Comments by benr

I'd suggest to move the link to your blog into this page, and delete the external link page.

You don't say here, but from playing one of the versions linked in your blog, it appears the same piece can be moved multiple times. That's worth saying explicitly, since that is one of the main things that differentiates some multi-move variants.

I've converted this article to a member-submitted one; i.e., it is now database-stored rather than hard html-stored.

@Jean-Louis, you should be able to edit this using the site forms.
@everyone, let me know if there are any issues with this migration. It should have inherited all the favorites, comments, index entries, etc. (it has the old ItemID).

The old page has been renamed to /large.dir/shako-old.html for reference; anyone attempting to reach /large.dir/shako.html will receive a 404 error page that includes a link to the location of this member submission.

Thanks to Fergus for improving the migration methodology I had discussed earlier in this thread!

Bn Em points out a similar issue with link pages in this comment.

The correct external link page for All the King's Men is https://www.chessvariants.com/link/pcAlltheKingsMen (a semantic version of https://www.chessvariants.com/index/external.php?itemid=pcAlltheKingsMen).

There Jelliss references himself in a '73 The Problemist article, which somewhat remarkably are available online at https://www.theproblemist.org/mags.pl?type=tp. Clicking and searching through the issues, I find Ski pieces defined on page 387 of the November/December issue 285.

The links to favorites are sometimes populated with just chessvariants.com/rules/. I didn't notice this on the overall favorites listing page, but did on the Games->YourFavorites menu and my personal information page's listing, in both places TessChess (among others) failing to link correctly.

After white negotiates its move with black's response, if black gets to negotiate next then black will have two consecutive moves (the reaction to white's, then their own proposed move), so it seems n=1 is not quite the same as ordinary chess. Or have I misunderstood the proposal?

The Horse movement image is not uploaded here. Oh, you had just linked to the wrong directory. Fixed and published.

This wasn't approved just now when I checked; since Fergus evidently meant to, I've approved it now.

But it's not clear to me from the description what happens when a king moves from the first or last rank: just no piece is created? And do I understand correctly that just moving a rook around the board will generate lots of queens? If so, it probably doesn't qualify for the Usual Equipment category.

so is this OK for deletion, or can you clarify the rules (and upload the images directly here)?

Hi Joe, this page's index entry got created but content was never written. Will you come back to it, or should we delete the index entry, or ...?

Hi Daniel, sorry, those had slipped beyond my radar. I'll make another pass through the list when I can.

Our old pages like this one are hard html files, whereas the new submissions ("member submissions") store their content in the database. (All the pages have indexing information in the database.)

So you can edit "member submissions" using forms that pull up the database fields, let you edit them, and then push updates to the database. But older files like this one cannot be edited from a web form. Instead, you can edit the html file itself, and an editor can upload it to the site; it isn't so much about editorializing, just the technology. (You'd have to send us the new image files too; there's another benefit to the modern member submissions: we've added file upload scripts.)

In my previous post I started to think about how to migrate an old style page to the new format. If Fergus and Greg think it's not unreasonable we might try that. When I have time I'll give it a try on our dev/backup site.

The full-file rule seems clunky, but I guess it won't come into effect often. Maybe just allow no pawn creation in those rare cases, instead of making it an illegal move?

I would move all the "represented using ... from the second chess set" to the equipment section, leaving the Pieces section cleaner.

A couple of descriptions could use clarification. The "cannot be placed in check" description for the commoner might be misread to mean the opponent can't move to attack it. The knightrider's consecutive moves require empty intermediate square.

I'm always a little wary about large piece-packed variants. Have you played this?

Not every visitor will understand the Betza notation; and while the interactive diagram helps, you should additionally include plain english descriptions for pieces.

The diagram with all the diagonal lines is too busy to be helpful, I think.

The notation would probably be better off without repeating the names of rows; I don't think the benefit of giving the consistent name to the orthogonal line is worth making the cell names non-unique.

The third bishop move diagram seems to be missing a marker at g9. If a bishop is on a6, does it move through b5(6?), c4(6?), d3(6?), then chooses between e7-f8-g9 or e2-f1-g0?

Your castling diagrams use black pieces the same color as the board, making it hard to see.

I don't think saying "knight moves one hippogonally" is enough. "Hippogonal" literally means knightwise, but that needs description for a new board.

Pawns can capture backwards? Please add that to the diagram then. What about diagonally "sideways", as in the triangular cells? En passant is allowed for triple and quadruple initial steps, in "the obvious" way?

I enjoy variants whose only point is to explore some weird idea, but I don't think this brings enough to the table to publish. Only rooks and queens can cross the board (without adding some rules for facilitating automatic advancement of other pieces) and will get slaughtered by the opponent's remaining army.

I think I've seen a similar variant where the space between armies is actually infinite, but I can't immediately find it, and I don't know if there was a serious attempt at making it playable?

Since large primes are all odd, you're guaranteed to need an additional row to get the square coloring you're after.

I think it'd be worth adding some of that information into the page, the intro and/or notes sections. (E.g., "pieces move as in other standard [is 'standard' OK here?] hexagonal variants" and maybe "the board shape and setup are designed to be better balanced" in the intro, and the comparisons to other variants in the notes.)

The pawns' initial two-step could use a clarification on whether pawns that make an initial one-step but land still in the two-step "zone" are still admitted a subsequent two-step (it seems like yes?).