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KGSRooms/ Discussion
Sub-page of KGSRooms

jfc: rooms related questions:

  • lets say joe is my buddy but when I login, joe is in the Salle Francaise but I am not. Is there an easy way to know if joe is logged on to kgs? Going to the user->view user information menu and typing the name is in rather tedious.
  • is there a way to figure out what rooms a person is in without using chat to ask them?
  • say that someone says "go to room xyz" but they don't specify which room group (e.g. main, new rooms, clubs, lessons etc...) the room is catagorized under. Is there a way to go to said room without visually inspecting each room group in the KGS room list for room xyz?

Steve Urick: I got suddenly cut off without much reason for talking about non-go topic in english game room.

I wasn't warned or anything.

jfc question: after you were cut off, was it obvious you had been booted? for example, do you get the same pop up window that is seen with a loss of connnection due to internet problems or do you get a different you have been booted pop up window?

I know you are hot under the collar about being "unjustly booted" but I'm trying to focus on a tagential issue here. When someone is booted it should be easy for them to distinguish this from simply losing a server connection due to internet problems.

if this is not currently the case perhaps this should be added to the feature wish list.

I think I just ran into a short-tempered administrator, possibly named wms. Does anyone know him?

Has anyone had problems like this?

UPDATE:

I found out it is William Shubert. I have emailed him to ask for an explanation or apology.


Anon: The booting policy is explained elsewhere on Senseis. There is no sense of humour about it on the admin/assistant side, they'll just boot you. I find the problem with it is that usually assistants do it and people don't realise that isn't the usual Mr Grumpy Pants complaining about chat; but here you've got booted by wms so you should have known better ;-)

ilanpi: Be careful what you say, or you might get cut off from this site or even from you own computer! wms is everywh

Anon: This policy is explained in the motd of the English Game Room, everybody who joins gets this text printed in bold: "Discussion of go and KGS is welcome here, but please don't have long non-go-related discussions in this room. The "English Chat Room" is the recommended place for chitchat."
Demanding an apology from wms for enforcing this is funny...why don't you just rest the topic and respect that policy in the future?

Steve: Let me see here... Um Anon, are you saying that it was right for him to do that or that there is no point in challenging it? Are two comments a long conversation?

And alanpi, I am afraid of no one. I am only asking this wms fellow to be reasonable. If doing so gets me cut off from this site or kgs, so be it. I am only asking the man to be reasonable. And I haven't heard back yet, so I'm still assuming he'll be decent.

I do have to admit that ilanpi's cowering and Anon's inabilty to state his own name do not forbode well..

But this Shubet guy has accomplished quite a lot and he can't be all bad. I'll give him a chance.

I don't accept any authority that abuses its power. You folks don't have to either, on line or in your life. Try it, you might like it.

I understand what you're saying, Schubert's policy is in effect booting all who contribute to a long running conversation, even if they've just joined in. Nothing wrong with complaining about it in my view, but this probably won't change. I must admit I suffered a similiar experience after joining in a conversation I hadn't been following. Perhaps this was because I asked the assistant to stop flooding the chatroom with his negative capslocked sentiments, it's hard to be sure really. It's the last time I try to steer a long running conversation off on a new surrealer tangent though. ;-)

ilanpi: I am telling you, wms is all powerful, he can remove you from computer access at any ti

Ho Ho H-AAaargh

jfc: Really, ilanpi's dead pan delivery of comic material is exquisite!

Remember folks, wms earned his tyrant's position (by creating an awesome Go server ex nihlo). You are free to take up the gauntlet ( by creating your own go server) and try to prove that you are a better tyrant. With the NNGS source freely available you don't even have to do as much work as wms to get up and running.

Steve: Here is my eamil exchange with wms. Am I wrong? Please let me know what you think. My name is stoner there.

Exchange between wms and stoner

Stoner:

Hello

You just kicked me off KGS. My name there is stoned. You didn't warn me and I made only two comment about an ongoing conversation. Everyone uses the English Game Room chat for non-go topics.

Maybe you were just in a bad mood, or something. In any case I would greatly appreciate an apology or explanation.

Thanks

Steve Urick

Wms: For an explanation, read the English Game Room info message. When an admin or assistant asks for a chat to move to the english chat room, please move. If you don't, you will be blocked from the server for an hour. This policy has been in place for a couple of months now.

You won't get an apology because I'm not sorry - I asked the chat to be moved, you kept chatting, so I blocked your for an hour.

