Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Actually you raised a good point, that the origins of names for Heir (and in future pages Count, Cross, Point, and Saltire) compounds do need a bit more explaining in terms of being derived from their symmetrc (Baron, Duke, Ferz, Wazir, Viceroy) counterparts. I have made the relevant clarifications.
	As for whether what I am doing is of any worth, I am doing it on demand rather than by choice. If it shows up inadequarte names more easily then that may help eliminate them. It was not so long ago that I first read of Pasha for Wazir+Ferz+Dabbaba+Elephant and extrapolated it to names for other one-and-two-step pieces. This allowed the elimination of several names with no prior meaning and Barchick may yet be replaced on a similar basis.

Actually, I mean that all of your obsessive writing is of no worth, not
just the piece names I singled out.  Why the editors allow this kind of
self-aggrandizing nonsense to clutter up the site is beyond me.

Charles Gilman wrote:

As for whether what I am doing is of any worth, I am doing it on demand rather than by choice.

Really? On whose demand? Certainly not mine, and I'm supposed to be the Piececlopedia editor. For the record, these articles of yours violate the Piececlopedia Guidelines.

To say that anything outside the Piececlopeida violates the Piececlopedia guidelines is the height of arrogance, because guess what, nothing outside the Piececlopedia is subject to the Piececlopedia guidelines. Man and Beast is not subject to them. Crazy 38s is not subject to them. Ideal Values and Practical Values is not subject to them. Variants are not subject to them, or we'd get no new pieces at all. The U.S. Senate is not subject to them. North West Leicestershire by-laws are not subject to them. Get the picture yet?

Man and Beast serves a different purpose from the Piececlopedia. The Piececlopedia is a record of how pieces have been used in Chess, Shogi, Xiang Qi, and existing variants, primarily 2d variants. It does a very good job of that, which is why most contributors to these pages including myself try to mark such established pieces with links to its Piececlopedia page. We are none of us trying to claim our pages, be they game or piece pages, as part of the Piececlopedia, just giving a fine resource its due credit. Man and Beast is a set of suggestions for distinctive piece names for use in future variants, including those as yet unused, and in particular to extrapolate from existing 2d piece names to names for 3d pieces. This will inevitably include pieces currently ineligible for the Piececlopedia, and so it should.

Is it perfect? No, it isn't, which is why I so welcome contributions. Perhaps I have been concentrating too much on adding pieces and keeping others under new names, and if a particular group of pieces has failed to attract previous names even for the square board, its inclusion could be a mistake. Thus I should have seen that the reasonable extrapolations from the Waffle and Alibaba were other compounds of 2 single-length radials pieces - many of which I later used in Symgi - not 3 or more - whicb included the ones singled out. So I am inclined to drop the likes of the Baffle, Barnabas, Duffel, Fellaby, Piffle, Pribaba, Wallaby, and their FO versions. As the Pasha preceded my inclusion of it I would keep its extrapolations but drop Archpasha, Pashaarch, et cetera. If no-one's desperate for me to keep the pieces that I propose dropping from the series I'll go ahead and do it, and be glad that the indexing has at least triggered me to clear out the worst dross from the system.

To an extent, I can understand why you do what you do here. Like me, you like to create systems, and you find enough intrinsic pleasure in the act of designing that the use of the design can become immaterial. I spent yesterday, for example, programming a command that will be useful primarily for 3D games--even though I have hardly played 3D games in my life and might not have any personal use for the command. But I thought someone would find it useful, and I enjoyed the process of designing it. I may at least program one 3D game with it as a showpiece. To an extent, we share common design interests, as we both design Chess variants.

But we part ways when it comes to how much we care about the utility of what we design. I care more about the utility of my designs than you care about yours. I program and play my games, whereas you cast yours adrift to be ignored while you go on to create new games. I program code that helps people play games with each other, whereas you make lists of piece names used by practically no one but yourself for games no one plays anyway, not even you.

I don't care so much whether or not you continue to make your lists of piece names. What I object to is lending them credibility by hosting them here without any disclaimers about what you are doing. It can give the false impression that we stand by and support what you are doing, and people coming across your pages may think, simply for not knowing any better, that you are providing official names for these pieces that have the support and acceptance of the Chess variant community. This problem does not come up with posting games, because it is normally understood that games are the creations of individual inventors. But your piece pages have the air of being official references, which they most definitely are not. Putting a prominent disclaimer at the top of each of your piece pages should fix this problem. I'll suggest something like this:

DISCLAIMER: This page is not an official reference provided by the Chess Variant Pages. It is the personal project of one contributor, whose opinions are his own and do not necessarily belong to anyone else associated with this site.

Charles Gilman wrote:

To say that anything outside the Piececlopedia violates the Piececlopedia guidelines is the height of arrogance

When I noticed the Knight icon next to your articles, it appeared to me that they had been placed in the Piececlopedia. I learned otherwise only when I went to change that. I then noticed that a new category called Piece had been added, and its icon differs only slightly from the Piececlopedia icon, which is an upside-down Knight. If this could fool me, it could easily fool other people even less familiar with the workings of this site. This underscores the need to clearly distinguish your piece pages from Piececlopedia pages. The Piececlopedia is intended as a scholarly reference on the historical usage of pieces in Chess variants, and it is important that your piece name pages not be confused with this. To this end, I would recommend the disclaimer I mentioned earlier and the use of a non-Knight icon for pages in the Piece category.

