I hope I can win one of the ChessBase Voucher... nice survey ;)
Hi! The survey was well done, however you only get presented with the 10 chess positions if you answer "white won" to the first question. I answered "black won" because black has 2 passed pawns, and black's king is near those pawns, so it would be very easy to win that position and promote to a queen.
@Shahistja I've participated in your survey. I don't quite like the feminist touch, you should have said it's about that. I won't write more about my opinion about this whole gender thing as to not influence others in the survey.
Still I'd like to say that I find this to be made pretty obvious by you. Next time you want to measure mysogonysm try to hide it more among other questions. I felt bad even voting for a man when he had more ELO out of fear that the result would be that I'm sexist. Also started to fear if it made me sexist to ask for gender information at all. I was just curious about the study and the position and style, it's not really that it makes any difference at all what gender a player has, at least that's what I think consciously. I hope you take all those things in consideration in your evaluation at the end. Things like curiosity.
I am unsure about how reliable your survey will be to measure what you are trying to measure. The outcome might be we're all sexists no matter what we typed in. Which might be the Rosenthal effect. I'll recommend you to do this another, more subtle way. The chess community is full of smart people and they'll know too soon what you are up to.
That is also the reason why I wrote it here. I can only imagine a lot of people have had the thoughts without me writing about it, leading them to decisions that don't represent their actual thoughts about the position, sometimes in the way you think, but maybe even the opposite like in my case. At one puzzle I voted for the female just because. Hopefully you can forgive me for writing about that, but I just have the feeling this study is worthless. The questions at the end where very good, but the puzzle ones Idk what this is for.
If I win a voucher I'd like to give it to @Tae7
Kind regards
@KleverKevin not easy at all, white has a passed pawn aswell and will queen. White has at least a draw by perpetual checks.
Still I'd like to say that I find this to be made pretty obvious by you. Next time you want to measure mysogonysm try to hide it more among other questions. I felt bad even voting for a man when he had more ELO out of fear that the result would be that I'm sexist. Also started to fear if it made me sexist to ask for gender information at all. I was just curious about the study and the position and style, it's not really that it makes any difference at all what gender a player has, at least that's what I think consciously. I hope you take all those things in consideration in your evaluation at the end. Things like curiosity.
I am unsure about how reliable your survey will be to measure what you are trying to measure. The outcome might be we're all sexists no matter what we typed in. Which might be the Rosenthal effect. I'll recommend you to do this another, more subtle way. The chess community is full of smart people and they'll know too soon what you are up to.
That is also the reason why I wrote it here. I can only imagine a lot of people have had the thoughts without me writing about it, leading them to decisions that don't represent their actual thoughts about the position, sometimes in the way you think, but maybe even the opposite like in my case. At one puzzle I voted for the female just because. Hopefully you can forgive me for writing about that, but I just have the feeling this study is worthless. The questions at the end where very good, but the puzzle ones Idk what this is for.
If I win a voucher I'd like to give it to @Tae7
Kind regards
@KleverKevin not easy at all, white has a passed pawn aswell and will queen. White has at least a draw by perpetual checks.
@xPhilosophusx Thank you for taking part and the comments you are sharing with me. Of course every one has it own perspective how they see the things. The purpose of this study is not to prove if someone is sexist or not! The idea is to evaluate the positions as they are and trying to guess who has won the game. Knowing the gender or knowing the Elo will give you a better view and help you to take a better decision.
I took part in the survey and completed the questionnaire. While i do not share all of @xPhilosophusx's sentiments this one:
@xPhilosophusx said (#13):
> Still I'd like to say that I find this to be made pretty obvious by you.
is a serious problem, IMHO. If with every question you "know what it is about" you kind-of feel manipulated to answer according to the expectation connected with the question, not your true opinion.
In my opinion the reason why women on average are worse than men is because - again, on average - they put in less work than the men. The women who actually put in as much work as men (i.e. the Polgars) have exactly the same amount of success then their male counterparts. The problem with women in chess is that they are offered "easy ways out" in form of their special titles, which require less amounts of success, their special women tournaments, etc.. Judith Polgar refused this "easy way out" and subsequently had a lot more success then other women who took that easy road.
If i were offered a "bald GM" title for less work than is required for a real GM title and i would be bald, i probably would try to get one of these too, instead of going for the real (but much harder to get) title - and subsequently would put in less work on my chess then otherwise, if i don't have that option. That is just a normal human reaction to a "get more for doing less" opportunity. If some people (bald, left-handed, red-haired, or whatever) would get their own "left-handed GM" titles and their own "left-handed only tournaments" and their own "left-handed world championships" we would probably see a significant drop in their average chess skills over time - for the same reason why women now are significantly worse than men. They simply can afford to be.
There are of course other RL-constraints that hold women back which men do not have to deal with: parents who are less willing to let their daughter play chess than their son, trainers who are misogynistic and so on. But these circumstances will not change from anything the chess world can do. These are just facets of a general problem of society and can therefore only be changed by changing that society. Exchanging the names of "king" and "queen" to "fight a paternalistic streak in chess" (yes, i have heard that suggested in all seriousness) and similar nonsense most probably are not the way to change said society.
Should we ("we" as in "our society") have special sponsor progams for women? Definitely - for the same reasons we should have special sponsorings for people suffering some sort of set-back from the start (actually we don't do that, it is not a capitalistic thing to do)! We should have specially educated trainers for women for the same reasons we should i.e. have better and especially equipped schools/teachers for kids from problematic circumstances (like being very poor, being disabled or suffering whatever sort of set-back), etc.. But to give women the opportunity to get a "WGM" title, which is worth significantly less than a real GM title is like having a special "women PhD", which you get by just finishing a bachelor degree and then painting a picture of a pink unicorn. No, support people suffering set-backs - and, yes, women suffer set-backs, in chess and otherwise - but expect from them the same as you expect from any other. Only this way their achievements will be real and hence counting.
@Shahistja said (#14):
> The purpose of this study is not to prove if someone is sexist or not! The idea
> is to evaluate the positions as they are and trying to guess who has won the
> game. Knowing the gender or knowing the Elo will give you a better view and
> help you to take a better decision.
Sorry, but: no! Knowing the Elo of someone will help me, because it is a chess-related measurement. If someone has 2400 he is much more likely to "carry home" a certain advantage than someone having 1200 who might not even recognize the advantage as such. And if there is an endgame position which is about equal then if someone with 2500 plays someone with 1500 then chances are the one with 2500 will over time get the upper hand and win, simply because he makes more efficient moves on average.
But knowing the gender of a player will reveal no chesswise information at all. I could have also asked which hair-colour the player has, if s/he is left-handed, has freckles or whatever. All that would have "given me more information about the player" but none of this information would have helped me in deciding who has won the game.
krasnaya
@xPhilosophusx said (#13):
> Still I'd like to say that I find this to be made pretty obvious by you.
is a serious problem, IMHO. If with every question you "know what it is about" you kind-of feel manipulated to answer according to the expectation connected with the question, not your true opinion.
In my opinion the reason why women on average are worse than men is because - again, on average - they put in less work than the men. The women who actually put in as much work as men (i.e. the Polgars) have exactly the same amount of success then their male counterparts. The problem with women in chess is that they are offered "easy ways out" in form of their special titles, which require less amounts of success, their special women tournaments, etc.. Judith Polgar refused this "easy way out" and subsequently had a lot more success then other women who took that easy road.
If i were offered a "bald GM" title for less work than is required for a real GM title and i would be bald, i probably would try to get one of these too, instead of going for the real (but much harder to get) title - and subsequently would put in less work on my chess then otherwise, if i don't have that option. That is just a normal human reaction to a "get more for doing less" opportunity. If some people (bald, left-handed, red-haired, or whatever) would get their own "left-handed GM" titles and their own "left-handed only tournaments" and their own "left-handed world championships" we would probably see a significant drop in their average chess skills over time - for the same reason why women now are significantly worse than men. They simply can afford to be.
There are of course other RL-constraints that hold women back which men do not have to deal with: parents who are less willing to let their daughter play chess than their son, trainers who are misogynistic and so on. But these circumstances will not change from anything the chess world can do. These are just facets of a general problem of society and can therefore only be changed by changing that society. Exchanging the names of "king" and "queen" to "fight a paternalistic streak in chess" (yes, i have heard that suggested in all seriousness) and similar nonsense most probably are not the way to change said society.
Should we ("we" as in "our society") have special sponsor progams for women? Definitely - for the same reasons we should have special sponsorings for people suffering some sort of set-back from the start (actually we don't do that, it is not a capitalistic thing to do)! We should have specially educated trainers for women for the same reasons we should i.e. have better and especially equipped schools/teachers for kids from problematic circumstances (like being very poor, being disabled or suffering whatever sort of set-back), etc.. But to give women the opportunity to get a "WGM" title, which is worth significantly less than a real GM title is like having a special "women PhD", which you get by just finishing a bachelor degree and then painting a picture of a pink unicorn. No, support people suffering set-backs - and, yes, women suffer set-backs, in chess and otherwise - but expect from them the same as you expect from any other. Only this way their achievements will be real and hence counting.
@Shahistja said (#14):
> The purpose of this study is not to prove if someone is sexist or not! The idea
> is to evaluate the positions as they are and trying to guess who has won the
> game. Knowing the gender or knowing the Elo will give you a better view and
> help you to take a better decision.
Sorry, but: no! Knowing the Elo of someone will help me, because it is a chess-related measurement. If someone has 2400 he is much more likely to "carry home" a certain advantage than someone having 1200 who might not even recognize the advantage as such. And if there is an endgame position which is about equal then if someone with 2500 plays someone with 1500 then chances are the one with 2500 will over time get the upper hand and win, simply because he makes more efficient moves on average.
But knowing the gender of a player will reveal no chesswise information at all. I could have also asked which hair-colour the player has, if s/he is left-handed, has freckles or whatever. All that would have "given me more information about the player" but none of this information would have helped me in deciding who has won the game.
krasnaya
Interesting questionnaire! Though I must say the questions to do with the puzzles are slightly random.
@xPhilosophusx Likewise <3
@xPhilosophusx Likewise <3
@krasnaya #15
I agree with everything you've said. It was a very nice summary. I have to say that women's titles are good for getting more women into chess tho, but in the long term you are absolutely right. Respect and equality for women won't be achieved that way. Respect is earned by hard work and passion, not by special rights.
The reason why @Shahistja pretends it has nothing to do with gender is that she wants people to keep staying neutral and not getting influenced in their decision by knowing what this is about. I can understand her dishonesty. What we both tried to explain to her is that this is already being the case and denying it won't help in getting the study more scientific. If the study is supposed to show real results it should be redone.
I agree with everything you've said. It was a very nice summary. I have to say that women's titles are good for getting more women into chess tho, but in the long term you are absolutely right. Respect and equality for women won't be achieved that way. Respect is earned by hard work and passion, not by special rights.
The reason why @Shahistja pretends it has nothing to do with gender is that she wants people to keep staying neutral and not getting influenced in their decision by knowing what this is about. I can understand her dishonesty. What we both tried to explain to her is that this is already being the case and denying it won't help in getting the study more scientific. If the study is supposed to show real results it should be redone.
I wanted to help you by completing the questionnary, but the positions seem pretty equivalent each time for me. And a difference between 2000 and 2200 in elo isn't that significative to decide who will win (it's not like like between 2600 and 2800). Or maybe my level isn't sufficient to see what will win in the position.
@krasnaya and @xPhilosophusx -- what in the jimmiky tim or you both talking about. You volunteered to participate, stop bothering OP jokers
@LetMeSlapYourKing what do you not understand? We participated, but made clear we don't think the study is good. I don't see what is wrong with that. This is a forum where we can express our opinions. I think it's important to critisize a study you think isn't scientific enough. As she said it's a serious work and not just for fun.
Surprise! I can volunteer and still express my opinion about it in a free forum! So stop bothering me and go your way. I'm done with it anyway, all has been said. There is no reason why I couldn't express my opinion about it.
Surprise! I can volunteer and still express my opinion about it in a free forum! So stop bothering me and go your way. I'm done with it anyway, all has been said. There is no reason why I couldn't express my opinion about it.
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