Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Any thoughts on the next featured variant? My suggestions are Chu Shogi and Eurasian Chess. I come up with these by looking at most played games on game courier, skipping all those that have previously been featured, and skipping one four-player game and two that are very similar to other featured games, and that gets us to most-played-on-game-courier #13, (at 32 games each,) Alice, Chu Shogi, and Eurasian. Alice being previously featured, I suggest one of the other two.

Let's try to get this started again with a nomination process in place. For the time being, I have featured Eurasian Chess, because that's what the last nominations were for. For the nomination process, a game meeting the criteria mentioned on this page may be nominated by someone other than the inventor. If it gets seconded by another non-inventor and approved by an editor without being vetoed by any, we can queue it up to be featured. If this gets especially active with multiple nominations, we can use voting or editorial discretion to choose what to feature.

Not sure if it qualifies (the page for it is fairly short), but I'd nominate Seirawan Chess (if not to be only as a featured game then as a recognized variant also):

https://www.chessvariants.com/link/seirawanchess

Not sure if it qualifies (the page for it is fairly short)

At present, we don't have a proper game page for it, and a link page doesn't count. Maybe in the future when we do have a game page for it. Also, it would be good to have a programmed Game Courier preset for it. The current one is not programmed.

Note that when I linked to 'Featured Games' from e.g. the Eurasian Chess game page header, I got a massive list of games that apparently weren't intended to be listed:

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?type=Game&orderby=LinkText&displayauthor=1&displayinventor=1

Note that when I linked to 'Featured Games' from e.g. the Eurasian Chess game page header, I got a massive list of games that apparently weren't intended to be listed:

Okay, I've modified the link.

Ok, I'll go first.  I nominate Cylindrical Chess.  It has been around for probably two hundred years, has been a problem theme for over a hundred years, was played in NOST, and has logged 30 games on Game Courier.  It has been supported by ChessV for at least 15 years.  And, perhaps most importantly, it has that ususual characteristic of making a single, easily understood change to the game of Chess that leads to something completely new.

I'll second Cylindrical Chess. I made a Game Courier preset for it, and it can be used with circular graphics. That or the photo I added to the page can be used to feature it on the home page. For now, I have featured Eurasian Chess on the home page, and we can do the same with each featured variant.

I have made a proper rules page for Seirawan Chess, and I've started working on a Game Courier preset for it.

I always thought of Cylindrical Chess as the very first concept to appear in someone's mind when it comes to the idea of inventing a CV.

I think it is a very bad thing to have yet another classification for recommending chess variants, which to an uninitiated person would mean exactly the same as the 'recognized' label that we already have. I would be very hard pressed to explain to someone what the difference between a 'recognized' variant and a 'featured variant' is. Perhaps they are elected through a different mechanism, but who cares?

If we think there is a need for drawing attention to certain chess variants, we should simply revive the 'recognized' program. Otherwise we will just be promoting chaos. From what was chosen as 'featured' so far it looks like we will just be replicating the recognized list all over again.

BTW, the list of 'recognized' variants given on this page does omit many of the recognized variants (e.g. Makruk, Chu Shogi).

The problem with Featured Variants is the fact that this page wasn't updated for more than a decade, so it may be counted that everything is started from scratch. It is actually a good idea to keep promoting playable and interesting CVs in the described format, especially the forgotten ones. The name can cause some confusion though, so I would assume that 'Variant of the Month' can be a more straightforward one.

As a compromise between European and American times, I will make Cylindrical Chess the featured game for March late tonight, which will be a bit late in Europe and a bit early in America.

what is the meaning of a featured game?

From Merriam-Webster, featured is the past tense of feature by definition 3a: "to give special prominence to". So, a featured game is one we are giving or have given special prominence to. As long as we can be bothered to keep it up, we will mention a particular featured game in the header of each page and include a picture of it on the home page. Since we prefer to feature games that are worthy of the honor, the list of featured games can provide people with a list of Chess variants worth knowing about and trying out.

We could conceivably wrap the recognized variants up into featured variants. The concept of a recognized variant is more vague. The concept of a featured variant is more concrete, because it refers to a specific, observable action we have taken.

To me, Recognized suggests games that have achieved some notable popularity at some time, while Featured would include games that are considered to be deserving of recognition.

To me, Recognized suggests games that have achieved some notable popularity at some time,

That's hard to measure, has vague boundaries, and has nothing to do with our actions. So, if we just focused on which games are recognized, we would be trying to determine what is so instead of making something so through our own actions.

while Featured would include games that are considered to be deserving of recognition.

Yes, another reason to focus on featured games rather than recognized games is that is allows us to spotlight a game for its quality and not just for its popularity or historic value.

"that is allows us to spotlight a game for its quality and not just for its popularity or historic value."

OK but who is "us", what is the process to judge the quality? I fear the boundaries are more than vague here.

It is maybe a semantic question. What do you mean by "featured" exactly? Is that "having distinctive aspects", "having something special" which is rather neutral, or is that bearing some positive appreciation, meaning that this game is better than others?

There are also 2 other lists which translate the popularity of the different CVs. One based on the number of games played on Game Courier:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/listgames.php

One based on the numbers of "like" received by a game:

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/favorites.php

Both lists have to be taken with caution as there are by no means fully objective, anyway it gives some ideas. And maybe there are better and less arbitrary recognitions.

OK but who is "us", what is the process to judge the quality? I fear the boundaries are more than vague here.

I already covered this here.

It is maybe a semantic question. What do you mean by "featured" exactly?

I already answered this here.

Is that "having distinctive aspects", "having something special" which is rather neutral, or is that bearing some positive appreciation, meaning that this game is better than others?

None of those. See my earlier answer to your question. However, there are criteria that a game must pass before being featured. These are described on this page.

I agree with Fergus, but as a more general answer may I say that I believe this has value.  It gives us another way to highlight games that the community feels has value, in temporary way (as opposed to making something Recognized, or whatever, that declares value in a more permenant way).

We all know the issue -- there are a million chess variants (figuratively, and maybe literally) and how do we -- the CVP community who know about these things -- call out those worthy of further attention?

The procedure we are following makes sense to me.  Let us give it a try.  It seems to be working.  Eurasian Chess and Cylindrical Chess are both worthy of notice for many reasons.  If the Featured Variants offers no value, it will go away.  If it creates problems, it will be refined or it will go away.  This forum is an evolving entity.  We do not need to answer every question before anything is done.

April is almost upon us. Does anyone have a nomination for a game to feature in April?

I suggest Shako