I am also a big fan of IWTG. I found it more helpful than reading the AGA’s / Karl Baker’s “The Way To Go”, in terms of learning Go. I’ve invested plenty of time into teaching newcomers and answering questions, though most of it is outside of the forum. I’ve really enjoyed this pursuit. But even more importantly, I feel that more love needs to be shown to educating potentially interested folks in the ways of Go. There just isn’t enough love for newbies.
One of the hardest things for a newcomer to wrap their head around is the basic Go concepts. I tried learning by just playing AI (Many Faces of Go), reading “The Way To Go”, and completing IWTG. The latter really helped hit it home for me. I think because it was overly exhaustive. That is what it took to hammer the concepts into my brain effectively.
As a teacher, I find new students learn the basic concepts really fast. With a person there to answer their questions directly and to demonstrate basic concepts in a live tutorial, people tend to grasp things the first time around. I do not think that tutorials can be as effective as live instruction. There are plenty of reasons why.
So, to make an effective tutorial you really have to put together an experience that combats the various reasons that tutorials are inherently weaker than live instruction. Maybe others can chime in on any reasons I missed, but I feel tutorials are weaker because:
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Many people don’t show the tutorial the same degree of attention as a human being.
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Nobody is there to hold them accountable. Most folks do not hold themselves accountable when learning new things. Self-led learning tends to be more carefree and exploratory, versus serious and analytical.
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Social perception of judgement by others can be a powerful motivator. With nothing to lose, some people lack the motivation to invest themselves in the process. Similar to how some kids perform poorly on homework but test fine in class.
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Readers must work harder to find the answers to questions they have. Live teachers make access to any information immediate. Impatience is a serious issue for many.
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A newcomer may be easily discouraged for a variety of reasons. A human being can interpret this can react accordingly; in order to lift their spirits or to try to regain their attention as the student’s eyes glaze over, when their mind wanders.
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While the information being taught is generally easy to grasp, you never know when the “aha!” moment will come for a reader. The path the tutorial walks the reader through must be as effective as possible, in terms of keeping their attention and simultaneously teaching new concepts.
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Tutorials must be informative, approachable, easy to understand, interactive elements must be effective, and there needs to be the “right amount” of information. Depending on your reader, the right amount may be a little or a lot of information. A tutorial, therefore, must hit a “sweet spot” between all possible user preferences. Unfortunately, when someone see’s a long tutorial, they may be turned off right from the beginning, regardless of the tutorial’s actual content.
In short, the way that a tutorial is constructed determines whether or not a tutorial will be effective at teaching and whether the average reader will finish it. I feel the original IWTG was a bit on the wordy side. The number of lessons could have been shorter, sometimes the number of examples for teaching certain concepts were too numerous, and the language could have been better in a lot of places.
Frankly, a tutorial needs to be tuned and honed over time, with copious amounts of user feedback, in order to reach it’s greatest potential. However, if a tutorial is not particularly attractive or effective from the beginning, getting user feedback is going to be like pulling teeth; if it comes at all.
There is a big part of me that wants to help you write this thing, but I view this task as being extremely complex. I’m not sure to what degree you are seeking “collaboration” and how much of the tutorial you are willing to potentially modify. That is, I’m not sure how attached you are to it, as it stands now.
I’ve taken a more thorough look at it and I feel that the tutorial needs a serious re-write. As @Mark5000 pointed out, I feel the text is a bit on the negative side. References are made to other board games that make Go seem elitist, as if other games were beneath it. No matter how I feel about Go, I do not agree that this direction is the right approach.
Explaining the rules of Go is extremely difficult. Just look at the Japanese rules 
. They aren’t alone either. Most modern rulesets struggle to convey how Go works without supporting commentary. I feel the only way around this is to have a thorough tutorial which effectively serves as the equivalent of ruleset supporting commentary. Simultaneously, I feel that a long tutorial will scare away more people than it will attract.
I’m not sure what the “sweet spot” is for tutorial length here. I just know that I am not particularly taken with the tone of the teaching that currently embodies the tutorial text. This seems like a great opportunity to help newcomers with Go. It is also an opportunity to, as a side effect, help the OGS community. So I find it hard to turn my back if I can be of some help.
But life is busy and time is valuable 
. Can you tell me anything more about what you are looking for in a fellow “collaborator”? I’d like to know what that means to you and what you are specifically hoping to gain or find in this person or people that you are seeking.
). If you would like to try and improve my texts and explanations, even better! Currently I am probably most displeased with the “counting” and “opening” chapters.
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I think I have expressed my ideas well enough above, so feel free to let me know what sort of collaboration would you be most interested in, either here or by PM. I started the whole thing mostly for fun, and would like it to be fun for all involved, so let me know whatever you would enjoy doing.