Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Neptune does not show up in searches because it has been specifically flagged "deleted", and these do not appear in the index. I'm not sure why this game is flagged as such. Since we have a separate flag for "hidden", probably msdisplay should be modified to not show such variants at all. But, uncertain of the original intent, I'll just punt the issue until I hear from the author of Neptune and/or a more senior editor.

As for the 403 error, that is external to this site. It used to be M. Winther's site, but that has since moved. Presently you can find it at
http://mlwi.magix.net/bg/chessvar.htm
and more specifically
http://mlwi.magix.net/bg/minixiangqi.htm

Now Rocky Horror Lycanthropic Chess is missing.  I'm not quite sure what
to try to look up, as it has quite a long and complex title, but even a
google search on the site for lycanthrope onyl returns Halloween Knight
Court.

@Daniel: this one?

http://chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MS2queenrockyhor

One of the downsides to having pages pulled from the database is that Google doesn't find those pages.  I might move the Google search on the Gindex page to a less prominent location.  

You'll likely have better luck with the Advanced Search's regular expression function.  I found the above link by searching for
.*Lycanth.*
where .* is the regexp version of a wildcard.  [Or so it seems; I don't know much about regexps yet actually.]

Thanks for the assist.  I tried itemid=lycanthrope, =rockyhorror, etc.  It
seems I did indeed forget a few words of the title!

While planning the changeover I read on this thread that editors could mark a page as hidden, or even as deleted, even if pages really cannot be actually deleted. Now I am not asking for anyone to do this to any of my pages just yet, but am interested to know how easily it could be done to order. It does not appear possible to do this in "edit indexing", but were I to put in an update text along the lines of "variant withdrawn - editors please mark as deleted" could I rely on an editor to so mark them?

There is one variant with which I am especially inclined to do this as it will allow me to get rid of an otherwise unused entry in my Man and Beast piece articles. If I get the go-ahead I will take this approach.

I did respond to your question, by email, a few days ago.

The next tranche of variants that I am considering discontinuing are as follows:
Anglis Qi modified to add Cannons and Arrows, which makes for quite a cramped 8x8 board.
Crooked Board Chess, unwittingly covering ground dealt with by other people's older variants.
Emperor's Nobility 3d Latrunculi, a not very Chess-like 3d variant with a complex chain of promotions.
Gateway Chess, another one-off microregional like many of those that have already gone and with awkward not-very-Chess-like extra rules.
Intrusive Squares, unwittingly covering ground dealt with by other people's older variants.
Partnership Mitregi, an 8x8 promotion-free Shogi variant.
Pawn the Brain, originally a showcase for divergent-piece names that I have replaced with a simple prefix for the original Take the Brain pieces.
Sextuple Besiege Wellisch, a hex version of my Quadruple Besiege variants and hard to illustrate.
Square Versus Hex and Xiangcata, two variants whose mixture of geometries forces my Man and Beast to qualifying some pieces "only avaliable in 3d" with "usually".

I would therefore be interested to know what everyone thinks of getting rid of them, and whether anyone rallies to their defence. Crooked Board and Intrusive Squares, in particular, I feel are overdoing what the two Dream Chess pages and L-shaped Chess do relatively well. Pawn the Brain escaped the first tranche of deletions only because it takes up so little memory. Gateway Chess escaped because I am thinking of reusing the name for a cubic-cell variant - still with concavities but with no shopping-related rules - and would be interested to read what others think of my new idea.

The new Gateway Chess would be based on the fact that one large and two small Xiang Qi sets are a good way to get 1 aside of 1 piece type, 2 aside of 6, and 4 aside of 6 more - I have in mind Emperor for the first, Queen/Duchess/Governor/Oberon/Samurai/Churchwarden for the next group, and Rook/Bishop/Unicorn/Ninja/Sextojn/Knight for the last group. Unfortunately it has only 10 aside of whatever Pawnlike piece I would choose, which is why I would envisage the front rank of each camp as a relatively narrow "Gateway".

Anglis Taijitu
rnbqkbnr
ac----ca
--------
--------
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AC----CA
RNBQKBNR

Yanglis
rnbqkbnr
pcpaapcp
-p-pp-p-
--------
--------
-P-PP-P-
PCPAAPCP
RNBQKBNR

Anglis Eurasian
rc-aa-cr
-nbqkbn-
pppppppp
--------
--------
PPPPPPPP
-NBQKBN-
RC-AA-CR

Anglis Hindcannon
-c-aa-c-
rnbqkbnr
pppppppp
--------
--------
PPPPPPPP
RNBQKBNR
-C-AA-C-

Anglis Midcannon
rnbqkbnr
c--aa--c
pppppppp
--------
--------
PPPPPPPP
C--AA--C
RNBQKBNR

Anglis Forecannon
rnbqkbnr
pppppppp
-c-aa-c-
--------
--------
-C-AA-C-
PPPPPPPP
RNBQKBNR