Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I think it would be helpful to include a diagram of a Rook, showing it blocked from the edge on one side but still able to reach that edge by moving in the opposite direction.

I added an H2 "Interactive Diagram" heading, ...

Problem is that for those who have JavaScript switched off this section would be empty. I tried to cure that by putting <div> tags around the header and Diagram (= <table>) together, and unhide that through JavaScript rather than just the <table>, so they would both fail to appear when JavaScript is disabled.

This, however, appears to make FireFox forget how a <H2> header should look on this page. I guess this could be cured by explicitly repating the required style in a style property of the <H2> element. What style properties are used in our articles?

For uniformity with other articles I changed the header to 'Setup'; the Diagram itself already announces that it is interactive, just below the header. Other articles have the Interactive Diagram in their Setup section. But 'modest variants' usually don't have such a section.

I also enhanced the Diagram script to make the board location where the piece will be shown in move diagrams configurable. By default it would use the board center for this. Which is usually what one wants, as this leaves the most room for distant moves on all sides. For Cylinder Chess this prevented the move diagrams to show any moves that crossed the edge, though, making them indistinguishable from the FIDE counterparts, and thus pretty useless. I made use of the new midX and midY parameters to make the pieces appear on the left edge in move diagrams.

This doesn't really provide an unambiguous indication of castling, as the a-side castling is now not shown (as it crosses the edge). Since the article spends ample text on explanation of the castling rule this doesn't seem a real problem, however.

Another case where an alternate positioning in the move diagrams was desirable was Scheherazade: many leapers there are so long range that even on a 10x10 board they don't have any moves at all! So in the Diagram I posted as a comment a page earlier I now make the pieces appear near a corner.

BTW, the case of a Rook blocked on a rank and still being able to use the other side of the obstacle by wrapping is covered by the Interactive Diagram, when tou place the obstacle by hovering in the path of the Rook in its move diagram. The move diagrams do support (single) blocking of sliders and activation of hoppers that way.

Problem is that for those who have JavaScript switched off this section would be empty.

This is easily addressed by adding more content to this section, as I have now done.

I tried to cure that by putting <div> tags around the header and Diagram (= <table>) together, and unhide that through JavaScript rather than just the <table>, so they would both fail to appear when JavaScript is disabled.

I have now removed this.

Beware that you should preserve the display:none style and the HTML id, when you do a thing like that, in order to prevent the Diagram definition to be displayed as text when JavaScript is disabled. I have put that back now, and also surrounded the paragraph that encourages readers to turn on JavaScript on within <noscript> tags.

I have put that back now, and also surrounded the paragraph that encourages readers to turn on JavaScript on within <noscript> tags.

I intentionally did not use <noscript> tags, because by default, the NoScript extension will disable them. Also, the text provided an introduction to the Interactive Diagram and how it differs from the usual Interactive Diagram, which is relevant information even if JavaScript is working. So, I have removed them.

Well, explaining to people in words what they already can see with their own eyes seems a bit patronizing and redundant to me. Every Interactive Diagram can be used to see how pieces move differently from in orthodox Chess. This Diagram is not any different in that respect. It is just that the optimal placement of pieces to show their moves needs not be the same for every type of move, even though for the large majority central placement is best. It can be expected from the creator of such move diagrams that he made his best effort to provide a good one, in that respect. Why elaborate on the obvious?

I was putting into words what people will not see with their own eyes unless they open up the interactive diagram and click on something that let's them see more diagrams. Not everyone is as familiar with interactive diagrams as their creator is, and what is obvious to you will not be obvious to many people. Additionally, repositioning the piece in the diagram is a new feature, and people who are already familiar with how interactive diagrams have worked in the past might not expect to see useful diagrams for this game unless they are notified of this change.

Well, not really. Next to the Diagram there is a list of the pieces and squares where they start, (as is usual in Setup sections), and the header of that list is in permanent view, and says "Click below to display piece moves:". So they don't have to open anything. They just have to do as instructed.

And they should be able to count on it that such instructions do not mislead them into performing useless actions. If the move diagrams were no good I should (and would) have omitted this list (which is an optional 'satellite' embedded in the text) from the Diagram. Or, as I did when the Diagram was only in a comment, before implementation of the new feature, accompany it by a warning that the move diagrams are no good. It is really a very far-fetched assumption that people would beforehand come to the conclusion that the move diagrams must be no good without even trying, no matter whether they are intimately familiar with the Diagram or not. It even surprised me.

It is really a very far-fetched assumption that people would beforehand come to the conclusion that the move diagrams must be no good without even trying, no matter whether they are intimately familiar with the Diagram or not.

Before you introduced the feature of placing pieces in other positions than the center, Greg, the very author of this page, noted that the interactive diagram wouldn't be very helpful for showing how the pieces moved differently than they do in Chess. So, far from being a far-fetched assumption, it is one that a qualified person already made.

Before you introduced the feature of placing pieces in other positions than the center, Greg, the very author of this page, noted that the interactive diagram wouldn't be very helpful for showing how the pieces moved differently than they do in Chess. So, far from being a far-fetched assumption, it is one that a qualified person already made.

I don't see any such remark from Greg, neither in the article, nor in the comments. Are you sure you are not attributing my own remark (which I added together with the Diagram, and deleted now that the problem is fixed) to Greg?

I don't see any such remark from Greg, neither in the article, nor in the comments. Are you sure you are not attributing my own remark (which I added together with the Diagram, and deleted now that the problem is fixed) to Greg?

It could have been your own remark. It was on the page with the diagram. It was removed after you modified how the diagram works.

It could have been your own remark. It was on the page with the diagram. It was removed after you modified how the diagram works.

Yes, that was my remark. After inserting the Interactive Diagram I noticed that the move diagrams were never showing a move that crossed the border, and since it struck me as an unacceptable flaw to invite people to summon up useless move diagrams (as the text above it did), I added this as a warning. I had not foreseen the usual optimum of putting the piece in the center would backfire here.

In my philosopy, when you invite people to activate a certain feature, they should be able to rely on it that this will actually work satisfactorily. This is why I considered it a bit silly to accompany it with a message basically saying "hey, see that list with pieces on which you can click to demonstrate their moves? You'll never guess, but if you click those, you will actually be demonstrated to you in a useful way!".

As one last touch-up before featuring this game, I replaced the diagrams with ones that have better-looking piece images.

Very nice touchup of the page. You might have mentioned that in problems, there is more than one way to use the cylinder concept. The one here described is chess on a horizontal cylinder, which is the only form that is playable as a game. Other forms have appeared in problems: the vertical cylinder with the first and last ranks connected and the anchor ring both basically both a vertical and horizontal cylinder simultaneously. In the latter case, a1 is connected to both a8 and h1 (and in some version h8 as well, if you really want to go crazy). With rooks and queens instantly attacking each other and the kings in mutual check, we'd need special rules to play this, but a KBB vs K ending on such a board can be analyzed, as well as more complex problems.

K+2B can only draw.