6 ms·

inb4 someone will suggest that FIDE should change the color names to be more inclusive + why does white have the first move advantage, why can't black be the fi

inb4 someone will suggest that FIDE should change the color names to be more inclusive + why does white have the first move advantage, why can't black be the first. Perfect breeding soil for just another day of pointless race drama on Twitter

waterhouse 6y ago
You joke (I think), but given what happened to the "master" branch on GitHub, it seems likely that some people will try to push the point, and, if they make enough noise, it's likely that the organizations involved will eventually cave (not the chess grandmasters (!), but the administrator types). I googled a bit and turned up a couple of news articles: https://apnews.com/article/184386cc09be6c69535919402a13fa3f https://apnews.com/article/184386cc09be6c69535919402a13fa3f and https://au.sports.yahoo.com/chess-centre-stunning-racism-debate-which-piece-moves-first-012917664.html https://au.sports.yahoo.com/chess-centre-stunning-racism-deb...
- dmingod666 6y ago
  The github change is brought up by a lot by people, but, all github does here is this. On the default set of commands it shows you if you don't have a repo pushed, it shows you the help command with 'main', instead of 'master'. Just a word change on a default help document, that's it. If you knew your commands you wouldn't even notice this. If you just make a repo and push your existing code to github, it will work with 'master' as it is.. they actually don't have much of a say in how people name the git branches without severely shooting their whole service in the foot..
  - SilverRed 6y ago
    iirc git was also looking in to changing the default name when you run git init. Yes, it makes no difference at all, its just a name. But the fact is that a lot of people felt it very important to make this nonsensical change. There is no reason why the colors of chess pieces would not fall under the same justifications.
    - dmingod666 6y ago
      It was GitHub who wanted to make this change. I don't think they can impact how the git command works. GitHub has a separate desktop UI client but afaik the git binary is from a different organization. I think if you look at arbitrary religious restrictions, those also probably trace their origins to an overactive neurotic mind with too much time on their hands. Those guys then develop nonsensical restrictions.
      - SilverRed 6y ago
        >I don't think they can impact how the git command works. The git team independently discussed it on the git mailing list after github made the move and decided they want to move in the same direction.
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  If someone thinks chess colors are racist, they should get educated on their history first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_and_Black_in_chess#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_and_Black_in_chess#Histo...
  - drak0n1c 6y ago
    Nearly all the outrage over word use and six-figure tax bills for rewording city and federal documents is the result of ignorance of etymology, homonyms, and homophones.
    - dblohm7 6y ago
      I made the mistake of pointing this out on Twitter, and was promptly and aggressively told that, as long as anybody is upset, etymology doesn’t matter.
    - gherkinnn 6y ago
      Awomen.
  - thotsBgone 6y ago
    History is sexist: it's his story!
- ipiz0618 6y ago
  A quick search shows it has already happened. https://twitter.com/magnuscarlsen/status/1108662247860199424 https://twitter.com/magnuscarlsen/status/1108662247860199424
  - gher-shyu3i 6y ago
    I don't know how people don't see the irony. This is introducing race into a non-racial game.
- joker3393 6y ago
  "Master", as in "Grandmaster" is obviously problematic, with its obvious reference to north-American slavery. They should change to Grand Wizard or something like that.
  - kdmytro 6y ago
    Wait until they hear about International Master.
sellyme 6y ago
In fairness the advantage from going first in chess is really significant at high Elos, so a design improvement that resolves that imbalance would be pretty good for the game anyway. It would save playing two games to get one result. But given that the only patch to chess in the last century was to prevent playing 0-0-0-0-0-0 with a promoted rook, I doubt I'll live to see that happen.
- ngokevin 6y ago
  Chess played in matches, not games. Being white is like having serve in tennis. At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments.
  - sellyme 6y ago
    > Chess played in matches, not games. I actually originally typed matches and then corrected it to "games" for that exact reason. > Being white is like having serve in tennis. Yep, exactly. But if there was no advantage to having serve in tennis, you wouldn't need to alternate it perfectly. Of course, coming up with a system in which there's no advantage (even one specific to certain playstyles) is nigh-impossible, let alone actually proving that to be true. Very slightly easier in chess, but probably still not achieveable. > At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments. You could still play 30 games if you wanted, it's just that you'd have 30 1–0 or ½–½ results, instead of 15 2–0 or 1½–½ results. Right now a single game of chess at a high level means basically nothing unless it's a black win or you know the result of the mirror match. This is very similar to the tennis analogy where holding serve is basically a non-event, and doesn't really affect the state of the game much until you see whether or not the other player does so as well. Someone who's 1–0 up after the first game on their own service isn't definitively "ahead", just like someone 1–0 up after playing a game of chess as white. They might be, but we don't know yet. If white had no advantage, any individual game of chess is much more meaningful, as a win either way is a swing of momentum. Again, this fits the tennis analogy: any individual game is only interesting if the receiving player looks like they're a chance of winning it. This can be very boring in games with servebots, where the entire match comes down to the one 5-minute period where they weren't serving as well as they could have been, presenting an opening. If every single game was up for contention, the whole match would be much more interesting. It would also be easier to ascertain the better player, because smaller but more consistent differences in skill level would outweigh a single catastrophic mistake. All that said the entire point of my comment was to make a reference to 0-0-0-0-0-0 because it's a fantastic move that more people should know about.

