text:
Please give suggestions to improve question on Josh Waitzkin further
Josh Waitzkin on trading pieces ('the art of the trade')
Rewan Demontay and I have already edited the above question. So far there are only 2 re-open votes (vs the apparently only 1 close vote needed. so much for 'Chess Stack Exchange doesn't see much questions per day or traffic, so we don't have the luxury to close questions', though I guess the context is different...which might be seen at the end of the sentence...)
Please make suggestions to further improve question, so it can be re-opened.

Re-opened already. thank you

Rewan Demontay, GloriaVictis, lodebari, double-beep, Laska

notably missing the CLOSER(/s) of the post.

One can see that data? You live, you learn :-)

@HaukeReddmann maybe it's a new feature? (not 2021 new. maybe 2017 new. idk)


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Why did Glorfindel♦ reject my edit even though I was previously approved for similar edits (including by Brian Towers♦)?
The rejected:
https://chess.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19534
https://chess.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19535
The approved:
https://chess.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19538
https://chess.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19539
In particular for the excerpt history, the approved one is

Robert Hübner (born 1948) is a German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist. He was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s.

while my rejected one is

Robert Hübner (born November 6, 1948) is a German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist. He was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Note re tag wiki bio's: I've also been approved for similar edits for the ff tags i created: akiba-rubinstein, botez, wesley-so, waitzkin

I guess I'm about to be rejected for nakamura

https://chess.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19545

Note the inconsistency in the tags for grandmasters, which can cause name clashes with those for openings. Nobody on the site seems to care about naming consistency in tags...

Have you read why I rejected those edits, in particular the useful links about what tag excerpts and wikis should contain?

https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/03/24/redesigned-tags-page/
https://chess.stackexchange.com/help/tag-excerpts

Why do you insist on submitting similarly worded texts, instead of taking the advice in those rejections into account?

I'm not even sure every grandmaster needs his or her own tag. Tags should indicate what a question is about (i.e. analysis of an endgame), not what a question contains (i.e. a game by Robert Hübner). To clean up rarely used (and therefore not useful tags), there is an automated process and adding tag wikis/excerpts actually prevents that process from working properly.

Not every user is strictly applying the review rules for tag wikis and excerpts. Many will think: "this looks good, and it's better to have a tag wiki/excerpt than none". This is not true, see the above. In perhaps similar spirit, I sometimes improve existing tag wikis/excerpts by fixing spelling mistakes or broken links.

do you disagree with Brian Towers♦ ? i mean is it possible you are both correct/in agreement? the only difference i see is the november thing. i don't see how it's possible that you are both correct/in agreement. i think there has to be a disagreement/that someone is incorrect.

Re 3, you're a mod, so why don't you just remove all the tags [tag:robert-hubner], [tag:wesley-so], [tag:carlsen], [tag:botez] ?

Note my question is not 'Why did Glorfindel♦ reject my edit for the [tag:robert-hubner] tag?'  my question is 'Why did Glorfindel♦ reject my edit for the [tag:robert-hubner] tag but Brian Towers♦ approved a similar edit?'

I think that's not the right question to ask. It doesn't matter that we're both moderators. It could have equally been "Why did userA and userB reject this edit, while userC and userD approved it?".

are you refusing to answer the questions? (1- disagree with Brian Towers♦  2 - 'Re 3, you're a mod...')

'Why do you insist on submitting similarly worded texts, instead of taking the advice in those rejections into account?' --> because of my previous approved stuff eg  see my edit to include: Note re tag wiki bio's: I've also been approved for similar edits for the ff tags i created: [tag:akiba-rubinstein], [tag:botez], [tag:wesley-so], [tag:waitzkin] --> are any of these tags wrong to have on the site? or are any of their descriptions currently wrong even though they were not only approved but also approved by a moderator?

The title of your question and the first sentence suggests that it's important that we're both moderators. I've answered it as far as I could; I do not have a crystal ball and cannot know what others' reasons are to make certain review decisions. I can only explain mine.

wait are you seriously still refusing to answer the questions? 1- disagree with Brian Towers♦ 2 - 'Re 3, you're a mod...' 3 - 'are any of these tags wrong...' 4 - and now another. re 'It doesn't matter that we're both moderators.' --> afaik moderators get to make the rules. the approval of brian towers yet your subsequent rejection sounds like a contradiction in the rules. one of you has violated a rule of permissibility/forbiddenness that another follows/creates. am i wrong?

I'm trying to give you information so that you can find out the answer yourself (teaching you to fish). Moderators don't make the rules; communities do, moderators just enforce them (together with the rest of the community; we simply have more/better tools). We don't disagree; see Brian's honest answer. And there's absolutely no hurry to remove/revert things immediately, it's not like the world is going to break from this. It's better to clarify things first.

Why did ... Brian Towers approve a similar edit?

We all make mistakes.

so why aren't you now reverting the edit or something?

also how come you've approved similar edits of mine before? eg akiba rubinstein

wait do you mean it was a mistake at the time you made the approval? eg like you were not checking so carefully and mistakenly pressed approve or approved the wrong thing? or you realise now it was a mistake to have approved? (not that i consider it a mistake)

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Are questions that ask for help with specific chess sites, like chess.com and lichess.org, on topic?
My question

How do I get the chess.com engine to list all the best moves? (I later deleted)

was closed by Brian Towers♦ who said

This is Chess StackExchange, not the chess.com help center.

(btw the answer is to increase the number of lines. same as in lichess. i think the question could've been edited to be on-topic like ask about how to do computer analysis in general.)
And yet this is allowed:

How do I play 30 second games on chess.com?

Why? What's the rule for this?
Note: I think resource recommendation questions like this Play online live game against a friend with time odds? are ok

Update: the 30 second thingy was closed.

If the grounds for closing have been changed, the exact new reasons must be clearly posted at the original question, so the questioner can understand and possibly amend the question.

While they may be technically off-topic, perhaps we could make some exceptions. Seeing as how they, and many other questions, are not closed, it certainly seems that some selection of them remain accepted by the community. Lichess and chess.com are the top two chess sites, along with others such as chess24. It may be time to rewrite that section of the rules.

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


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Beginner question gets 29 upvotes
Why is this a checkmate?
It seems there's some arbitrage problem with these kinds of questions. Ostensibly, I could just pretend to be a beginner and then ask beginner questions like these and instantly attract 25 upvotes within a few days.
Are these kinds of questions really ok? If so, then should these kinds of questions really be ok? I think of making certain new questions or FAQs off-topic to prevent these kinds of things. r/chess has a "Helpful Links" part in the sidebar.
I mean, I have nothing against n00bs or anything, but what's to stop me or anyone from pretending to be a beginner and posting all these easily answered questions about basic things like pins or checkmates? I could even say I reached a stalemate (without using the term stalemate) and wonder the lone king can't move. I'll even make sure to use an image instead of FEN/PGN.
Some food for thought, I guess.
One idea came to mind as I finished typing all this. Perhaps migrate to the Board Games SE if it's too much of a beginner question. I was thinking it would be something a little (A LITTLE) like MathOverflow and Math.SE (not the best analogy which is why I emphasised 'little').
By the way, here is another example, but this time to do with etiquette/ethics/rules rather than actual gameplay.

Do it. On Arqade I asked a pretty easy question of what a well known gaming term referred to, and got 20+ votes from it. Not only is it easy rep, but you re helping out those people who “don’t know what they don’t know.”

@PausePause LOL ok thanks!

known issue...beginners are an over-represented demographic in this SE (as compared to other chess-focused communities): https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/251/46

If someone asks a basic question that is useful to other people who cares if they're getting their reputation inflated with that?

I could just pretend to be a beginner and then ask beginner questions like these and instantly attract 25 upvotes within a few days.

This beginner got lucky; the question became a Hot Network Question. Likely because it attracted more than one answer (which IMHO wasn't really necessary in this case) and everybody with a bit of chess knowledge, including visitors normally only active on other Stack Exchange sites, can verify the correctness and upvote because of the association bonus. Many consider this a flaw of the Hot Network Question list, there's quite a bit of discussion on Meta Stack Exchange.

Are these kinds of questions really ok?

Yes.

Questions that have to do primarily with chess in its standard form are on-topic here. This includes questions about theory, rules, specific positions/games (including puzzles), chess-specific events, chess players, hard facts such as statistics and other historical data, and physical items such as chessboards, pieces, and clocks.

(emphasis mine)
Chess Stack Exchange doesn't see much questions per day or traffic, so we don't have the luxury to rashly close questions which (to experienced chess players) may seem to lack research. Rather, we should put some energy in them to edit into decent shape. Of course, there are still questions for which there is no hope at all and should be closed, but 'too basic' has never been a close reason here, unlike e.g. on History Stack Exchange.
It seems that you think it's unfair that some well-researched or interesting questions or answers get much less attention than (some) basic ones like this. Well, that has been known for more than 10 years and nobody found a good solution yet. I guess it's the same kind of issue where a simple novel written for the masses (50 shades of a certain color) is way more profitable than a true literary masterpiece.

'Chess Stack Exchange doesn't see much questions per day or traffic' --> AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH so that's the thing! you don't want to close these kinds of things FOR NOW because (or partly because) of your low number of questions? XD XD but in the future YOU MAY consider closing (with an amendment of rules) if, say, chesse gets as many posts per day as maths se?

the low posts per day thingy applies here as well? https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/950/should-questions-feature-computer-analysis-whenever-relevant and even here? https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/948/whether-or-not-images-instead-of-fen-pgn-are-allowed

'It seems that you think it's unfair that some well-researched or interesting questions or answers get much less attention than (some) basic ones like this.' --> part 1. ok i've read the link succeeding and it's very interesting. i've even followed other links. and if that's how i came off - like kinda jealous or something - that's not what i intended.

part 2. my intention is absolute, not relative. it's to do with gaming the system in that i could ask any damn beginner question i want, get a lot of upvotes and therefore have enough rep to set bounties. i don't really care that my questions are not getting upvoted enough or anything. so...it's like i'm evil. but i'm not shallow/jealous evil. i'm manipulative (of the reputation/rules/bounty) evil. (this is last part a joke to be clear. i don't really - necessarily - intend to waste  time posting beginner questions just to be able to set bounties)

I think I was the 3rd or 4th answer on this and tbh it did feel necessary, because at the time all of the answers were using basically "it's pinned" which is useless if you don't already know what a pin is, as I doubt the asker did. Getting 78 upvotes for an explanation of basic rules is pretty absurd though.

"which (to experienced chess players) may seem to lack research" -- to be honest, you don't need to be an experienced chess player to judge that that question lacks research. Just knowing the rules is enough. (source: I'm not even a chess player, let alone experienced.) The question even mentions a proposed counter-move, but apparently they hadn't bothered to actually make the move and look at the board position after it... Sometimes I wonder if the association bonus should permit downvotes too, just for things like this. I know I would use that option.

@ilkkachu yes, being able to downvote with the association bonus would probably help. I've found another solution.