Stoner:

Hello Again.

You didn't ask me to move. If you had, I would have realized something was going on, and probably asked you a question about it. When I joined the room I noticed that someone mentioned telemarketing. I wrote that it is the worst, unless you are pushy and insensitive. At that point you said "I was going to ask you guys to leave." I didn't know you were an admin or who you were. You never asked me to move.

My next and last comment was that a telemarketer had interrupted a go game of mine before.

Then you blocked me. Please let me know if you still don't feel you made a mistake.

I have really enjoyed using your site, but I don't feel right about participating in a system where those in authority don't take responsibility for their mistakes.

Wms:

From the logs, here is the chats leading up to your block: wms Good thing that lame joke killed the conversation... wms I was going to ask it to be moved stoner telemarketing is the worst stoner unless you are insensitive and pushy wms oh, I guess it didn't kill it. :-) wms *** please move the non-go conversation to the english chat room *** bakanogo what if you are trying to telemarket go boards bakanogo would it still be that bad? goinpeace i telemarketed go boards once stoner telemarkting interruptede my go game

As you can see, I did indeed say "I was going to ask it be moved" (as you pointed out), but when you started chatting about telemarking I explicitly did state that all non-go conversation should be moved to the ECR. Then you and a couple other users jumped in with more about telemarketing. I booted you.

I did not make a mistake. When somebody asks the conversation be moved, move the conversation. I'm sorry if you can't abide by these rules. If it makes you feel any better, the next release will allow admins & assistants to make bold announcements so it will be more obvious that it isn't some joker asking the conversation be moved, but for now all we have is trying to make it clear by surrounding the conversation in asterisks.

If you still think I'm not "owning up to my mistakes," whatever they were, then I'm sorry but that's that. Your boot was 100% on target, 100% called for, and I'll do it again if the same situation shows up.

Stoner:

Hello Again:

Please tell me if this is wrong but your policy appears to be to boot anyone who makes even one or two comments about a non-go topic, depending upon the disposition of the admin. Do you also feel that you needn't have identified yourself as an admin? You seem to realize that not identifying oneself as an admin is a mistake and you have addressed that in your next release. Good. Was your faliure to realize this sooner not a mistake?

You also ignored the fact that my last comment was about go.

Finally, the arbitrary nature of the guidelines which allows you and others to boot someone for making one or two comments is a huge problem. There appear to be many other users who are frustrated about this.

I realize it is probably very difficult for you to use the term "mistake" in reference to your own behavior. I sympathize with you. However if you are the one who makes the rules, and the rules are flawed, you have made a mistake even if you follow the rules.

Steve Urick

Wms:

The policy is not boot after one or two comments. The policy is, when an admin or assistant asks people to stop talking about non-go topics, you must stop or be booted. I don't see what is so hard to understand.

Now you say your discussion was about go. I see it as being still about telemarketing. Whenever we ask a conversation to be moved, there's always a few jokers who keep chatting but just stick "go" in there; for example, if people are talking about dogs and we ask, then somebody says "My dog can play go" and then get all righteous claiming they were talking about go.

I think it was pretty clear to anybody that when I asked the non-go conversation to be moved, the telemarketing conversation was what I meant, since it was the only thing that had been going on. So stop telling me I made a mistake, own up to the fact that you were booted fairly and stop whining.

Stoner:

Hello Again:

I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this chance for us to deepen our mutual understanding and move forward in our relationship. However, when you say that I am whining, I tend to question your sincere intention to act constuctively in this regard. Let us refrain from such insulting language.

What I didn't understand was that an admin was asking me not to talk about telemarketing. You apparently realize this is a problem as you are changing things in your new release to make it clearer. The easiest way would be to insert "This is your admin." in the warning message.

You say "The policy is not boot after one or two comments." But this is what happens in many cases. A policy that allows that is flawed. This is my point. Here is the meesage which appears in the game room window:

Discussion of go and KGS is welcome here, but please don't have long non-go-related discussions in this room. The "English Chat Room" is the recommended place for chitchat.

It mentions long discussions, which is why I feel it was wrong to boot me in this case.

You say you "don't see what is so hard to understand." You have two choices. You can listen to what I am saying it, think about it and possibly understand. Or, you can assume that since you don't understand there is no important issue involved. I hope you choose the former.


