Virtual Ko Threat/ Discussion

(The discussion below came before the first paragraph on the parent page was revised.)

Stefan: Why call this virtual? What's the distinction with another ko threat? It does appear on the board, right? The idea seems to clash with the use of 'virtual' in "virtual groups", where it refers to possible groups that are not on the board (yet).

Bill: They are not ko threats. They are miai pairs that counteract the effect of certain ko threats. I originally called them phantom threats, but of course, they are not phantom, either. I have also called them tertiary threats, but, really, they are not ko threats. They are ko threats only in a virtual sense, hence, virtual ko threats.

Andre Engels: I do not see why these are not ko threats. You play something, and force the opponent to play something else. Sounds like a ko threat to me.

In fact, I'd even go further, and say that many ko threats are of the kind that is described above - taking away a half-eye from a group, so he has to make the other half-eye a full eye. Cutting off one connection so he is forced to make the other one uncuttable. Etcetera.

Bill: Andre, that is not the kind of miai pair that I am talking about. Somebody else started this page in an attempt to explain one of my terms. I am sorry it ever happened. Someday I may do something with this page. But not right now.

{Revised on Nov. 6, '03.}

Charles Bill, if you look at ko threat functions, you'll see that I extracted this term from there in November 2002, while that page was written in December 2001. I don't think you can be surprised at that, after nearly a year. Not long afterwards I created the Ko Pages - Taxonomy path, to gather up all sorts of scattered remarks on SL. Not only is it the entitlement of anyone visiting this site to do this, I think it is a constructive step when anyone improves the access to material by collating and organising it.

Can I say that 'attempts to explain (anyone's) terms' are part and parcel of the development of Sensei's Library? And that for my part I don't think disapproval is a 'correct' reaction? How does that fit with If it has a name, know it?

Bill: Cher Charles, I just took another look at ko threat functions, and the short paragraph there in which I introduce the term, virtual ko threat, still seems clear to me. Perhaps that is just because I wrote it. However, at least 2 people have plainly misunderstood the term as presented on this page. I think that that is sufficient cause for complaint. In addition, tertiary ko threat was made an alias for this page, incorrectly. Also, an explicit link back to ko threat functions would probably have helped. At least people could have seen my original presentation. If they still misunderstood, that would have been my problem.

Charles Bill, the wiki term applied to areas that are 'someone's problem' is walled garden. It is a term of deprecation. The whole outfit is a collective. That is why there is a convention about reserving space for 'work in progress' - the default is quite the other way. And I note that at Wiki Master Edit the point is raised, whether Gowiki should offer the idea of 'locking' definitive pages; but it was never implemented. That leaves us free and easy. Something I value.

I may well have slurred over the meaning of tertiary ko threat: I do see that you call 'virtual' the miai pair and 'tertiary' the playing out of it - if I now have that correct.

Bill: Charles, I like the idea of wiki and collective authorship. I do not want pages locked on SL. But at the same time there is a responsibility for representing what our fellow authors have written correctly. (I do not mean in back and forth discussion, where mutual misunderstandings are part of the process.)

In this case, I think that there was inadvertent misrepresentation for two reasons. 1) The synopsis was too terse. My 3 line paragraph could have been copied here. 2) There was no direct link back to the source. E. g., "See ko threat functions."

In a hypertext document, which a wiki is, providing the direct link to the source is a natural thing to do. If you had done that, I would have had no complaint. :-)