As I said earlier in this meta answer, justifying bad questions just because there are 'not enough' questions per day here seems a bad idea to me.

@FedericoPoloni trolololol. of course i agree with you. i just think the mods/admins should admit that's what they're doing if that's what they're doing. thanks for commenting.

@ilkkachu thanks for commenting. i upvoted your comment, but i don't think the question should be downvoted though. in this case, i think it's more like hate the game not the player. if the site doesn't have a rule, then well why downvote the player?

Don't worry about it. It is largely self-correcting.
Numerical rep is only correlated with the reputation that really matters: the respect of knowledgeable community members. Posting a lot of overly basic questions might give a person an initial boost, but they will rapidly hit a ceiling if they stick to such a strategy (since those upvoting basic questions from a new user are less likely to upvote it for more established users) and they won't gain the sort of reputation that really means anything.

thanks. the rep doesn't have to mean anything. the rep could be for bounty. is your answer still the same after i mention this?

@BCLC I'm not completley sure what you are getting at. I haven't seen a lot of overly basic questions (of the "why am I in checkmate"? sort)  that have had a bounty attached to them. But even if there were, I would stand by my answer. Rep is an imperfect measure of what is actually important. Some people can game the system, but so what? There is a limit to how far they will get if they do so (it is safe to say that almost everyone over 10k has earned it) and even if they could, they are just winning at a game which is more boring than chess.

i mean if i ask a beginner question and gain say 50 points from it, then it's like i can set a bounty on other or future questions i, resp, have or would have. meanwhile, i did not  really or necessarily contribute anything to the site. seems like arbitrage, rent-seeking or something


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Should questions feature computer analysis whenever relevant?
I notice a few questions that ask for help on puzzles. I think some of those questions can be easily answered with a computer. If not, then I think the askers should show what they've already tried with computers and in what the computers were not helpful. Otherwise, it seems like every single puzzle ever conceived will just end up here. And then 99% will be easy to answer by just pulling up a computer.
Movies se i think has a policy possibly related to this 'Unimportant trivia that does not add to the understanding or appreciation of the title'.
And just basically requiring askers to show effort. It's like maths se requiring its askers to show what they've tried. Otherwise, maths se is just gonna do everyone's homework.

Update: See here. It appears featuring computer analysis will give you unsolicited, although helpful for n00bs I guess, advice from  Brian Towers♦. lol.
So, even though the intent is to make things easier for the answerers, who would not necessarily need to check engines themselves and thus hopefully show effort instead of expecting to be spoon-fed, it will actually appear like I'm not showing effort! (Well actually not necessarily effort in asking the question. I guess could be effort in improving in chess.)

If, however, your main goal is to improve your chess then switching on the engine should always be the last thing you do, never the first. The point being that you will experience very little improvement unless you exercise your brain and if you rely exclusively on the engine and other people's brains then your brain is not going to get any exercise and your improvement is going to be held back.

You should always engage your brain first and struggle and try and solve the problem on your own.

But still, thanks again I guess Brian Towers♦. lol.

Edit: anyway i don't quite brian towers' answer. there seems to be a contradiction. you said they should and i can downvote if they don't have computer analysis whenever relevant. but why did you say they don't have to? lol. (note: i edit this into the post because brian towers is extremely relentless and inconsiderate in deleting comments.)

The answer is pretty clear: people posting the questions are free to choose if they want to have computer analysis. You're in your own right to downvote them for that reason, but it's not enough to get it closed.

Should questions feature computer analysis whenever relevant?

Yes, they should.
Do they have to?
No. We welcome beginners who may not have got as far as computer analysis.
I don't like such poor questions. How should I react if closing isn't an option?
If you hover your mouse over the downvote arrow you see the tooltip:

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful

If you think the lack of associated computer analysis shows a lack of research effort then downvote.

My 50c to "Computers": A computer may be of no use to a beginner as it shows which move is best, but not necessarily why. Even if it is a #3: the learning effect is not "wham, bam, mate, got it" but (say) "oh, this is an example for annihilating a defender". So it depends on the scope of the question whether I prefer the asker to consider a computer analysis. Cf. eg. https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/35037/what-are-the-ideas-behind-the-4-qxd4-variation-of-philidors-defense - engines have an opinion whether Qxd4 or Nxd4 and databases which scores best, but thats rather irrelevant.

may you please clarify the difference between should and have to? it is like the difference between positive and normative? or factual and argumentative? i mean for a non-moderator sure, but you are actually a moderator. i actually don't see the difference between should and have to for a moderator. ah wait, is it like those politicians who are pro-life but they are in favour of laws that allow abortion? Like morally they don't believe women should have abortions, but legally they give women the choice?


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What is our criteria for deciding opinion-based questions? Are they applied consistently?
What are the criteria for a question in this website to be considered opinion-based, and is it somewhat consistently applied?
Such criteria would be necessary for moderators for a topic like chess.
I feel like many questions are closed off unfairly as opinion-based whereas some clearly opinion-based questions are allowed. Is such decisions made to avoid useless disputes? (To me, this doesn't seem to be the case).
For example, the question "What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?" was marked as too opnion-based and it was re-opened later after asking a meta question (by the way, it is not the case that the edits redeemed the quesiton).
On the other hand, there are obvious opinion-based questions which are let on.
Examples: one, two, three, four, five
The above question listed below for quick reading (without links):
Why isn't Chess960 the standard?
Why are opening books so popular?
Why do people prefer different chess engine evaluations?
What are some good podcasts to listen to?
What do I do next?
I could list many more. Similar to the last one, there are some many questions encouraged in this community that basically ask for opinions and tips on how to improve in chess (more examples: one, two, three).

I am afraid lack of proper criteria for moderators could lead to people leaving this community (or not participating actively).

Some opinion-based questions are loved by this community, and many of them are indeed very useful to chess lovers. But, the moderator's decision on marking questions as opinion-based should not be opinion-based either.

The opinion-based tag has no usage guidance.

Taking cue from Moms4mom se as explained in this nice blog, I think opinions one can back up by facts should be allowed in chess se.

related, possible dupe: https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/880/9025

@Herb The linked question is indeed closely related (the main difference is that this quesiton is for moderators). The accepted answer to that question is probably enough as a guideline. I would appreciate it if the tag description has a link to "What types of questions should I avoid asking?".

Does this answer your question? Are questions involving opinions allowed?

@Dheebs "Does this answer your question?"  Probably yes (not sure myself). My concern is whether there is consistency in marking questions as opnion-based.

I'll have a crack at this.
I'd classify any question that cannot be answered with a Right or Wrong answer , and leads towards a responses/discussions based on personal belief or conjecture.
So questions such as "Why is [insert chess variant] not played at the same level as classical chess?" leads to responses as , "Its not as exciting" etc.
You cannot receive a factual response with any empirical evidence to support the response.
This is where it gets a little gray because there are some "opinion" style questions such as "How do I improve my Rating" that can generally be answered correctly with non opinionated responses, eg: Study and improve your end game, play longer time controls, study tactics, improve middle game, don't set all your focus on opening theory until you have middle game / end game theory locked in. That said I absolutely despise this questions because its no different to "How do I make a million dollars?" , perseverance.
The biggest issues with this is Stack Exchange isn't designed for communities like "Chess" in mind. Its primary design is for programming and leads to factual, measurable responses. Something not necessarily applicable to all facets of chess.

Sure. But, then why are questions listed at the end not marked opnion-based? Most (if not all) of them fit your description of questions not acceptable here.

To a certain extent I agree. Unless things can be quantitatively measured, eg; Engine Use, something rooted in historic fact, or understood theory (eg; Opening principles). It will generally be opinionated.

In that case, what should be a decent guideline for a mod to make decision on opnion-based questions? I am afraid many rely on their judgement on whether the question would be useful/interesting to the community. Utility to the community seems a good enough indicator, but personal judgement of this is often highly biased. And the interest of the community is very dynamic. For example, questions on chess variants is a new thing.

Definitely more one for the mods.

I hope this gets clarification from moderators. It's been a year already.
Afaik, the purpose of opinion-based is to avoid 'What's your favourite (...)?' kind of questions. There are many speculation questions that are on-topic eg

If Hans Niemann is cheating, how?
Why isn't Chess960 the standard?
Would a classic full time armageddon tiebreaker be balanced?
Why isn't there more classical armageddon with auction?
Why didn't Wesley So get full championship privilege in the 2022 WFRCC unlike Magnus and Vishy did since 2008?

I don't see these as any different from asking on movies or scifi/fantasy SE like 'Why did character X do action Y?'
Based on the previous post
Are questions involving opinions allowed?
I think the moderators should clarify...

Glorfindel: 'Of course, there is a gray area'

Clarify as to what exactly the criteria are and how they are applied and if so far they've been applied consistently given that

What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?
was incorrectly closed by a moderator before 5 votes.

Brian Towers: 'The key point is that suitable questions should have definitive answers. If my opinion on a subject is different from yours and both are arguable then the question is not suitable. The site is not supposed to be about arguments and discussions. It's supposed to be about facts.'

Clarify a distinction between 'theories' and '(complete) opinions'. For example, it's plainly on-topic to theorise/speculate 'Why isn't there more classical armageddon with auction?' because it was answered by a moderator. We don't necessarily need interviews from FIDE or tournament organisers because people with enough experience are able to tell. Another such question might be

Why aren't OTB superGM chess tournaments done using 1 computer per player like in the 2022 Meltwater Finals where players still showed up physically but made moves in their chess.com / chess24 account on provided respective computers not on a physical board?

People can have different 'opinions' in the sense of 'theories'. No one's going to have an 'opinion like 'I think a magic fairy from another dimension forbade it.'


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Unanswered Questions-Near The End Of An Era
I undertook a mission in the spring of 2019 for this sight-eliminate the Unanswered Questions list down to 0.
When I began, there was an absurd total of 75.
Now we are down to 23 questions, with a former record of 18 or 19 at some point. Nearly all of them are from this year (erm, unproductive summer I suppose plus a lot of them are programming questions, so there's also that). It took a lot of upvotes and answering to get there!
Only 5 remain that are not from this year. Once put to rest, all that will remain are from this year. It's almost the end of an era for unanswered questions.
I encourage everyone to go look at the list and see if they can answer any of the unanswered questions. The less there are, the better.
However, some of them seem to have no possible answer (one that is absurdly difficult to find) and are on-topic. What should be done about such questions?

What should be done about such questions?

Fermat's Last Theorem was proposed in 1637 and only solved in 1994. If the field of mathematics can survive for 357 years with an unanswered question so can chess stack exchange.
I say, leave them for future generations to struggle with.


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Is there a rule about not using chess engines to answer "what's the best move in this position" questions?
I refer here to tactics positions, where there is a clear winning (like a mate in n moves), not the ones about planning or strategy.
The thing is I see people answering questions about tactical positions with their own analysis, when 99% using an engine would just give the perfect solution.
So I just wonder whether there exists a (unwritten?) rule about not using chess engines to answer "what's the best move in this position" questions?

So I just wonder whether there exists a (unwritten?) rule about not
  using chess engines to answer "what's the best move in this position"
  questions?

There is no such rule, unwritten or otherwise, in the forum.
However, one of the things that blocks improvement for many players is the impulse to switch off their brains and switch on the engine. People who respond to such questions with their own, rather than engine analysis, are merely trying to maintain their own chess ability rather than let it atrophy.

If you are not using chess engines, then the answer better be something that would not be rejected by a master. There is no value in having novices asking "best move" questions to solicit "best move" answers from other novices. Blind leading the blind
And the funny thing is, you will never find such questions from stronger players (who actually do their homework)..

I refer here to tactics positions, where there is a clear winning (like a mate in n moves), not the ones about planning or strategy.

Such positions can be solved with effort by anyone, hence only serve to attract help vampires.

Strongly disagree! I think it's perfectly fine to give a try to evaluate a position presented by someone else. If it's wrong, you'll enlighten the debate by having people proving you wrong Otherwise what's the point of this site? Providing the same answers you can get from an engine? Pretty useless site then...

@David proving you wrong on some puzzle or trivia by running engine checks for you? isn't that more pointless?

I mean proving me wrong via more human analysis


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Policy regarding mass minor edits
Does Chess SE have an internal policy regarding mass edits?
Currently (May 28, 2020), the front page is not in the ideal shape (to put it mildly), and I am unaware of the general "Maintenance Force" initiative.
Should we have such a policy? While improving edits are good, the ones that are minor should not be done in mass in my opinion.

Does Chess SE have an internal policy regarding mass edits?

No.

Currently (May 28, 2020), the front page is not in the ideal shape (to
  put it mildly)

I have to admit this doesn't affect me because on the "Questions" page there is an option to filter by:
Newest, Active, Bountied, Unanswered, More (Frequent, Votes, Custom)
and I always have "Newest". If there is an option somewhere to have that as the default then sometime in the dim and distant past I made "Newest" my default. I do very occasionally click on one of the others but probably only once a month.
If it disturbs you I suggest you do the same.
Edit: A new poll started to see what everybody thinks. Vote here.


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How to write mathematical formulae?
On Math Stack Exchange, it is possible to write mathematical formulae in LaTeX-style. Is it also possible on Chess Stack Exchange?

No, it is $not possible$ at the moment.
Here is a list of Stack Exchange sites which support MathJax, but Chess is not one of them.

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Usage of Defense vs. Defence in tags
One thing I realized when adding a tag to an article is that the various 'defenses' could also be spelled 'defences', depending on the locale.
Eventually what I see happening is multiple tags appearing for the same defense, such as 'sicilian-defense' and 'sicilian-defence'.
Is there a convention that is preferred for the tags? should one be set?
Wikipedia does not set a convention other than the usage should be consistent within an article.

Coming up with a convention and setting up tag synonyms to cover the other spelling sounds like a great plan. :)

Ah, yes it looks like the tag synonyms will handle this case nicely

IIRC defense is more common in American English, so I think that should be the standard.  No SE site I know of synonymizes alternate spellings, that would be a mess (there are a lot more words that just this one to consider).

My opinion based on looking at my collection of chess books would be to use the Americanized "Defense".
Setting up tag synonyms might help if we have enough questions, but right now the only tags I found are as follows:

sicilian
damiano-defence
philidor-defence
scandinavian-defence
alekhines-defence
grunfeld-defense

I would recommend changing the tags in place since there is only the one question for the each of them (except for Sicilian) and the titles also need to be standardized.

I have just gone through and changed all instances of "defence" to "defense" (also changing [tag:sicilian] to [tag:sicilian-defense]).

'french-defense' and 'french' should also be made synonymous.

@DagOskarMadsen good call, I just merged [tag:French] into [tag:French-Defense].

You should also merge the tag 'defence' with 'defense'.

@DagOskarMadsen thanks, good catch, that's done now.


text:
Questions tagged by skill level
Do we want to have questions tagged with the skill level of the person asking it, so others can answer with that audience in mind?  I know it's a bit tricky, since we want to give definitive answers, but the playing strength really does affect the answer that will be most helpful.

I agree. The skill level of a user really does affect how the answer will be helpful or not.
However, there is a problem we run into; we need duplicate answers that is based on the expertise. So if someone asks something, not only we have to answer their question based on their skill level, but we need to include extra answers that relates to different skill level of others. This is a problem due to obvious reasons.

For those who don't know me, I'm Grace Note, a Community Coordinator at Stack Exchange.
Tagging by skill level a different scale and system than normal tagging. Normal tags are designed to categorize what a question is about, not what a question is. That is, if you look at the tags of a question, you'd be able to understand what the question is covering. So, if there was a question tagged end-game, then it's pretty clear that the question revolves around the end-game of the match.
When you tag by skill level of the asker, let's say beginner, then that doesn't actually tell you what the question is about. It gives you warning that the user might not know the high level stuff, but nothing about the topic. For further reading on these kind of tags, this blog article touches the subject primarily.
The ultimate goal of the site is to help everyone at large, not just the original asker - that's why our focus is on the content. Treat the question as independent of the asker's skill level - you want to help as many people who have the same question as possible. These future readers could be of any skill level, so it shouldn't be branded to only a specific section just because the first person to come out with the question. If the asker's skill level is relevant, this should be made clear in the question body. Otherwise, answerers should be aiming to make their answers as universally helpful as possible.
Now, you could judge by the skill level of a particular strategy, perhaps. I admit that I'm not an excellent chess player, so I don't know if strategies are particularly divided by skill level. But in that case, you'd still be creating a meaningful classification of questions based on their content. You can group "high level strategy" questions because they're part of some set of high level strategy. But grouping by asker's skill level ends up pretty arbitrary and could span the spectrum of possible topics, rendering it very weak as a filter.

I'd add to this excellent answer that sometimes — given the skill —, you may want to divide an answer into a usual answer, easy to understand, generally the best ; and a higher-level sometimes answer, good to know in certain situations, especially for people who already know the basics. That may well be what the OP is after, but in any case, readers can fall in any of these categories and learn something.

The example I'd give is castling. I'm sure many players could still learn about the virtues of castling early, usually king-side, be safe, play rooks, etc. That's your plain and good 1400 answer. Apart from that, it's worth mentionning many openings would rather be played castling queen-side, or delaying it to see which side is best, or even centre-castle behind pawns when the occasion arises. That's more of a 1900 answer : most of the time, KISS, but sometimes, it's good to know about other options. I think both answers should be mentionned and labelled as such.

I believe, you can, more or less, deduce a person's skill level by reading his question.
I think taking example from StackOverflow is relevant here: Developers with different skill levels ask questions and depending on how and what question is asked, you know what kind of answer is expected.

It is not always the case. For example, if a player asks what are some key ideas to keep in mind in a particular opening, the answer can vary quite a bit depending on the player's skill. Such tags would also make it easier to filter the questions.

It shouldn't be a requirement, but when I ask a question, I give my approximate strength (a 1500 rating) to show my "frame of reference."

I noticed this in your question, and I thought it was very helpful for my (long-winded) answer.  Not sure if that's a field we could add to user profiles?

What if I have no idea what a 1500 rating is?

@Soufiane Hassau: Someone with a 1500 rating is a low level club player. Good enough to beat most casual players, but loses to most serious players.


text:
Newest questions screen updates
Many times it happens that I post a question and then visit the newest questions screen on the site and realize that my question doesn't appear on that screen for as long as a couple of minutes on the screen. But the same is not the case with Stack Exchange.com. Is this status-by-design or a bug?

This has to do with the aggressive caching mechanisms that the site uses.  Some of the earlier podcasts discuss details of the system.
Since there are so many more visitors to stackoverflow than chess.stackexchange the cache is rebuilt more quickly there.
I have noticed that sometimes if my question does not appear on http://chess.stackexchange.com, it will appear on the questions tab (https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions).


text:
What PGN-viewer is used here?
What PGN-Viewer is used on this site? Is it open source? Freeware? I am looking for something on my chess club web site. I searched here about the PGN-Viewer but could not find the name.

The PGN viewer used on Chess SE comes from here, and is licensed under the MIT license (very permissive).

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


text:
2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

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

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

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
6
7

Users destroyed³
11
0

Users deleted
10
0

Users contacted
13
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
359
297

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
61
103

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
235
115

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
151
77

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
691
249

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
279
301

Tags merged
2
0

Tag synonyms proposed
3
2

Tag synonyms created
5
1

Questions unprotected
1
0

Questions reopened
17
3

Questions protected
4
37

Questions migrated
1
0

Questions merged
1
0

Questions flagged⁵
1
157

Questions closed
204
26

Question flags handled⁵
101
57

Posts unlocked
0
2

Posts undeleted
4
35

Posts locked
2
31

Posts deleted⁶
236
279

Posts bumped
0
16

Escalations to the Community Manager team
1
0

Comments undeleted
5
0

Comments flagged
225
423

Comments deleted⁷
1,616
1,165

Comment flags handled
590
58

Answers flagged
62
598

Answer flags handled
541
119

All comments on a post moved to chat
13
0

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

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2019: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

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

A big thank you to Shog9 for writing the queries and script to facilitate fetching and posting this data to all the sites in the network, and to Brian for the subsequent work making the whole thing more user friendly.
Wishing everyone a happy 2021!

Great work, and a great year everyone! :^)
(This is to get this off the unanswered list.)


text:
2022: a year in moderation

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

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

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2022 (and where did January go, right?) and dive head first into 2023, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Chess over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

All comments on a post moved to chat
3
0

Answer flags handled
168
8

Answers flagged
28
148

Comment flags handled
308
60

Comments deleted⁷
1,341
426

Comments flagged
116
252

Comments undeleted
5
0

Posts bumped
0
28

Posts deleted⁶
108
212

Posts locked
0
10

Posts undeleted
9
20

Posts unlocked
0
1

Question flags handled⁵
48
22

Questions closed
125
17

Questions flagged⁵
20
61

Questions migrated
2
0

Questions protected
2
15

Questions reopened
21
5

Questions unprotected
0
1

Tag synonyms proposed
1
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Close votes" queue
182
274

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First answers" queue
184
82

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First questions" queue
187
55

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Late answers" queue
71
51

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Low quality posts" queue
72
51

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Reopen votes" queue
40
46

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Suggested edits" queue
184
163

Users contacted
3
0

Users deleted
1
0

Users destroyed³
3
0

Users suspended²
2
22

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

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2021: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

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

Wishing everyone a happy 2023! ^_^


text:
Why do we make small edits to very old posts?
Something I've noticed in the last few days (it's probably been going on longer than that, but a couple days ago it actually bit me, so I noticed it...) - why do we make minor edits (usually small style, spelling, or grammar corrections) to questions or answers that were posted anywhere between two and five years ago?  At some point, wouldn't we think "this has been like this for a very long time, maybe we should just let it stand as-is"?
The reason I say this "bit" me is that posts that are edited in this way show up on the list of active questions.  Which in my case, led me to post a comment on an answer that had been posted ages ago, thinking that it had been much more recently active.  Which was a little embarrassing when I realized later what I had done (though I'll survive, of course...).  This is compounded by the fact that on the Stack Exchange Android app, a question or answer that is edited doesn't show any indication of when it was originally posted, it just shows when the last edit was done (and doesn't provide any way to actually look at the edit history, short of opening the question in a web browser rather than the app).
I understand that we want an excellent body of curated content, but it seems to me like this practice of editing posts that haven't been touched in years causes some usability issues.  If we think it's sufficiently important to do this, I'd suggest that we could consider making (at least) one of these changes:

Edits of this nature (or maybe just edits like this by a moderator) should not be considered to be "activity", for purposes of updating the active questions list.  Admittedly, this does create an (unlikely, but possible) opportunity for abuse, by allowing changes to things posted in the past without raising an obvious indication that something changed.
The Android mobile app could be updated to also show the date a question or answer was originally posted, rather than just the date the last edit was made to it (and for bonus points, provide a way to look at the full edit history too).  This is probably the most sensible option, though I don't know if there is any ongoing development on the Android app at this point; it's been a very long time since I've seen any update released for it.

This particular meta forum is probably not the best place to raise either of these suggestions, but I'm not sure what other forum would be more productive.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Towers. I think most of those edits are very little or nothing to the question while they create a great "barrier" for contributors to answer the recent ones. If someone wants to search for previous questions on a particular topic, there's already a search function for that

First, there are some real gems amongst the older posts. Anything that encourages readers to revisit them is a good thing IMHO.
Second, I can read several other languages other than my native English, although in some cases quite badly. If I am reading something in another language I find that often minor typos and grammatical errors can completely floor me, leaving me struggling to understand what was meant. A significant number of forumites do not have English as their first language and I can imagine that some of them have the same problem I do in other languages.
Third, technology advances. In the old days we didn't have a move replayer for showing positions, game snippets and whole games. Again, at a personal level, I find it really useful to be able to click through a game fragment rather than have to try and visualise it all in my head. For stronger players this is not a problem. Adding this to older posts is a boon for players like me. Also, links die often die of old age quite quickly. Sometimes they can be fixed and sometimes they have just gone away. In either case it is worth changing them appropriately.

With all respects, my opinion is that you are single-handedly destroying the community with your edits. Every time I enter the site, I try to see how to help a user only to find out the question is four years old and only appears in my feed because of some spell correction


text:
Poll - Should we limit number of edits to 5 per day per member?
Currently there is a built-in limit of 5 pending suggested edits per day. That means that if you don't have full edit privileges that any edits you make go into a pending queue where they have to be approved before going live. If the queue is handled quickly, which it is on this site, then an un-privileged member can make many more than 5 edits per day. Of course a privileged member can make more than 5 edits per day anyway.
So, should we introduce a limit of 5 edits per day for all members (excluding edits to posts which are already on the front page – the main problem with excessive edits is that they bump posts).
Have your say by voting up the next answer "Yes", if you agree, and voting up the answer after that for "No"

To quote former SE employee Robert Cartaino: Polling is generally not a good substitute for discussion. In my opinion, there should be an explanation, even for a yes/no answer.

@double-beep I guess, the discussion can happen in my original post that kind of triggered this poll.

Would this solve an actual problem the site faces?

I think it's better for people to write their own answer than vote for one of those two answers. Those answers don't explain a reason. Also, they're going to appear to be better answers than they are under your new system.

NO!
We should not have a limit of 5 edits per member per day.

As I'm not a regular on this site, I'll leave the poll to the community, but I'll also mention this guideline since limiting 5 edits per member per day is... a very rare proposal compared to: "Do batches in the span of minutes (added: or hours), like 3 questions at a time"

@AndrewT. that guideline is written for a site where the 'size' of the homepage is 3 hours. On Chess.SE, it's more like 3 days.

I have been creating tag wiki excerpts and retagging questions today and found the limit of five edits very limiting. I can't remember running in this limit so quickly on Literature SE, where I edited dozens of tag wiki excerpts per day when I was new there.

@Tsundoku tag wiki edits are fine anyway, they don't bump posts.

Absolutely not, sometime we have misspelling, grammar error,... that only realize after posted.

YES!
We should have a limit of 5 edits per member per day.


text:
Missing tag badges
Tags "etiquette", "time-control" and "titles" don't appear to be available for tag badges.
According to the Help Center for bronze tag badges:

You must have a total score of 100 in at least 20 non-community wiki answers to achieve this badge.

However when I look at my tags in my profile I see that for "etiquette" I have a score of 270 for 21 non-wiki answers, for "titles" I have a score of 156 for 21 non-wiki answers (+ 3 non-wiki questions) and for "time-control" I have a score of 156 for 21 non-wiki answers (+ 2 non-wiki questions) but no badges for these tags.
Furthermore if I go onto my profile and try to "Select your next badge" by clicking on the wheel next to "Next tag badge" these tags are not available in the lists presented. If I try and use the "Search for a badge" function it doesn't find any of these three tags.
It's as if these tags exist for questions but not for badges.

There have to be at least 100 questions with a given tag for tag badges to be available. None of those tags have 100 or more questions yet.
This is stated in the sidebar on this Badges help page

Thanks. That looks like a drop-off in the help center as there is no mention of this in the badges section. In fact I can't find it mentioned in the help center at all.

@BrianTowers it's kind of buried. I added a link to where it can be found. I only knew about the requirements from a similar discussion on Puzzling Meta.


text:
Replayer Sandbox
On the main site, we have a feature called the 'PGN viewer' or 'replayer'. How it works is described in this FAQ: How do I add a replayer to my post? and the pgn-viewer tag contains many other questions documenting the various capabilities of the replayer. What we lacked was a space to experiment with it, since the replayer was only active on the main site. Now that the company kindly activated the replayer for us on this Meta as well, this Q&A can be used as a sandbox, not unlike the Formatting Sandbox on Meta Stack Exchange.
This is a sandbox, so it's freely editable by anyone (with 100 reputation or more, since it's a Community Wiki). If you have less reputation, don't worry; you can still post your own answer. The Sandbox can also be used as some kind of reference for other sites in the network (e.g. Puzzling Stack Exchange) when they need to demonstrate a chess game. This usually happens nowadays through links to other websites, but this looks like a decent spot as well. It's recommended to link back to the Stack Exchange post where you use it, to make sure somebody here doesn't change the game by accident. And as always, posts should never depend completely on external links, so the position/game itself must be in the original post as well.

For PSE https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/109105/73836
[FEN "nnn5/8/8/NNN5/8/8/8/5k1K w - - 0 1"]

1.Ncb7 Ncb6 2.N5d6 N8d7 3.Nd8 Nd5 4.Nac6 Nac7 5.Nc8 Nc5 6.N6a7 N7a6 7.Ndc6 Ndc7 8.Nb6 Nb7 9.Nac8 Nac5 10.Nb8 Nb5 11.Na8 Na5 *

For this answer on Puzzling Stack Exchange for a checkmate with only knights:
[FEN ""]

1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nf6 3. exf6 Na6 4. fxg7 Ke7 5. g8=N+ Ke6 6. Nd2 Kd5 7. g4 f6 8. g5 Be7 9. gxf6 Nb8 10. fxe7 Na6 11. exd8=N Nb8 12. Nxb7 Na6 13. b4 Nb8 14. b5 Nc6 15. b6 Nd8 16. bxc7 Rb8 17. cxd8=N Ra8 18. Ngf3 Rb8 19. Nf6#

Supporting this PSE Question.
[FEN "7Q/8/3R1R2/K5k1/ppppppp1/N7/1PPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.h4+ gxh3 2.Rg6+ Kf5 3.g4+ fxg3 4.Qf8+ Ke5 5.f4+ exf3 6.Rde6+ Kd5 7.e4+
dxe3 8.Qd8+ Kc5 9.d4+ cxd3 10.Qb6+ Kd5 11.c4+ bxc3 12.Qd8+ Kc5 13.b4+ axb3

Used in an answer to the Puzzling question Chess Bloodshed (find, with the minimum number of moves, a legal game where all pieces are captured except the two kings):
[FEN ""]
[Title "G. Ponzetto - 2000"]
[StartPly "33"]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Bd3 Qxa2 4. Bxh7 Qxb1 5. Bxg8 Qxc2 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Rxa7 Qxc1 8. Rxb7 Rxh2 9. Rxb8 Rxg2 10. Qxc1 Rxg1+ 11. Rxg1 Rxb8 12. Qxc7 Rxb2 13. Qxc8 Rxd2 14. Qxf8+ Kxf8 15. Rxg7 Rxf2 16. Rxe7 Kxe7 17. Kxf2

to support an answer to this question on PSE:
[FEN ""]

1. d4 e6 2. d5 Be7 3. d6 g5 4. e4 g4 5. c4 g3 6. b4 gxh2 7. g4 f6 8. g5 c6 9. g6 h5 10. Bg5 fxg5 11. b5 h4 12. b6 h3 13. bxa7 b5 14. a4 b4 15. a5 b3 16. a6 b2 17. Ra5 g4 18. Rc5 Qa5+ 19. Nc3 b1=B 20. dxe7 d5 21. f4 Kd7 22. f5 Ba2 23. f6 Kd6 24. e8=B Ne7 25. f7 Nd7 26. f8=N Nf6 27. Bf7 Rh5 28. Nd7 Rb8 29. g7 Rb5 30. Nb6 Bb7 31. a8=N Re5 32. Ne2 g3 33. Nf4 g2 34. Nc7 g1=N 35. a7 Nf3+ 36. Kf2 Ne1 37. Rg1 h1=B 38. Qh5 Bf3 39. Rg5 h2 40. g8=B h1=B 41. a8=B Nc2 42. Bg2 Ne3 43. exd5 exd5 44. cxd5 cxd5 45. Rxd5+ Rexd5 46. Rxd5+ Bfxd5 47. Bgxd5 Bbxd5 48. Baxd5 Baxd5 49. Bxd5 Bxd5 50. Bxd5 Rxd5 51. N3xd5 N3xd5 52. Nfxd5 Nfxd5 53. Nbxd5 Nxd5 54. Nxd5 Qxd5 55. Qxd5+ Kxd5

for this post:
[Title "Zdravko Maslar, Problem 1958, Special Prize, h=34"]
[FEN "K1b2rk1/4pr2/1b1n1p2/5q2/3p1p2/1p5n/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]

