Making Go More Popular

   

Charles Matthews A complex issue, as anyone who has been involved long-term in the promotion of go will realise.

Suppose the question is 'make 19x19 go played within the Japanese or Chinese or Korean traditions more popular and well-known in the rest of the world', then I think we know there are a few fundamental problems. They range from the availability of equipment, through lack of reliable information, to the question of export of values and culture which don't travel easily.

The other aspect is adaptation of go to its potential market. One very obvious feature is the use of small boards for teaching (one should note that some outstanding go teachers don't use them). There is capture go. It has been postulated that choice of rule set has an effect (I personally am sceptical, which isn't to say that no one benefits from teaching based on the 'sophisticated' sets of rules). There is go on servers, which very largely removes human contact. There is go at shorter time limits. Pair go was designed with this in mind.

One way to get a more sharply defined discussion seems to be to ask and debate what type of infrastructure does best at reconciling these two sides.


This is a copy of the living page "Making Go More Popular" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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