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Meta Discussion
    Keywords: SL description

What do you like / don't like about Sensei's Library?

Write down your thoughts below.


Related pages:


2003 June 12

Frs: I suggest to create a page like How to play / record (experimental) games played at SL.
The seed for it is in the first section of 13 x 9 Game 01.


2003 June 8

BobMcGuigan There has been some discussion about keeping things simple on beginner pages, something I support. So when I read Charles's new splitshape page I did not add a comment that the split shape often arises as a result of an ignored ko threat. But that seems a useful thing to know so I'm not sure whether it is "telling them too much" or not.

unkx80: I vote "no". A lot of times people will add tidbits of information here and there now and then (which I am also guilty of), and after some time, the page gets too bloated for a beginner to handle. Or rather, make a separate page for the comment and link it from split shape?

mAsterdam: I do appreciate those tidbits very much. My vote: Deal with the problem once it arises. Just tell (too) much and split it into chunks whenever the chunks get too big.

Charles In this case there are a few examples scattered over several pages. It is much harder to collect those up, than to re-order material if it's too much (really the work of a moment). Probably Bisecting a Knight is a Big Cut Indeed? should be the central page with other things hanging off it (since it is a proverb). But that could usefully be renamed, too (now Cutting right through a knight's move is very big).

2003 June 7

Charles A thought as I look back through edits of method of playing inside systematically. I adopt in writing here the convention standard in English prose, of writing words rather than numerals for numbers up to ten (inclusive). This would be typically be required by copy editors.

I believe this makes for readability. We have no need for move numbers in the text since we can do B1 and W2. We sometimes need numbers other than integers, and they of course should be written numerically. I feel happier writing 'five' rather than '5' when I can; and would ask others at least to respect this in what I write.

By the way, the whole 'liberty' issue was first aired there, as far as I can see; and it really was an imposition on my page marked Beginner. I'm not sure we are done with the issue, but can I flag here that this was never to my taste? A clean-up is urgently required. If we can ring-fence the ambiguity point, to the extent that (a) it is not mentioned on Beginner/Introductory pages and (b) [liberty] on such pages is really [liberty|liberty - introductory], then I think we might be able to make some progress.

Bill: I am happy not to talk about the number of liberties in introductory pages. I am not happy to give a false impression to beginners when you count above atari plus one. I think that the problem can be addressed without going into the difficulties by linking. That is, any page that talks to beginners about counting liberties need not present anything complicated, but should let them know that there is more to it and link to the Liberty page. When they are ready they can forge ahead. I think that this is a good approach in general when simplifying things for beginners. Don't confuse them, but let them know that there is more, and give them a link or links to the appropriate page or pages. This is a good way to use hypertext, I think. :-)

Charles Bill, we certainly know your views; and we know that they are strongly held. What I don't know is if they are shared by others here. Perhaps they are. But I really don't see, in the many postings here, anyone else who firmly believes that a true beginner - a genuine novice - really needs an ambiguous notion of liberty. We do know that Richard Hunter, writing a book-length treatment, makes an explicit switch of meaning; as is possible in a book.

I really feel we may have to get to votes on this. It would be a shame if Bill felt that this was in any way a reflection on the value others place on his prolific contributions here.

Bill: Charles, I do not believe that a true beginner - a genuine novice - really needs an ambiguous notion of liberty. I am sorry if I gave that impression. And I do not think that I am saying that by advising a link to the liberty page if you really get into the question of how many moves it takes to capture a stone or chain. That way you avoid confusion.

You want a vote for making things simple for complete novices? You have mine. You want a vote for not giving the impression when doing so that that is all there is to it? I vote yea to that as well. You want a vote for not linking to appropriate reference pages? I vote nay to that.

Charles Well, I'm going to take it upon myself to try to resolve this discussion. There are 13 Beginner pages now linking to liberty. I'm going to make a liberty - introductory page as a kind of preface to liberty, make it clear there that it's only the beginning of the story on filling liberties to capture, and divert all those links there. I shall make it 'work in progress' on that page for the moment. (Later - this has all been carried out, though the liberty - introductory page is still a draft. It occurs to me that the word 'tutorial' should be used more often on SL.)

Bill: Cher Charles, I took a quick look at Liberty - introductory, and it looks very nice so far. Thanks. :-)

2003 June 6

Bill: Do we need more difficulty levels? The current discussion about ''liberty'' makes me think so. Below dan level we have only advanced and beginner. I have always referred to double digit kyu players as beginners, but some object to that. And that's something I understand and respect. Currently, a lot of SL pages with "beginner" difficulty seem (to me) to be aimed at that group, rather than at complete novices. Anyway, material for complete novices is really special, and if we aim "beginner" material specifically at them, there is a huge gap between that and "advanced".

What about a few more categories, such as Novice, Elementary, Intermediate? All that plus Beginner is too much, but we need at least one more category, it seems to me.