1... f3 2. Kb8 f2 3. Ka8 f1=B 4. Kb8 Bd3 5. Ka8 Bb1 6. Kb8 Ba2 7. Ka8 Qb1 8. Kb8 f5 9. Ka8 f4 10. Kb8 f3 11. Ka8 f2 12. Kb8 f1=B 13. Ka8 Rf2 14. Kb8 Kf7 15. Ka8 Ke6 16. Kb8 Kd5 17. Ka8 Kc4 18. Kb8 Kc3 19. Ka8 Kb2 20. Kb8 Ka1 21. Ka8 Rb2 22. Kb8 Rff2 23. Ka8 Bf5 24. Kb8 Bc2 25. Ka8 d3 26. Kb8 Be3 27. Kc7 e5 28. Kxd6 Bc1 29. Ke6 Rd2 30. Kf5 e4 31. Kg4 Be2+ 32. Kxh3 e3 33. Kg2 Bed1+ 34. Kf1 e2+ 35. Ke1

For @loopywalt's answer to the Puzzling.SE question "The Biggest Chess Blunder":
[FEN "Rrrqqqqq/PPPPPPP1/kq1qqqbb/7R/K7/4n3/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
[StartPly "1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

1... Ng4 (1... Bc2#) 2.axb8=Q+ Qa7 3.Rxa7+ Kb6 4.bxc8=Q+ Kc6 5.cxd8=Q+ Qc7 6. Rxc7+ Kd6 7. dxe8=Q+ Qd7+ 8. Rxd7+ Ke6 9. exf8=Q+ Qe7 10.Rxe7+ Kf6 11. fxg8=Q+ Bf7 12. Rxf7+ Kg6 13. Qxg4+ Bg5 14. Rxg5+ Kh6 15.gxh8=Q#

27 consecutive captures on a single square, for a chess puzzle on Puzzling Stack Exchange:
[FEN "7k/2nqnb2/1npqpn2/1QQpqqrr/1NPQPN2/1QNQNB2/3R4/1K1R4 w - - 0 1"]

1. cxd5 cxd5 2. exd5 exd5 3. Nbxd5 Nbxd5 4. Ncxd5 Ncxd5 5. Nexd5 Nexd5 6. Nxd5 Nxd5 7. Bxd5 Bxd5 8. Qb3xd5 Q6xd5 9. Q4xd5 Q5xd5 10. Qcxd5 Qfxd5 11. Qbxd5 Qxd5 12. Qxd5 Rxd5 13. Rxd5 Rxd5 14. Rxd5

PSE
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. e4 e5 2. d3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. Be3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bc5 6. Be2 Bg4 7. Bxc5 Qxc5 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Bxf3 Nf6 10. a4 a5 11. g4 g5 12. Bg2 Nd4 13. b3 Rd8 14. Bxb7 Nxc2+ 15. Kd2 Qxf2+ 16. Kc1 Qe2 17. Qxe2 Nxa1 18. Bc6+ Nd7 19. Rf1 f6 20. Bxd7+ Rxd7 21. Qe4 Rf8 22. Qg2 Rxd3 23. Qc6+ Ke7 24. Qg2 Rfd8 25. Rf5 R8d6 26. Qf1 c5 27. Qe2 Ke6 28. Qb2 Rd1#

A replay for this question.
[FEN ""]

1. f4 c6 2. Kf2 Qa5 3. Ke3 Kd8 4. f5 Kc7 5. Qe1 Kb6 6. Qg3 Na6 7. Qb8 h5 8. Nf3 Rh6 9. Ne5 Rg6 10. Qxc8 Rg3+ 11. hxg3 Kb5 12. Rh4 f6 13. Rd4 fxe5 14. b4 exd4+ 15. Kf4 h4 16. Qe8 h3 17. Nc3+ dxc3 18. Ba3 h2 19. Rb1 h1=Q 20. Rb2 cxb2 21. Kg5 Qg1 22. Qh5 Ka4 23. b5 Rc8 24. b6 Rc7 25. bxc7 b1=B 26. c8=R Qc7 27. Bd6 Nb4 28. Kg6 Ka3 29. Ra8 Kb2 30. a4 Qgb6 31. a5 Kc1 32. axb6 Kd1 33. bxc7 Ke1 34. Kf7 Nh6+ 35. Ke8 Ba2 36. f6 Bg8 37. f7 Kxf1 38. c8=B Nd5 39. Bb8 Nc7+ 40. Kd8 Ne8 41. fxe8=R Nf7+ 42. Kc7 Nd8 43. Qf7+ Kg1

For this Puzzling answer on most pieces involved in a checkmate.
[FEN ""]

1. e3 d5 2. Bc4 f5 3. Bxd5 f4 4. Bf7+ Kd7 5. Be8+ Kd6 6. h4 c6 7. Rh3 Kc7 8. Rg3
a6 9. Rg5 Kb6 10. Rd5 Ka7 11. a4 Qd7 12. Ra3 Qf5 13. Rd8 Be6 14. Rc8 Nd7 15. Rd3
Bf7 16. Rd5 Bg6 17. Re5 e6 18. Nc3 Bd6 19. Ne4 Bb8 20. Nd6 Nc5 21. b4 Ne4 22. a5
Nc3 23. h5 Nd5 24. Qg4 Nc7 25. Ke2 Ne7 26. Nh3 Rf8 27. Ng5 Rf6 28. Ngf7 f3+ 29.
Kd1 Ng8 30. Nd8 Bf7 31. c4 Qg5 32. Kc2 Rf4 33. Kc3 Qf5 34. Qg5 Bg6 35. Bb2 Bf7
36. Kb3 Bg6 37. Re4 Bf7 38. Bd4+ Qc5 39. Bc3 Qf5 40. Qe7 g5 41. Bf6 Nh6 42. Qf8
Ng8 43. Qg7 Ne7 44. Qg8 Bg6 45. N8f7 Nb5 46. Re5 Nc7 47. Kc3 Nb5+ 48. Kb3 Nc7
49. e4 Nb5 50. g4 Nc7 51. Kc3 Nb5+ 52. Kd3 Nc7 53. Kd4 Nb5+ 54. Kc5 Nc7 55. d3
Nb5 56. d4 Nc7 57. d5 b5 *

for PSE post
[FEN ""]
1.g4 d5 2.g5 d4 3.g6 d3 4.gxh7 dxe2 5.hxg8=N exf1 6.Nf6+ gxf6 >! 7.Ke2 Bg7 8.Ke3 O-O 9.Ne2 Bh8 10.Rxf1 *

For PSE question
[FEN ""]
1.f4 c6 2.Kf2 h5 3.Ke3 Rh6 4.Qe1 Rg6 5.f5 Na6 6.Qg3 f6 7.Qb8 Rg3+ 8.hxg3 Kf7 9.Rh4 Qa5 10.Rd4 h4 11.Nf3 h3 12.Ne5+ fxe5 13.f6 exd4+ 14.Kf4 Ke6 15. b4 Kd5 16.Qxc8 h2 17.Nc3+ dxc3 18.Rb1 h1=Q 19.Rb2 cxb2 20.Qe8 b1=B 21.Ba3 Qg1 22.b5 Kc4 23.Bd6 Rc8 24.Kg5 Rc7 25.Qh5 Qc5+ 26.Kg6 Kb4 27.Kf7 Ka3 28. Ke8 Kb2 29.a4 Ba2 30.b6 Nh6 31.bxc7 Bg8 32.c8=R Qc7 33.a5 Q5b6 34.axb6 Kc1 35.Ra8 Kd1 36.bxc7 Ke1 37.c8=B Kxf1 38.Kd8 Kg1 39.Bb8 Nc7 40.f7 Ne8 41. fxe8=R Nf7+ 42.Kc7 Nd8 43.Qf7 *

For PSE "Black board attack"
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 w kq - 0 1"]

1. null d5 2. null d4 3. null d3 4. null d2 5. null d1=Q 6. null Q8d2 7. null h5 8. null h4 9. null b5 10. null e5

Proof game for https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/107858/73836
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.Nh4 Bg7 4.Nf5 O-O 5.g4 Bh8 6.Rg1 a5 7.Nh6+ Kg7 8.Ng8 Ra6 9.g5 Rb6 10.Rg4 Rb4 11.Nb5 Ra4 12.b3 c5 13.Ba3 c4 14.Bb4 c3 15.Rc4 Nc6 16.Bh3 Qb6 17.Kf1 Qe3 18.Kg2 e5 19.f3 e4 20.Kg3 Ng4 21.Qf1 Qd3 22.Kf4 Re8 23.Qg2 Re6 24.Rh1 Rd6 25.Qf1 Nf2 26.Qd1 Nd4 27.Ke5 Qe3 28.Be6 Nf5 29.Na7 Rd3 30.Nb5 Nd4 31.Re1 Nh3 32.a3 Nf2 33.Rf1 Nh3 34.Rh1 Nf2 35.h3 f5 36.gxf6# *

For https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/107945/73836
[FEN "1q1N3k/2prN1R1/Kn3Qn1/1p4p1/1r4b1/1p4b1/2pppp2/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Rxg6+ Kh7 2.Rg7+ Kh8 3.Rxg5+ Kh7 4.Rg7+ Kh8 5.Rxg4+ Kh7 6.Rg7+ Kh8 7.Rxg3+ Kh7 8.Qf7+ Kh8 9.Qf8+ Kh7 10.Rg7+ Kh6 11.Qf6+ Kh5 12.Qg6+ Kh4 13.Qg5+ Kh3 14.Qh5+ Rh4 15.Qf3+ Kh2 16.Qxf2+ Kh3 17.Qf3+ Kh2 18.Rg2+ Kh1 19.Rxe2+ Kg1 20.Rg2+ Kh1 21.Rxd2+ Kg1 22.Rg2+ Kh1 23.Rxc2+ Kg1 24.Qf2+ Kh1 25.Qxh4+ Kg1 26.Qg3+ Kh1 27.Qh3+ Kg1 28.Rg2+ Kf1 29.Qf3+ Ke1 30.Qf2+ Kd1 31.Qe2+ Kc1 32.Qe1+ Rd1 33.Qc3+ Kb1 34.Qxb3+ Ka1 35.Qc3+ Kb1 36.Rb2+ Ka1 37.Rxb5+ Ka2 38.Rb2+ Ka1 39.Rxb6+ ( 39.Rd2+ Kb1 40.Rxd1+ Ka2 41.Rd2+ Kb1 42.Rb2+ Ka1 43.Rxb6+ Ka2 44.Qc2+ Ka1 45.Qd1+ Ka2 46.Rxb8 Ka3 47.Qc1+ Ka2 48.Qxc7 Ka3 49.Qa5# ) 39...Ka2 40.Qb3+ Ka1 41.Qxd1+ Ka2 42.Rxb8 Ka3 43.Qc1+ Ka4 44.Qxc7 Ka3 45.Qa5# *

Proof game for PSE
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. h4 a5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nd4 Nd5 4. Nb3 Nc3 5. a3 Nxd1 6. Ra2 Ne3 7. Rh3 Nf5 8. Re3 a4 9. Re6 Ng3 10. Rb6 Nh1 11. Re6 axb3 12. Rd6 bxa2 13. Re6 axb1=B 14. Rd6 Ba2 15. Rc6 Bd5 16. Rd6 Be4 17. Rf6 Bg6 18. Re6 fxe6 19. h5 Bf7 20. h6 g6 21. Kd1 Bg7 22. Ke1 Be5 23. Kd1 Bh2 24. g3 Bg1 25. Bg2 Rf8 26. Bd5 Bg8 27. Ba2 Kf7 28. b3 Kf6 29. Bb2+ Kg5 30. Bd4 Ra5 31. Ba7 b6 32. Ke1 Rff5 33. Kf1 Kh5 34. Kg2 Qf8 35. Kh3 Qg7 36. hxg7 Bf7 37. g8=Q Rg5 38. Qh8 Raf5 39. Qd4 Bb7 40. Qe4 Bd5 41. Qg2 Bf3 42. Qh2 Bg4+ 43. Kg2+ Bh3+ 44. Qxh3#

A solution to a puzzle on the main site, posted here to avoid spoilers. Stack Exchange spoilers (>!) don't support the replayer.
[FEN "1q4Nr/4K2k/8/8/8/8/1R6/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. null Kg7 2. null Rh1 3. null Qh2 4. null Qh8 5. null Rh7 6. Rg2#

This is for replaying this answer.
[FEN "p6p/7p/3npp2/2k1q1b1/2P1P1rp/1PP1Pp1r/1NP2PK1/1B1NB1nb w - - 0 1"]

1. Kf1 null 2. Bd2 null 3. Ke1 null 4. Bc1 null 5. Kd2 null 6. Kd3 null 7. Bd2 null 8. Be1 null 9. Kd2 null 10. Kc1 null 11. Ba2 null 12. Kb1 null 13. Ka1 null 14. Bb1 null 15. Ka2 null 16. Ka3 null 17. Ka4 null 18. Ka5 null 19. Ka6 null 20. Ka7 null 21. Kxa8 null 22. Kb8 null 23. Kc7 null 24. Kd7 null 25. Ke7 null 26. Kf8 null 27. Kg8 null 28. Kxh8 null 29. Kxh7 null 30. Kg6 null 31. Kh5 null 32. Kxg4 null 33. Kh5 null 34. Kg6 null 35. Kg7 null 36. Kf8 null 37. Ke7 null 38. Kd7 null 39. Kc7 null 40. Kb8 null 41. Ka7 null 42. Ka6 null 43. Ka5 null 44. Ka4 null 45. Ka3 null 46. Ka2 null 47. Ka1 null 48. Ba2 null 49. Kb1 null 50. Kc1 null 51. Kd2 null 52. Kd3 null 53. Bd2 null 54. Bc1 null 55. Kd2 null 56. Ke1 null 57. Kf1 null 58. Kxg1 null 59. Kf1 null 60. Ke1 null 61. Kd2 null 62. Kd3 null 63. Bd2 null 64. Be1 null 65. Kd2 null 66. Kc1 null 67. Kb1 null 68. Ka1 null 69. Bb1 null 70. Ka2 null 71. Ka3 null 72. Ka4 null 73. Ka5 null 74. Ka6 null 75. Ka7 null 76. Kb8 null 77. Kc7 null 78. Kd7 null 79. Ke7 null 80. Kf8 null 81. Kg7 null 82. Kg6 null 83. Kh5 null 84. Kg4 null 85. Kxh3 null 86. Kg4 null 87. Kh5 null 88. Kg6 null 89. Kg7 null 90. Kf8 null 91. Ke7 null 92. Kd7 null 93. Kc7 null 94. Kb8 null 95. Ka7 null 96. Ka6 null 97. Ka5 null 98. Ka4 null 99. Ka3 null 100. Ka2 null 101. Ka1 null 102. Ba2 null 103. Kb1 null 104. Kc1 null 105. Kd2 null 106. Kd3 null 107. Bd2 null 108. Bc1 null 109. Kd2 null 110. Ke1 null 111. Kf1 null 112. Kg1 null 113. Kxh1 null 114. Kg1 null 115. Kf1 null 116. Ke1 null 117. Kd2 null 118. Kd3 null 119. Bd2 null 120. Be1 null 121. Kd2 null 122. Kc1 null 123. Kb1 null 124. Ka1 null 125. Bb1 null 126. Ka2 null 127. Ka3 null 128. Ka4 null 129. Ka5 null 130. Ka6 null 131. Ka7 null 132. Kb8 null 133. Kc7 null 134. Kd7 null 135. Ke7 null 136. Kf8 null 137. Kg7 null 138. Kg6 null 139. Kh5 null 140. Kg4 null 141. Kxf3 null 142. Kg4 null 143. f4 null 144. fxe5 null 145. exd6 null 146. Kh5 null 147. Kg6 null 148. Kf7 null 149. Ke7 null 150. Kd7 null 151. Kc7 null 152. Kb7

For my answer to this question.
[FEN ""]
[startply "58"]

1. d4 h6 2. Bg5 hxg5 3. a4 a5 4. Na3 Rh6 5. b4 e5 6. h4 d5 7. g4 Bf5 8. gxf5 Re6 9. fxe6 Ke7 10. Qd2 Kf6 11. hxg5+ Kf5 12. e4+ Kg4 13. Nh3 f5 14. Nf4 Nf6 15. gxf6 Bc5 16. bxc5 Qd6 17. cxd6 c5 18. Rb1 Nc6 19. Nc4 b5 20. Rh3 Rb8 21. Re3 g5 22. Bd3 bxc4 23. Rb4 cxd3 24. c4 Rb5 25. axb5 axb4 26. bxc6 gxf4 27. Qc2 fxe3 28. f4 Kf3 29. Qc3 bxc3

Made for this Puzzling answer on retrograde analysis.
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. h3 h5 2. d3 Nf6 3. Bf4 Na6 4. Bh2 Rh6 5. g3 Ng4 6. Bg2 Rd6 7. Be4 Rd5 8. Nf3 Nb4 9. Rf1 Rb5 10. Bg1 Rc5 11. Qd2 Nh2 12. g4 Rb5 13. Nd4 Rc5 14. Nf5 Rb5 15. Ng3 Rc5 16. Nh1 Rb5 17. Qe3 Rc5 18. Qg3 h4 19. Bg6 hxg3 20. h4 Rb5 21. h5 Rc5 22. h6 Rd5 23. Bh5 Rb5 24. Nc3 Rc5 25. Nb5 Rf5 26. Nc3 Re5 27. Na4 Rf5 28. Nb6 Re5 29. Nxc8 Rf5 30. Nb6 Rc5 31. Nd5 Rb5 32. Nf4 Rc5 33. Ng6 Rd5 34. Nh8 g6 35. a3 Bg7 36. h7 Be5 37. axb4 Kf8 38. c3 Kg7 39. c4 Kh6 40. cxd5 Qg8 41. e3 Qg7 42. d4 Qf6 43. dxe5 Rg8 44. exf6 Rg7 45. fxg7 Kg5 46. g8=N Kh4 47. Nf6 Kg5 48. Ne4+ Kh6 49. Nc3 Kg5 50. Na2 Kf6 51. Nc1 Ke5 52. Na2 Ke4 53. Nc3+ Kd3 54. Na2 Kc4 55. Nc1 Kb5 56. Na2 Ka6 57. Nc1+ Kb6 58. Na2 Kb5 59. Nc1 Kc4 60. Na2 Kd3 61. Nc1+ Ke4 62. Ne2 Ke5 63. Nd4 Kf6 64. Nf3 Kg7 65. Ng5 Kf8 66. Ne4 Ke8 67. Nf6+ Kd8 68. Ng8 Kc8 69. Nf6 Kb8 70. Ng8 Ka8 71. O-O-O

For PSE "Black board attack"
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 w kq - 0 1"]

1. null d5 2. null d4 3. null d3 4. null d2 5. null d1=Q 6. null Q8d2 7. null e5 8. null Bd7 9. null Bd6 10. null e4

Another almost solution:
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 w kq - 0 1"]

1. null h5 2. null h4 3. null h3 4. null h2 5. null h1=Q 6. null Rh3 7. null e5 8. null Qg5 9. null Qd2 10. null b5 11. null d5

And another:
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 w kq - 0 1"]

1. null a5 2. null a4 3. null a3 4. null a2 5. null a1=Q 6. null Qb2 7. null Ra1 8. null e5 9. null Qg5 10. null d5 11. null e4

Another PSE chess question:
new new
[FEN "4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.h4 f6 2.g3 h6 3.f4 Kf7 4.Kf2 Kg6 5.Kf3 Kh5 6.Ke4 g5 7.d4 g4 8.Kf5 d5 9.
e4 b5 10.e5 c5 11.e6 a5 12.b4 c4 13.c3 a4 14.a3 *

new
[FEN "4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d4 e5 2.Kd2 Ke7 3.g4 b5 4.g5 b4 5.g6 b3 6.a4 h5 7.Kc3 Kf6 8.Kb4 Kg5 9.
Ka3 Kh6 10.h4 a5 11.c3 f6 12.f4 c5 13.f5 c4 14.e4 d6 15.d5 *

orig
[FEN "4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.c4 Kf8 2.c5 Kg8 3.c6 Kh8 4.cxb7 h5 5.f3 c5 6.Kf2 c4 7.Kg3 Kh7 8.Kh4 c3
9.b8=B cxb2 10.g4 b1=B 11.g5 Bf5 12.Bf4 f6 13.e4 e5 14.exf5 exf4 15.g6+
Kh6 16.h3 d5 17.d4 a5 18.a4

For PSE "Black board attack"
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/8/pppppppp/rnbqkbnr w kq - 0 1"]

1. null Na3 2. null b1=Q 3. null Bb2 4. null c1=Q 5. null Qb3 6. null d1=Q 7. null Qd8 8. null Qh7 9. null Qcc4


text:
Can I create my own question template under a permissive license to allow people to copy/paste it at will?
I submitted a question about a move recommendation. As my first question, I forked a well written question by @Fabio who seems to fit perfectly. I forked it not by laziness, nor by "hoping to get the same rep". The question is well made, fitting, why reinvent the wheel? Like I wont roll my own crypto, I will use the right, relevant, tool for the job. I extracted a template and I submitted it with my own problem. Now, here is the thing, I forgot to post the original source and so my post was flagged as plagiarism (which I can't deny based on What exactly is plagiarism?). I meant no harm, but still, it does count. Per SE definition, plagiarizing the format (even without the content), is plagiarizing the question.
After reading comments on my question, I learnt that author credit may not be enough. @Glorfindel talked about "using my own word" and here is my question for meta: Would it be possible to create one template to ask this kind of question? I would like to avoid this kind of issue. I would even like to create an open source extension to link lichess move to SE. The goal would to avoid to rewrite something existing each time to focus of the problem not the frame. And having an open frame will help everyone. I am not the only non-native English speaker on SE, I think it could be useful.

Thanks for providing some insight why you copied that question. I hadn't thought of not being a non-native English speaker (even though that holds for me as well!) - using your own words is better but of course optional. (And it would be good to mention that too, even if it's just a footnote.)

Wait. if it is optional, could we copy/paste anything with sourcing only without entering in the plagiarism section? I thought not.

