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Graeme and anyone else who's [even remotely] interested, Fergus Duniho put the following up for the CV.org Piecelopedia:
"Historical notes
Include a detailed description of the piece's history, especially if it is a historical piece. Recent pieces will have a shorter history, but it is still important to answer these questions:
* Who invented the piece?
* When was it invented?
* Was it invented for a specific variant or for fairy chess problems?
* Has it been used mainly in Chess variants or in fairy chess problems?
* What games has it been used in?
* What names has it gone by?"
I think precedence is important, and it would be nice if the pieces were actually used somewhere.
For some pieces, we have the info; for others, we have it maybe…
Do we want to include problem pieces or just game pieces, or is this a necessary category?
Categories not mentioned:
Board type: eg Trigonal, Square, Hex, 3D, 4D, variable…
Range of piece: generic to specific eg short med long 2 3 4…
What categories should we put in? These are some of the problems these things have. I like the categories:
Before this gets any bigger, we need a few solid rules. Basic pieces, like the king and pawns and modern elephant [AF] and warmachine [DW] don't need that info, but games like K.. may have the first posted version of pieces z… and n.. that have become known under other names h… and m… from various games like A…
Anyway, what are your thoughts? It's entirely possible that each person who adds pieces categorizes them [or not] in totally different ways. We might wish to [try to] forestall some of that.
Enjoy,
Joe
Hi Joe,
I think it very important to establish a standard classification scheme - and my vote would be to adopt David Howe's Taxonomy as a starting point. This should give us a reasonable set of page tags.
Equally I think there should be a standard template for entries - I'll see if I can come up with something more substantial than my current minimal effort.
Cheers
Graeme
Agreed; David Howe was definitely on my mind, don't know how I left "A Taxonomy" out.
I don't know about a standard template; a basic template might be worthwhile: picture, description, classifications…
I'd write/do more, but I'm way too tired. Catch you later.
Enjoy,
Joe
Hey, Graeme! I think I'm awake now. Page tags! What a delightful idea! We can put our classification info in the page tags, if we create a special vocabulary for them. For example, "Pieces" refers to design concepts, "Piece" refers to a specific piece, so if you click on "piece", you get just piecelopedia entries… hmmm, in a wiki, that'd never work. How about the consonants PCLPD as indicating PieCeLoPeDia. "Bet" could be Betza's funny notation, and "Jsn" would be Joe's strange notation - you pick your own TLA for your system - DHT is David Howe's Taxonomy, of course, and Ver or Vbl would be the verbal description, etc. These tags specifically indicate it's a piecelopedia entry, and how it's classified. I think that would be a good start. As you and I seem to be the only ones doing this, we need to agree, and come up with a good, flexible system. Joe
Hi Joe,
it's my turn to be tired, so excuse my ramblings.
Firsst the teeemplate - my use of "standard" was peerhaps misleding - basic was the intention. I'm thinkng of turning it into a form that will generate the Wiki code that can just be cut and pasted into the editor for page creation.
Your outline of the use of tags is fine - we just need to set out the tags and their meanings.
I want to take a different approach with DHT however and use categories (name-spaces). I've set up the basic framework and hooked my Marauder into it as an example. The Wiki code for this could also be produced by my intended template-form.
Using DHT this way should make searching by multiple criteria easier.
Cheers
Graeme
Hi, Graeme - my turn to be tired again… there's just something wonderful about insomnia.
Okay, I started trying to classify pieces, and figured you ought to look at the 3 I've done so far, which are the parallel general, the zigzag general, and the wazir. See what you think, and how well we agree on classifications. I already had to correct an error in the classification of the ZZG; it was listed as straight rider originally, now it's listed as the only other option, "curved" rider. We might consider adding "bent", "crooked", that sort of thing - his curved piece was a rose - a Sissa isn't curved like a rose, I think it's either bent or crooked, for example. This is obviously why no one has done this before, but we are, I believe, [oddly enough] off to a good [if slow] start. We are actually providing something where you can look up pieces by their attributes. I think we might change the way we describe the pieces, and put their classifications first, so they would show in the piece descriptions in the 4 parts of the piecelopedia [a-e, f-m or whatever…].
