By the way,
Yeah, but it is a good example that being welcoming is not enough. You need time, money and marketing skills.
That’s an added issue, that would get solved if instead of “hobbists that devote some of their precious free time to run EGF”, we had “professional people that saw all this as a business that had to succeed”.
We have to remember that those people in EGF are there on their own volition and free time. It is not their job, thus any complaint we might have, however valid or correct it might be, cannot be really adressed in a severe manner.
If I got to eat at a fancy restaurant and pay good money for it, I can have the expectation to receive good food professionally made, because that is their job.
If I go to the local churchlet where the people happened to give out some food for free after the service, I cannot complain that it was cheaply made and barely edible, because that is their hobby and I got the food for free.
The expectations and the results are reasonable to be lower.
Exactly, which is one of the reasons I keep saying that we need to market the game to kids, schools and parents, first and foremost.
They’ll probably play some other fancy phone app game. There are marketing hooks in a lot of these games (e.g. the lure of the gatcha or leveling up heroes or participating in guild raids etc) and interface hooks (graphics and special effects and stories) which Go, being a board game, doesn’t have.
Being less of an asshole to people from small countries that don’t produce pro players was free last time I checked. 
And why a lot get caught by chess? Because they found chess fun.
It is free, you are correct. 
There are a lot of good things that could be done with money and a lot of good things that could be improved without any money. I am just saying that since they are hobbyists, I am not sure that we can really complain about their performance/errors/neglect/whatever else.
They are not expected to do a professional level work and, predictably, they are not doing it.
μπέχο δουλειά, φάβα αποτέλεσμα, τι περιμένεις;
Because that this the Go equivalent game in the West. Chess is not only socially acceptable, but the kids might have had chess clubs, their parents might have played chess and so forth.
With all that comes money and marketing and that brings more players and if the people on top are good professionals at handling money and promotions, that brings a positive feedback of money and new players.
A similar thing happens here with backgammon (without the positive loop, alas).
Everyone and their dog here knows how to play backgammon. Is it more fun than Go? Not really. This is what we have, this is what people know, this is what people play.
It is easier to sail into an existing harbor, than land your ship into a totally new shore.
Or, “Because they found chess.”?
Sorry but can’t agree totally with you. Yes, of course, profesionalism, money, marketing and so on it helps, this can’t be discussed, but kids and a lot of people don’t know or care about if chess is more or less acceptable., in the same way kids get caught by chess and anybody in his family plays. My kid, for example. Yes, I play, and is because he knew chess, but he don’t see any youtuber, he doesn’t know about FIDE or local clubs, don’t know anything about tournaments or whathever, he just enjoy playing chess, nothing more, and now is going caught by Go, but I’m showing 9x9, not throwing 19x19 to his face, in the same way when I played chess we didn’t played 60m clock games, he enjoys fast games against the clock.
The key is do it enjoyable. Any of his friends play chess, or they are on a club or whathever, only he of all his friends went to chess extraescolar.
Of course, this is an important thing, I agree, and once somebody founds it, need to see it fun and interesting, right? or will never play again, because average player just play for fun and nothing more.
Something or somebody once attracts you to the game, you play, investigate a little, if you like it, keep on it, if you get hooked, then probably you will dive into it.
chess.com has right now 324.000 players connected. You think all of this players are serious chess players? federated and so on? No, most are players who play just for fun, some of them wanna improve, others just play some game when there is nothing better to do, and so on…others are new accounts because they saw his favourite streamer playing and wanna try, and so on…those who keeps playing later, is because found the game interesting
My point is Go has some issues. One is not be known in our culture. Here, community has the responsability to spread the word, and has this responsability because those who loves the game, wants the game be bigger, because this, as Jeth say, could translate to money, bigger events, better platforms, and so son…on the other side, not only promotion is needed, once you get a new player, you need retention, and for this, this new player must enjoy and get caught by the game, and this is responsability too from the people who teachs/show it. I don’t know anybody who plays chess and not go because chess is bigger, is because for some reason didn’t get caught by Go, and I’m talking about people who no plays OTB, only online, and online against randoms, where you don’t have problems to find oponents.