Speaking of the height of arrogance, I found something a little closer to it in a comic book I read today. The villain says to Phoenix in New X-Men, volume 1, #154 , 'With your talents and an endless army of crawlers, we will set our mark on all of creation! We will remake God in our image. And sit on thrones high above the universe.'

Incidentally, my welcoming of feedback is, I feel, another thing that distinguishes us, particularly when it comes to gaps in your own scholarship. For example, on the Alfil page, 'Golombek also points out that the English word elephant was also borrowed from another language. Although I can't document the connection, elephant does sound similar to alfil. Perhaps it has its roots in the name for a Chess piece.' starts off scholarly enough but then deteriorates into wild and uninformed speculation. Yet when an informed person informed you otherwise you ignored the help. True, I didn't cite a specific source, but any dictionary of Classical Greek would confirm it. If that's a bit too exotic, even a Latin dictionary would at least confirm that the roots of the word elephant go back long before Shatranj. When someone suggests an improvement on any of my contributions I give it consideration, make the change if inspired to, and even if I don't take the change on board I explain why and try to do so civilly.

It would be interesting to hear from a newcomer whether they do get the wrong idea that you describe. I have certainly attempted to highlight any established usages. I've been trying to get away from duplicating information on every page in favour of concentrating general information on the overview page. I'll certainly consider some rewriting of the intros, but I certainly wouldn't put in some gaudy monstrosity that takes over eighty characters to get to the first word and is at odds with my own relatively austere style.

Regarding your second comment, most of the issues that you raise are out of my control. What image is used for the Piececlopedia and which for piece articles is a matter for the editors. It can't help that piece articles are shown in such close association with the Piececlopedia. Better would be one paragraph marked something like 'Piececlopedia: a piece-by-piece reference on the use and naming of pieces used in historic and regional forms of Chess' and a separate one marked something like 'General piece articles: thoughts by individual Chess variant enthusiasts on groups of pieces in and for Chess and Chess variants', each paragraph with its own image writ large. As I say, though, that's a collective decision for the editors. As you are so keen to remind me, I no longer have editor status, and as it happens I wouldn't have time at present to make use of it if I still did.

Your X-men reference is entirely lost on me, as I do not follow the series. For example, to me Wolverine means this.

As a bystander, I just want to offer some outsider perspective:

Charles: Honestly, I have tried to read your articles, but they intimidate me.  Sometimes, I get a little lost reading them, but I don't by any means consider them to be horrible or pointless.  I put a lot of effort into things that my own wife finds useless, but that does not deteriorate the value that it has to me.  I commend you for all of the effort that you have given into this.  

As for your variants, I do notice that you have many of them, and that many more have variants that can be derived from other variants that you have created.  12 Sharp Chess is a great example of this.  I, however, have found many of your variants interesting and have even implimented a few onto Game Courier myself.  You provide many new perspectives into the game and I only wish I had the opportunity to try them all.  This remains true for almost every variant I find here, though.

Fergus:  I have never gotten the idea that his articles are the reflection of this site, and even if I did, I would not have held anything against it nor its editors.  To me, I see this site as a tool to provide a reflection of many inventor's ideas.  A way to express ourselves openly, if you will, in a world where the intellectual or not all the time the welcomed ones.  My wife would rather I play sports than learn how to program, play chess and its variants, invent variants or other games, or create piece graphics.  This place has served as my get-away from life and I appreciate you allowing me to experience this.  Of course, I am no editor, but in the eyes of a 2 year veteran of the site (and one who didn't even discover the forum side of it until a year after he joined), I do not find any fault with Charle's ramblings.  

Not sure if that will provide any help or insight, but I think the opinion of an outsider might help the situation.  Thanks!

Best,
Nick

Charles Gilman wrote:

I certainly don't write with the intention of being ignored. Indeed I positively invite feedback, on both the piece pages and the variants, and certainly hope that someone who enjoy implementing variants takes them up.

Speaking for myself, I ignore your games, because you make so many of them, you use poor graphics, and I'm under the impression that you never playtest your games. I occasionally look at and implement games not by myself, but time constraints prevent me from looking at everything, and to save time, I don't bother with games I don't think enough time and effort were put into. I am more inclined to look at someone else's game when I know that he has playtested it and has worked at making it a good game. With you, I think you are just spinning off ideas without any quality control. So I don't waste my time.

If I don't implement them myself it is only because I'm such a perfectionist and don't have nearly enough time online to test the implementations to ensure that I don't make a real clanger of a mistake.