It's only plagiarism if you try, explicitly or implicitly, to pass it off as your own work. (from the FAQ you linked to). See also the Help Center for what exactly is needed.

So after all the original close post would have been fine if I had not forgot to disclose the source of the frame of the question.

Yes. It might still not be well-received, but it wouldn't be deleted for plagiarism.

I will make my own template based on Rewan's answer. It is going to be under something akin to the wtfpl or the domain public.

As the initial close voter, I agree that an open source template would is an excellent idea. Here is a quick sketch.

In this position, why/what is x move/sequence/etc. (details)?
diagram
I ask this because (details).

Of course, much more work is needed to tune a template to be broad enough for many questions while also being easy to use and understand.

Let's start here :)


text:
"Back to original position" button in the PGN viewer
Probably most of you had experienced this: you play through a game that was started from some middlegame position, then at the end you would like to go back to the position from which the game was posted. Here is an example (note that it starts at black's 34th move):
[Site "https://lichess.org/kuvnBssO"]
[Date "2018.07.20"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Kulkid"]
[Black "WaisKamal"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2016"]
[BlackElo "2107"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "30+0"]
[ECO "D44"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[SeUp "1"]
[StartPly "67"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. e3 { D44 Queen's Gambit Declined: Vienna Variation, Quiet Variation } Be7 6. Bxc4 O-O 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8. O-O b6 9. Re1 Bb7 10. a3 Bxf3 11. b4 Bxd1 12. Rxd1 c5 13. Bb2 cxd4 14. exd4 Qc7 15. Ne2 Rac8 16. Rac1 Qb7 17. Rb1 Rc7 18. f3 Rfc8 19. Ng3 h6 20. Ne4 Nxe4 21. Bxe4 Qb8 22. Bd3 Bf6 23. Ba6 Rd8 24. Be2 b5 25. Kf2 a6 26. Bc1 Nf8 27. Be3 Rdd7 28. Rdc1 Rxc1 29. Rxc1 Qd8 30. Rd1 Bxd4 31. Bxd4 Rxd4 32. Rc1 Rd2 33. Re1 Ng6 34. Ke3 f5 35. Kf2 Nf4 36. Kg3 Nxe2+ 37. Kf2 Qd4+ 38. Kf1 Qg1# { Black wins by checkmate. }

Now after playing through the game, you would like to go back to the starting point from which the diagram started (which is often the point where the action starts, especially if there are analysis lines). Instead of reloading the page to have the diagram start at that point, can we have a button that goes to that position?


text:
Congratulations, you're no longer in Beta!
This site started private beta before July 2012, so it is no longer "beta", it is a full site by our definition. We've removed the word "beta" from your site banner because we believe that you aren't really a beta site any more, even if you don't get ten questions per day.

What this means for you:

the "Beta" is removed from your banner
the site is moved to the "Launched" sites list on Area 51 - which will also remove the A51 info box from the right sidebar
retain beta reputation levels
full-site elections will be delayed but will be scheduled eventually

This is the start of a process that we are already discussing internally and will be bringing to the network for public discussion once the plan is finalized. My hope is that this will mean the end of the monolith we currently refer to as "Graduation" in favor of a well-defined set of small targets to achieve the various elements that made up "Graduation".
I'm sure you have many questions, please feel free to ask and I'll answer what I can. It helps me out a lot if you can limit answers to focus on a single question/subject rather than asking a dozen questions in one answer.
Please feel free to follow the MSE discussion for more background on this decision. You can ask questions either here or there; I'll try to keep up with all of them. Your mods also have some info, so they may be answering in my stead.
Thanks so much for your patience and stay tuned!

Hurray for us!!

I saw the question on the Meta Stack Exchange about reputation requirement levels for site privileges. I'm just here to speak out in agreement for this site that I our current levels should stay the same.
When I truly started using CSE (like half a year or after I signed up and forgot about it!), it took me an extremely long time to reach the editing privileges, since this is somewhat of a small site.
Funnily enough, I think we have just reached out 5000th question (I can't quite count on mobile!) So that makes cause for a double celebration today!  Everybody do the cha-cha and drop it low!
Additionally, welcome to CSE @Catija!


text:
What should be done about users who answer too much?
Sometimes a user may post too many answers, or “absurd” amount sometimes, relatively speaking. But if said user does it on a daily basis?
A few of them may be good, but the vast majority of their answers are being mod deleted, are just comments, don’t answer the question, or don’t even try/attempt to be an answer. It seems to swamp the site.
What, if anything, should be done about such users? While they are not technically doing anything wrong, as far as I know, is there anything to be done?

You can leave a comment on one of their posts, linking to the Help Center. That's rather easy to type: just type [answer] and it will automatically render into a link:

How to Answer

That's just generic advice; the user might be helped more if you point out some specific details that can be improved.
If the answer warrants it, downvote it and/or flag it as very low quality; the reviewers in the Low Quality Posts review queue will take care of it. If the user continues with this behaviour, despite warnings from the community and/or moderators, they will run into an automatic answer ban, as described here: What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?


text:
Two tag questions
Here are two simple tag questions:

Do we really do the tag white? I think we can get rid of it as it serves no current function.
Should formation be a synonym of patterns? They seem very similar to me. If there is a difference, the descriptions should be updated.

I think you're right, white isn't really useful. Almost all questions on the site involve White (and Black). It might make some sense to group all questions focusing on an opening repertoire for white, but we're not going to retag all those questions. So the best option (to me) seems to be to burninate it.
Looking at the patterns tag description, it's a subset of tactics, but a few questions (Why is it common to castle right after the opponent castles?, Looking for information on PARADISE (software)) are not. Formation makes me think of a pawn formation, but we already have pawn-stucture for that. Perhaps Is Colle-Zukertort a good way to improve beginner play? and What are the advantages of the Stonewall attack? can be retagged to use that one. If we then drop the formation tag from Full "reverse checkers" position in GM game with 12 or more pieces per player?, it'll be gone.


text:
When did the message for a comment about closing a question change?
As far as I know, the auto-comment that pops up when you vote to close a question as a duplicate said something like “Possible duplicate of (link here)”.
But this time around it said “Does this answer your question? (link here)”
When was the change made? Was it done to sound polite to newcomers or some other reason(s)?

This is part of the new post notices project. The announcement for go-live is here on Meta Stack Exchange: New Post Notices are live network-wide.

We have some guiding principles that we’re applying as we improve any feedback loops in the Q&A system, including post notices, going forward. Wherever possible we will work to provide better, actionable guidance for all users that helps everyone use the platform successfully while reducing room for public shaming.

The auto-generated 'possible duplicate' comment has been reworded presumably for these reasons as well. Not everybody is happy with this change; some additional information is in this answer.


text:
Why are there 10 times more questions on English openings than on Reti opening?
I am not sure if this questions will be more suitable for Chess Beta or Chess Meta. To play safe, I am asking it here:
At this moment, there are 23 questions tagged as english-opening and only 2 questions tagged as reti-opening.
Why there are 10 times more questions on English openings than on Reti opening? To me, the popularity of these two openings is almost equal. Why do people have far less questions on Reti than on English then? Is it because Reti is easier?

One possible reason could be that people are familiar with the name English opening, but not so with Reti. After all, according to Wikipedia, 1. Nf3 is the Zukertort opening. Note that this definition disagrees with the current tag wiki excerpt for reti-opening.
Again, if you follow Wikipedia, it doesn't become a proper Reti opening until after 1... d5 2. c4. Chessgames.com has a little over 5k games with those moves, while 1. c4 is played 64k times. 64 / 5 is not far off from the 23 / 2 ratio in tag usage.
An example question which currently does not have the Reti tag, maybe because people are following the Wikipedia definition, is good responses to 1. Nf3.

Thank you for your prompt and detailed answer! It seeems they do not have a tag called "Zukertort opening" as well.

According to Chessgames.com, 1. Nf3 is played 82k times and 1. c4 64k times. If we call 1. Nf3 a reti opening (as is defined in the tag) it should have more questions under this tag.

Yes, 1. Nf3 is played more often (but can easily transpose into 1. e4 or 1. d4 openings). What I'm trying to say is that the tag excerpt might be wrong :)

Reti is not a main system like English or the QGD, and also 1. Nf3 is not always associated with Reti or considered as a system on its own. If you want to prepare for 1.Nf3 you need to consider both English and QGD literature.


text:
Effectively defunct PGN player due to game length
The PGN player is practically unusable if the game is too long. This causes the controls to be two meters under the board, forcing me to scroll back and fro until the cows come home.
This is solely due to my system being older than me, thus my monitor runs on 1024x768, and the column space for the game moves isn't even wide enough for one move. (On 1280x1024 it works fine, but I neither will switch that each time just for CSE.)
Is this a bug or a feature?

Your remark regarding monitor size (in pixels) is a good one. Other users who need such resolution are those with visual impairments.


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Different categories and different grades of questions and answers
Are there different grades or categories of questions and answers posted on the main site and meta site? I have viewed very highly upvoted questions and answers. I guess some other questions and answers are media, some are less than medium. others are low-quality posts. I am suspended for low-quality posts very often on many sites. The recent suspension is on the "English language and usage" site. Are badges and reputations awarded on country or region wise?

I think Europe, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa are mainly English speaking continents.
Citizens meaning users of these continents study high-standard English books. They are in a commanding position over Asians, especially over Indians.
They muddle along with the English language and the limit set for/by them is low. literally, Most players prefer a dead-draw position in a chess play with western country players.

This is just ignorant nonsense. India has 22 recognized regional languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status_in_India). Furthermore "The business in Indian parliament can only be transacted in Hindi or in English. English is allowed to be used in official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government."

@BrianTowers-I agree with you INDIA has 22 recognized regional languages. But do Indians play chess and interact in Indian languages? This is possible in INDIA to understand when they speak English. But it is hard to interact or have discussions in western countries In ENGLISH During a chess tournament. Not only chess tournaments, in other political or official conversations, how can we say INDIANS are better?Besides ENGLISH other languages and dialect differences are the causes. user-37920

@BrianTowers- What matters most is FIDE RULES effective from July 2017. and What the chess main site tags Verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and violent communications for? user-37920

my question is that are badges and reputations awarded on country or region wise?

No. It's purely based on the content and how the community votes on your posts. Stack Exchange is a global platform, there is no distinction between users from different countries. Of course, native English speakers may fare better (except on sites like Stack Overflow en español) but many ESLs, including yours truly are holding their own on the network.

Are there different grades or categories of questions and answers posted on the main site and meta site.

Well, Meta gets much fewer questions, but also fewer visits and hence less votes. Also, some questions on the main site have a very high number of views because they often appear in Google search results or were a Hot Network Question for a certain amount of time.

I am suspended for low-quality posts very often on many sites. My most recent suspension is on the "English Language & Usage" site.

That's sad, but we can't really help with this, other than pointing you at the FAQ on Meta Stack Exchange: What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"? You are not question banned on this site, FWIW, but you do have some deleted and negatively scoring posts, so please be careful.


