be so hasty in closing questions by too broad. This is kinda what happened here Chessmaster: Modern version of lectures? and even other SE sites. I notice moderators just close any post with 2 question marks when it's quite obvious what is meant.
In my opinion https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/35641/practical-endgame-resources-whats-next-after-josh-waitzkins-series-in-chess suffered the same fate. See here: Why was the endgame post deleted 9 minutes ago?

I reverted some of the edits to the shogi question because the edits made the answers obsolete.
Generally speaking if two questions differ only with by a single word there's not a reason to have both of them.
The question itself is extremely long (which is why it was closed as needing focus), but it has received good answers.

'Generally speaking if two questions differ only with by a single word there's not a reason to have both of them.' --> sure? https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/92181/according-to-mormon-church-can-co-parents-in-law-marry and https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/76130/does-the-mormon-church-endorse-the-children-of-narcissistic-parents-breaking-off and https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/46565/does-the-catholic-church-endorse-the-children-of-narcissistic-parents-breaking-o It's common to ask the same question for diff denominations in Christianity SE.

Ah so the close is NOT REALLY about because I asked about both shogi and xiangqi? Lol srzly? So why wasn't the close needs details or clarity instead of too broad?

@BCLC In my opinion, the "needs details or clarity" would have been a better reason in this particular case. Notice, that the wording in "Needs more focus" is also quite applicable, it is that usually this is used to indicate "multiple questions in one", but it is not 100% consistent.
My general recommendation would be to pay extra attention to the clarity in the questions/answers, including conciseness where it is possible.

@AntonMenshov ' In my opinion, the "needs details or clarity" would have been a better reason in this particular case.' --> ok thanks. post as answer?

@BCLC Lol, the link to Christianity SE has a comment from one of their mods asking why you are separating these questions :)


text:
How about a chess program in the chat rooms?
I was just wondering why this site doesn't have a chess program in the chat rooms, so users from around the network could come in and play?

Why should we? Why not just goto chess.com, lichess?

I can think of three reasons why:

Stack Exchange's primary purpose is to be a network of Q&A sites. All features, including chat, support this purpose. I don't see how adding a playing arena would be beneficial to this, except maybe to enlarge our audience.
The Chess SE chat isn't really active at the moment. Even if this would be implemented, there's no guarantee that people will actually use it instead of the thousands of other chess playing sites on the Internet.
The Stack Exchange developer team is very busy. Until recently, they didn't even have time to properly maintain the Android app, which is quite a thing in the mobile-first world we're living in now. Chess SE is a small community, and we should count ourselves lucky that we have one feature specially developed for us (the replayer).


text:
Bug with PGN viewer
[fen ""]
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6
4. Nc3 Bc5
5. d3  h5
6. Bg5 Kf8???
7. Bd5 d6
8. Bc6 c6

causes a bug on "c6". The b7 pawn is supposed to capture the bishop, but instead the c7 pawn just goes on the bishop.

Screenshot

Try bxc6 instead, that's the correct pgn notation.

@Andrew ah. I did try b7xc6 and xc6. Don't know why that didn't occur to me.

@Andrew thanks. works like a charm.

As indicated by Andrew in the comments, try bxc6 instead of c6. The PGN viewer requires correct PGN, what happens when the PGN is invalid is undefined behaviour.


text:
Should the help section have a PGN viewer tutorial?
I would like to suggest that the help section should have a tutorial on putting a PGN viewer in a post - question or answer. I have mainly come from mathematics where the use of mathematical typesetting is a regular issue for new users. Well directed help gets new users on board.
A help tutorial could indicate site protocols and also provide links to some of the material already here on Meta.
It took quite a while to find out how to do get a chess board/game in a post (and PGN viewer wasn't the first search term which came to mind - my first question was how to include a chess board in a post).
This is my third attempt to get going on the site - and this has been my issue every time. I think I may have cracked it, but it wasn't obvious, and that may be putting other people off. Hence this suggestion.

Another thing I looked for as a newbie was a short-cut for adding a game board to a post (like the ones for adding a picture or a link). That could also be worth doing.

There are two FAQ posts about it on Meta: http://meta.chess.stackexchange.com/questions/176/how-does-the-sites-new-pgn-viewer-work and http://meta.chess.stackexchange.com/questions/179/how-do-i-add-a-replayer-to-my-post

Yes I agree, feel free to post a tutorial!