What are you talking about? I can go to a random cafeteria anywhere in my country and you can bet good money that they have 3 backgammon sets and one of them has a chess board on the flip side and that’s all the games they have.
Everyone and I mean everyone gets at least acquainted with the rules of chess and backgammon and you think that this is immaterial to the discussion of why chess is more popular in the west and how that came about?
On the same idea, if you arrive in a cafeteria and want to play Go, some will say “what the f–k is this?”, “ancient Chinese game? you know Kung Fu too mr. Miyiagi? Wanna wax the floor?”, yeah, social acceptability doesn’t matter, for sure!
You think I am going around my little village saying to other people that I’ve written a book about “an ancient Chinese game, let me show you how it’s played folks!” ??? I’ve been this village’s super-nerd all my life and I’ve enjoyed it, but I haven’t gone that mad yet, thank you 
None of the people I know here and I’ve talked to them about Go want to even hear about the rules of the game. Are they all THAT busy? Unlikely 
Every person is different, learns in a different way and enjoys the same game for different reasons.
When I played chess at home when I was a kid, we didn’t have time-settings. It took as long as it took and I lost - due to age difference - 1000+ times in a row and yet I kept playing because I liked the game. We cannot take that and say “here is the solution, lose a 1000 games in a row to prove your love to the game!”.
No, you have to get down to something more basic, something that applies to all people and has not gone further up the steps of personal quirk.
Why do people like “this” and not “that”?
Answer to yourself this simple question, why is it that in places like Great Britain or Sweden or Denmark, the sport of basketball has not taken off (even though they have the height to play on a high level), but football is something that most kids over there know about.
Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark’s national teams in football are solid and have been solid for a century.
In Basketball? Noone has seen them do anything in any major event, ever.
Is there something wrong with Basketball itself? No.
So why is that? See above…
Before we go and try to “fix Go”, maybe we should try and look into the fundamental problems that need to be adressed first. Go has been around for thousands of years, let’s not be arrogant here and blame the game before we have tried other things first.
Not always, but let’s not get into that. How many things have we all learned just because our parents thought that they would be needed and the concept of enjoyment or fun never came into consideration? Learning English comes to mind
If the parents are convinced that Go is good for their kids and their mental progress, growth and stability, that would have been a huge marketing boost, because they’d introduce Go to their kids more. Sure a lot of them would eventually drop it, but that doesn’t matter. You’d gain more players and more “social acceptance” so next time someone sees you playing they’ll say “oh, look it’s Go! I used to play with my father” instead of “what the f–k is that??”
I think that you will agree that it would be a vast improvement.
You are correct later about attracting new players and retention, but you cannot excell at BOTH at the same time. First we need to set some groundwork. I know that this is the era of speed, but some things cannot be rushed, easily.
Wait a minute, I thought you said that Go - and every activity - should at least be fun!
I do not think that most people here signed up for any “responsibility” A lot of people tend to forget that.
The argument over terminology seems like wasted effort. Actual practice on OGS splits the difference well, I think. Terms that are hard to translate (due to nuance or efficiency) are widely used on OGS: joseki, ko, atari, komi, etc. Beginners can and do learn these terms easily. Meanwhile, terms that are more easily translated (especially by analogy with chess) are already commonly translated by players: opening instead of fuseki, endgame instead of yose, knight’s move instead of keima, diagonal move instead of kosumi. I still have trouble remembering the terms for the individual types of moves (keima, kosumi, etc.) so I retain sympathy for the viewpoint of the beginner.
Trying to force the usage choice, one way of the other, seems like folly to me.
BTW, the dominance of chess in the West is simply the result of an historical contingency.
Oddly a much more important issue isn’t even discussed in this thread. Beginners who encounter a score cheat, or much more commonly a staller, in one of their early games decide that playing in a circus of cheats is a waste of time, and they leave.
We only need a Kardashian to post a photo with a goban in the background and western Go would be on fire.
Minus the censorshhip
The face??? You don’t know that family, do you?
Joke aside, if we could snatch any A-lister or celebrity we could make it, their fans will buy literally anything.
Because I’m tired of comparing Go to chess and how we should do what chess does etc, let’s get back to why OGS should adopt the features of other platforms.