Dieter: Yes, I second that. The "advanced" category IMHO may also be abolished in favour of dan. I can't qualify myself as an advanced player or a theorist who has grasped the advanced subjects, but if there is discussion about technical stuff among the dan players then that says something about the level of the stuff. "Advanced" could stay but then only if some pro or a reknowned author has written it. In the kyu levels I wouldn' use grade categories as subject levels so there my vote goes to novice - elementary - intermediate.

Charles I could agree to that structure: not necessarily under those names. 'Introductory' is more consistent than 'novice'. If you take out 'dan level' you need to explain rather more: 'advanced amateur' is maybe possible. I'm not sure I agree with the comment about author - is it compatible with wiki ideals?

Bill: I like the idea of Introductory. But I would abolish Beginner, then. If you have been playing for 2 years and just broke the 20 kyu barrier, it is demeaning to be referred to as a beginner.

Also, how about putting "Introductory" in the page titles? E. g., Liberty - Introductory, Rules - Introductory?, Endgame - Introductory?. Then if and when the player wants to know more he can look at the reference pages. The reference pages might be simplified, as well, putting some material on the introductory pages. The introductory and reference pages would be cross-linked, OC.

Arno: I think having separate pages for some topics is a good idea. About the nomenclature for difficulty: instead of "Beginner, Advanced, Dan Level, Professional" you'd like to see "Introductory, Elementary, Intermediate, Dan Level, Professional", correct?

Charles Sounds good. A more neutral way to put Dan Level would be Expert.

Dieter: Well, if it must be advanced or expert then so be it. I am a dan player but I'm not at all an expert.

Grauniad: Why not: beginner, double-digit kyu, single-digit kyu, dan? DDK and SDK are clearer than elementary and intermediate. Actually, even four levels may be too many. Why not simply: beginner, kyu, dan? Any boundaries are going to be very fuzzy.

Bill: That's pretty much what we have now, with advanced instead of kyu. It seems to me, however, from recent discussions, that that puts too much strain on beginner. There really is too much of a range.

If we had the beginner category for complete novices, and then only had kyu up to dan, that would put too much strain on kyu. Anyway, that's how it seems to me.

2003 June 4

Charles It occurs to me that the development of SL, and a much-needed 'page churn' bringing older pages back to current attention, is inevitably raising the question of authority. This is obvious in the cases where material is here because it has been written about in books by Ishida, Kageyama, even Hunter. It also comes in to all discussions based on Japanese usage. It is quite unavoidable when we talk about joseki, because the whole point there is that standard sequences have their status because they are used by strong players and then accepted on a communal basis.

My own 'solutions' here:

  • second-guess any assertion about joseki using a database;
  • try to state exceptions to proverbs and other conventional wisdom when I can find examples;
  • but not to assume that this refutes, just broadens discussion;
  • argue against what other authors say (whatever their level relative to mine).

From a wiki standpoint I don't think that authority as such exists. It's more like the old scholastic habit of glossing everything, to the point where the glosses overtake the initial material. Which is not so bad for SL: the older books in English do date back several decades.

2003 June 1

Bill: Great pic on Front Page! :-)

Deebster: Agreed. In WikiNews, Arno says we have Juha Nieminen to thank. There's some more of his stuff at [ext] http://www.students.tut.fi/~warp/pics/ (I feel no guilt at the extra bandwidth I'm causing as I don't think it's paid for by him :) )

2003 May 28

Charles Well, the miai values list is well launched, with 50 different positions there now. Obviously it will shortly need subdividing. Clearly, too, this isn't an ideal reference for learning the endgame basics. But it seems to work quite well, for the smaller endgame plays: as well as discursive treatments, I think.

HolIgor: I think that the most useful application of the list in the reduction of a little bit complex position to the position with known move value. But in order to do this efficiently one needs to index the positions somehow. I propose to reference the diagram by the move value and an index of a diagram for that value of the move.

Then the explanation would become like this.

0.88

[Diagram]
Take away point and reduces to 0.75(Diag 1) position

See corridor.

The rule would be to add new positions with the same value at the end.

Charles It was certainly my hope that such a list would clarify how to compute miai values - and so give an operational definition of what they are. The question HolIgor raises is the natural next step. It's really a choice of method: do we assume that in a well-developed list the smaller plays on which calculations depend have already been done? That's a kind of 'dynamic programming' approach and justification. Or on the other hand should there be some kind of pointers showing the way?

By the way, I think it is inevitable that some unreliable values will be posted; but that shouldn't be too much of a problem in the longer term. For someone reasonably expert, checking the value takes about the same length of time as creating the diagrams.

2003 May 25

Charles Matthews Thinking about the Endgame Reckoner discussion, I wondered where we were on reference material on SL.

There are these categories:

  1. People keyword, Names in go: now good coverage of pro names, but info not so deep.
  2. Joseki: more and more pages are being added, structure in place.
  3. Side patterns: my particular concern - a drop in the ocean.
  4. Openings: shallow, considering reference value.
  5. Middlegame joseki: just starting out, really.
  6. Tournament keyword: patchy coverage, indexing.
  7. Go Terms: expanding all the time, needs taking in hand.
  8. Life and death: reasonable coverage of shapes all should know.
  9. Endgame: no structure for reference material.

On the last of these, one can envisage, one day, a list of standard endgame positions, arranged by miai value. Points about that, in the light of what Bill Spight has been posting.

Therefore one could expect this project to end up spread over many pages of type MiaiValueStrictlyBetweenThreeAndFour. That is, it would be for the expert. It would not do the job the Endgame Reckoner seeks to do. It would probably not deal comprehensively with endgame mistakes, either. The tesuji would simply be shown as correct play, rather than flagged as such. The value to amateur dan players in general would be in fractions of a stone.

That is, it would have many of the drawbacks of a joseki dictionary. The fact is that (as far I know) a large-scale list of this kind isn't available, so this is one area where collaborative work by amateurs could move things on.

I feel much more committed to the joseki project right now. Considering how much detail the monkey jump reveals on close analysis, this is probably a three-year effort for the dedicated. Not to be defeatist, though: this area probably obeys some version of what I call one-ten-hundred in study, even if the 80 for 20 solution isn't a great one.

dnerra: I share your doubts about such a project. Even more than joseki, I think that you just have to learn to read endgame values out quickly. Relying on memorized patterns seems pretty dubious to me[1]. I think the most important part of precise endgame play is to take into account side effects that couldn't possibly be part of the patterns listed there. With side effects I mean sequences that will later make some defense moves necessary, cause another sequence to be sente etc.
I think a rather short list of the most common patterns (the 3/4/5/6/7 miai points 2nd line hanes etc.) would be useful for kyu players, however.

[1] As you mention the monkey jump, I always have to read out the correct response from scratch, and I don't feel bad about that.


Deebster: I was thinking about date formats. America and Europe use different date notation, i.e. America uses mm-dd-yy, whereas Europe uses dd-mm-yy. When I see 08.11.03, I have no idea if the date is the 8th of November or the 11th of August. I generally have to figure out who wrote it, and where they're from before I can decode it.

Could we decide on a standard? I don't think either side is willing to change, so maybe something like 21.Dec.03 could be our standard?

dnerra: I think if you use the standard notations, there is no ambiguity. American notation is mm-dd-yy, Europe notation dd.mm.yy., and British notation dd/mm/yy. Am I wrong?

(Benjamin Geiger: Actually, most Americans use mm/dd/yy. I try to use "dd Mth yyyy" (21 May 2003) unless otherwise directed. If a strictly-numeric format is needed (such as in a filename), yyyy-mm-dd (2003-05-21) is better than either of the aforementioned formats. Both are unambiguous. And two-digit years are evil.)

Velobici: I have often had the same problem. The European way makes sense in that the duration of the time period continuously increases (day to month to year). Unfortunately, when dates are sorted the results are nonsense (01012003, 01023002, 02012003). We can address both issues by using yyyymmdd or yyyy-mm-dd (e.g. 20030102 or 2003-01-02). The time period is continuously decreasing and the sorting works as expected.

dnerra: Hey, we are not talking about file names! IMHO, 010305 is unreadable no matter what convention it is intended to use.

Velobici: oh no, not two-digit years again...I just got through dealing with that a couple years ago. 2001-03-05 is so much better than 010305.

Deebster: Well for something that a computer might sort, the big-endian yyyy-mm-dd format is obviously best. However, I'm thinking of dates mentioned in the text, and it seems that we should be thinking of how humans can most easily and unambigously read it.

I think trusting that people will use whichever of the -./ separators is correct is probably a little hopeful.

unkx80: I usually prefer to write dates as any permutation of "2003 May 22", spelling out the month. But if written with all digits, I tend to use the yyyy-mm-dd notation, because of the sorting reasons already discussed above.

DJ: The international standard format for dates is yyyy(hyphen)mm(hyphen)dd, therefore today is 2003-05-22.
This was set by ISO (International Standardisation Organisation) and adopted by CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation) and all national standardisation bodies (UNI, DIN, BSI, AFNOR, ANSI, etc.)

Charles .. and by CRM.

Benjamin Geiger: But, do we really want 2003-05-22T12:58:10.3372-0400 ? (Yes, it's a valid ISO 8601 time stamp.)

Dieter: ... or need it, for that matter. Make yourself clear when a date could be ambiguous and the ambiguity would be bothersome.

Benjamin Geiger: Could we add something like this to Wiki Etiquette or SL Conventions?

  • Avoid ambiguous dates. Dates such as 4/2/2003 are ambiguous (is it 4 February or 2 April?)
    • Suggested date formats include yyyy-mm-dd (2003-05-22) and dd Month yyyy (22 May 2003), spelling out or abbreviating the name of the month.

Frs: I think, adding pages like Help?, Support?, FAQ? would make it easier to find help topics with SL. And I miss a help link in the navigation menue on the left.


Arno: Lately, I have been thinking about the wiki syntax. Two things that come to mind is, having "![" instead of "[[" to escape "[", as the "!" is used for all other escapes as well. And using ">" to indent blocks instead of (mis)using definition lists ";:".

Searching around on SL I see that many people would like to see the camelcase syntax go away - links could only be done with square brackets - I'm not sure this is a good idea - I like the name RecentChanges. And headings <h1-3> could use another syntax as the "!!!" is not really nice to look at. An idea is e.g. "== heading h3 ==", "=== heading h2 ===", "==== heading h1 ====" (on a single line).

Also there are alternatives to the current list syntax which would allow paragraphs in lists etc. However, that would induce a greater shift and would require relearning some wiki techniques - although nice I think it may be to disruptive. For an example see [ext] http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/NewBlockMarkup

Another idea I had, was enabling short notes for path pages. This could be done with definition lists. I.e. on the path main page (e.g. HikaruHistory) you'd have "; [>Meijin] : Sai is said to be of Meijin strength." or some such. I.e. the notes would put the current page in context of the path. That way you could add a short note, how the current page "fits" into the path.

Also, the idea of allowing private sub-pages crossed my mind (e.g. for having your private "scrap book" where you can selectively make those pages public or not). However, I'm not sure if this would lead to too much a fragmentation of the "wiki space" (or whatever its name is :o)

Charles Arno, I'm a big fan of paths, and would be very interested in any enrichment possible of their syntax. For example standard footers, or thumbnails of a diagram, to be included in all pages of certain paths.

Arno: footer would be header as well (because the path navigation is shown at the top and the bottom of a page). Could you tell me an example for the thumbnail idea?

Charles For example, all the pages on the tsuke-nobi joseki path to carry the same starting position (joseki after first five stones). I don't know where: perhaps in the left side bar, perhaps where the Stones character is now.

Dieter: Another path fan here. If a page belongs to one path only I would like to have the previous/next feature included not only if you arrive on that page by the path itself.

David: I like the proposed "![" syntax. It's more consistent and intuitive. The ">" indenting would be useful, especially if it could work at different levels: "> > ". (I think whitespace should be allowed and ignored here; "> > Text" looks nicer than ">>Text". This would make it impossible to indent preformatted text, but you can do that just by adding spaces anyway.) Personally, I don't like "camel case" links, but there's no reason not to allow them. I prefer the current "! Heading" to "== Heading ==". I am slighly against the block markup because of the disruption you mentioned. My feelings are neutral about changes to paths and the creation of private pages.

While we're talking about markup, how about having the wiki eat the first character of each line of preformatted text, so that the text itself is aligned with the rest of the page?


Tristan: Is there any way to save material here while you're writing it, but in such a way that it is protected against editing by anybody else? I was half-way through writing a big chunk, saved it because I don't trust my machine not to crash, and found that it had been edited even while I was working on the next part, which resulted in my over-riding the other editor's work when I saved the new version of my work. Or perhaps is the only way to stop others editing works in progress is to head them up with the request "Please do not edit yet until this notice disappears"? I have nothing against people editing my work, but I want to save them the trouble of editing something that is about to change radically, anyway.

Dieter:

Under construction, please do not edit

should do fine, really.

Charles Well, that was probably me - if it's any consolation you did the same to me in reverse. Yes, post a 'work in progress note' by all means. If you get the SL notice informing you of someone else's edit, when you try to save, you can copy all that's in the window and re-use it. This happens to me all the time, by the way. In fact ten seconds ago!.

Dieter: I think I am a frequent frustrater of Charles' edits. Here's a vicious trick: when you feel someone else will soon mess with the page you're editing, save it quickly and then move on. He will lose valuable time doing what Charles writes hereabove.

Tristan: Thanks for the above advice. I'm still quite innocent in the ways of wiki. I would like to point out that I've no interest in perpetrating "vicious tricks", however! (LOL) I only wanted to save people the effort of doing work that I would delete in any case. I'm nice, like that, you see.

Arno: if this is getting bothersome I could change SL's behaviour: e.g. locking pages for ~30minutes when one presses edit. I did not implement it, because I thought that simultanious edits don't occur too often. Another idea (instead of locking) is to show a red warning when someone has pressed the EditPage link during the past 15 minutes and has not yet saved the page.

Tristan: The red warning idea sounds like a much better idea to me than locking the page. I often tidy up my pages very quickly after saving them the first time, so being locked out for 30 minutes would be very frustrating.

Arno: the page would only be locked until you press "save". So you can immediatly re-edit a page after saving it.

mAsterdam: Loss though concurrent update also happened at elementary moves, see JasonD. As the deshi population grows it will happen more often. To me locking for 30 minutes seems a little drastic for now. Furthermore (maybe I should do this another way) I press 'edit' in a second browser-window to get to the source of a page without intending to edit it, and usually without pressing cancel immediately. Maybe if everybody knows the locking time (say 5 minutes) it 'll work, even better if 'preview' re-initializes the timer. The red warning has my sympathy. I think it also would help to delay the appearance in recent changes for say 30 minutes if that is feasible. Just my 2 Eurocents.

NN?: How about a three-way merge like version control systems such as cvs use? This would prevent data loss at the price of requiring manual editing in case of conflicts.

Charles It is hard to see how to prevent 'competitive editing', without also removing the valuable possibility of real-time dialogue.

BobMcGuigan: Relative newcomer though I am I, too, have experienced a few editting clashes. It's really not much of a bother, but something like the red flag idea would be preferable to the lock-out, I think.

unkx80: I seldom encounter the competitive editing of a page (probably because I live in a different time zone from most of you), but I guess flagging a page as "under construction" will do. Locking don't seem a good idea for me, it is simply frustrating.

Arno: I have implemented the warning. Feedback? -> GuineaPigsFeedback.

unkx80: Very nice feature, thanks! =)

10 May 2003

Fhayashi: I love what AndreEngels is doing regarding the joseki listings. Whenever we all decide what the rational naming scheme for each variant is, we can go back and fix things, but looks like Andre is making the information accessible. I've already started to contribute my small bit...

Charles Yes, nice one, Andre.

6 May 2003

Fhayashi: Ericosman, what's up with the pages like "me" and "unfinished discussion"? Each page should at least attempt to make sense regardless of context. It's hard to imagine that anyone would look up useful go-related information about "me" or "unfinished discussion", and as it is now, someone has to take time to manually delete pages that don't make sense. You have to realize that SL is a community resource for information about the game go. There are plenty of free webspace available (geocities/yahoo hosting my own) if you feel the need to stake out your own share of cyberspace.

Eric Osman: I'll remove the "me" page. But please leave "unfinished discussion" as it's just that, one in which I'm composing the page. Thanks.

Morten - Eric, I look forward the form and content which "Unfinished Discussion" will take :-) However, as mentioned above, it might be useful if, next page you want to leave 'unfinished' you give a descriptive name which the page can keep afterwards as well. (e.g. MethodOfMultiples).

Morten- Joseki nomenclature discussion moved to OpeningSystematicClassification.

Eric Osman: 17:13 EDT According to Deleting Pages, pages can't really be deleted on this wiki. So in an attempt to delete the "me" page, please refrain from actually putting in any actual links to it. I'll also edit the orphaned "me" page to remove its content and replace it with one sentence saying "this page has been removed".

By the way, I'm surprised you even found the "unfinished discussion" page at all. I attempted to make that page be unreferenced until I completed it. Maybe the revision history info for my homepage is the only thing pointing at it ?

This brings up an interesting topic: Should orphaned pages be deleted, or should they be allowed as a way for users to temporarily keep pages private while they are still "works in progress" ?

Morten Some of the users can delete pages - you just need to leave a note here or elsewhere that you wish to see them deleted and it will be done (I removed Me) - You will need to do the same to have a page renamed. As for 'unfinished' being seen - most of the creatures who lurk here have a beady eye on the RecentChanges which shows pages being edited - and are usually quick to respond Big brother is watching you :-)

Charles WikiOrphans is cleaned up regularly. Arno seems to enjoy the effort to break the round number barriers like 6000 in the reverse direction from most of us: from above.

5 May 2003

Eric Osman at Sand Box, here edited slightly:
Hi, [email] ericosman@rcn.com here. I recently started composing a technical wiki page.

However, I didn't finish it, and when I came back the next day to work on it some more, to my dismay , others had already edited it.

Is there a way to create a wiki page such that it remains private, or at least un-editable, until we're finished creating it ?

Thanks. Please send email to [email] me . /Eric

David: Sure, do it the wiki way: Leave a polite note on the page explaining your intentions and asking that others not edit it until you're done. If you don't want people to even see the page until you're finished, you can edit it as a file on your computer and post it when it's done.

Eric Osman

       >  If you don't want people to even see the page until
       >  you're finished, you can edit it as a file on your
       >  computer and post it when it's done.

Well, I'd be happy to do that if there were a way to have the wiki formatter on my computer so that I could occasionally press "save" in order to see what the page looks like so far, just as I can here. Is that possible ?

David: If you just want to see what a page will look like, use the "Preview" button when editing. You can edit and preview a page without saving it. Copy the text in the edit box to a file and paste it back when you have your next editing session.

Are you sure that you want to do this though? Your Get Strong at Joseki problem discussion page has attracted thoughtful comments by strong players. In general, it's good to make your pages available so others can benefit from and contribute to them.

Eric Osman at Me?, here edited slightly:
I want the sentence back there on the Sand Box, the one that says "send email to me" to have a link on the me so that when you click on it, it starts an email to me. But I don't know how to do that !

David: Do it like this: [me|mailto:ericosman@rcn.com]. There's more helpful formatting information at Text Formatting Rules.