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Does Chess Stack Exchange include chess-variant questions?
I wonder, does Chess Stack Exchange include chess-variant questions? I know that there are a lot of variants of chess, like Chess960, Bughouse, Atomic, etc.

Personally, I think it should.
It's not called a CHESS-variant for nothing, and if chess.SE is not appropriate for it, then where should these questions be asked?

+1, I think that chess variants are increasingly interesting the stronger computers get as well.

Is something like Arimaa also on topic?

@linker: I don't see why not

"then where should these questions be asked?" there is always [boardgames.se]

I would think it's ok only as long as they are properly tagged.  That way, those who are not interested in those variants can filter them out according to the tags.


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Questions about "best" ways to play against an opening
Based off of this question: How should I play against the Grunfeld defense as white?

What is the best defense as white against the Grunfeld Defense?

This seems way too open ended IMHO, but I think that it could be improved by changing it slightly.  For example:

What are white's options against the Grunfeld Defense, and how has white performed in master games?

I think that takes the subjectivity/opinion out of the question.
Now, I do think that questions like this are very useful, and I can even see follow up questions that are more specific, like the following:

How should white fight for an advantage in the Exchange Grunfeld?  What are the merits of Ne2 vs Nf3?

  When black plays 10...b6 in the Exchange Grunfeld, what are white's possible replies?

So overall, I think that questions about openings are good, but something like "What is best..." just seems a little bit too open ended, and it's easy to narrow the focus a little bit and then ask follow up questions to get more specific.  Thoughts?  Am I totally off base here?

This was my question and I think you are right Andrew. The question is too broad, I need to make it more specific.

I agree. This is why I voted to close this question as being way too broad after the request for narrowing it down was ignored (but seemingly I was alone in this). In my opinion there are several ways to make this question useful, like...

which system against the Grunfeld is easiest to play for players of
  approx 1800 USCF rating and what are the ideas behind such a system?
which is most most successful system for White against the Grunfeld in
  the last few years between GMs?
which ways are there for avoiding the
  Grunfeld for a 1.d2-d4 player?

The question (but unfortunately not the now inappropriatly named headline) was later updated to something like

how can I force the BDG when someone wants to play the Grunfeld against
  me?

which is a much more acceptable question. If a question is way too open, I doubt there will be any meaningful answers, since the space for an answer is restricted to a few paragraphs.

I don't think I had vote-to-close privileges before that particular question was edited; so you know you're not alone, if it had been on my radar once I got said privileges, I would've concurred with you. Oh, and if I get 13 more rep I may just go ahead and edit that question and its title a little bit.

I would be happy to change it to be more specific?  I can see how it is too broad.

I agree with this. As for a general approach to fixing these questions, I would suggest making a comment asking the poster for clarification on whether by 'best' they mean most forcing/safest/easiest/win rate/etc., and recommending that they update the question with what exactly they are looking for in the variation recommendation.

I'm new here.
Pretty much all I have to say about playing White against the Grunfeld is "see game 1 of the 1950 final candidates match, because Bronstein had the right idea, I think".
Whether the question is as broad as "Is the Feldercarp Attack good?" or as specific as "In the Hullgully Variation of the Potzgrebie Defense, does GM Hornswoggle's innovation at move 23 make it a good choice for someone rated 250 on lichess?", will I be frowned upon for rubberstamping each with "You can't think about these opening decisions until you're well-learned in the middlegames that arise from this option or that. And you can't play a middlegame worth a fiddle unless you can tell the difference between a favorable or unfavorable ending. If there's an ending on the horizon, how will you know whether to head for it by simplifying the position or complicate things by keeping the pieces on the board unless you can tell if the coming ending is good for bad for you. In other words, sell your openings literature for 50 cents per book (because the quarters are useful for parking meters and washing machines), and learn something useful, like endgames and tactics."
Whenever there's a question about an opening, I want to answer it like that. That's what I tell people in classes, lectures, privately, and so on. I have an equally long spiel about how handtrucking one's entire openings library to the board, and playing with open books won't help one bit. Because so what if you reach the end of your book line with that magical plus-over-equals? There's nothing in plus-over-equal to show if the resultant position is suitable for your style or temperament, and unless you're well-grounded in tactics, you're likely to hang a piece on the next turn, anyway.
I think opening discussions are poison for club-level players, and the many who think they're better than club-level. And since we're trying above all to be helpful here, I think it's most helpful to tell folks that they're barking up the wrong trees by asking about openings. But I reckon the community at large would not like it if, like I said, rubberstamped such responses.
I'm trying to earn good karma, because I have really dumb programming questions to ask in other places, and I genuinely want to help people play better chess (and that starts with as few pieces on the board as possible; first you learn with two pieces on the board, then you learn the positions with three, and four, and in about 50 years, you'll work your way up to 32 pieces, because those are the really hard ones... damn it, there I go again).


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-50 points for serial upvoting?
Is there a bug in the system? Why did I lose 50 points for serial up-voting.  Some of the voting looks strange too, like it has it was voted at the same exact time when in fact some of my questions or answers were posted on different days.  Can someone look into this?

In one sense you didn't really "lose" 50 points — instead, you got 50 points that you shouldn't have gotten, and that was corrected.  Someone voted on too many of your posts in too short a time, which is indicative of a sock-puppet account or a voting ring.
These votes might have been legitimate, but I would guess that it's unlikely to be reversed, since you can't infer intent from nothing more than a sequence of votes.  Then again you own a significant percentage of the posts so far on this site so it might have been inevitable.  Hopefully an SE employee stops by and can tell you if anything will happen.
To prevent this, everyone should be careful to spread out their votes.  Don't go through one user's profile and vote on all their posts, for example.

thanks for the input, just curious, what is a sock-puppet account? and what benefit do they get from doing this?

@xaisoft A sock puppet is a secondary account someone creates to vote on their own posts.  Gets them more rep.  There are automatic checks in place to catch and revert activity that's typical for sock puppets, so another user may have been erroneously flagged for voting a lot on your posts.  Again, it's hard to say whether the votes (your rep) will be reinstated but hopefully they can tell what the right course of action is.

If what you say is correct ("These votes might have been legitimate, but it's unlikely to be reversed"), then it is indeed a bug is the system. I guess we will need a better system to detect bot activity, sock-puppet accounts, and voting rings. But that's already difficult and is likely to get even more difficult with improvements in ML/AI.


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Why was my comment asking for clarification on endgames removed?
Update: Anton Menshov admitted to downvoting this post and while Anton Menshov has a downvote on h post, it was not from me.

yes. I don't appreciate the tone of the original post, and I think it can be formulated way differently. In addition, I do not believe that the research on how the comments work has been done.

I commented this

'Not to mention these type of endgames are really only studied by GMs because at master level these endgames do not happen enough to justify studying them extensively' --> really? i believe i've encountered single queen vs single rook a few times but with pawns. i know i encountered king queen vs king rook pawnless at least once. Karsten Müller even has a chapter on it in volume 3 of h 14 volume endgame course. it seems like a pretty basic thing of course i skipped that chapter lol

here. It was deleted. Good thing I use typio.
Why? I am asking if the claims made are indeed true given what I have observed from my own experience.
What am I supposed to do, create a chat and never make another comment? Ask a new question every time I'm not fully confident in an answer?

I deleted several of the comments on this page.  I'm generally okay with more contentious conversations on meta, but we're still going to make sure that everything is civil.

@BCLC among other suboptimal practices that are easy fixes, why is some 'Update' based on an answer given to this question itself, presented not only as part of your question but indeed above the question? Please think a little about how to be comprehensible easily to a reader

As the other users have noted, you are not using comments for their intended purpose. Let me break it down for you:

i believe i've encountered single queen vs single rook a few times but with pawns.

That is completely irrelevant to the question, and hence the answer.

i know i encountered king queen vs king rook pawnless at least once.

That is related to the question, but it's still an N=1 example. I said they don't occur that much in practice; that does not mean they never occur.

Karsten Müller even has a chapter on it in volume 3 of h 14 volume endgame course.

OK, fine, the quote I copied is from another one of his books. Still, it doesn't help improving the comment.

it seems like a pretty basic thing of course i skipped that chapter

Smart move, but completely irrelevant.

lol

Please, stop doing that. We're building a library here, this is different from hanging out with friends. Use the kind of language they would use in chess books.
In general, I would advice you to stop using comments altogether. Or at least limit it to your own posts or answers to your questions. It will save both you and many community members a lot of frustration.
Let me end with a positive note: thank you for attempting to salvage a badly posed but potentially interesting question. It received many downvotes because it was perceived as essentially being a rant; I hope the author is OK with the edit.

Comments are useful to share additional context and to point out omissions (or ask for clarification) from questions and answers.  Some comments are useful as permanent additions, but others are really only helpful for the short period of time before an edit is made.
Generally speaking, the comments that refer to older versions of a post are removed over time, especially if the page appears in web searches frequently.
If comments are even remotely unfriendly or rude, they're subject to being removed, no matter how useful they might be.  There's really just no need to be confrontational since we're all here to try and share knowledge, not to prove that we know more than other people.  If your comment includes "no offense" that's probably an indication that it could be reworked to make it nicer.
Finally, if the same comment is deleted multiple times, then come ask about it instead of working it into the answer.  There's probably a reason that it's being removed.

I strongly believe you are not using comments correctly and expect the properties that they are not designed to possess on Stack Exchange (notice, SE is different from discussion forums).
A lot of the discussions should actually happen in chat, rather than in comments.
Excerpt from Overall Meta FAQ: How do comments work:

What are comments for, and when shouldn't I comment?
...
They are not for:
...

Secondary back-and-forth discussion or debate; use chat instead

...

Also:

Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. You should not expect them to be around forever. Once a clarification has been made, an edit added to the post to include new information, or the issue in the comment is otherwise resolved, it can be deleted.

Notice, I would also discourage editing in the whole history of comments directly into the question without integrating the essence when it is actually needed (example: this post of yours).


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Subtle replayer en passant bug
When the first move is an en passant the replayer plays this successfully, but on going backwards it loses the knowledge of the en passant and creates a piece, in this case a bishop, on the capturing square.
Try scrolling forwards and then backwards in this example.
[title "Third part - mate in 1"]
[fen "5R2/p2k1p1P/1P1P1PPr/bPpKB2p/1p4n1/7B/2P2N1P/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. bxc6#

This bug is also prevalent when you delay the en passant capture.
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e6 2. e5 d5 3. d4 c5 4. exd6

Three small comments: 1. In the first FEN, the "en passant square" is missing from the FEN. The "-" after "KQkq" should be replaced by "c6". Unfortunately, this does not seem to fix the bug. 2. The en passant move is also not replayed successfully, as the captured Black pawn does not disappear from the board. 3. "Delaying the en passant capture" is not legal, right? The replayer seems to only allow en passant when the last move was a double pawn move, which is what the rules say. But it should be at least fixed to also take the FEN's "en passant square" into account.