Editing Incubator escapee wiki:WikiProject Chess (section)

===Medal Tables in a player's infobox===
{{Shortcut|WP:CHESSMEDALS}}
Placing medal tables in a chess player's infobox (or even just adding a medal table alone) is discouraged. It would be a form of [[WP:OR|original research]] as it would use Wikipedia's editorial voice to elevate medals to a level of [[WP:UNDUE|undue]] importance in Wikipedia that they don't have in the real world. Although chess players who win medals value them, credentials and other criteria for judging a player's success and strength tend to run to FIDE title, ratings, championships won, etc.

Using medals from the [[Chess Olympiad]] illustrates somes flaws this approach:
* A team medal earned in a team event may not reflect the player's performance. For example, if he fell sick and only played one game, he still gets the medal. 
* A board prize earned in a team event may have been earned by facing a weak field. For example, [[Thai Dai Van Nguyen]] won an individual gold medal for second board in the [[45th Chess Olympiad]] where out of ten opponents, only one was rated higher than 2600.

Medal tables can also be bloated which could lead to a subpar viewing experience especially when viewing on a mobile phone.

Finally most of the strongest tournaments do not award medals at all.

A better alternative is creating a "notable tournaments won" section or summary in the article's body to highlight a player's achievements. Examples of this include [[Vasyl Ivanchuk#Notable tournament victories]] and [[Alexander Alekhine#Summary of results in competitions]]. The regular table format allows inclusion of a lot more information and in a format that is easier to understand. Placing a potentially large table near the end of an article is much better than putting it at the top and before the article body.