11 April 2003

About how pages should look like. Take JosekiAsASourceOfBadHabits. I had a clear idea of what I wanted this page to be when I created it. It is rather of article bred, but of course I welcome other thoughts and examples. Now, with that clear structure present (1 up to 5) should it rather be a starting point with links to five (as of now) pages, each describing a specific situation, or does the grouping benefit the general idea. Myself I prefer many pages, many links and paths for a wiki, over few pages with big overlapping content. yes I have been an OO programmer. On this occasion, as the author of an article, I hesitate. --Dieter

I like pages being subdivided. I enjoy pages more when I can take in the content without scrolling. Of course more pages causes problems, but they are the same type as those caused by the rapid growth of SL. --Charles

On a different issue, a point was raised at Don't provoke damaging plays on the second line about labelling a given mistake as 'typical for 10 kyu' or anything similar. Is this an acceptable, positive or negative thing to do? Quite a number of years ago David Erbach expressed an interest in this kind of information: i.e. correlating levels of play with typical mistakes. When do players really start to see snapbacks, for example? I don't want to express my thoughts on this if it is considered derogatory. But teachers of the game might welcome information of this kind, if it was collected more systematically. -- Charles

dieter: Thanks for the explanation, I now understand better the reason for such a statement. I still think the times an 8 kyu receives it as a derogatory one outnumber the occasions that a teacher might take advantage of such information, all the more because we can only offer our best guesses.

25 March 2003

Charles Matthews Are people happy with basic rules of go (now renamed as rules of go - introductory), in its current form? Is it really possible, as is suggested at beginner study section, to read and understand it in 15 minutes, with no previous knowledge of the game?

Bill: Pas moi.

Morten:I actually think that versions up to v. 24 were better than the current one. E.g. [ext] V24 is clearer, shorter and easier to grasp.

Charles I asked because I too had a feeling that this page had gone the wrong way. Well, if it changes back we'll have to pacify Robert J. - but it is something to consider doing now.

Robert Pauli: I'm not happy with it. It pretends to be basic, but it gives you the area-scoring version - without even warning you. If scoring differs among rule sets, then - sorry - it's no basic part of the game.

Dieter: I like it much better than [ext] V24. I do not agree that the latter is clearer. The only things I'd change about it is the phrasing of the purpose of the game ("Principle of Game Object" sounds like hox pox hoculum pox to me) and an inclusion of the fact that different ways of scoring exist, much like "suicide" is said to be allowed. Given the fact that most Western players in fact use territory scoring and do not allow suicide, I'd take those into the basic rules, even though I favour the other options myself.

15 March 2003

Fhayashi: Any thoughts about putting together a JosekiLibrary in SL?

Charles Matthews Many. It's a path of least resistance, really. It has been discussed inconclusively before, for example at Whither Joseki. My current thoughts:

  1. No point copying the books, as they are mostly out of date.
  2. It is now easy to research joseki from databases, and that's worth doing.
  1. Common joseki deserve a page here.
  2. But in general joseki pages stay rather isolated, so better deliberately to find themes such as pushing battles, attach-crosscut corner patterns to make them more digestible.

But what did you have in mind?

Fhayashi: There are plenty of joseki libraries on the web, but the commentaries on each variation tend to be limited. All the books say "Study joseki, don't memorize them", so I thought a library on SL would facilitate discussion on them - i.e. why each move is where it is, what to do when your opponent varies from joseki, etc.

Charles I think we do that here, too. There are joseki articles - now numerous; anyone can raise a query for discussion, naturally. So, are we talking about some new structure? A page per known variation probably comes to about 5000. It is hardly possible to anticipate all non-joseki moves, is it? There are questions of that type in the BQM series.

I think it would be a good idea gradually to organise by links all the joseki material on the site by variation - this could be done by the end of 2003. But if one tries to add the whole of joseki knowledge at once, what happens is that one adds a large number of 'stub' pages with no content above what would be in an uncommented SGF file. This isn't a great idea, and it isn't so interesting to do either. I'll admit that I have done something similar for the unusual enclosures, on about 1% of the scale.

Fhayashi: I think the organisation of the joseki information is what I'm interested in. Somewhere to start, like a path for joseki information on SL, to begin with.

Charles Pincer path, for example, gives quick access to around 20 joseki. There are half-a-dozen paths already devoted to particular joseki: some but not all of those are referenced by Guided Tours. From my point of view the joseki page itself is the first place to look, arranging joseki by indentation: probably that has gone nearly as far as it can. My own policy is breadth-first development of the joseki pages.

I can see that 'random access' is the final test: whether it is possible quickly to find a given joseki on the site (or detect its absence). The matter of page nomenclature and codes for joseki has been discussed, again inconclusively. What we have now is a system of verbose names for joseki, not entirely standardised and certainly not very memorable. But I believe it is improving over time.


10 March 2003

Newbie question: I notice that in the recent changes, my username is followed by a question mark. What does that mean? -- Tualha

Answer: If you click on the question mark you'll be proposed to create a home page. HolIgor

Charles Matthews If you click on the question mark, you can make yourself a home page. In general question marks follow undefined pages.

