Charles said:

It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess) is appropriately labelled 'chess variant', when it predates chess and can't be a variant of it. So it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.

We had a big dust-up over our Football article last year, which I helped mediate. It was finally agreed that "football" refers equally to American-rules football and to "soccer". In the US, 'football' nearly always means the American-rules game (pointy-ended ball, forward passes, lots of tackling) while "soccer" involves kicking a round ball into a net. Outside the US, where by the way most English-speaking people live, the word "football" almost always refers to round-ball game (also called affectionately "footie").

It took us several weeks to finally get this straight, but it was done with goodwill, intercultural sensitivity and a healthy dose of humor.

I hope we can try a similar approach to the issues you are raising.

Ed Poor Culturally Sensitive American