Signed in, played move, signed out, green comments revealed. Signed in again, they were hidden.
Yes, AFAIK that is the expected behaviour. Malkovich log is visible to observers, hidden only to your opponent, thus if you need to log out for some reason the site sees you as a general observer and displays Malkovich.
It has already been discussed here some time ago with arguments for both possibilities (if you are interested)
If you dislike such design you can also vote here:
https://ogs.uservoice.com/forums/277766-online-go-com-suggestions-and-feature-requests/suggestions/14696247-make-a-private-malkovich-log-separate-from-current
That is totally nonsensical. As a game participant I canât see them but when I sign out I can? What in the world is the point of having them? As a matter of fact, it makes little sense that anyone should have access to them before the player does; that has no upside and opens the opportunity for cheating.
If this logic is not obvious, what is the overpowering argument against it?
No, as a game participant you canât see them, period. When you sign out, there is just no practical way for the server to know who you are, and thus it displays the Malkovich thinking you are just an observer, not a player of the match.
The original idea (according to sensei.xmp) came from this comment:
âOne of the things that I would like to be able to see is a match between two high dan or pro level players in which they described their reasoning processes prior to making a move. I imagine each player saying something like the following to his audience: âThis group that he threatened can live because of this, this and this ( draws diagram ); so my biggest concern is the safety of this group over here. Now joseki is thus ( draws another diagram) but because of the bleep over there, a less popular joseki like this will be betterâŚetcâŚetc.â He might take a hundred words or so and a handful of diagrams to describe how he makes the decision.â
That was the original purpose of the Malkovich log - to be able to provide fun and/or educational commentary to observers and not influence your opponent (now largely made obsolete because of the advent of streaming and live commentary, but still fun in correspondecne games and suchâŚ).
well, there is always a way to cheat if one really wants, but since the use of malkovich log is not really widespread at all, and even those who use it usually just comment on the current situation or past moves - not really explaining their plans I would say the potential for misuse is not very high. But again you can vote against this feature in the above link, or we can talk about creating a new functionality for âprivate notesâ during games. Maybe there is already a uservoice for that too, I have not checkedâŚ
1 Like
The first point about teaching or demo games is a sensible idea.
KGS has game type selections access: Private/not Private, type: Demonstration, Teaching, Simul, Rengo, Free, Ranked. If a game is Private, all an outsider can ever see is that it is in progress or over.
DGS games have Comments and Private Notes with option to tag text as hidden, see http://www.dragongoserver.net/faq.php?read=t&cat=365&e=75#Entry75 for complete description of who can see what and when. Users can select to observe a game http://www.dragongoserver.net/faq.php?read=t&cat=18&e=114&qterm=observe&search=1#Entry114. More on hidden or secret game comments at http://www.dragongoserver.net/faq.php?read=t&cat=18&e=345&qterm=observe&search=1#Entry345. I donât think thereâs any way to block others from observing a game in progress or accessing the SGF after. Except for that, players have the inconvenient option to make any comments they write private. However that does not have any effect on the other playerâs comments. Donât know if there are any discussions going on this subject.
Donât know about other servers.
Private Game/not Private Game is simple and can be applied across the gamut of types.
If private game, no one else ever sees anything. That leaves it at whether the opponent does or doesnât see something before game end.
If itâs not private, then options for hiding comments from opponent or observers should be available.
Iâd think Private Game must necessarily have Private Comments.
A not Private Game set-up should default with Private Comments but user can change to not Private. Ideally, a player should be able to take the comments private at will (this to effect both playerâs comments and only made not private by the player who set them to private, or by an agreement process).
Not sure if thatâs what you desire, but we already have the option to set games as private and since that makes observing impossible you could use malkovich as completely private notes (which will get visible after the game ends).
As far as private notes option in public games goes that is (to my knowledge) impossible at the moment, I think I have heard the idea somewhere already, but only similar post on uservoice I could find is this one:
which is probably not exactly what you are looking for.
So feel free to create a new one, I am sure more players would like it as well. Although the prioritizing is ultimately on our devs and this might still not be âhight priorityâ, I am sure they should get to it one day eventually 
1 Like
So nothing of an OGS Private game can ever be seen by anyone except the players?
If tournament games are public, it would make sense that malkovich comments (esp. as described in your quote) be kept private at least while the game is in progress.