Only very specific parts of the Help Center can be edited by ♦ moderators, and Stack Exchange staff usually doesn't make exceptions. Almost all pages are used network-wide.
That said, user @SteveBennett (almost the same last name!) rekindled this topic here and IMHO, given the available options, the main Help Center page is the best place, so I've added a link to the tutorial:

Awesome! (Btw I'd consider trying to stick the words PGN or FEN in that line, since that's what people would often be skimming for.)

Thanks, certainly doesn't hurt to add those.


text:
Different ways to get italic formatting?

Seems familiar, doesn't it?
But when I type something like this
Italic was caused by a pair of single *
since it should be pair of double **
Is this normal?


text:
Can we implement a replayer for chess analysis on the site?
I think that a javascript game replayer would be interesting and useful.
For a brief list of requirements - something that can display several variations and move comments as well as be fairly easily edited (at least for minor edits).
UPDATE: This has now been implemented!

Regardless of options, I think this is an extremely important piece that needs to be here if this forum is to be successful.

I already upvoted the post and Wes' comment, but I want to say too how crucial I think this feature is for the site to work well and to grow. We can talk about chess without this functionality, but to really talk chess, a tool like this is indispensable. It will certainly help the site draw (and retain) visitors. Be sure to vote if you want this feature, so that we can show SE its importance to users. And if you haven't checked out what Andrew made (in the answer below), I recommend that you do.

+1 to the original post

Wow, at last we did it!

I apologize for the delay, but thanks to Andrew's excellent replayer, this is now finally enabled on the main site. The basic idea is: Indent your PGN by four spaces (you can use the editors "Preformatted text" button or Ctrl-K), and we'll display the board in its place.
It also works in the editor preview, so you can play around and try it out without having to submit anything.
I'll describe the details below; note that this is not final and is very much up for discussion. You are the ones who know best what makes sense, so please be sure to give your feedback, and we'll try to adjust things for you to be as comfortable as possible for you.
What kind of markup is (currently) converted into a player?
An indented block containing just a FEN string will be displayed as a static board without move controls:
r1br2k1/pp3ppp/2n2n2/1Bb3B1/8/2p2N2/PPP2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 1 13

looks like this:

A FEN string followed by moves will be displayed with move controls. Example:
6k1/1P3p2/2p3pb/2q4p/2rpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 2

1... Rb4 2. Rb1 Qb6 3.Rxb4 Qxb4 4. Qa6 Qxb7

is displayed as

The FEN string can also be included in a [FEN "..."] PGN header instead.
What kind of markup is (currently) not converted into a player?
An indented block containing only moves is not converted. The reason I decided to go this way is that there are just too many indented blocks on chess.se that contain moves in one way or the other; often just one or two, and often not even based on the initial board position. Displaying all those as a player widget may a) often look wrong, and b) cause an overwhelming amount of players on some question pages.
So you have to be explicit about wanting a replayer widget by providing a FEN string. If your moves start from the initial position, as a shortcut you can just provide an empty FEN string in a PGN header, like this:
[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4

which turns into this:

Where to go now?
This initial version is a starting point for discussion. Please let me know what makes sense, what doesn't, what could be improved, etc. (Almost) nothing is set in stone yet.
One thing I could imagine to be nice, but am not sure on how to express it in markup, is the idea of "continuation". For example, if the question contains a few moves and asks "what should I do now?", then an answerer could be able to indicate "continue from the situation in the question" and add their additional moves, without being forced to copy & paste from the question.

Wow, this is awesome! Thanks for putting it in.

I'm looking to propose a widget for another SE instance, what exactly is the process?

One of the projects that I was working on for a contracting gig involved creating a javascript chess replayer. The key features that were required were keyboard shortcuts, mouse wheel movement, and support for variations and comments, all of which were implemented. Here's a screenshot; to get a feel for it, you can play through this game, as well as another one that uses the comments and variations features, at the demo page linked to below.

