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Scoring And Counting Discussion
Dieter: I extracted this discussion out of the MetaDiscussion, a.o. to bring it back under the attention of our RecentChangesJunkies #:-7. In the meantime, most of the protagonists have gone ):-(. Are we happy with the way SL addresses scoring and counting nowadays ? 2002-10-05 RobertJasiek: A much more important issue is the Basic Rules of Go Page. It needs a master editing the most urgently. I have tried to write one on my PC the third time now, at least the rules contents. However, a master editing of that page is the most difficult and I have failed to find sufficient time for it so far although I know exactly what the contents should be. I only don't know how to realize that contents quickly. So I tell you my thoughts: There must be separate (!) pages for: 1) The basic rules and nothing but the basic rules. 2) Some basic strategy and nothing but basic strategy. 3) Traditional environment for every rules, basic or not. Details: (1) It should use simple rules with stone scoring. The terminology ought to be restricted and absolutely consistent. Each diagram may show only one thing in it (and not too many moves at the same time removing at different places of the board). No strategy, absolutely NO strategy should be included. (2) connection, eyes, life, death, etc. (3) Standard board size, visual aid hoshi, komi, handicap, mentioning of difference rulesets, etc. November 3, 2001 I want to complain about the recent massive revision of the pages relating to scoring and counting. My complaint is not about the new material, but about the deletion of the old. Just because you think that what other people have done is not correct is not sufficient reason to go about deleting it. Make your own page or pages, and link to them if you do not want to discuss your disagreement on the current page, but don't delete the existing material. I wanted to make some links to the ButtonGo page. The relevant text on those pages has been replaced by other than the original authors, so that the links are now meaningless. Other potential links are difficult to find. ArnoHollosi: Which pages are you talking about Bill? I remember two major changes: one done by Robert Jasiek, and one by MtnViewMark. But pages as such are not deleted, so they should still exist. If you feel that the pages no longer contain something which you consider important than I think we can find a way to restore the stuff. If you click on the title of a page you can have a look at the previous versions of the page. Let me know what is missing. Refactoring or MasterEditing as it is called in wiki slang is a process which is quite normal. However, refactoring should take all relevant opinions pro&contra into account. This wiki is relatively young, so let's attribute the change to a misunderstanding and not to malice. Overall I think MtnViewMark did a good job, but I haven't followed the scoring pages to closely. Let's try to find a way to integrate what is missing without destroying the current pages. Dear Arno,
I do not think that there was any malice by anyone, nor do I think that the contributions of Robert and Mark are anything but good. The distinction between scoring and counting was not drawn in the original pages, and it is a useful distinction. OTOH, there is a history of referring to scoring methods as counting methods, with some justice. You count different things. --Bill Actually, the distinction between scoring and counting was indeed made before I edited the pages. In fact, several pages had been renamed prior to my edits to enforce that distinction. Taking those as cues, I felt it was a good distinction to make. After ready many sources on rules, almost all souces talk of two kinds of Scoring, Territory and Area. Then rule sets are discussed as using one or the other scoring system. Hence, it didn't seem to make sense to talk of "Japanese Scoring", but rather that "Japanese Rules" use "Territory Scoring". As for "Korean Scoring", from what I could tell, the entire discussion on that page referred only to scoring in Sunjang Baduk and so was moved to SunjangBadukCounting. I don't believe that any information was deleted at all with one exception: Robert Jasiek's original, "math formula" style descriptions of Japanese and Chinese counting methods (not scoring) was replaced with a longer, more wordy version. My goal was to enable non-mathematical, non-technical types to learn and understand how these mechanical counting methods are done. There is a page, TerritoryAndAreaScoring, which has the information you propose to be split. It well could be. However, there was deep discussion that I didn't feel was ready to be condensed. Splitting the page would require a WikiMasterEdit, which I hope someone will do. I believe that there is a need for information of both practical and technical nature when it comes to rules, scoring, and counting. I tried to factor the information so that the practical could be found easily, leading then to the detailed techincal information. I also realized that people often use these terms loosly so it is hard to know when a person comes looking for "counting" what they're really after. Hence, I put explanitory text at the top of each page with lots of links. Lastly, as I noted in my announcement when I did it, yes, I knew that many links would need adjustment throughout the library. I'm sorry if you and Robert Jasiek didn't like my edits. I welcome continued evolution of the library. MtnViewMark, I provided factual (maths type) descriptions of some particular counting methods because I had them available ready on my website, I like precise text, I wanted to offer a first draft suitable for reediting, and expected all you eager library writers to do exactly that. So in a way, I should be grateful to you as the person having done "reediting". Your intention of making the contents more "user-friendly" is very nice indeed. However, I find it unfortunate that your replacing texts in ChineseCounting, JapaneseCounting, and StoneCountingMethod contain factually doubtful terms in wrong contexts, as I have indicated there appropriately. In rules matters it is essential to use a language where the choice of words and phrases equals intended semantics. IMO, you still need to learn the power of clear rules language. This should be improved by a wiki master editor, if someone wants to do it before I will find time. Bill, my friend, you are right that traditional or informal usage of rules language (like in the phrase Japanese counting) coexists. Personally, I try to be very strict about my stylistic usage of rules language since I teach it as a clear, precise, unequivocal, mighty research and didactics tool. This does not mean that everybody needs to be as