I agree, the Sync button is not obvious at first, nor its function, at least it was also the case for myself and some others I have reviewed with.
Maybe it would also help to have a clearer description of the ‘‘Sync’’ button, like ''Sync with player in control of review".
And/or perhaps have it change to ''Re- sync with player in control" when we’ve wandered off, if the review isn’t being synced automatically.
(And display something like ''Synced with player in control of review" when it’s synced, or force-synced?)
(Currently the button shows simply “Sync” all of the time, with no indication of when we’ve become unsynced/would wish to use it, apart from the green highlighted spot on the branches showing the player in control’s move location, which can become hidden if the review controller is on a move far away, and could be clearer.)
I imagine needing to ‘‘sync’’ to a reviewer, and also knowing that the review automatically “un-syncs” itself if a player explores other variations (very easy to do even if just going back and forth in a variation someone is showing, or clicking one someone has posted in the chat, to replay the moves), so that one then must “re-sync” to view new things being shown – isn’t obvious for many of those who haven’t used OGS reviews before.
(and/or for those who are accustomed to things like teaching games/reviews in KGS, which auto-sync themselves & automatically move when the review controller does something new)
This seems like a sledgehammer and doesn’t sound very helpful. Often, even if I’m reviewing with someone, a friend after the game, my opponent, I might want to listen to what they say, but if they’re around my rank they’ll still not know everything and so we might want to see where Katago would play, and it’s nicer having that in the review rather than having to open a separate window of the game elsewhere - people would rather just use ai sensei or some other site in that case than tab between two sources.
What do you in the case where you can pass control of the reviews?
I feel we’re thinking about this soley in the use case of one person reviewing, everyone else listening, as opposed to people reviewing a game together.
One non-intrusive way is to sync the AI toggle as you guys suggested, and additionally:
Display a little icon next to the name of every player who is “in sync”, which means they have at least one view (window) open that follows the reviewer.
The reviewer is presumably a more experienced user who knows about the feature and can remind the others to sync, but otherwise the site operates as usual.
Probably the “force sync” toggle should be in the hands of the current review controller? (not sure)
When “force sync” is in effect, the review controller sees hints from AI review (depending on “enable AI review” setting), but they’re hidden from everyone else.
I’m reviving this discussion because the AI being on by default continues to plague my students and I on a regular basis.
Students forget to turn it off even after we’ve been through it many times in the past.
Students get overwhelmed by the AI stuff on the board, especially in combination with what I’m trying to show and my own board mark-ups with the (awesome) pen tool.
Students frequently mistake the AI indicators for what I’m trying to say and show, and get confused by the lack of cohesion between the two, meanwhile I’m unaware.
Students get influenced and/or spoiled by the AI, ruining quiz questions and other teaching prompts.
Members of my group classes are affected by the above problems, and even if I say at the beginning for everyone to turn off AI, others join class late and then have it on.
I feel the need to try again on this thread because it’s really frustrating, even many of my students themselves have expressed that they wish it were off by default. I teach Go full-time and use OGS for everything, so… here’s hoping
Well imho the thing is to show that this is a problem for most of OGS users, not only for you and your students, so you could then get hopefully someone interested to do it.
If your advice contradicts what Kata Go says, then it is simply wrong. For all practical purposes, modern Go engine evaluations can be taken as a gold truth and teaching should be build around it, not in opposition to it.
You may not want for multiple reasons to have what AI propose always in front of your eyes. It’s not about contradiction, it’s about teaching and choice to do it in the way you feel
Is this an option for each user or for each game? If it’s user, is it better to change it to a game-based option instead? E.g. For reviews if the reviewer turns it off it will be turned off for all users viewing it
No disrespect, but what you’ve said is very wrong when it comes to teaching Go.
Learning is incremental, teaching Go is largely about concepts and ways of thinking, and different students need different tailored suggestions. Students will come up with lots of moves that are wrong to AI, but they will improve their reading and shape sense and stuff over time, so what’s important sometimes is how they’re thinking and what they’re trying to accomplish on the board, not whether their move is AI-optimal. Lots of AI moves are optimal only due to specific variations and details, what’s the use of that when the student would never be able to read like that in their game and doesn’t even have underlying Go concepts down yet.
Plus, often during teaching I have constructed only a local position instead of a whole-board position, so the AI will complain about unplayed corners and such. I’ll stop here… I feel like I could respond to this endlessly. I take it you’re not a teacher, that’s okay.
Yeah true that. Even “for all Go teachers and lesson takers” might (?) not be a big enough OGS demographic, although I feel like it’s at least a disproportionately important one for its size.
So, I don’t actually know how to use reviews on OGS at all. But I am imagining it’s like this: he wants to say something like, “we will first consider responding at the marked point”, and his students see a bunch of unrelated marks and have no idea what he’s talking about:
Meanwhile he can’t see them and has no idea what they are confused about. To me this situation just seems absurd. Do you really think he just wrong for wanting to discuss that move?
Yeah I like both of these ideas. I think there are many ways to implement the removal of AI on by default without taking away the commercial or other benefits of it being on by default, and being able to set that per game/demo/review would be pretty elegant and awesome I think…?
So we are in a kind of political choice, there is no real compromise possible on do we have AI by default or not in reviews.
If my opinion interest you, I find it not too difficult to switch it on/off so I don’t really care what is by default. I get your point (AI is not everything in the life, especially when teaching) , and I get the opposite one too (the newcomer who has no teacher but see awesome suggestions on the screen before he realizes he can even switch them off).
I like something @Sadaharu mentioned, which is to have it on/off by default as a game/review setting. I wouldn’t mind having to tick or untick a checkbox once per lesson/class!
Credit to this post too, I neglected to respond to this (and probably lots of other) post. Great idea, adding a mode or even a checkbox option, something like that. It seems like an easy and elegant solution that doesn’t hurt the other side of things.
Well if the choice made by the reviewer only has local temporary effect on the review users, I don’t see much inconvenience (and the users may switch back if they feel so, so it’s not a big deal for them to accept the default wish of the reviewer)