Joseki nomenclature - expert names

Charles Matthews I've been changing a substantial proportion of the titles of SL's joseki pages (you can search for these under the Joseki keyword).

Some of the principles I have been applying:

• all the 4-4 point pages should start '4-4 point ...'^[1]

So now for example the 3-3 invasion pages start off as '4-4 point 3-3 invasion ...'. That's with the exception of the introductory page 3-3 invasion.

• Approach moves are now called 'low', 'high', 'distant low' and 'distant high'.
• Extensions in reply to an approach are going to be called 'low', high', 'large low' and 'large high'.

Enclosures, by the way, were already standardising to 'small low', 'small high', 'large low' and 'large high'.

Therefore we have 4-4 point low approach low extension. (No more 'small knight'!) In this case I defend this type of name as clear enough to experts. In longer names various technical terms are used; I haven't completely avoided some Japanese terms, for example tsukehiki and tsukenobi, which are shorter than equivalents in English.

Consistently with all this, the 3-3 invasion for the 4463 enclosure will be found at 4463 enclosure 3-3 invasion.

I'm aware that this will not be to everyone's taste.^[2] My immediate reason was that the tenuki joseki pages index looked a fine mess with many unsystematic systems being used in parallel (you can look back through the versions to see what I mean). I'm not under the illusion that look-up of joseki pages becomes a solved problem^[1]; but I don't see that any semi-readable page titles do that. Currently I think experts will find it easy enough to use Joseki to access pages; SFKs can find what they want by looking at the pages such as 4-4 point josekis; and DFKs do better to follow links from more introductory pages to get some idea.

The number of backlinks to correct in such an exercise runs into hundreds, and the problem grows daily. So I didn't want to postpone it all any longer. Not all is quite there. The taisha and nadare variations haven't been touched yet, and there are a few other minor changes to make.

None of this of course prevents anyone from adding page aliases from another system (I've tried not to lose any existing aliases). Anyone who really wants to embark on a complete change of page names should set aside quite a few hours to finish it.

2003 17 June

I have been renaming the pages starting '4-4 low approach' to '4-4 point low approach'. This has caused a few broken links - I'll deal with these shortly.

(Later) No broken links now visible from joseki or 4-4 point josekis. There's now an oddity name 4-4 point low approach two-space high pincer, with extra stone?: this is to subdivide, perhaps.

[1]

I should probabaly mention this point about the title search: the normal search engine here requires to be given '34 point', rather than '3-4 point', to find all the pages starting as '3-4 point'.

[2]

Bill: I do not think that it is simply a question of taste. There is a well established, standard terminology for most of these plays. This terminology is peculiar to SL. Newcomers to SL who are aware of standard terminology will find it confusing. What does 'low' mean, for instance. I thought it mean on the second line. The only thing expert about this terminology is that you have to be expert in it to understand it.