Marvelous, Maybe is something on your country, but if the cafeteria has or not a chessboard there, is not what I’m talking about. Here there aren’t backgammons sets almost anywhere BTW
This has nothing to do what I said BTW. What I said is a lot of people who plays chess don’t care about the popularity at all of chess. Don’t play chess because it’s popular, play chess first because they knew it, AND because they like it.
Well, If this happens there, I will not be who talks about the respect of people in your country, but this don’t happens here.
Again, this must be something about your country and you, has nothing to do about what I’m talking about.
No idea, ask them why. Probably directly they are not interested, and it’s ok, you can’t force them. I know a lot of people who will answer the same about go, chaturanga, or chess…
No idea where this come from, I don’t have a solution or telling I have it, I have ideas and the thinking that people who want to learn Go must learn having fun, this is all. If is not fun, will not return to it, in the same manner people who play chess, play chess because enjoy it not because is popular, it’s easy to understand. Those who likes will invest time in the game, but first contact is important because determine if will be a second.
What we can agree here is that football is important in europe. I don’t care about football BTW.
Is not evenly remote to try to compare popularity of Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid and football in europe, with Magnus Carlsen. Kids want to be CR7, not Carlsen. 90% Kids recognizes CR7, only maybe a 1% recognizes carlsen. (percentages invented, but you understand)
We are not fixing Go, we are talking about ways to show and teach to gain popularity, attraction and retention. I’m not exactly the one who is being arrogant BTW.
The problem is you are focusing in money money money marketing marketing marketing, and this don’t exists and will not soon, and previously, I agreed with you about this, one of the problems of Go in western is the lack of popularity I KNOW, but I’m sure solution is not complain about there is not enough money put in promotion, again, this has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
It’s easy, because there are no money (companies, promotions and so on…), is community who has to put the time and efforts in growing this popularity. Everyone who wants, trys to put his own ideas and time (and sometimes money), you wrote a book, respect that, and I have a youtube channel and a lot of things I’m trying to move and do on my country (costing me money), and I’m not talking sacarstic to you BTW.
I talk about to make it fun when we show/teach to other, being because is a friend or a showcase, or because is somebody coming to the local club and asking. Because if this person is not get hooked, will not return, it’s easy. And it’s the same if you teach chess to somebody, and don’t likes it, he doesn’t care how popular is chess, if don’t like chess, don’t likes it, is easy to understand.
Just because game is not known here, you can’t crush or throw 4000 years of knowledge to the face, or this person will wake up and run.
Probably you have a lot of good ideas, I’m sure about, just try to be constructive…try it…
By the way, in French we use most of the time keima, tobi, ogeima, kosumi, fuseki, hoshi, san-san, shicho, yose… However we’ve borrowed “snapback” and “overplay” from the English.
I still never remember what are mokuhazushi and takamoku.
FWIW, I’ve had no trouble getting the kind of game I prefer on ogs.
I prefer correspondence because that is how learn. I give the benefit
of doubt to the argument that other people might learn differently –
in particular, that others might learn best from playing as many blitz
games as they can. But it is just doubt, not acceptance
–
Ian
Just as my opinion from the side of OGS I would change the default time settings of automatch. Don’t remember exactly how it is now, but could be interesting to be near how it is in the most popular server (Fox)
From 100% players playing 19x19 in Fox right now, 25% of them plays the slower format, and 75% plays the fastest formats. Just to take ideas. We don’t have to remove the standard normal format right now, of course, but maybe add an option in the middle of blitz and normal? I don’t know, because is splitting playerbase at all…
Any time I [8k] want a live game, I can jump on OGS and find one, 9x9 or 19x19, within 30s, so lack of players is not limiting me at all. Even my unranked 7x7 challenges get almost instant responses. If beginners are having trouble finding games on OGS I’d want to hear more specifically about their experiences.
(Admittedly I haven’t played much live 19x19 since the WSC so maybe my experience is not typical.)
Perhaps adding ranked options and ladders for 15x15 (the smallest size where you can also have strategy) and 17x17 (the original Go board size) might help the popularity by making it possible to play faster games where there is also room for strategy.