Since I do think that it's very important to be able to view and share chess games on this site, I put the replayer on github.  It's implemented as a jquery plugin, and it's licensed under the MIT License.
Demo page:
http://andrewphoy.github.com/chess-replayer/
GitHub repository:
https://github.com/andrewphoy/chess-replayer

Here is another that is pretty advanced: http://www.lutanho.net/pgn/pgnviewer.html

Significantly, I have just tried @Andrew's replayer on two obscure, old, out-of-date Web browsers, lacking special plugins:  Iceweasel 3.5.16 and Epiphany 2.30.6.  It works beautifully on both.  Of course, no one here is any more interested than I am in these, specific old browsers, but that is not the point of this report.  The point is that, if it works smoothly on these browsers, it will probably work most anywhere, on most any device.  Good work.

@tbh, thanks, but I have to admit, after reading the first line I was horrified.  In my mind, I was expecting "it works terribly in anything less than chrome 37.99".  Thanks :)

Yes, very nice job for an initial release. I recommend you figure out a fairly lax open source license to go with and post it prominently somewhere, along with adoption instructions. I'd probably even use it on my blog; the chesstempo one has some complexities I'd rather avoid (they have a more complex set of requirements), and it's somewhat slow when you have many boards on one page.

@WesFreeman done, MIT Licensed now.  What did you have in mind for adoption directions?  I threw together a brief set of instructions on github pages.  Anything I'm missing?

I guess I was thinking any license-related instructions, but I suppose that one is open enough that it shouldn't matter. Looks great.

+1 for Andrew's solution. Really nice. Works well on my Galaxy s3 and Asus Transformer tablet.

Hey Andrew, just a heads-up: This looks really great, and we're working on implementing your player on chess.se. Thanks for the project!

@balpha that's wonderful! Feel free to let me know (here or by email) if you need anything else or if parts of the code aren't sufficiently commented.

@balpha, fantastic!

I don't know what would be the best plugin around (especially a free one). I personally like what they use at chess.com, but maybe it's proprietary.
An alternative would be to use a TeX renderer of a chess board... Other stackexchange sites invoke TeX, so it couldn't be that hard.

pgn4web, javascript chess games viewer for websites, blogs and live broadcasts, is a great one too.

+1 I know, the question is answered. But, i think this may help a future reader


text:
How do I add a replayer to my post?
How do I add the replayer to the post initially, and what additional features can I take advantage of?
NOTE: if you have a question about why the replayer isn't working for the PGN in your post, it's better to ask a new Meta question instead of posting an answer here.

This post is a work in progress, please feel free to add or embellish...
Most of the details here come from balpha's
post.

Position
In order to simply show a position, just post the FEN string in a code block (put ``` on the line before and after).  It will automatically be converted into a diagram.
Example:
```
r1br2k1/pp3ppp/2n2n2/1Bb3B1/8/2p2N2/PPP2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 1 13
```

This becomes:
r1br2k1/pp3ppp/2n2n2/1Bb3B1/8/2p2N2/PPP2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 1 13

Entire game
To display an entire game, paste the entire PGN in a code block after a FEN header.  Most chess software allows you to copy/paste the PGN from a game. See Wikipedia if you want to type the PGN yourself.
The PGN you paste must include a FEN header.  If you are starting from the start position, you can just include a blank FEN header:
```
[FEN ""]
1. f4 e5 2. g4 Qh4#
```

This becomes:
[FEN ""]
1. f4 e5 2. g4 Qh4#

Additional features
It is possible to enter entire variations and annotations for your games as well.  If you simply copy/paste a pgn file from your external program, it will usually work correctly (after you add a FEN string).  In order to enter variations, you can use parentheses for the variation moves.  You can enter comments in curly braces too:
    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 (2... Nf6 {Nf6 instead of Nc6 is called the Petroff Defense})
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 (2... Nf6 {Nf6 instead of Nc6 is called the Petroff Defense})

Variations can be nested as well.

The embedded image should be replaced by a complete working example of an embedded replayer.

How do you find the FEN string?

The replayer has a couple of features not mentioned in this post: https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/283/19880

I noticed one more feature that has been missed out from your list but I have no idea how to annotate it, so will appreciate it if someone can fill the blanks in.
How can you specify which position is the current relevant one that you want the starting from. e.g. If I have imported a PGN (to include the entire game as reference) but I'm only interested in replaying the last 5 full moves, how can you jump to e.g. move 55/60 upon loading?

