Playing noseki to pull my opponents out of their comfort zone is one of my favourite pastimes.
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TLDR;
- Conditional moves are important. Games would take forever if they weren’t available.
- Disabling analysis also disables them
- The two would need to be separate options before analysis could be disabled effectively.
- Conditional board can be used to analyze; remove the cancel button to mitigate
- Consider limiting the depth of conditional moves allowed (based on rank? a high dan would want to input 10+ moves, while a low kyu may only need one or two)
- [**edit: consider whether to allow downloading the SGF midgame at all - is there any utility? - for both options (analysis/conditional)]
Casting my vote toward automatically disabling analysis mode in correspondence games. Despite all the arguments supporting systematic game-aids (great for teaching, bad for competition), I’m not convinced of the need for them.
[edit to delete this part since this is not true; sgf cannot be downloaded if analysis is disabled: Setting aside the fact that someone can simply download the sgf midgame and analyze (another thing that should be disabled until after game),]
There is a critical point folks are missing about disabling analysis.
If you disable analysis mode by default in correspondence games, you also disable conditional moves because they are tied together in the system. This makes sense because the conditional move board can be used as a form of analysis board, so long as your opponent doesn’t play one of the variations before you cancel it.
We had an extensive discussion about this in a previous thread. The only proposed solution we arrived on was to:
- split analysis and conditional move options into two different toggles
- in the situation where analysis is disabled, also disable the “cancel” button under conditional moves. When an opponent confirms a move after reading, there should be no changing it.
Cheats can still abuse the system by playing a random 1/1 point or filling in their own point and then playing through variations without fear that their opponent will actually enter that variation. To hedge against this, the second proposal was to limit the number of conditional moves that could be confirmed at a time to 3 or 5, but this doesn’t work well for some folks who like to build out the endgame while waiting.
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With analysys disabled the download should be disabled as well already. Do you have another experience? 
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I originally would have agreed emphatically with StrongDog, and been cheering that argument. It is exactly what I wanted to say.
However, I have learned through this thread that there are in fact two reasons for Correspondence games.
The first is the reason I play them: it’s because I want to play competitively, but I don’t have chunks of time that I can play live.
However, there is a second reason: it is people who want to play slowly because they like to spend time analysing. This has been likened to playing by actual paper mail in times of old, where people would no doubt have had a board sitting there and were able to explore variations on it.
What I would like to be able to say to this is "OK, that’s an option, but let’s have it off by default. You can set up games that way if you want, but it’s not the default, because … "
Because why? I don’t have an argument why the way I want to play should be the default.
I have an opinion: I think it is “better” to encourage reading rather than use of a tool, but I struggle to justify why my opinion on this should prevail.
I think that any argument that Analysis needs to be off by default for Correspondence needs to tackle this point. I will be cheering if that argument succeeds 
GaJ
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With analysis disabled the download should be disabled as well already.
I actually did not know that. Whoops! I guess it just seemed this way because the default game setting is usually analysis enabled.
I’ll edit my response above to clarify that point 
Meanwhile, you can read my responses in this thread for a few more arguments against 1) disabling analysis and 2) disabling conditional move cancellation. 
Of course you have already read them. ^^
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These threads come up here fairly often, and I wonder if they are forming an echo chamber. People who dont like analysis on by default come and comment because they are unhappy with the status quo. People who like analysis on probably gave their opinion in the first thread, then didnt bother reading any of the others.
Strong arguments for and against. As there is currently an option to turn off the analysis, is there a way to see what percentage of games are being played with it on/off (outside of sitewide tournaments where the players preference is not taken into account) and then make the most popular option (on or off) the default?
It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think it would give a helpful answer.
You would have to count only those games where people had a choice, which might be a little tricky.
But more importantly, the proposal to have it off by default has an implicit goal of increasing the number of games played that way. The premise is that people play with it on because it is the default, and making off the default would be better for everyone because it would increase the number of games played that way.
In other words, the proposal to turn it off is not only “I think more people would want this, and it would be better for me, I want it” but also “even if they don’t strongly prefer this, I think it would be better for them this way”
I dont really want to get into a row about this, and I mostly agree with you, but the most oppressive dictatorships are done for peoples own good…
… that’s why I backed off my own press for this for Correspondence
I still back the dictatorship approach for Live though. I have yet to hear an argument why Analysis should be available at all for Live. But since I play Live very infrequently, this affects me less
I like analysis turned on by default. Playing out variations in analysis is much slower than reading them out mentally, so if people I play have the option and/or inclination to handicap themselves, I think they should definitely do that. ;D
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