Ah, thank you. -- Tualha

2003-03-04:

DJ: Hey, AshleyF, what you've done is sure cute!
Let me use a newagey jargoon: Groovy! This place is really graawin'...
BTW: Have you got Italian origins? :-)

AshleyF Yep, Feniello's Italian. :-)

Arno: what do other's think? would you like small graphics to show the move numbers? I could add a little hack. Maybe something like [img:b7] or some such.

Dave Arno, I think it should be a new markup - something like {B7}, max. Otherwise I would expect to stick with the old style.

dnerra: Arno, I think that would be great! This would also save us the (future) debate about whether "Black 5" or "B5" is better style :-) Seriously, I think it would make the text read nicer.

David: I think it looks nice, but I don't know if the added complexity of a new text formatting rule is worth it, especially if it isn't used consistently. It might be that the ways people cite moves (like "Black 3" or "B3") are uniform enough that GoWiki can search for them and replace them with images when a page is edited, or even on the fly. Whether to show images or text could be made a user preference.

AshleyF I have actually experimented with this also using the SLSnapshot. It worked out fairly well and could be tuned further. The more difficult ones are things like 'the marked stone' or even worse, 'B3 and the marked point are miai'. Maybe a one-time conversion plus some macros like {B3} which humans could enter?

On his home page, AshleyF hints that his experiment isn't complete. I think we should find out what other interesting things he's thinking about before making any changes.

AshleyF I'm basically just thinking of inline icons for relating the commentary to points and stones on the board. Ideally, it should be as complete as the diagramming feature itself; containing Black and White stones with numbers 1-10 and with square and circle marks. Also was thinking of having icons for marked and lettered empty points. That's about it.

Some other ideas I've had (but I think are over the top for SL) are further separating presentation from data in SGF. For example, 'macros' in comments to refer to points and stones on the board rather than having markup tags. Then the SGF viewer could decide how best to represent the correlation. I was further thinking of defining a bunch of common comment glyphs (gleaned from KJD and Teaching Ladder games). Things like 'a and b are miai' could become '{miai:Q12,R13}' and the SGF viewer could decide to present however it sees fit. Some may simply display as text (in the language of your choice). Others may use inline icons and display matching markup on the board. Others in the future may even do some bizarre stuff like a 'cartoon balloon' at the point on the board being discussed or a finger pointing at the board while the commentary is read aloud (yeah, I'm dreaming). Also, it could be translated to various languages or represented as a standard set of international 'glyphs' like [ext] Chess Informant does. Even within English you could turn on/off Japanese terms, for example, and choose whether to see things like 'semeai' or instead, 'capture race' in the commentary (I'm sure Charles would always choose the latter :-).

Anyway, inline icons would be cool.

Fhayashi: The game is from the book on Wings Go Club's website, right? I was thinking of reformatting that things, because it currently is a horrible 500-something pages long....

Hu: AshleyF's page may be "cute" but unless I am mistaken, the text seems taken wholesale without attribution and possibly without permission as a Google Search reveals: [ext] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Kawakami+of+baseball%22&meta=site%3Dsearch

Kgr?: If you look at the things that google finds, you will see that the translator (the sources are uncopywritten chinese books) grants the right to reproduce the material for personal use, and so does the person who typeset the book into the form google finds. The original publication was on rgg in 1993. It does need attribution to not confuse people, but maybe it is best to let AshleyF finish experimenting with the diagram comments before jumping on him about attribution.
Hu: Thanks, Kgr, for clarifying. Sorry for jumping the gun.
Charles Note that PatrickB is also involved as editor, though. Could we have the use cleared with him?
AshleyF I've added PatrickB's preface. Very sorry. I didn't mean to leave any impression that the commentary was mine. I was planning to mail Arno and gang before moving off of my page because while both authors give permission to reproduce, I'm not sure about the 'for personal, non-commercial use' statement.
PatrickB It's fine with me. As long as the preface is there that lets people know the state of the copyright on the work and gives credit to Mr. Yu for his work, I'm happy to see it getting used.
Charles Next point - author's "moral rights". Those include not having a distorted form circulated. Here on SL, not only can we not guarantee that the text won't be edited once posted - we can pretty much guarantee that it will be edited.
dnerra On the finer points, I doubt very much that this preface is compatible with the Open Content License (not that I personally care so much).
AshleyF Just to be on the safe side, I've removed the thing. I'll repost when/if it's determined to be an okay thing to do on SL.
Charles I'd certainly be happy to see this material on SL - I once printed out the whole book, but the somewhat clunky English makes it harder to read. So if permissions could be sorted out to have an edited version here, I'd be delighted.
AshleyF Does anyone know how to contact Jim Z. Yu? I have tried all email addresses I could find and his handle on IGS (zhuge) no longer exists.

2 february 2003

No pages StrategicGroup, Life, Death yet!!! --RobertJasiek

30 january 2003

Moved to Advertising On SL Discussion --Dieter

20 December 2002

Charles Continuing the same thought - when people arrive here at the Tour Bus Stop, I think we shouldn't assume that they are in search of the rules of Go, first of all. So, should there be an introduction on the general cultural and historical level to link from there? (Well, should there be something not already provided?)