You can add a "StartPly" header to do this: [StartPly "110"] for example to start on move 55.

Anyone got a clue why the (3rd) replayer there is not working ?
I tried fiddling a lot with it, the position looks fine (if I remove the moves, it displays fine, looks legal to me, etc.), and I retyped the moves many times, tryed to mess with the move number, to no avail. The first move in itself (11. Rc3) is not accepted, and actually ruins the display of the position.
(Or is it just me ?)

There was a similar bug report on meta about variations needing to start with 1... or 1. instead of 11...
It could be related to that - it works fine when I test with the github code, so I'm not entirely sure.

Ok, thanks, it's fixed now (starting at move 1). It seems any move below and including 9 will work, but from 10 and up, it fails. Is there a proper place to document that ?

What am I doing wrong?
Why is this: Why is pawn to d3 the best move here? pair of replayers ignoring the FEN header?  (Mine is the comment comparing ... Kg7 to ... f5).

Missing the empty newline between tag section and movetext sections. Fixed that for you.


text:
Are we about chess engines, chess engine configuration, and similar?
There are a lot of questions about chess engines. How to configure them. What the best ones are. Programming them. It's endless.  Are these things about chess, or not. The first several questions, right now, include 7 (or more) about chess engines.
I consider this site to be about people playing chess in a traditional sense and not asking about their chess program algorithms.
Are these sorts of questions off topic, or not?

I happen to lean to the opposite view, but vote +1 because the question is a good question.

I think they should be considered on-topic. In my view, the scope of the site is much wider than "people playing chess in a traditional sense" and can include many things unrelated to play, such as history, equipment (including software), cultural references, etc. It's not like this site is under a deluge of questions, and in fact people often worry that there are not enough questions, judging from discussions on chess.meta.
The What topics can I ask about here? page describes a relatively wide scope like the one I allude to above, although it calls some topics "gray areas". Regarding engines, the current wording is "Chess-specific questions about programming a chess engine or other chess software are welcome". So engines are on topic, at least if you are programming them. The wording is too qualified in my opinion; I see no reason to exclude questions about using chess engines.
I'm sure there are many questions you don't care much for, just as there are questions I don't care much for, but I think that's perfectly normal. I'm actually surprised by how large a fraction of questions asked here I consider interesting, compared to other StackExchange sites. Consider StackOverflow, the mother of all sites. I'm a programmer and yet I find 99% of the questions there to be utterly irrelevant to me (even browsing through specific tags doesn't help much). I don't even try browsing through the site; its main use (and it is a great use!) is to find answers using Google.
If we exclude such questions here, where would they go? A chess programming StackExchange? Considering that the chess site is already marginal in terms of traffic, why split it? There are already people who suggest the chess site should be merged into the board games site, something which I would truly hate!

According to  the poll results in a previous meta question, chess programming questions are on-topic.
I do think the settings questions are drifting into more of a gray area, and will need to be addressed, especially if they start to get out of hand, which they don't appear to have yet.


text:
How to effectively curate expert content?
This is meant to collect ideas on how non-novices can use this SE with minimal distraction from novice and trivial content (aka fluff). Currently it seems that watch/ignore lists are the only means, but is there any other alternative?

I am afraid there is no way of doing so, not because of the excessive "novice" questions, but rather because of the lack of actual good chess content on this site

Related: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/254129/do-users-upvote-out-of-sympathy-and-how-should-that-be-addressed (LQ quality -> experts being pushed away -> SE = beginners upvote fest)

I see a lot of arrogance in that post

Yet it highlights the worst-case scenario that can happen without sufficient quality control. Upvotes here mean nothing for questions even if they are +10 or more (in fact it could be just 10 beginners upvoting crap), same goes for user reputation that serves more as participation points - especially when you compare 1k and 10k users, none is necessarily more of an expert. If people have to sieve out highly voted content, how is this site even better than Quora?