My original comment was that it doesnât make sense for the âsecretâ comments only be secret to a player while logged in but otherwise open to all the world and then even to him when he rejoins the Great Link.
Yes, even after the game is finished. But you can add players manually to be able to see it by the right hand side menu if you later want someone to review for example. And I assume mods are able to see even private games, but not sure.
Yeah I understand. Thatâs the thing, the malkovich log is not really supposed to be a secret, the original purpose was different. The âprivate notesâ function that would allow players to make secret comments is something that is yet to be implemented.
1 Like
Are there any good examples of dan level games that were played like this on OGS? I mean with detailed commentary provided in the log during the game? Iâd be really interested to see that if anyone has any particularly instructive examples to hand.
FWIW, I agree that the utility of this is not what it seems at first, and there should be more warning about this.
This feature has a very limited usecase, itâs definitely a shame there there isnât what Aten was looking for, which is also what I was looking for: actual during-game-private-notes that you share in review afterwards.
This was discussed earlier this year, and some of the discussion was captured in this misleadingly-named idea:
Some time later this github request was filed:
Nothing happened since then that I am aware of.
I have never seen an actual Malkovitch game happening: if someone is doing that, it might be interesting to watch, but it sure could o with better advertising âŚ
GaJ
Iâve had few games where iâve kept malkovich logs when my opponent has asked me to, and i think itâs a great tool for correspondence teaching games.
Good thing: itâs lot easier to leave a comment in the middle of playing, instead having to remember what i wanted to say in a review after the game.
Bad things: itâs really hard to make a positive comment on my opponents move, because itâs mostly the mistakes that can be spotted right after they are played. This tends to make malkolog just a pile trash talk and negativity of "what on earth is black thinking, doesnât he see itâs a ladderâŚ"
Another downside of malkologs is that they are visible for other player only after a game, and when iâm playing a corr. teaching game iâd rather give that feedback directly to my opponent, so they can undo and find some other move.
Few, somewhat old, malkogames: Levvo's Corner and List Your Malkovich Game Here
2 Likes
I think your cbservations just prove that Malkovitch as currently implenented isnât useful for much.
As you said: for teaching, you want to give the feedback immediatly, so you might as well do it in chat instead.
For post-game-review, you need the comments to be private during the game, which Malkovitch logs are not.
I am absolutely positive that if the logs were private during the game, much more use would be made of it: I for one would love to be able to log what I am thinking for later review.
1 Like
Me too! What I currently do is keep notes in a text editor and keep them stored in a file named with the playersâ names. It works, but has obvious drawbacks and is not at all convenient on smart-phones ⌠
â Musash1
(Slightly OT chit-chat ⌠but since I was quoted ⌠
)
I for one LOVE Malkoviching
This post on the L19 forum is the IMHO best explanation of how Malkovich games sprang into existence.
Only problem I have is when I forget to click the M button before posting some thought or board domination plan. Otherwise itâs mostly a question of trust, and Iâve decided to trust people on principle and about those cases when somebody accidentally visits the page while logged out ⌠well, accidents happen, Iâm not really worried about that even though I often use the M log.
Oh, and I forgot: letting the opponent âlook into my mindâ is not my only reason for this, often itâs also to keep notes of certain situations, things I want to do, or traps into which I must not fall. And sometimes just venting 
Anyway, for me itâs clearly not exclusively altruistic.
1 Like
I think that I have seen some dan-level games using Malkovich logs, but I canât find the games (I checked a few likely candidates). In any case, you are not likely to get âdetailedâ commentary, as trying to do that by typing during a game is pretty awkward. Live streaming, such as Haylee does, is much better suited for that. As @Adam3141 points out, the main purpose is to provide a fun commentary for observers, typically in an exhibition game. One good example of this I can point to is the series of games played by @thought (who was 4k at the time) v. @coleki (e.g., D-Day). It did provide much interest for the observers, who numbered in excess of 20 for one of the games, if memory serves. It should also be noted that in an exhibition game between friends, there is no issue regarding cheating.
But most of the examples given here are not really âMalkovitchâ as the feature is designed.
This feature is specifically design for watching during the game.
All the stuff about it being useful to review after the game would be better served by âprivate in game notesâ that you can make public after the game.
And I think that this use case would honestly be more widely used if it were available.
Iâve yet to see an actual âin game Malkovitchâ session be advertised and patronisedâŚ