Allow Custom Settings for Group Ladders

[yebellz]

Feature request: allow groups to customize the settings/rules of their ladders.

Various settings that could be customized:

• Time settings
• Game play rules (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, AGA, New Zealand, etc.)
• Whether analysis is enabled
• Number of active challenges
• Handicap settings?

This proposal has been brought up in several discussions in the past:

• Poll: [REDO] Pick your favorite time control settings for all future correspondence ladder games
• Ladder time limits
• Make new rules for ladders
• Ladder Rules Default To Japanese, Sadness X_X
• Make "analysis disabled" the default (poll)

I just opened the following GitHub issue to request it there as well:

Issue: Custom Settings for Group Ladders

[Kosh]

This has the potential to be a great feature of OGS which is already strong in correspondence.

The only thing I would reluctantly add is that the current bug of ladder game results sometimes not being processed (positions adjusted) should be fixed first so that the new feature makes a good first impression.

and thankyou @yebellz for putting it on Github which was long overdue.

[yebellz]

@Kosh

and thankyou @yebellz for putting it on Github which was long overdue.

I know both you and I, and several others, have discussed and suggested this feature in the past (which I’ve linked above). I was actually quite surprised that no one had opened an issue suggesting it yet.

Thanks for raising and documenting the timeout bug on the issue list.

[benjito]

Yes please

[yebellz]

I forgot about board size customization. OGS currently supports only 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19, but there seems to at least be some interest for a 25x25 ladder

Can I create a ladder with bigger than 19x19 boards?

Can I create a ladder with bigger than 19x19 boards? For example 25x25? If yes, how? If no, why not?

[BHydden]

This seems like the least likely to be implemented. I would consider the others possibly plausible though

[yebellz]

Do you say that because ladders are ranked, and 25x25 games are not ranked at the moment?

I guess another customization option could be to allow group ladders to be unranked, which might allow enabling some other customization options (like non-standard board sizes).

[shinuito]

There’s this really old one about Free ladders in private groups

[yebellz]

@yebellz

Time settings

I just want to stress this customization in particular, since I think this is the most impactful change to ladders that could be made. Of course, if customization is going to happen, implementing any or all of the other options would be really nice as well.

Personally, I would love to see faster ladders, and I imagine many in the Fast Correspondence group would like this as well. However, for me, faster ladders is just a “nice to have” and not really preventing me from participating.

On the other hand, custom time settings would be a real game changer for all those players that can’t sustain the normal 1-day increment pace of the current ladder system, which essentially excludes such players for being too slow. Ladders offer the unique form of an ongoing competition structure. Enabling custom time settings could really allow a lot more people to share this experience.

[shinuito]

‘The blitz ladder, forever changing’

‘I live for the live ladder’

Some campaign slogans

[Sighris]

One of the reasons I’d like to see a 21x21 or 25x25 ladder is that AFAIK it is difficult for the average Go Player to analyze the game with computer software. AI’s have now mastered 19x19 Go… Time for humans to move on up to bigger Go-Bans? I know if enough humans play on bigger boards AIs will follow eventually, but for a little while at least we can have games in which we are very confident we are playing a human (who is not getting help from an AI).

[Jirogo36]

@shinuito suggested a board with even side-length before:

Measuring the Perfection Gap: a case for Integer Komi

I was thinking about this while looking at an example in Berlekamps book. If one really wants an even game with Chinese or area scoring rules with integer komi, shouldn’t we in theory also have an even number of points on the board, that is play with an NxN board with N even? In theory you could end up with a game with equal areas under japanese (territory) scoring but with one extra dame point filled in that swings the game on an odd size board in area scoring. (I know there’s more to consider…

I’m curious about 20 x 20.

[yebellz]

Excited to see that some progress has been made towards this. Thanks @dexonsmith and @anoek!

The original GitHub issue was split off into several new issues, in order to track each aspect of the issue individually. The first step was to allow groups to set the rules used by their ladders.

Progress and links to new GitHub issues for each item

• Game play rules
• Time control
• Analysis enabled/disabled
• Handicap settings
• Number of active challenges
• Board size

Now, a group could specifically have a ladder that uses the New Zealand rules! @Maharani, do you know if an NZ rules group already exists? I would be interested in joining an NZ rules ladder.

Looking forward to future updates that add custom time control support. Then, finally, the Fast Correspondence group could actually have a fast correspondence ladder!

[anoek]

It’s all @dexonsmith , he’s been on quite the roll

[dexonsmith]

@yebellz

Now, a group could specifically have a ladder that uses the New Zealand rules! @Maharani, do you know if an NZ rules group already exists? I would be interested in joining an NZ rules ladder.

FTR, while the pull request has landed (automatically closing the GitHub issue), I think this hasn’t been deployed to production yet (perhaps not even to beta). I imagine, though, in the next few days?

You’ll be able to tell when it has deployed because the “Ladder card” in the group page will say “Rules: name-of-ruleset” above the list of ladders. For example, here is a screenshot from my testing:

When it deploys, all groups will initially say “Rules: Japanese”, since that’s still the default of course. To change it, a group admin needs to click the usual “edit” button, and the rules setting becomes a drop-down menu:

[teapoweredrobot]

@yebellz

if an NZ rules group already exists?

New Zealand Tournaments

[dexonsmith]

@dexonsmith

I think this hasn’t been deployed to production yet (perhaps not even to beta). I imagine, though, in the next few days?

Deployed!

[dexonsmith]

@yebellz

Now, a group could specifically have a ladder that uses the New Zealand rules! @Maharani, do you know if an NZ rules group already exists? I would be interested in joining an NZ rules ladder.

I created New Zealand Ladders, in case anyone would like to try it out.

[DarkSpark]

We’ve seen a lot of great improvements to group ladders lately. So, now you can choose a set of rules, turn on or off the handicap in games. This is all very cool, so I would like to suggest one more improvement that I think would look good in group ladders.

It would be great to make it possible for group admins to set up time controls in ladder games. We have groups for those who want to play faster and for those who want to play slower. And while in tournaments you can adjust time control, in ladders there is no such option yet. I think that the emergence of the ability to customize time control for ladders will significantly increase the interest of players in this type of competition.

[Samraku]

I feel like this has been suggested before in the context of the fast correspondence group? Sounds like a good idea to me