There was a discussion recently about where official go games from Irish tournaments would be played if they need to be played online (eg correspondence tournaments, qualifications for the top 8 tournament). (We actually are playing a correspondence tournament on OGS at present).
It was basically asked where do people play and what’s the best if you want to tell people there is/will be a game on if they want to watch etc.
Some of the plusses for OGS were you don’t have to be logged in to watch, you can just send a link directly to the game.
The minuses I believe were for scheduled live games - were it on kgs, you could just tell people the game will be at x o clock in the Ireland room and they can just see it appear (maybe it’s easier to kibitz? I haven’t tried). I think some other people found the layout a bit clunky on ogs/had trouble with conditional moves. Otherwise I’d say it was close with OGS/KGS.
So the Question is, while there is a group, is there a way to set up a game in the group? As in it’s easy for people to find the game, without say, having to know the usernames of the players when the game is already on/have someone link you it?
The short answer is no. Currently the best way to promote and locate a game is here on the forums. Start a thread specifically for the tournament advertising the dates and times of rounds, and then when the games start, post the game links in here.
External tournaments being either hosted or relayed on OGS is a very new thing, and one we weren’t previously set up to handle, and there is ongoing discussion on what would be the best way to accommodate these new use cases. It was a very pleasant surprise, but a surprise none the less.
For each group there’s a chat and you can put game link there. Also you can make a group announcement with links and it’ll be on the front page of the group. IF you want to use groups for that.
Just had our first Covid19 virtual club meeting using OGS. Basically it is too hard
to get any interaction when you need to have the Home page and the Group page open all the time. Minimum requirements are:
Games between group members must be accessible/visible from the Group page
Members who are on-line must be flagged on the group page, rather than. have to make the friends and go to the Home page
Thanks for your feedback Neville, those are great suggestions.
For a bit of context for the rest of you, