Body: <p>In the good old days when I saw a chess diagram I didn't have to guess which way the pawns were going; there was a convention that the white pawns moved up the board. When and why did upside down diagrams become fashionable? Does it have something to do with playing chess on the internet, or did this foolishness come before the internet?</p>
  <p>And why don't they ever rotate the diagram 90 degrees, to give us the kibitzer's view of the board?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-17T05:10:46.340Z
Comments.Text: I've never seen this in "diagrams" (where someone is just documenting a game), but in chess problems, or learning scenarios where you're meant to be considering the position from black's point of view, I see diagrams routinely flipped so the black back-row is on the bottom, and the h8 square is in the lower left corner.  I think this is because if you're meant to be considering the position from black's point of view, you should see it (as much as possible) as the black player would see it, so you're not later confused (in real play) by only looking at positions from white's point of view.
Comments.UserDisplayName: patbarron
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-17T05:11:09.457Z
Comments.Text: I'm not sure when I first started seeing this, and the above is only a guess as to why, so I'm not writing it as an actual answer.
Comments.UserDisplayName: patbarron
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-17T06:45:51.593Z
Comments.Text: In view of the truism that the kibitzers see more than the players, why aren't the diagrams ever rotated 90 degrees, with White moving from left to right and Black from right to left?
Comments.UserDisplayName: bof
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-17T07:45:33.977Z
Comments.Text: I can at least assure you this is pre-Internet, and I once read a very true statement in a chess learning book: As a player, in half of your games you will have this view.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-18T10:54:56.437Z
Comments.Text: Nice idea of having a kibitzer view. It would be natural on something like https://www.chessgames.com/ which emphasizes the kibitzer's perspective. From a programming point of view, it would be routine to replace an invert board feature by a feature that rotates 90 degrees. Use it twice and it inverts the board. Use it once and you have a kibitzer view. Three times gets you the opposite-side kibitzer view.
Comments.UserDisplayName: John Coleman
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-24T02:03:09.203Z
Comments.Text: Kibitzers seeing more than the players likely has more to do with having a dispassionate, objective stance than the physical point of view.
Comments.UserDisplayName: kamekura
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-03-24T02:11:34.647Z
Comments.Text: @kamekura So you would agree that the "physical point of view" is of no great importance, and no good reason to lose the obvious advantages of always printing diagrams with the same orientation, namely, that we always know which way the pawns are going and where c5 and f4 are?
Comments.UserDisplayName: bof
Tags: <history><diagram>
Title: Upside down diagrams
ThreadText: # Upside down diagrams
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2021-03-17)
  
  In the good old days when I saw a chess diagram I didn't have to guess which way the pawns were going; there was a convention that the white pawns moved up the board. When and why did upside down diagrams become fashionable? Does it have something to do with playing chess on the internet, or did this foolishness come before the internet?
  
  And why don't they ever rotate the diagram 90 degrees, to give us the kibitzer's view of the board?
  
  **Tags:** history, diagram
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I've never seen this in "diagrams" (where someone is just documenting a game), but in chess problems, or learning scenarios where you're meant to be considering the position from black's point of view, I see diagrams routinely flipped so the black back-row is on the bottom, and the h8 square is in the lower left corner.  I think this is because if you're meant to be considering the position from black's point of view, you should see it (as much as possible) as the black player would see it, so you're not later confused (in real play) by only looking at positions from white's point of view.  
  > **username_1**: I'm not sure when I first started seeing this, and the above is only a guess as to why, so I'm not writing it as an actual answer.  
  > **username_0**: In view of the truism that the kibitzers see more than the players, why aren't the diagrams ever rotated 90 degrees, with White moving from left to right and Black from right to left?  
  > **username_2**: I can at least assure you this is pre-Internet, and I once read a very true statement in a chess learning book: As a player, in half of your games you will have this view.  
  > **username_3**: Nice idea of having a kibitzer view. It would be natural on something like https://www.chessgames.com/ which emphasizes the kibitzer's perspective. From a programming point of view, it would be routine to replace an invert board feature by a feature that rotates 90 degrees. Use it twice and it inverts the board. Use it once and you have a kibitzer view. Three times gets you the opposite-side kibitzer view.  
  > **username_4**: Kibitzers seeing more than the players likely has more to do with having a dispassionate, objective stance than the physical point of view.  
  > **username_0**: @username_4 So you would agree that the "physical point of view" is of no great importance, and no good reason to lose the obvious advantages of always printing diagrams with the same orientation, namely, that we always know which way the pawns are going and where c5 and f4 are?  
  
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