Can You Help My Go Map? - baduk.club/map

Hey lovely OGS friends! I’m working on a map of the world’s Go Clubs, and I’m hoping to ensure its accuracy by having club organizers add their info themselves.
Baduk.Club previously wheretoplaygo.com

My Humble Request: please share this with your IRL club organizers and have them add their club info. Also, feel free to make an account as well :wink: feedback is always welcome!

Updates to the site since I posted on OGS last:

  • You can now create an account and add the info of a meetup that you manage. (The person creating the meetup/event will be the contact)
  • You can edit your profile with your name, contact info, and photo.
  • You can create one time events, for example tournaments.

Coming Up:

  • The ability to track games played with people you played in your club IRL
  • The ability to add yourself to the map if you would like to be contacted for on person games (especially useful in areas without regular club meetups)
  • Powerful data based tools to help organizers make informed decisions about their club
  • Lots of other goodies

Advice is always welcome! Although, I am already aware of many, if not all, of the maps which currently and have already existed. Thank you!

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Perhaps it would be a good idea to fill up the map a bit first? It’s a rather empty map… There are hundreds of active clubs with working websites / facebook groups / contact info that could be added. Many of them are on lists of go associations as well.

Granted, that information is not always accurate and up to date, so perhaps you could make a “confirmed active at this and that date” tag.

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Thanks for the comment! The intention is to keep the information up to date by only putting clubs on the map that were created by the people running the club. That way, we aren’t filling it up with bogus data. Making sure the info is quality is the highest priority, and then working on the quantity :slight_smile:

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May I ask, how are you attempting to raise awareness of this map with real life clubs? A lot of clubs will have telephone numbers which you could call to verify that they are open. In fact, getting as many of these as possible seems like the best approach. It seems unlikely that most clubs to be sincerely interested in actively keeping their information up to date on this one map.

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Added the Bakersfield Go Club. :slight_smile: https://bakersfieldgoclub.com/

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Terrific point! I have a couple of different thoughts on how this might work.

  1. Most club info probably won’t change too often. The plan is to have our site automatically email club reps every six months asking them to click a button and confirm their info is up-to-date or to update the info. That way we can ensure the info is updated while requiring minimal effort from organizers.
  2. I am currently hiking the PCT, but when I finish I’m going to start reaching out to club organizers to raise awareness directly. Most the current clubs on the map came from these conversations.
  3. If I can get enough interest in general, the plan is to make a case to the AGA, EGF, and other large Go Orgs to use this map as their go-to map. The idea being the more legitimate the site can be, the more used the site can be. This step is more of a political one than a technical one. Luckily, I’m on the board of the AGA and I have connections with key organizers in South America and I’m looking to develope them with Europe as well.
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Thanks! I hope to serve you well and help make your experience running your club even more enjoyable!

There is a list of British Go clubs on the British Go Association website.

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Although this will prevent most of the bogus data filling up the map, I bet that 80 to 90 percent of the clubs won’t be on the map, if you leave it up to them to register. This makes both the map quite useless (more so than if there are some bogus go clubs on it) and does not really incentivise clubs to add themselves.

How about adding the clubs as white stones on the map, and allowing people to confirm their club exists and is active by pressing a button, making the club black?

Even if you allow people to fill up the map themselves, I’m sure that you will end up with bogus data, as people can submit nonexistent clubs, clubs that once existed may cease to do so, or clubs might move location / time without notification.


Another suggestion: how about adding shops for Go equipment on the map as well?

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Well it sounds like you may be able to really succeed with this project, given the access you have to the AGA and key organizers. I still think the primary downfall of your design is relying on the shops themselves to keep this updated.

There will definitely be some folks out there who will take this map seriously and keep their information valid. But the vast majority will not. If you could find a way to get Go enthusiasts to help you fill in the map, you would likely have a much larger and more accurate database.

Fake information is always a possibility, but I think it is the lesser evil when compared to having an accurate representation of active shops. I concur with @Vsotvep about adding in Go equipment shops. If you feel strongly about it, perhaps separate maps for Go shops and Go clubs. Both seem equally important for helping raise Go awareness and helping people find key resources that aren’t digital based offerings.

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Thanks for sharing the list. After we’ve developed the site a bit further it is my hope to reach out to club organizers directly and invite them to use our tool and get direct useful feedback as well!

I like your idea of adding clubs/meetups prior to confirmation and then allowing clubs to claim or confirm the listing. I’ve thought about this before but I think it’s worth revisiting! It’d definitely be nice to be able to I invite any go enthusiast to help populate the map.

The map is just the start of what we are hoping to accomplish though. The overarching goal is to create powerful tools that help a club organizers do their jobs easier. As an organizer myself, I am familiar with the tireless hours and thankless work. And I feel that many organizers all over the world are likely facing the same challenges as me. So hopefully the continued development of the site can serve as a good reason for organizers to use it and keep it updated :slight_smile:

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Interesting info about the go shops. I am unaware of a single physical go shop. Alas, this may be due to my geography. Would you mind sharing more info?

I’m not sure about here in America. I assumed they would be a thing in other countries like Korea, Japan, and China, where Go plays a larger role in modern culture. I’m sorry, I can’t be of any help on this :sweat:.

Every year it seems there is a new Ultimate Go Map. Outside of sanctioned club listings on many governing bodies’ websites, there are several databases already. Counterintuitively, the introduction of another database amplifies the problem.

What I would love to see is several of these major databases come together for a joint operation, unifying data and making a greater effort to promote and publicize the service. It would probably necessarily have to be done through an authoritative website, such as OGS.

In the meantime, here’s the database I refer to if I ever need to. https://goclubdb.herokuapp.com/

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Hey, thanks for taking the time to write Marxy! As I said in my initial post, I’m aware of most if not all of the past databases that exist. But that you for sharing the link just in case.

In regards to authoritative data, I hope to work with various national organizations directly to serve as a tool for every country (big dream, I know).

But more importantly, the site will do a whole lot more than just list clubs. For starters, it will soon also list individuals looking to be contacted for an IRL game (much like the old site findgoplayers.com) and it’ll also list tournaments. But most importantly of all, the main plan is to build all sorts of tools to help go organizers do their job as best they can.

I understand your hesitation to trust yet another new website. But I’d encourage you to temporarily suspend your disbelief and skepticism and give us a shot. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

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I received 2 invitation to contact via email players near me.
My problem is that i can’t use the direct email fonctionality (my browser is not connected to my email in a automatic way, i usually simply use the email adress i get and never other sites work like yours on this).
Would it be possible to publish these email in the personal info(with some way against bots and agreements of the users of course)?
Or is there some way to get them, i mean it’s no secret as i would get them anyway by using the automatic process if i could use it…

Note: maybe my problem is bit specific but in any case if this could help others, i gladly may give more information on my material/settings.

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I’m always happy to help and as you said, the intended outcome is for you to be able to contact them.

Things to try:

  • click “reply” in your email and it will go to them
  • on the map, right-click “contact”, then select “copy email address”
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