Are you a Grandmaster? Because otherwise I think it's a bit unfair to complain about the "low quality of beginner's criteria)

@David you don't need to be a GM here to realize how the site is drawing in more novices than anything else

I guess one could write a userscript to filter out content you don't want to see in the question lists. But I'm struggling on how effective rules can be designed:

Filtering on reputation seems a reasonable first step, but sometimes users with high reputation users post trivial content, and sometimes new users post really interesting questions - do you really want to exclude those?
You already mentioned ignoring tags; those questions are grayed out by default but you can actually hide them via the sidebar widget. Click the 'edit' link to do so:

Generally speaking, I can usually determine from the question title whether a question is interesting for me or not. If not, I just don't click on it. That's an attitude change rather than a system change, but it works for me.


text:
Vote Early. Vote Often
Voting is a very important part of a healthy community, and I think people should be encouraged to vote as much as possible.  This point was raised on Math Stack Exchange, and much of what was said there may also apply to chess.SE:

Every Stack Exchange site will eventually end up with a different "base level" of voting --- that is, the expected number of upvotes for a question of a given level of excellence. (This effect occurs because people see a good question, but already with a certain number of votes, and think "oh, I would have upvoted this, but it already has enough".)
It's easy for us to affect this "base level" by encouraging high levels of upvoting now. We're setting the standards, and this really will have an effect.
In case it's not obvious: the rationale for wanting this base level to be high is that it provides better positive feedback to good contributors."

So, Vote!

+1 Yes, please!  Better safe than sorry - it would be better to err on the side of a high base level than a low one.

Can't… upvote… this… more !

Beyond the reason for more voting mentioned in Eric's original post, there are other reasons for doing so which are important to the future of the site. As mentioned in an old blog post of Jeff Atwood's (also titled Vote Early, Vote Often), he emphasizes a crucial point about voting:

It’s only through voting that a class of editors, closers, and moderators can emerge to help run and govern the site. Voting is how site leadership forms.

Something that many of our users might not be aware of is that having certain numbers of highly reputable users is one of the metrics by which Chess Beta is directly judged (as can be seen at our site's Area 51 page) in terms of when/whether the site will come out of public beta and be a full-fledged site, precisely because a large number of users with editing and moderating privileges helps a site hum along smoothly. (See too Robert Cartaino's blog post When Will My Site Graduate?, which also touches on the importance of more voting.)
Chess Beta is sorely lacking in three respects at the moment: (1) not nearly enough traffic, (2) not nearly enough questions, (3) not enough users of high repute. Now (1) and (2) are real problem spots at the moment, and improving them would naturally lead to an improvement in (3). But it's also the case that (3) can be improved upon with our current user base.
So if you don't already have your Suffrage and Vox Populi and Civic Duty badges, go ahead and grab them. Not only will you be helping your fellow users' quality posts stand out (not to mention your own, since a rising tide lifts all boats), but you'll also be doing a service to the overall health of the site.


text:
The sharper duplicate
Suppose that I have thought of a significantly sharper way to pose a question which has already been asked on this site. My question is a duplicate, but is likely to attract significantly better answers than the original.
Suppose that my question really is a duplicate. Suppose that it makes no sense for me to slightly modify my question in an effort to evade the antiduplication rule.
What to do?
Here is a possible (or at any rate plausible) example.

Hi, have you found this answer satisfactory?

Deliberately posting duplicates is narcissistic. And "My question is a duplicate, but is likely to attract significantly better answers than the original." is presumptive and arrogant.

Well the problem is that "likely to attract significantly better answers" is a big assumption and "better answers" is also arguably put for debate because it tends to become very subjective. Therefore, I would say unless there's a clear reason that distinguishes the two posts, one shouldn't try to evade the duplication rule.
Alternatively, if you feel you want to bring that older post into light again with potentially an additional question/remark attached to it, then you can always consider starting a bounty on that existing post, of the following types:

Draw attention
Current answers are outdated
Improve details

whichever is more fitting to your case, and your additional remarks or questions will go in the bounty description. This way you re-open the discussions without creating a duplicate, and thanks to the bounty it will probably receive lots of feedback quickly.


text:
Why was my question about why chess accepts resigning closed as a duplicate?
My question Why is it acceptable to resign? was closed as a duplicate of an earlier question I asked, Is it poor sportsmanship to resign immediately after a major blunder early in the game? These are not duplicates. The older question asks "Is resigning (in a particular situation) proper chess etiquette?" The new one is getting to a deeper question: "Why does chess have a different viewpoint than most other games/sports about what behavior is considered good sportsmanship?"
Thus I seek an explanation for why the newer question deserves to be closed.
NB: Perhaps the correct answer for this newer question is beyond memory and has just become part of chess culture. If so, I think someone should be given the opportunity to say that.