strict, however, whenever somebody is not, one must recall exactly his semantic intentions and possibly just his knowledge depth. Here, e.g., calling counting the traditional way of denoting scoring is wrong because of being too simplifying; equally likely "a particular combination of scoring and mechanical counting procedure" could be meant, i.e. the speaker would not know (or bother about) a clear distinction between scoring and counting. Hi MtnViewMark, I personally think that you have done a good job in reorganizing the counting pages, and I have no complaints about that. After all, performing a WikiMasterEdit is bound to delete some unnecessary information, at the judgement of the WikiMasterEditor. However, what you should have done is to at least rename the orginal pages with the prefix Old. For example, some time ago when I edited the ChineseGoTerms pages, I have the original copy stored in OldChineseGoterms. Maybe if you have done that, then Bill will have less complaints? :-) --unkx80 Right after the WikiMasterEdit by MtnViewMark, I became aware of the inconsistency with the linkage, so I started to relink where appropriate. However, I left SL during several days without completing the job and it never came back to my attention. Bill's criticism seems to be twofold. The one on content is inherent to the job of MasterEditing, can be anticipated by the Old... suggestion by unkx80, but Arno already pointed out that such Old... pages are sometimes more of a burden (IIRC Arno). The complaint about linkage is more pertinent to me and points to an intrinsic weakness of the Wiki philosophy. Especially when MasterEditing includes shifting content to other pages, the editor must apply caution. The other librarians however, and in particular the ones whose contributions get affected by the masteredit, have the duty to vey on (waken over, Dutch speakers) the continued consistency of the linkage. Dear Mark, IIRC, most of what I am complaining about was done by my friend, Robert. I do not think that people used the term "counting" loosely. I think it is broad enough to encompass both scoring and counting methods. It may have been a good idea to make a clean distinction between counting and scoring. But I think that discussion was necessary before making any changes to the then current material. "Stone counting" seems to truly ambiguous, but, pace cher Robert, I doubt if "Japanese counting" is. I think it is used to refer to Japanese scoring. My suggestion would have been to use something like "Japanese counting method" to refer to the mechanics of Japanese scoring at game's end. But that is water under the bridge. Dear Dieter, As for links, I think that the Wiki Master Editor should preserve their integrity, at least for the references listed for the page. (That list is not necessarily exhaustive, right?) Sometimes that means making them refer to the old page, which is archived. Best regards, Bill ArnoHollosi: as for Old... pages. I don't like them. After all SL keeps old versions. So ChineseCounting could be ChineseCounting before Robert. A masteredit should not change the content of the page (under normal circumstances). Thus the references should still be valid. It is right that the list is not exhaustive - "referenced by" is limited to 10 entries. Currently only homepages and maybe some selected pages (sente? etc.) have more than 10 references. If, how Dieter points out, content is moved to other pages (i.e. a page is split into parts), then the minimum to do is have links to those pages (e.g. "Information about counting can now be found at counting"). A responsible mastereditor corrects at least the most important links. If not, wiki plays its key strength: everyone is an editor. I.e. if you find a link that points to the wrong page correct it. Just like some people correct spelling mistakes from time to time. Looking over the pages before/after I agree that Robert made some major changes, which may have not been in everyone's interest. MtnViewMark did a good job as far as I'm concerned. Dear Arno, About "Old" pages: SL may keep old versions, but that material becomes unavailable, right? Isn't there a need (as here, I believe) to keep it available? If not via "Old" pages, how? Many thanks, Bill Arno: I don't understand, what do you mean by unavailable? The pages can still be viewed and they can be linked to (although not as easy as current pages) - see my ChineseCounting example above. They can no longer be edited. I agree that older versions of pages are somewhat less visible - which is in our interest, no? If the material really is valuable you wouldn't have removed it in the first place (at least I hope so). So I don't understand the need for Old... Pages. For historical purposes just link to them. It's like now where you say: "Former discussion at OldPage". OldPages are rarely edited, are they? Am I missing something?
Bill: Par'n my iggerance. It is not clear to me how to view previous versions, how to find what I'm looking for, or how to link to them. Please explain. (In fact, a page on the topic might be a good idea, if one does not already exist.) Arno: view: either by going to the pageinfo page (click on the title) - not really for everyday use, I agree. If it is important, then link to it, e.g. phpwiki:?ChineseCounting:v21 as in here not handy, but you do this rarely. As for search functions: you can't search in the archive. So overall, you are right: archived pages cannot be compared to "live" pages. Maybe I should be more precise: don't create Old...pages just for archiving purposes - SL does that for you. If you think that it may sparc some new discussion, then keep it live. If you think there's valuable information there, then you should keep it in the live "masteredited" page. I reckon that some features of SL are not well described, archive pages being one of them. If someone likes to create the description, this is fine, otherwise I will do it myself, when I find the time. unkx80: I understand why you don't want "Old" pages. :-) But I shall give one feedback: It's almost impossible for us to know just from the outset which version is the one that is before Master Edited. As in, if the current version number of ChineseCounting is 30, how to tell that version 21 is the archive before Master Editing? :-) (I changed "ChineseScoring" in Arno's text above to "ChineseCounting") Arno: Well, it's easy, but it should be described better (maybe at WikiMasterEdit): at any time click on the title of the page. You are then taken to the pageinfo-page. All previous versions are listed there, you can view them or see the diff. (thx for correcting my errornous link)
Bill: Thanks, Arno. :-) This is a copy of the living page "Scoring And Counting Discussion" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |