Reference Games/ Discussion

Fhayashi: any increase in the number of freely accessible commented game is a wonderful asset for the go community. In light of this, let's pick some games that haven't been previously commented on, or at least not commented on in English.

Hu: I think the games should be cream of the crop historical or recent games. Kyu rank games can be dissected in ways that will be illustrative of some aspects of Go, but are not really "reference" games. If the master game series gets going in a good way, it might be useful to start a parallel series of kyu games.

Fhayashi: Games to aspire to vs. games to not aspire to. Either one seems instructive.

Hu: Indeed. I would like to add to my remarks, that seem to discourage reviewing kyu games, to correct that. Anyone who feels like selecting a kyu game to review should start a page about it and a "series" page to collect such reviews together. The series page can be cross-referenced here.

mAsterdam: Maybe the name 'reference game' suggests a level of play which needn't be there. I can't come up with a better name (I tried). Can you?

Grauniad: I support this idea, but I'd like to argue that the commented games should be prepared, or at least made available, as SGF files. It will be more convenient to study such games in SGF than on the Web.

mAsterdam: Luckily we can link to the games played on KGS. Does that mean the games must be available as sgf somewhere - or is there a another way to put up sgf in a place that is reachable for deshi? There is some discussion at SGF at SL discussion.

PurpleHaze: is this what people have in mind? Hu: Yes, thanks.

mAsterdam: I would like to quote Stefan Verstraeten at Shin Fuseki Post on this:

As with many things on SL, they are probably too rough at this point in time to be of optimal value for the reader who's after a discussion of the topic. But as always, we need to start somewhere, and this looks like an excellent starting point.

Scryer: We also need to be careful about copyright: if Go Seigen's comments and analysis are being taken from a copyrighted book or article there's an issue about whether they can be used intact. The "fair use" experts would need to weigh in on how much could be swiped without infringing.

PurpleHaze: Don't get your knickers in a twist, game records are public domain by definition^[1], the book is Taiwanese and forty years old, the comments are in chinese which I do not speak, and the posting is enormously abridged (in the book the 19 moves posted so far consume 11 pages and 19 full board diagrams!), and none of the partial board diagrams I posted occur in the form I posted them, several are entirely my own creation.

Fhayashi: Sounds like if we stick to entering the game records only, we won't be in violation. We can stick to home grown comments on the game. If a game discussion here gets sufficiently mature, we can port the comments back into sgf, and post them somewhere accessible. Gobase perhaps?

[1]: Charles: This comment is hard to justify.

PurpleHaze: This comment is trivially easy to justify. Besides the obvious that the games take place in public and are recorded by numerous people, this has been litigated on numerous occasions in the chess world.

Charles: What is more relevant here comes under kifu copyright discussion, and the Japanese copyright law page. Top games of Go don't take place in public, as a rule.