15 December 2002

evpsych: Um, some obvious links for total beginners, like rules, on the front page, please. And local go clubs and servers, too.

Stefan: "Beginner at go? Go to the BeginnerStudySection". Local clubs nor servers belong on the home page, IMHO.

Charles Is there a case for an Absolute Beginners page?

unkx80: Isn't basic rules of Go the "absolute beginners" page?

Charles There might be scope for a short preliminary introduction for those who find there way here, not even knowing the kind of thing Go is. A very basic 'welcome'.

13 december 2002

Dieter: It seems that the popularity of Kanazawa Tesuji Series is inversely proportional (?) to its difficulty level. In a week's time, the only attempt at solving one of the ten exercises posted, came from unkx80. On the whole, exercises on any subject (such as Capturing Race Exercises) which I would expect to enjoy an enormous popularity, pass their time undiscussed until scrolling off RecentChanges ejects them into oblivion.

Should I stop posting Kanazawa... or is there a chance that people are making serious attempts solving it without using the edit option ? And how about those other exercises ? Anyone from the silent majority ?

unkx80: Please do continue to post the Kanazawa series. Admittedly they are hard but they are very interesting. However for my case I have seen a number of the problems you have posted and so it makes no point for me to post my attempts which would be the actual solution itself. As for some of the other Kanazawa problems I attempted without clicking the Edit page option. And by the way I have yet to figure out how to solve Kanazawa Problem 88. =)

dnerra: I must admit that the Kanazawa Tesuji Series probably didn't get past my filters when browsing through RecentChanges, at least most of the times... However, now that I look at them again, they look really nice. (I remember trying a few without hitting the Edit button.) So, further problems are definitely welcome!

On the other hand, I feel that goproblems.com is much more suitable for TsumeGo problems. It's rather less work for the poster, the interactivity makes it really more attractive for the solver, and in many cases he gets feedback on many wrong attempts to solve the problem (because it is so much easier to add variations there). Also, you can easily pick problems that fit your strength.

Probably SL is more suitable for fuseki problems and similar stuff, that require some discussion beyond a variation tree.

2002-12-08

Charles Expanding on Bill's comment from two days ago - signed contributions are encouraged here. That's not the case on every wiki, it seems. But we like personalised talk, and we like to know the provenance of comments (especially technical talk). It should follow that signed comments (including home pages) are treated respectfully. Everything that goes on here does so by permissions and access - not by veto nor by the defence of personal territory. I don't see much abuse, and I think that even best-selling authors accept copy-editing (so we all should). 'Work in progess' is the accepted way of reserving space, I believe.

06-12-2002

Bill: When I came back after a hiatus, I found that a lot of pages I had contributed to had been edited. A few times material that I had referred to had been moved or eliminated, so that what I said did not make so much sense. Fortunately, I was able to make links or resurrect the old material from the archived page.

Editors, please be careful about such things. As a good example, Charles Matthews (I suppose), moved some material from Order of Play Discussion, but inserted the appropriate link where I referred to it. Thanks, Charles! :-)

06-12-2002

Confused: I had the urge to copy to the page about Nakayama Noriyuki an anecdote about him Dave Sigaty put on another page. Is this the right place to put such things?

DaveSigaty: Thanks for being so careful and polite, confused. Unfortunately your concern is misplaced because the contents of WhoWasSolutions are DJ's not mine! My (quite brief) answers are on WhoWasThatDavesGuesses. :-)

Charles Matthews The People pages are there to be used - or linked to. It seems to be WikilyCorrect to say the way to use them will emerge, rather than be prescribed.

2002 December 6

SAS: I suggest that we try to use the new URLs for David Carlton's pages, rather than the old (stanford.edu) ones which may cease working sometime next year. When the old URLs stop working, someone is going to have to go through and fix them all, so the fewer we have the better. (To convert the old URLs to the new ones, replace "math.stanford.edu/~carlton/go" with "www.gobooks.info".)

Arno: I can do a search&replace in the wiki database. Would save you the trouble of going through it manually...

Charles Please. But if that's possible, shall we wait?

Arno: should be done now - 50 pages affected. Replaced 'math.stanford.edu/~carlton/go' with 'www.gobooks.info'.

Charles Thanks, Arno.


Discussions on the following topics have now a separate page:


August 25, 2001: I have done a WikiMasterEdit of this page. See old version (v71). Unsolved issues and recent postings remained here. Technical stuff moved back to GuineaPigsFeedback. Created some new discussion pages on a clearly defined topic. --DieterVerhofstadt

2002-11-02: The 2001 contents of this page (from version 193) have been transferred to Meta Discussion 2001 -- Hu

2003-01-30: The January 2002 through December 4, 2002 contents of this page have been transferred to Meta Discussion 2002 -- Hu



This is a copy of the living page "Meta Discussion" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.