Waiting to hear from you before doing too many more pieces…
Hi Joe,
here's my take on the DHT:
Marauder
unlimited straight rider anydirection double (1,0) (1,1) joint convergent static stable noeffect displacer mono constant synchronous rectangular 1x1
Wazir
limited one straight rider anydirection simple (1,0) single convergent static stable noeffect displacer mono constant synchronous rectangular 1x1
Zigzag General
limited two bent rider leaper anydirection quad (1,0) (2,0) (1,1) (2,2) exclusive convergent static stable noeffect displacer mono constant synchronous rectangular 1x1
Parallel General
limited two straight rider leaper anydirection quad (1,0) (2,0) (1,1) (2,2) exclusive convergent static stable noeffect displacer mono constant synchronous rectangular 1x1
I've actually expanded the DHT - see dht-classification - so we have bent= one change of direction, crooked=multiple changes, twisted= alternating changes, hook=must change for the final step, handle=must change after the initial step.
and I like the idea of having the classification up-front - I've amended my Marauder "template example" accordingly.
Cheers
Graeme
Hey Graeme, I looked at your classifications. They're too awesome. And very thorough, containing a large amount of info. Thdoes make them rather overwhelming, even to me. Might I make some suggestions to trim down the initial amount of info we give people first looking at a piece? It's obvious that we should have the complete definition of each piece, but with that much info, I'd put the full classification at the back, and lead off with simple [comparatively] classifications.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong [and I well could be], but everything after "Mono" in the current classification boild down to: "the piece takes up only 1 square", correct? If so, we can dump all that as redundant and then dump mono too, as unnecessary for a shortened classification that appears in the front. We don't want to scare people off with too much technical talk, in my opinion. I'd keep the initial info as simple and accessible as possible.
Are we on the same wavelength here? This is a good example of what I'd look to do to make our work accessible. In the meantime, I'd be learning the classification system in depth, so we can classify the same piece the same way. I think our individual piece pages should procede from simple to complex. Start with easy classifications, then verbal explanation, then on to the complex stuff, finishing with full classifiactions and discussions of such things as mutators, if applicable.
I know there's a lot of bs here, but we're going to put in an amazing amount of work even if we just set this up and start putting pieces in. I want to do something really useful, and get it right, as much as possible, from the very beginning. ;-)
Next part later, when I have a chance to think about it. Maybe we could solicit feedback at CV.org or yahoo groups, also.
Enjoy, Joe
Hi Joe,
yep, I can get carried away with my own verbosity; and I agree the initial info should be uncomplicated - so see what you think of my revised "introductory classifications:
Marauder
unlimited straight rider joint double displacer
Wazir
one-step rider single displacer
Zigzag General
two-step bent (rider/leaper) exclusive quadruple displacer
Parallel General
two-step straight (rider/leaper) exclusive quadruple displacer
Pawn (FIDE)
one-step forward rider single divergent displacer (singular/promotor)
Pawn (XiangQi)
one-step forward rider single displacer navigator
King (FIDE)
one-step rider exclusive double displacer singular
King (XiangQi)
one-step rider single displacer restrictor restricted
which are based on this template
distance{-step} [path] [direction] [side]{-}style [combination] moving [conflux] capture [kinetic] [mode] [position] [scale]
[] - indicates conditional inclusion where classification is non-standard and not implied.
{} - indicates additional text
Have I gone too much in the other direction?
Cheers
Graeme
Man, I hit the wrong button and lost a lengthy post. Hi, Graeme! Went through a whole lot of Blah, blaH, BlaH! It boils down to this: the length you have now is perfect. The idea is excellent. Now, all we have to do is put it in English, and maybe expand it a bit. I think we should use an easy and a full DHT classification; 2 strongly overlapping but different classifications. I would like this as accessible as possible, and that means language as simple and easy to understand as we can devise. I think we can collapse a number of ideas into one general idea, with modifiers where necessary, and keep it easy and complete enough for my little brother Den to understand.
Now, this does not mean I disagree with your expanding of DHT; in fact, I added a bit to your definition of "Joint", under "Movement" somewhere. And I anticipate adding a good bit more. I, too, believe in a full, thorough, precise and accurate definition of every piece; I just think it should go at the end of the page. I also expect you to criticise my stuff as much as I do yours, and ask that you start with my DHT classifications of the few pieces we've done in common. Please consider them in terms of an easy, accurate definition for each. I didn't know your system, just looked at DH's article and wrote down what I thought. So there ought to be a lot to criticise there. Oh, yeah, what do you think of my strange notation article? Fire away ['cause I think the end of your symbology looks like a cartoon curse ;-) ].
Ya know, this is getting interesting. Can we cobble together a complete definition [system] for every chesspiece, in a Godelian universe? Then, can we make it comprehensible to anyone who sees it? [If we could pull this off successfully, we woulda made Pritchard's next book.] Parting thought: do we need to address Mutators?
Enjoy,
Joe
Hi Joe (and anyone else interested),
could I have your comments on the following, please
Step:
Leaper:
Path:
Rider:
Hopper:
Jumper:
Slider:
Cheers
Graeme