Talk:Staunton chess set/Archive 1

Archive 1

"Northern Upright" or "Edinburgh Upright"

It might be worth a mention that the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord John Hay, designed a set of pieces known as the Edinburgh Upright around 1840. These pieces of strong architectural form pre-date the "Staunton". Apparently the set was designed for the Edinburgh Chess Club and made in London by Jaques specifically for the northern market. The "Edinburgh Upright" set look very much like taller vesions of the classic "Staunton". Possibly these pre-Staunton patterns need their own article! At least one Indian chess maker is currently manufacturing replicas of the original Edinburgh Upright and you should easily find photographs of this set. I didn't want to use their photograph without permission but perhaps someone who has a genuine Edinburgh Upright set might be kind enough to post a photo as it makes a fascinating comparison with the classic Staunton pattern. In good faith, AMM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.107.193 (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that it would be good to at least mention them in this article, with a photo, but it needs to be referenced. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you Bubba73. I would like an authoritative source, rather than just any article from the net, however well written and apparently scholarly. I intend to take a trip round the Edinburgh museums soon and hope to see an Edinburgh Upright. If I can get a good photo of an original 1840-45 set I'll post the photo for the article. But surely there is a book on the development of Chess and evolution of the diverse styles of the pieces? If not their certainly sould be, because I'd have it! AMM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.107.193 (talk) 19:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I found some reproductions on sale on the internet, but we can't use their photos. It was only about 10 years after these came out that the Staunton design came out, but probably these were still around for a while. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Copyright

Hello, I am the author, Sean Evans, of the original article called: History of Staunton Chess Pieces by Sean Evans I have modified it placed here at Wikipedia and added inter-wiki-links to make it stronger and make it more accessible to the the general public. Please do not delete it. thank you. StauntonChess 11:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The article looks great to me. I just made the "theories" into subsections. The main thing it needs is for the red links to have their own articles. Bubba73 (talk), 18:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Contempory times

• For over a century and a half, this style has been cherished by players around the world. The superiority of the design lay in its well-balanced, easily recognized pieces. Such was its success that it will be the style of choice for play to this day and for many years into the future.

The "contemporary times" section seems to be editorializing a little too much. Bubba73 (talk), 01:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The "contemporary times" section is simply horrible and non-encyclopedic, so I deleted it. Quale 03:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It has some good ideas, but it reads like an advertisement. I think the first sentence is OK, except that "cherised" is not a good choice of words. While I consider the second sentence to be true, it seems like too much editoralizing. The third sentence is speculating about the future and is editoralizing or POV. Bubba73 (talk), 03:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Although the statement is probably true, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Especially the third sentence. The first and second statement need to be rewritten in a more neutral tone and should be accompanied with a reference. Let there not be an edit war regards, Voorlandt 09:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and rewrite it to make it more encyclopedic, as you call it, but don't just delete it. PianoKeys 09:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Having not seen this discussion, I rewrote this section (on the basis it jumped out at me as badly written) and it got reverted by "Green Squares". I agree that "cherished" is not a good word to use and I also took out a repeated sentence.

My version:

For over a century and a half, the Staunton chess set has proved extremely popular and is likely to remain that way in future. The design is successful because of its well-balanced and easily recognised pieces. The Staunton design is currently recognized as the official standard for tournament chess pieces.

I propose that this is much clearer and more encyclopedic (though far from perfect).

Compare the current version (emphasis mine):

For over a century and a half, the Staunton chess set has been cherished by players around the world. The superiority of the design lay in its well-balanced, easily recognized pieces. Such was its success that it will be the style of choice for play to this day and for many years into the future. One of the reasons for its success is the well-balanced and easily recognized pieces. It is currently recognized as the official standard for tournament chess pieces

I'm putting it back to my version, on the basis we seem to have concensus it needs changing from Bubba73, Quale, Voorlandt and of course myself. Green Squares is presumably only one clearly against. GM Pink Elephant (talk) 12:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As you can see above, I didn't like the word "cherished". I don't like "superiority" either. Bubba73 (talk), 14:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

links to common words

You should not link to common words. Read Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. Bubba73 (talk), 23:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And [[1]] Bubba73 (talk), 23:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

References

The article is not referenced to wikipedia standards, so I'm tagging it accordingly. A few external links at the bottom of the page with no indication what is being used to support claims like those in the "First theory", "Second theory", etc. sections isn't enough. Quale (talk) 21:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The Geocities site is not a reliable source. 12.198.138.114 (talk) 01:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

A St. George style set

It appears this image was removed and re-added. In my view the articles looks better with the image and I see no need to remove it. If there is a better image then fine, but just to remove it takes away from the article. ChessCreator (talk) 19:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think I understand the concern that the image of the St. George style set isn't directly relevant to this article, but I think it's helpful to supply a contrasting earlier style. It's hard to explain what's special about the Staunton design and why it became the standard unless you can show an earlier style for comparison. Quale (talk) 00:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both for those comments. I added the St. George set photo and I restored it after it was deleted. In the edit comment when I restored it, I noted that it was in a section about older sets and that section mentions the St. George set and others. I thought it was useful for the reader to see how a Staunton set differed from other sets used at the time.

The section on older sets actually mentions four common styles at the time. The editor who deleted the photo of the St. George set said to make an article about it (the St. George set). But (1) I don't know enough about the history of the St. George set and the others, compared to the history of the Staunton set, and (2) the Staunton design is more prominent because it is the official standard. Perhaps there could be a good article about the history of chess sets, going back to the Lewis chessmen and others, but I don't know of a good source for that history. I think it would make a good article, though. Bubba73 (talk), 01:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all your points. I'm not opposed to an article on the St. George style, but I think it would be hard to find enough sources to make it work. I think we could have a good article that covered several different designs of chess sets, since there are a number of patterns that are significant enough for mention but probably not individual articles. I don't know much about the subject, but I think sets with designs based on the American Civil War have been popular enough historically (for collectors and casual players) to be worthy of mention, and maybe some Lewis Caroll themes, Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth, etc. For serious play there are interesting differences in the set designs popular in the East including the Soviet Union and Russia. We should describe these somewhere, but we need the help of someone who knows something about this. Quale (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Class of article

The article has been improved. Now the only reason I see that it might not be B-class is the unreferenced "theories", and that isn't necessarily something to keep an article from being B-class. That is, for B-class "A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed" and "The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical". Bubba73 (talk), 00:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Participation

You are welcome to participate in the following conversation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_February_26#26_February_2009 Green Squares (talk) 02:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The low-quality set

I do not think the article needs the paragraph about the non-notable low quality set. I think a photo with a short caption about it would be OK, but I don't see the point in having a whole paragraph about this non-notable set. Also, the paragraph is unreferenced. Bubba73 (talk), 14:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete: For the reasons given by Bubba73. Green Squares (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted paragraph

The paragraph was deleted, because the consensus (above) was to delete it. It is unsourced, not verifiable and the set it is about is non-notable. Bubba73 (talk), 17:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

If the concensus that you mention is the one message in section #The low-quality set, non-notable low quality sets are what most ordinary chess players used and should be mentioned. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was the consensus. Please read the Wikipedia policies I link to above. What is notable about this set? What are the verifiable, reliable sources of information about it? There are many low-quality sets, why is this one important? As far as I know, only two sets are discussed in the text of WP articles - the historic Lewis chessmen and the historic Staunton/Jaques set. Bubba73 (talk), 18:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)