Blake: This does not belong on Sensei's Library. Check out rec.games.go instead.


anonymous: I'm at an Internet Cafe where I think I will be in greater safety. I don't have much time before they find me. OK, this is what I know: CGoban2 is actually a Trojan Horse program that takes over your computer and records your keystrokes. It sends this information to the KGS mainframe computer located deep below the offices of the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. In this vast underground complex, WMS sits alone monitoring all this information for non Go related material. When it is found, WMS sends a warning, usually an electric shock to the keyboard. The pain level is initially set to 1 or 2, but if the user persists, it can go up to 9 or 10, and the KGS proprietary technology even allows 11. At the same time, the global network of KGS administrators is put into action in order to locate and neutralise the troublemaker with the help of the direct link to KGS spy satellites established by CGoban2.

No one has ever seen WMS and some believe that he is actually a computer program, because he is everywhere, knows everything, and never makes mistakes. I believe that he actually existed at one time, but he decided to download himself into a computer in order to perfect CGoban2.

Oh no, I think the person behind me just logged into Yahoo Games and KGS controls all game servers! A late model Japanese car just pulled up in front of the cafe and some geeky looking guys are getting out. I have to go now before it's too


Javaness: You're all nuts


Hu: The good news is that Ilan continues to have a sense of humor about the situation, which is great considering that he is standing by his vow to not return to KGS.

Now, stoner, (or is it stoned? your own writing uses both, which may not be surprising), the stoner account was registered two weeks before this incident. Please be kind to yourself and realize that you joined an established system and were not familiar with it. You made a simple error, and had your privileges withdrawn for the minimum time possible, one hour. Please don't assume that a huge injustice has occurred and that tyranny is taking over the planet. There are plenty of examples of blatant tyranny with more severe consequences in the world for you to fight against without blowing this incident out of proportion.

You were so unfamiliar that you did not know to check at the time who is an admin (so easily verified by looking at user info). So unfamiliar that you were oblivious to wms position as your benefactor in creating the server that you clearly enjoy judging by the number of games you are playing and by the fact that you have returned to play more. You are to be forgiven for this since you are new to the server. Perhaps you can find it in your heart to forgive wms and yourself.

If you want to be respected, which seems to be the essence of your grievance, you might begin by respecting others enough to not mangle their names, as you have in three cases above. If you are going to try to be a barracks room lawyer and fuss about, you must get your facts straight first. If you are going to enjoy the free service given to you out of kindness by wms, you would do well to realize that KGS is a Go server, that chat is secondary, and that 100 percent consistency is tertiary. Enjoy it for what it is, a free Go server.

Your understanding of the situation will be eased if you realize that since KGS has thousands of users logging in on any given day, the admins and assistants have lots of issues to deal with. Some of those come to wms' attention. He has given you the courtesy of engaging in an extended email exchange on your issue. Can you imagine how many people would like to have such an exchange and how much time it would take to do that for everyone?

I predict that when six months have passed you will have had many great games and reviews and kibitzes and chats on KGS with many new friends and you will have forgotten that you once got your knickers in a twist.


Random Admin: i have been playing/ watching/ learning/ interacting with great people on KGS for more than 3 years now, including admins and assistants. In fact i am myself an Admin (not wms:). The fact that KGS is free AND excellent shows how much effort wms put into it. We (admins and assistants) try to regulate it to the best of our ability -some better and some worse, i agree, but nonetheless a LOT of effort is being put into managing the server. Can everyone be happy? I believe this is not possible. Can everyone be reasonably happy - this in my opinion is achievable and this is what we all are trying to do. Server w/o rules (some less important than others) -again i am not saying that booting for non-go related discussion is the grievest offence, would result in chaos. Take KGS for what it is and if you have a problem - find an admin and ask him to interfere. If wms is not around - ask any of the guys/gals whose names are bold. Also remember that admins/assistants have different ways of approaching the problem, but most would talk to offender in private and warn him before action is taken. Do all admins/assistants do this? - no. Do i personally agree with the fact that they don't - no. Again, Take KGS for what it is - a very well established server with solid evolving traditions to make all participants satisfied and enjoy the greatest game of all times.

Steve Urick: So many different issues have been raised that it is hard to address them all. I will try to respond a couple of Hu's and Random Admin's points ang to the overall thrust of the response from kgs associated people.

First of all, though, lets remember that I didn't start this incident. I was suddenly and unexpectedly booted from the server. I didn't understand that wms was an admin. I didn't understand that I was being warned. I only entered two sentences and one of them was about go.

