KGS Issue - Bot Plague
At KGS, it is possible to run Go playing robots like e. g. GnuGo or self programmed ones. Go is one of the hardest challenges to game programmers, and a testing field like KGS is a nice support to facilitate program development.
However, over time, the number of robots has considerably increased. There are often a dozen or more bots simultaneously offering games nowadays. Many of them are nothing but clones of the same version of GnuGo. I wonder if it's appropriate to give (or suggest to wms) some aid to people who prefer a clearer open games view. Just as an idea, we could have clickable column headers which would allow the user to sort the list in various ways, with the user type (i. e. human or robot) being a small distinct column. What do you think?
Javaness Personally I don't understand what the problem is. People are having fun playing around with computer Go and GTP, why is this socially harmful?
blubb: Thanks for your reply. My point is, if the count (actually, the bot fraction of open games) increases further, it will start to become an annoyance. I, for one, would not check a "censor all bot offers" checkbox, since I am interested and involved in computer go by myself, and occasionally want to take notice of what happens. I would like to be able to sort them away, though (e. g. to the bottom of the list, to find all human offers condensed at top).
Poketen?: I have never seen so many bots on KGS, but I agree that it would be nice to put them at the bottom of the list automatically. This would be easier for 20-30k when not enough bots and looking for one, or too many bots and looking for a human (note that in this case you can just create a game yourself..)
Here's a screenshot of the "Open Games" tab as it stared at me (blubb) today:
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4989197
Gresil: There's a much more irritating kind of bot plague: a pool has developed of players who play bots exclusively or nearly exclusively. These players' ranks are inflated many stones above their true skill level. They invariably lose to players of similar nominal rank who have acquired their ranks playing other people. There should be a sign comparable to ~ that is acquired for playing against bots too much. It is frustrating to have one of these people as opponent, and it is very hard to tell such a person by simply looking at his game list as bot opponents aren't visually indicated.
atila: In order to avoid the distortion in human users ratings, I suggest a modification in the rating system: All games played by recognized robots should not affect human opponents ratings at all. These games should only count to calculate/modify robot ratings. I don't think such modification would be very difficult to program, and it certainly would serve to the accuracy of human players ratings.
Steve: If games between humans and bots are not rated for the humans, they should not be rated for the bots either, since the ranks calculated for the bots will not be based on games which are not similar in nature to all other ranked games on the server. I would suggest that only a certain percentage of one's rated games may be against a specific bot. If that percentage is already exceeded, the bot should refuse to play a rated game against you (or the ranking system should ignore that game). For example, if the percentage was 5%, the bot will see if you have more than 1 game in your last 20 rated games against him (or ask the server this). If so, the game can not be rated, if not, the game can be rated. Extending this idea for human vs. human play may help remove the 'isolated pools' rank inflation/deflation issue.