This category is for discussing variants to the game, such as alternate rules or alternate board topologies.
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In my honest opinion we don’t need more categories, but less categories.
We already have more than 30 categories.
So, let’s ask.
Do we need more categories?
- Yes
- No
- Don’t know
- Don’t care
0 voters
I requested this category, because we have several topics about Go variants, and it would be neat to have a category that groups them together.
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The more categories, the less clarity in a categorial system.
I disagree 
This is quite a clear category, with a clear purpose and enough topics to warrant its existence.
What could be helpful in making the categories less cluttered, is to put more categories as subcategories of another. However, I don’t know what variants would be a subcategory of.
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Agreed.
Feel free to make suggestions for a better organisation of the categories. It’s going to be a lot of work to recategorise things, though…
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I did already some time ago …
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Go variants is a good suggestion, clear and simple.
Now about the more general subject of organizing the forum, I think it’s not that bad to go reclassify everything but still some big improvements could be made.
I’m thinking especially about the go general discussion which is far too big folder and would gain a lot of clarity with a few subfolders
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I suppose it would be confusing if the game wasn’t being played on the forum though, but only discussed here.
One can imagine the games played on OGS main site (like thue morse go) or on the variant go server (pixel go, hidden move, 3-4 player etc that it supports)
I would rather separate go variants and (other) forum games, as putting go variants into forum games.
It’s not about forum games, though, forum games are games played on the forum. If a go variant game is played on the forum, that’s a forum game thread. Otherwise it’s more like a discussion about weird rule adjustments to the game of Go.
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Team go, Detective go, Diplomatic go are in the Forum games category.
Some other variants are not.
team go is in many different categories: announcement, world news, suggestions, general go discussion… and even in forum games.
Maybe team go could benefit to become a category, I’m thinking even more when rengo is implemented on ogs.
I don’t consider myself team go as a real go variant because put aside how people are associated to the game, it is a go game with go rules. In that you can have go news, go discussion, go reviews etc… on a team go game.
I call a go variant a modification of the go rules (including materials ) which change the game in a way that go theory and technics can’t fully apply anymore.
So there are more to consider, like reverse Komi, 25x25… not only team go. These would have to be more a real part of the go world as some new go variant with a deep modification of the game of go.
In the go variant, we could have the one played in the forum (detective go, diplomatic go… ) and a folder “other suggestions” for the one not yet played.
then you have another folder “other forum games” with werewolf, Yahtzee…
The question is far too general so I didn’t answer. Some part of the forum could need less some more.
Maybe all these could be merged back in a new forum topic in meta because they don’t appear in the list of recent posts (being part of the description of a new category is my guess)
These three are Go variants, which could fundamentally exist outside of the forums. Indeed, the Team Go games are just played on the OGS, and the forums was just used for organization (and some of the private discussion, but those happen via separate private messages). Some Go variants might be played on the forums (as a matter of convenience and to experiment with pilot games), however, they do not necessarily have to be forum games. In fact, one might start a thread in “Go Variants” just to discuss an interesting variant without even having any plans to ever play it on the forums.
A forum game is a game that is primarily designed for playing on the forum (like Werewolf, Geoguesser, Raptor Game, etc.) and does not necessarily have to be related to Go.
@Atorrante, I noticed that you moved my “Diplomatic Go” thread (the main one to discuss the variant, rather than the game threads) to the “Forum Games” category. I moved it back to the “Go Variants” category since I think it is more appropriate there, as that main thread is for the general discussion of a Go Variant, and not a thread hosting a particular Forum Game.
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In short, I think the current category summaries already clarify the distinct purposes:
- Forum Games, where games on the forums are played
- Go Variants, for discussing variants to the game, such as alternate rules or alternate board topologies
Note that the “games” in first category is not necessarily related to Go (e.g., flags, language, movies, people, geoguessing, werewolf, etc.).
One might start a thread under Go Variants to propose/discuss a variant, but that does not necessarily mean that one would plan to play it on the forum. For example, in the past, I’ve used the forums to discuss some variants that we played elsewhere (Vorlon Go, Goban Football, Gonnect, 3x3 invasion into a “big corner”). On the other hand, some Go Variants might be suited to play on the forums (since implementing them elsewhere might not be so easy). In this case, the original discussion about the variant would still occur in a “Go Variants” thread, while actual instances of games would be played in separate threads under the “Forum Games” category.
There are some overlapping cases (like “Escherian” or “Random Gaps + Pie Rule”), where a variant was proposed/discussed and game instances were played in those same threads. However, I think that in those cases, the “Go Variants” categorization still takes precedence, since those are the definitive threads for introducing/discussing those variants.
I would actually recommend that the “Go Variants” category belongs as a subcategory under “General Go Discussion”. What do you think, @Vsotvep?
Of course, living up to my title, I’ve started a follow-up with “In short”, hoping to summarize with brief remarks, but wound up rambling on to create an even longer post than the first one.
He did play with one of my thread too, so i politely ask him to not change the title of one of my thread (including the category) without asking me first.
Who is he to take initiative like this?
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