The general message from kgs folks is to put all the blame on me for this incident.

to focus on blame misses the point. If you want to play Go on the internet KGS (and IGS) is a great place to do it. A lot of people volunteer their time so that KGS can exist and exist for free.

On the other hand, if you want to focus on who was right and who was wrong in a social context, you've come to the wrong place. KGS is not about being a 100% politically correct chat room. It is about playing Go.

Folks like hu fail to see the flaws in the booting policy and practice. Yesterday I went to the English game room to ask users their opinions on the booting practice. Many were not happy with it. In fact so many folks wanted to talk about it, I was warned by an admin not to talk about it. Supposedly, it was flooding the room.

well, you put your foot in your mouth again. You should have sent a one line message to the "game room" asking interestested folks to come to the chat room to discuss KGS booting practices.

your description above sounds like you wanted to kvetch in the game room which, you should know by now, is verboten.

I don't see much point in discussing this any further with people who can't recognize there is a problem here. I think the above speaks for itself. Those who read it may judge the situation as the want to.

However I did want to respond to a couple of hu's comments. As to wms' "courtesy" in communicating with me, I don't consider it courtesy to communicate if the purpose is to stonewall and refuse to admit a mistake. His last comment to me to stop whining was not particularly courteous either.

Charles Come on, you were treated with courtesy and given an extended explanation. Please take this sort of consumerist attitude, that it is all about you, elsewhere.

Yes, Hu, being respected is the begining of any decent human relationship, but my purpose here was not obtaining respect. I wanted to address a problem at kgs that many others are aware of. I can see that wms's inability to take any responsability for my and others dissatisfaction trickles down to folks like you.

By the way, I wasn't trying to be a lawyer, fuss about or, untwist knickers either. I don't feel that I am a victim of huge injustice, either. It's not a matter of me forgiving wms. The issue is you folks' inability to recognize and take resonsability for a highly flawed policy and practice.

DnF: This will be the only time I respond to things like this (because I try not to feed trolls). I am happy the Game Room is reserved for go related chat. I completely fail to understand many of the comments here. For example, I fail to understand why you cannot ask in the Chat Room about the booting policy. I beg the admins to continue their policy and keep the game room chit chat free. Thanks.

Hu: You did start it, Steve Urick. You disregarded the policy clearly stated in the brief room blurb that is in bold and is the first thing you see when you enter the English Game room. You disobeyed an order phrased as a request, but clearly distinguished, made by someone empowered to enforce such orders. That you did not understand it at the time because you were two weeks new then is to be forgiven. However, you can't expect to be treated specially, the sanction against you was the minimal one possible, your grievance has been heard, you have been responded to, and you now understand the policy and who is empowered to enforce it. There is no need to make mountains out of molehills.

Yes, you can find a vocal minority who are not happy with the policy or the way it is enforced. You can join them and wage a war of grievance and perceived ever increasing slights to your dignity. Alternatively, you can relax and join the great majority on the server who are happy at the great environment for Go playing and learning, and who happily chat on many different topics on the server in many places.

Please do not be so rigid in expecting everything to run one hundred percent the way you want it to, so be a little flexible and accept this great gift that you have been given to use. When you have been around for a while you will see some of the traffic and the issues and the immature cases of arrested social development that the admins have to deal with. Additionally there is much traffic in chat, messages, and email that you don't see, that they have to deal with. When you consider all of that you will see that the admins are not rigid but are flexible enough that almost always everything flows very smoothly.

Yes, the policy is "flawed", i.e. not perfect. It is also true that the practice is "flawed", i.e. not perfect. It is not "highly flawed". If it were "highly flawed", it would not be as popular as it is. KGS has voluminous and boisterous chat, compared to many other servers. Are they "highly flawed"?

Finally, the universe is not centered around you. Getting back to the original incident, you can't expect the admins to look up in user info to see, "oh, this user who just disobeyed a clear order is a two week old newbie so I will handle him or her with kid gloves", especially when you yourself don't have the initiative to look up who is issuing the clear order. There just is not enough time for them to do that in real time and the account might be new while the user might not be. You didn't post something like "I don't understand, how can you make such an order?", you didn't think to yourself "Oh, this is what the room blurb means", you just went ahead and disobeyed it. You made a little mistake and got a little reprimand. You are not special.

Face it, life on KGS is not going to be organized around your idea of how to run it, and nobody, not even you would have the time to run it perfectly according to your ideal. So get over it and get on with enjoying the many great things you can have fun with on KGS, as thousands do daily. If they can have fun in such large numbers, I am sure you can easily find a way to let yourself enjoy it too.


rubilia: By being hard boiled we can (possibly) adapt every single new user who runs into those problems. But we can't adapt the fact that the average new user is not familiar with such a banning policy. I suggest kgs should focus on lessening (the risk of) frustration induced by this. Else the faq needed to be supplemented by something like "If you get booted for one hour right after you answered a non-go-related question coming up when you joined the English Game room, you shouldn't bother asking for an apology - you won't get any."


Neil: Really, people, if you think KGS is so bad, there's a simple plan to follow.

  1. wget your games from the archive
  2. Stop playing on KGS and never contact its servers again
  3. Stop buying anything from or by Kiseido, and write them with your reasons
  4. Warn others not to either, and give your reasons for doing so
  5. Start or help another server

If you want to effect change at KGS, making trouble on the server isn't the way to go. Try to leverage the sponsor to your side if you want to have any effect.

Steve: Hu, now you accuse me of making mountains of molehills. You suggest I may wage a war against kgs. You suggest I expect "everything to run one hundred percent the way you (I) want it to." You inform me that the universe is not centered around me. I am not special. You advise me to get over it.

I think there is not a lot to gain by continuing this discussion, but I will repeat my point. The booting policy and practice is highly flawed. I don't think I will be able to make you understand this. It's a shame.

Neil,I don't think kgs is bad at all. I think it's great. It's only the booting policy that is bad. That and the inablilty of hu,wms and others there to realize this fact. Oh, and the somewhat patronizing and insulting attitude they use to respond to criticism.

Zarlan: This discussion has gone far too long without even getting anywhere. The problem is that everybody is saying "you made a mistake, ok, now stop whining" while Steve is saying "I didn't make a mistake, wms did".

Nobody is going to get anywhere this way. It's like when kids are arguing by repeting one single word (usualy yes or no or something like that).

So Steve, you claim that your comment was about go? Well ok, sure. One could say that is was (although I think it is a coment about telemarketers, with Go merely mentioned in passing) but would you claim it to be totaly go-related? Hardly. You also can't say you wheren't warned. Sure you didn't understand the warners status, but that doesn't make your booting less legitimate.

Making the warnings be bold seems like a nice idea to me, altough I don't know how necessary it is, as I haven't been on KGS for a while now. I see no flaw in the booting system. It isn't perfect though, so it can be improved.

Blake: Guys, please don't pursue this discussion here. Mr. Urick has copied the page to Usenet (rec.games.go); if you're interested in continuing the debate, please continue it there. If you don't have a news server, use [ext] Google Groups. I think the argument is likely to prove just as fruitless there--but it is the proper place. Sensei's Library is not affiliated with KGS, and I don't think that this is the place to argue its faults.

ilanpi: I believe that there is a very simple reason why this discussion is not appropriate here: This website is a record of accumulated knowledge, that is, contributions are meant to be used for future reference. If this is the case, then previous information deposited here should be referred to when relevant. In particular, most of what is being said here was already brought up on the pages KGS/EnglishChatRoom and KGSIssuesDiscussion, yet one fails to find references to these in this discussion. I don't see the point of contributing to the discussion if what was written before isn't referred to.

The correct place for repeating the same discussions over and over again is rec.games.go

DougRidgway Another great place to discuss KGS Room policies is the English Chat Room. This page should be for discussion of the SL page, KGSRooms. I don't see a single on-topic comment here, and I'd suggest it all be deleted.

ilanpi: Your first statement is definitely incorrect. The reason is that a discussion in the English Chat Room would require all interested parties to be present at the same time, and it would not leave a record for further examination and thought.

ilan: Even though I agree with everything Steve Urick said, I believe that he should have made more research on this site before engaging in this discussion, as almost all the points on both sides had been brought up previously. Though the relevant pages are easy to find, the information contained in them is spread out in rambling discussions.

Since this website is meant to be a resource to help go players, my suggestion is for people on both sides of this issue to summarize their arguments on a single page, so that in future, people who are faced with this problem can find a reference that will address all the relevant issues. More importantly, these people can be pointed directly to this page, thereby preventing constant renewal of these tiresome discussions.

I suggest that Steve Urick begins by summarising his own position.



This is a copy of the living page "KGSRooms/ Discussion" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.