waterhouse 6y ago

You joke (I think), but given what happened to the "master" branch on GitHub, it seems likely that some people will try to push the point, and, if they make enough noise, it's likely that the organizations involved will eventually cave (not the chess grandmasters (!), but the administrator types). I googled a bit and turned up a couple of news articles: https://apnews.com/article/184386cc09be6c69535919402a13fa3f https://apnews.com/article/184386cc09be6c69535919402a13fa3f and https://au.sports.yahoo.com/chess-centre-stunning-racism-debate-which-piece-moves-first-012917664.html https://au.sports.yahoo.com/chess-centre-stunning-racism-deb...

dmingod666 6y ago
The github change is brought up by a lot by people, but, all github does here is this. On the default set of commands it shows you if you don't have a repo pushed, it shows you the help command with 'main', instead of 'master'. Just a word change on a default help document, that's it. If you knew your commands you wouldn't even notice this. If you just make a repo and push your existing code to github, it will work with 'master' as it is.. they actually don't have much of a say in how people name the git branches without severely shooting their whole service in the foot..
- SilverRed 6y ago
  iirc git was also looking in to changing the default name when you run git init. Yes, it makes no difference at all, its just a name. But the fact is that a lot of people felt it very important to make this nonsensical change. There is no reason why the colors of chess pieces would not fall under the same justifications.
  - dmingod666 6y ago
    It was GitHub who wanted to make this change. I don't think they can impact how the git command works. GitHub has a separate desktop UI client but afaik the git binary is from a different organization. I think if you look at arbitrary religious restrictions, those also probably trace their origins to an overactive neurotic mind with too much time on their hands. Those guys then develop nonsensical restrictions.
    - SilverRed 6y ago
      >I don't think they can impact how the git command works. The git team independently discussed it on the git mailing list after github made the move and decided they want to move in the same direction.
FartyMcFarter 6y ago
If someone thinks chess colors are racist, they should get educated on their history first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_and_Black_in_chess#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_and_Black_in_chess#Histo...
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  Nearly all the outrage over word use and six-figure tax bills for rewording city and federal documents is the result of ignorance of etymology, homonyms, and homophones.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    I made the mistake of pointing this out on Twitter, and was promptly and aggressively told that, as long as anybody is upset, etymology doesn’t matter.
  - gherkinnn 6y ago
    Awomen.
- thotsBgone 6y ago
  History is sexist: it's his story!
ipiz0618 6y ago
A quick search shows it has already happened. https://twitter.com/magnuscarlsen/status/1108662247860199424 https://twitter.com/magnuscarlsen/status/1108662247860199424
- gher-shyu3i 6y ago
  I don't know how people don't see the irony. This is introducing race into a non-racial game.
joker3393 6y ago
"Master", as in "Grandmaster" is obviously problematic, with its obvious reference to north-American slavery. They should change to Grand Wizard or something like that.
- kdmytro 6y ago
  Wait until they hear about International Master.

sellyme 6y ago

In fairness the advantage from going first in chess is really significant at high Elos, so a design improvement that resolves that imbalance would be pretty good for the game anyway. It would save playing two games to get one result. But given that the only patch to chess in the last century was to prevent playing 0-0-0-0-0-0 with a promoted rook, I doubt I'll live to see that happen.

ngokevin 6y ago
Chess played in matches, not games. Being white is like having serve in tennis. At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments.
- sellyme 6y ago
  > Chess played in matches, not games. I actually originally typed matches and then corrected it to "games" for that exact reason. > Being white is like having serve in tennis. Yep, exactly. But if there was no advantage to having serve in tennis, you wouldn't need to alternate it perfectly. Of course, coming up with a system in which there's no advantage (even one specific to certain playstyles) is nigh-impossible, let alone actually proving that to be true. Very slightly easier in chess, but probably still not achieveable. > At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments. You could still play 30 games if you wanted, it's just that you'd have 30 1–0 or ½–½ results, instead of 15 2–0 or 1½–½ results. Right now a single game of chess at a high level means basically nothing unless it's a black win or you know the result of the mirror match. This is very similar to the tennis analogy where holding serve is basically a non-event, and doesn't really affect the state of the game much until you see whether or not the other player does so as well. Someone who's 1–0 up after the first game on their own service isn't definitively "ahead", just like someone 1–0 up after playing a game of chess as white. They might be, but we don't know yet. If white had no advantage, any individual game of chess is much more meaningful, as a win either way is a swing of momentum. Again, this fits the tennis analogy: any individual game is only interesting if the receiving player looks like they're a chance of winning it. This can be very boring in games with servebots, where the entire match comes down to the one 5-minute period where they weren't serving as well as they could have been, presenting an opening. If every single game was up for contention, the whole match would be much more interesting. It would also be easier to ascertain the better player, because smaller but more consistent differences in skill level would outweigh a single catastrophic mistake. All that said the entire point of my comment was to make a reference to 0-0-0-0-0-0 because it's a fantastic move that more people should know about.