Seeing as how the question in question is now reopened, this is a resolved matter.


text:
Castling notation in replayer
I was using the chess replayer earlier and couldn't get it to castle. It turns out that I was typing 0-0 and the replayer only recognises O-O.
I couldn't find anywhere on the chess meta explaining which notation to use for castling and both forms are viable to notate a castling move.
Would it be worth making a small change so that we can use both O and 0 in the replayer?

There was a pull request for this on GitHub, but it was not accepted based on the reasoning that O-O is the common and “correct” notation.

authors: user1205901 - Слава Україні


text:
How to disable Winter Bash?
How do I disable the Winter Bash icon (near the top right hand corner) and hats?
I just find it visually confusing and distracting. I find Stack Exchange web pages complicated enough at all times, and this Winter Bash thing is just one more thing I can do well without.
(The same would also apply to April Fools and Easter Eggs.)

If you have a uBlock-compatible ad blocker, you can add the following rule:
##.icon-winterbash

to permanently hide the icon.
If you use uBlock origin, you can simply right-click the element and select "Block element..." instead:


text:
Creation age of a post
I (and anyone) can see when a post was "handled" last (edited, answered,...) but I'd prefer to also see when it was first created. (Obviously, I can do that by simply opening the post, but then it is already too late, you little exhumated attention-stealing post, you :-) Even Windows (gasp) has a "Created" attribute that could be shown in the files viewer (and be used for sorting), on Reddit I always sort by date - is there a possibility to do this on SE too? (I'm not that long or frequently here, and didn't check all features yet.)

The homepage sorts on activity ("last handling") by default, but the list of questions has the option to sort on newest questions as well, and it shows the "created" attribute you're looking for ... but only for questions, not answers.
As you noticed, you have to go to the Q&A page itself to see when the question and answers were created. There's no option to change this; one of the reasons is that the list pages are cached and shown the same way for everybody. Therefore, they are not customizable.

Ah, I see now that homepage!=list of questions - I always thought I already was on the question page...

An additional problem is that the web page for a question and its answers doesn't show the creation date of community wiki question or answers.


text:
PGN replayer should not require FEN header
There was a note in the answer about how to use the FEN/PGN replayer about why pasting a PGN requires an FEN header:

This was done in order to create an "opt-in" experience for the replayers (i.e. only display a replayer if you actively choose to have one), but this is open for debate.

IMHO, this solution is excessively cumbersome, and should be changed for two reasons.
First, I think it's very rare for people to paste PGN games without wanting the replayer. I can't really think of many contexts where that makes sense, other than questions about PGN format itself. Forcing the user to "opt-in" by adding this irritating (and unmemorable) string [FEN ""] is just an excessive burden.
Second, the necessity to paste a PGN inside a code block means that it is already an opt-in experience. That is, if you wanted to, include a PGN without the replayer, you can just type it in without the code block (with a backslash to avoid list formatting):
1. f4 e5 2. g4 Qh4#
Could this please be changed?

[FEN ""] is an excessive burden?  I think our definitions of "excessive" and "burden" may be very different.

Every time I want to add a game I need to go and search for how to do it, because (as noted), that string is not sufficiently memorable. I doubt I'm alone in this. So yes, having to open another tab, go and search for the code block (which, until I just edited that post, was still not easy to find), copy and paste it - does that meet your threshold for these two words?

Appreciate the response.  I keep a SE "bookmark" on the meta page and/or refer to one of my posts with the replayer if I need a refresher.  I'll consider your point and post an answer if I feel I can add value to the discussion.

Also, highlighting that the original quote said specifically this is open for debate.


text:
Documentation for embedding a game?
I cannot find any information how to embed a position anywhere in the help centre.  Here would be a really obvious place for it to be: https://chess.stackexchange.com/editing-help
The only way I can figure out how to do it is to find an existing question with an embedded game, then view the source, and do the same thing.
Is it possible to get some basic documentation added to the help centre? Or even to the UI when you're asking a question?

We can't change the editing help page, as it's a network wide thing.

Hmm, I don't think this is a duplicate. My question is: is there anything that can be done to make improve the documentation situation? At the moment it's basically impossible to find anywhere.

I'm sorry, there's nothing we can change here. I've found another old thread which basically asks for the same.

There's no ability change any of the content anywhere in the Help Center? Even to add a few links to that thread?

Very limited (see the bottom paragraphs of this FAQ entry). Actually, it might make sense to add it to /help, let me try something ...


text:
Would questions about a chess book values be on topic?
I'm aware the questions about the value of a chess set are off-topic, however I'm wondering if questions about book values are on-topic. Specifically, I'm curious about why a certain book tends to be somewhat difficult to find, and is  priced so high.

As a non-collector, I know when I read about an out of print book, I'd love to know if it's worth the money. Even though I check a lot of books out via interlibrary loan/worldcat, this would be a useful resource to me so I don't use my interlibrary loans on weak books. So I think this is a great question, though I don't know enough site rules to know if it would fit in stackoverflow chess.

@aschultz: Just look at reviews on Amazon, or read it yourself. If you see value in it when no one is leaving reviews, it's good to ask for someone to leave a review. It's good to ask why it's valuable (the book's main ideas); it's not good to ask why it's difficult to find (the lack of supply or the excessive demand).

I think it's a fine question, as long as you don't ask people for (an estimate of) the value of the book, which is primarily opinion-based (not off-topic, but it will be closed anyway). Incidentally, there's no reason why this shouldn't apply for chess sets, chess clocks and chess computers as well.
The close reason 'primarily opinion-based' reads:

Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

(emphasis mine). I think this could be one of those 'good questions' the reason refers to.

You can ask about the general valuation of chess books in the context of chess, it is probably a valid question. But these days a strong chess engine with a group of humans (seconds) to help with the interpretation of engine evaluations, should render most books unnecessary or obsolete.
Also, similar to computer books, chess books are in a niche market with limited value as their content becomes outdated quickly (reduced information value), even publishers are increasingly switching to ebooks which are sold for a lower price.

No. The answer is simply supply and demand. We can extrapolate this to any valuable object, and find that the answer is the same.

That's not completely true, see https://money.stackexchange.com/q/79848 for example.


text:
PGN input field and software to depict this input as board position

Possible Duplicate:
Can we implement a replayer for chess analysis on the site?

We need to somehow plan to get a separate input field to accept PGN board position as well as some software to translate this into showing the board position.
Additonally we can have the PGN notation to see the moves for the game under question.
Any suggestions on how to get this done?

Similarly, the ability to generate a board image from a FEN string would be nice.

I agree.  We're talking about chess, and a way to use the chess language (diagrams and notation) easily would be helpful.

Um, I volunteer to implement it, if the SO guys will let me.

Any ideas on how to take this forward? Should we contact Jeff or Sam Saffron?

I think we badly need this feature, a PGN tag which will convert notation to an actual playable board would be awesome too, most chess websites have some kind of mechanism to do that

I agree an interactive board like the one found on chess.com would be nice.

As well as making the usage of the site easier, having such a tool would mean that all the diagrams on the site could look consistent rather than having each questioner use their own preferred tool to generate an image.
Not only are user-generated images not searchable (e.g. if you wanted to find all board positions that involved a certain pattern) they will end up looking inconsistent over time.

Support for ubiquitous FEN tags (which is more important imho) should probably be added as a start. The pgn viewer etc can come later.


text:
Could we implement a chess diagram/sequence tool?

Possible Duplicate:
PGN input field and software to depict this input as board position

I don't know how hard it would be, but is it possible to allow people to post chess diagrams using only the Chess.SE posting tools?  The alternative we've been using is to use an online tool, and then uploading a screenshot or online image.
It would be best if we could use manual setup and FEN game notation for diagrams, and PGN as well for sequences.
Is this possible, and if so, could it be implemented?

asked before http://meta.chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15/pgn-input-field-and-software-to-depict-this-input-as-board-position


text:
Sandbox post; do what you like here if you want to test out formatting, etc
I'm posting this for my own benefit as well as for others' - feel free to answer, edit, comment anything you like (as long as you keep it civil, of course!).
This is the place to try out new formats, etc, without disrupting any other activity on the site.

This was converted into an edit from an answer
Note:
Unfortunately, the PGN viewer is unavailable on meta.chess. In order to play around with it, you will need to start a new question on the main site, but not actually post it. Note that the viewer preview updates as you type. Basic info on the viewer can be accessed here.

Here are some common formats to know about:
Big -> #Big
superscript -> superscript
subscript -> subscript
italics -> *italics*
italics -> _italics_
bold -> **bold**
bold -> __bold__
bold italics -> ***bold italics***
bold italics -> ___bold italics___
gray monospace -> use the ` character (backtick) around text
italics monospace - use asterisks around backticks.
Same with bold monospace
Big italics
tag replications:
interesting -> [tag:interesting]
status-declined -> [meta-tag:status-declined]
If you use this format in comments, the tags become links without the graphic: status-declined

horizontal line - ---

quote - >quote

nested quote - >>nested quote

Line break = 2 spaces then enter
Like this.
Hover over the following:

Spoiler text - >!Spoiler text

Yes, I know that the gray backtick formatting looks weird in the spoiler quote; that's probably a bug. The bug is squished.

As a lot of rep is needed to edit posts on meta, and edit suggestions are disabled (therefore, we can't look at the source), it's really useful to put the code into the post.

Inside a normal, happy quote, monospace works as expected.

But

Inside a secretive, spoiler quote, monospace becomes evil and wicked.

'Tis fixed as of yesterday.

[Event "Second Piatigorsky  Cup"]
[Site "Santa Monica  USA"]
[FEN " w - - 0 1"]
[Date "1966.07.27"]
[EventDate "1966.07.17"]
[Round "7"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Bent Larsen"]
[Black "Petrosian"]
[ECO "B39"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "59"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Be3 Bg7 6. c4 Nf6
7. Nc3 Ng4 8. Qxg4 Nxd4 9. Qd1 Ne6 10. Qd2 d6 11. Be2 Bd7
12. O-O O-O 13. Rad1 Bc6 14. Nd5 Re8 15. f4 Nc7 16. f5 Na6
17. Bg4 Nc5 18. fxg6 hxg6 19. Qf2 Rf8 20. e5 Bxe5 21. Qh4 Bxd5
22. Rxd5 Ne6 23. Rf3 Bf6 24. Qh6 Bg7 25. Qxg6 Nf4 26. Rxf4
fxg6 27. Be6+ Rf7 28. Rxf7 Kh8 29. Rg5 b5 30. Rg3 1-0

Test post for using the viewer.

Sorry Alan - it appears the viewer does not work in the sandbox. I commented on your question, and edited the sandbox to note that the viewer must be tested on the main site, and this is legitimately possible in an unposted new question.

Just curious whether or not the PGN viewer is active on meta.
[FEN ""]

1.c4 e5

Apparently not.


text:
Should we prefer singular or plural in tags?
My experience with English.SE has led me to favor the plural, as the community there opted to use it (see the relevant meta.english post here).  However, I thought I'd pose the question to the community.  I've already remapped tags from bishop to bishops, as well as the rest of the chess pieces, but before going further, I decided to post here.
Vote on the answers below to state your choice.

There is now both a [tag:novelty] and a [tag:novelties] tag. According to the vote below, [tag:novelties] should be the preferred choice.

doubled-pawn should definitely be changed to doubled-pawns

Plural
Vote this choice up if you want tags referring to countable objects to be generally in the plural (pawns, openings, sacrifices)
Vote it down if you are strongly opposed to the above.

Singular
Vote this choice up if you want tags referring to countable objects to be generally in the singular (pawn, opening, sacrifice)
Vote it down if you are strongly opposed to the above.


text:
Can we tweak the PGN viewer a bit?
I like everything about the new viewer but one thing: when you give it the FEN for a position, the subsequent moves are forced to appear as starting with 1 again.
In other words, even though the FEN includes info about which move it currently is, it doesn't accept PGN for moves starting with the move number, only moves starting with 1.
See this post for an example.  I included a FEN which shows that it is the 16th move, but was forced to number the moves as 1, 2, and 3 rather than 16, 17, and 18.
So, I propose that numbering either way (starting with move number or starting with 1) be made an option.

This would be a nice addition.