Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The broken links are caused by the wrong number of '../' in some relative
links. My problem with this page is a general problem I have with most of
Gilman's pages. It is that he tries to use the authority of this website
to give authority to his own naming of pieces. For example, this piece was
previously known as the 'Flying Dragon' by someone who used it before
Gilman, yet he goes ahead and calls it by another name. Furthermore, he
describes his reasons for this name in the passive voice, as though this
is the standard name for the piece, without taking responsibility for
creating the name himself. While I know that the name Caliph is his own
doing, the average reader here would think that the editors here have come
to a consensus on this name. That has not happened, and I think that any
page that Gilman writes should come with the disclaimer that he does not
represent anyone but himself.

I am supposed to be the Piececlopedia editor, and if these pages passed
through me, I would hold them to higher standards. But Gilman has never
passed any of his pages through me. Unfortunately, I don't have the time
to catch his submissions before other editors get to them.

Ah, you've fallen for the old idea of problematists' names for pieces
being standard. In fact, piece naming follows two very separate strands,
'fairy-problems' - the variant-piece equivalent of newspaper chess
problems - and actual variant games. I would have liked the two
communities to have met long ago to agree a standard naming system, but
they did not. Thus game after game features Wazir+Ferz, but none as far as
I know the problematists' Knight+Ferz, under the name 'Prince'. Likewise
Wazir+Alfil appears as Waffle or Phoenix, never Caliph. What looks like
'duplication' is two separate usages. Only older pieces like Timur's
Giraffe or very obvious nasmes like Alibaba are shared by both. This is
why my extensive use of the piece here under the name Caliph never raised
mention of Wazir+Alfil from any previous contributor. Not being
problematists, most were as ignorant of the other usage of Caliph as I
was. Those who did know also knew of the separation and so never
considered it worth raising.
	For my own preference I value memorability first, while also taking note
of usage in past games and suitability for extrapolation. There being no
intuitive reason why Bishop+Camel should be a Flying Dragon, I forgot -
not even consciously rejected - this naming long before I began using the
piece myself. The Bishop component suggests religion, and the Camel one
certain parts of the world, many of which have Islam their main religion.
Of the various Islamic titles that would have suited that piece, I found
Caliph the easiest to extrapolate - to Bishop+Zemel=Zeliph,
Bishop+Gimel=Giliph, et cetera. 
	An example of where another game designer's name has grabbed my
imagination is Timothy Newton's Kangaroo, also giving a piece which
problematists call by a different name a name which problematists use for
a different piece. For me Mr. Newton's usage had the better appeal,
(Zebra+Alfil=Zengaroo et cetera) and up went my page on the piece as he
had named it. Waffle is also a name that I have taken up for my own games,
its meaning being so blindingly obvious.
	Finally, where I have known about and been inspired by a problematist
name is the Sexton. This inspired my names of most of the shortest-range
cubic oblique leapers. Again its memorability - leap length root 6 - is
what won me over to it in preference to Captain, Red Knight, or Wyvern
(all of which I had to look up).

As I say, had a consensus built up over both communities I would go along
with it, but that never happened. Neither community has registered highly
on the other's radar. The problematists didn't use Carrera's, or
Bird's, or Capablanca's names for Rook+Knight or Bishop+Knight, they
invented their own, so they can hardly blame us for not adopting their
nomenclature either. Some pieces which apparently work well in problems
are not good for variants, and it would be a waste to reserve names for
them that could be deployed for more useful game pieces.
	Is now the right time to stop adding new names for existing pieces - or
new pieces for existing names? Perhaps, but achieving that entails those
of us who know of duplications highlighting them to everyone else
promptly. I have myself pointed out such anomalies and received short
shrift. Is now the right time to say that it should have been stopped five
years ago, when I first called this piece Caliph in Ecumenical Chess? No,
because it is an impossible task. It is too late to prevent this usage
becoming entrenched through my themed variants, because it has already
happened.
	Should every piece be known by the first name used for it? If so, it
would mean ambiguity as at leat two pieces have first seen the light under
each of the names Champion, Dragon, Falcon, Giraffe, Scorpion - and
probably many others. Should every name be used only for the first piece
to use it? If so, the 1943 usage of Falcon would rule out Falcon Chess.
Should we use an 'established catalogue', regardless of how few it is
established among and how hard it is to remember such names? What's the
problematists' name for the piece on this page? I have no idea and so, I
suspect, have most of us. Do they even have one? Better to use names that
have become established through use in many variants, or memorable from a
common theme with similar pieces.