If you are a perfectionist, I would like to see you put some of that perfectionism into quality control. For myself, I find that programming and playtesting games are important steps in quality control. Programming gets me to think through all the details and consequences of the rules. Playtesting helps me tell whether the game is enjoyable, too drawish, or whatever. If a lack of online time is the only problem here, I suggest you get Zillions-of-Games, which you can use offline. If the main problem is that you're not a programmer, you can still make Game Courier presets for your games that do not enforce any rules and slowly play them with others online. If the main problem is that you spend an inordinate amount of time creating games, I would suggest that you slow down and just take more time for each game. If you're really a perfectionist, I would expect you to care more about quality than quantity, but the main thing I've seen from you is quantity, quantity, quantity.

Your X-men reference is entirely lost on me, as I do not follow the series.

That doesn't matter. It does not require any knowledge of context to understand what it was illustrating.

'...you use poor graphics...' That's a matter of opinion. If you want truly awful graphics I can point you to the 'icon' graphics here - which try to represent 5 kinds of penguin, 2 kinds of other bird, and 2 kinds of seal on images tiny enough to fit a vast array of them on a web page. On that scale, give me simple letters any day! For my own variants I try to use the most economical graphics appropriate to the variant. That means arrays of established images first - preferablnoy generated on the fly rather than having to be stored on the page - then Ascii Art, and only if all else fails do I resort to crteating a full-board image. If there's a good way of doing the graphics for a 3-player in the Fiancé Chess/Kennet/Triple Crown style I'd be delighted to be told of it.

'With you, I think you are just spinning off ideas without any quality control... the main thing I've seen from you is quantity, quantity, quantity.' Well of course what you see is what doesn't get through my first line of quality control. Not only do you not see the ones that I've rejected outright, it also means you don't often see any record of early drafts that I've realised won't work and I have to rethink. If anytyhing slips through it oly takes someone to spot it and I fix it like a flash.

'If the main problem is that you're not a programmer...' As it happens, programing is how I earn my living, but it's not what I live for. I like a complete break from programming when I get home.

'...you can still make Game Courier presets for your games that do not enforce any rules and slowly play them with others online.' Presets that do not enforce any rules! Well that's what people have tended to create from my variants, but I'd prefer the rules to be enforced.

'It does not require any knowledge of context to understand what it was illustrating.' Well it would be nice to know what it does require knowledge of, because I'm at something of a loss. My first thought was that you were sending up the literary and operatic references in my articles, but then I realised that if it were that then, far from not mattering my ignorance would be the whole point. Are you boasting that you can make god in your own image, or accusing me of trying to make god in mine, or just spouting some mumbo-jumbo to make me feel ignorant when there's nothing behind it to be ignorant of?

Charles: I respect your right to your opinion, but please leave me out of your squabbles. If you have a comment to make on my variant or its presentation then kindly do so in the appropriate comment area.

Graeme.

Charles Gilman wrote:

'...you use poor graphics...' That's a matter of opinion. If you want truly awful graphics I can point you to the 'icon' graphics here - which try to represent 5 kinds of penguin, 2 kinds of other bird, and 2 kinds of seal on images tiny enough to fit a vast array of them on a web page.

If there's a good way of doing the graphics for a 3-player in the Fiancé Chess/Kennet/Triple Crown style I'd be delighted to be told of it.

'With you, I think you are just spinning off ideas without any quality control... the main thing I've seen from you is quantity, quantity, quantity.' Well of course what you see is what doesn't get through my first line of quality control. Not only do you not see the ones that I've rejected outright, it also means you don't often see any record of early drafts that I've realised won't work and I have to rethink.

'It does not require any knowledge of context to understand what it was illustrating.' Well it would be nice to know what it does require knowledge of, because I'm at something of a loss. My first thought was that you were sending up the literary and operatic references in my articles, but then I realised that if it were that then, far from not mattering my ignorance would be the whole point. Are you boasting that you can make god in your own image, or accusing me of trying to make god in mine, or just spouting some mumbo-jumbo to make me feel ignorant when there's nothing behind it to be ignorant of?

Graeme: I am so sorry, I really should have taken my usual care to moderate my language. I should have at least changed 'truly awful graphics' to 'the kind of graphics I avoid using', and emphasised that I was not in any way criticising the variant itself. Because I was being so tolerant, indulgent even, of Fergus' comment I unwittingly expected the same of you, and shouldn't have. If, having had time to reflect, you would really welcome a comment about your graphics posted on your page, please confirm this and I'll certainly try and be far more constructive there.
Fergus: I really think we ought to agree to differ and end this exchange of comments. They have got way off the subject of this page and of the series of whose index it is part. If you want to ignore variants whose graphics you personaly dislike, that's fine. There are plenty of other contributors. Recently I've had some splendidly constructive criticism from George Duke, and clarified the variant in question accordingly.

Charles:

Sorry, I should have clarified when I said it intimidates me.  I have a really hard time concentrating on things sometimes and your knowledge of the English language is much more vast than mine.  Big words and many words intimidate me no matter what the subject is.  Also, I am not very educated in the regards of chess variants.  I can read, understand, and execute rules, and maybe throw in a little bit of strategy, but mechanics like pawn structures, piece values, notations, piece names, etc.  I just enjoy playing games for what they are, so I think that may also play a part.  I did some more looking at a you articles, I believe they are well written and you seem to have an understanding what you are talking about.  My uneducated self cannot think of any suggestions for you.  My apologies.

Best,
Nick