So Fischer and byo-yomi have to do with time control. But that doesn’t tell me what they mean or how they differ.
It’s explained on the wiki page that was linked.
Fischer is some amount of main time, and some amount of increment added after every move. OGS forces a cap on time bank, but there are some contexts (mostly correspondence) where that makes sense. A cap on the time spent on a single move is not offered on OGS, but is another tweak to Fischer which is useful in some niche situations
Byo-yomi is some amount of main time, and then some number of periods of some amount of time. Once main time runs out, the first period starts ticking down, but if you play before it’s out, it refills. Once you run a period out, you lose that period. When all periods are gone, you lose. There’s a variation on it some famous tournament uses which has something like 30s/move, and 10 periods of 60s each, but here the 60s periods are spent the moment you start one, and the 30s period keeps resetting even when used completely (thus triggering the use of a 60s period)
Fischer example: 10m + 10s
Both players start with 10 minutes on the clock. When it’s your turn, your time ticks down. When you make a move, your timer is stopped and 10 seconds is added to your time. So if you play moves in less than 10 seconds, you can build your time back up. There may be a maximum time you can build up to, depending how Fischer is implemented. If you clock reaches zero, you lose on time.
byo-yomi example: 10m + 5x30s
Both players start with 10 minutes on the clock. When it’s your turn the time ticks down. This continues until the 10 minutes is used up. Then you have five 30 second periods. The first period will count down from 30 to 0. If you play a move before the period ends, it resets and on you next turn you’ll have 30 seconds again, still in your first period. If a period reaches 0, you enter the next period with 30 seconds. It continues like this until your last period reaches 0 and you lose on time.
Is “main time” the sum of the times spent in generating a response to the opponent’s move, or something else?
main time is the amount of time your clock starts with.
What wiki page is that?
There’s no necessary connection between one’s knowledge of how to play Go and one’s knowledge of how to navigate the OGS website.
It seems like a very reasonable point. I’d agree in the case of Canadian, as I don’t expect many people, tournaments, etc use it when the option of Fischer, or Japanes Byo-yomi is available with ease (clock availability etc).
Pandanet still seems to use it for some reason.
Just hide the changes under a bug, and remove it and see if anyone notices XD
The “Time Control” wikipedia page that was provided right above your comment.
Earlier in the discussion I supported providing better explanations on the “play page” to help beginners, but let’s also acknowledge it takes 2s to look it up online if one wants to have further information on common time control systems.
I think it will be good if some of the explanations here are added to the learn to play go page
Going a bit off topic here.
It has been discussed on the Forums that for beginners OGS is not really an intuitive site. Numerous thread of beginners asking for help about this prove this time and time again.
Of course there is as mentioned before by @BHydden Documentation & FAQ but for several reasons that doesn’t help much either.
On the Forums there is a possibility to create areas where a text pops up when you hover over there with your mouse. In this screenshot I hovered over the orange marked 39.1 and the text “this topic has been viewed 39100 times” pop up.
I assume that this hover-text facility is also available on the site.
And if so why not use it to explain things here? You view it as a HELP function that is directly available where you need it.
Some aspects to consider:
- font of text is rather small
- think it would be pleasant if this hover texts facility has a on/off switch (can imagine that it becomes rather irritating if texts keep popping up all the time)
I think that a feature like this is way more convenient than consulting the Doc & FAQ, because info is focussed on certain specific functions (and DOC & FAQ is a tremendous collection of all sorts of info).
I think after 1 month or so we’ll have enough data on which time control is most popular on OGS, so we’ll figure out which one should be kept.
You can find time settings explained on the internet. What is missing is the pros and cons of each setting that is not always so obvious to figure out without being tested.
Well, Fischer time is best, and all others are used by barbarians 
Maybe make a simplified quick match version of the current screen with just the estimated duration buttons and add a single “gear” configuration icon. Hide the fischer/byo-yomi, rank restrictions, handicap options. Start users with a site-wide default of flexible. Site can pick a reasonable default between Fischer/byo-yomi.
It would be just board size, duration, and the play button.
Clicking the gear fades to an expanded version of the current quick match screen that has flexible/exact + Fischer/byo-yomi preference buttons + “info” buttons for each setting. If “exact” is selected, remember the choice and on subsiquent loads of the play screen show the simplified page, but change the gear icon to show that something is changed e.g., a red dot on the gear icon similar to the filter functionality in the watch page. If “flexible” is selected, remember the choice and default that user to the simplified quick play screen.
Goals/assumptions:
- Default for beginners are simple.
- Curious beginners or users with preferences will naturally seek the gear icon.
- Info buttons only appear after clicking the gear, hiding clutter for curious users only.
- Remembering the choice and subsequently hiding for flexible preferences keeps the Play screen clean.
- Retains quick match menu for people who want exact, but don’t want to figure out custom game.
where specifically on the Net? URL, please.
OGS “documentation and FAQ” in the main menu.
Chapter: “basic differences between time settings”
There is link to the sensei library articles for more details.
I do like Fisher but nothing is perfect.
Chosing a time setting is like buying a wash machine. There is no best, there are your own constraints like size, budget, ability to do this or that, noise, easyness to use, etc…
I thought the laughing face made the obvious joke an obvious joke… but apparently the obvious joke wasn’t quite obvious enough. It does however remain a joke 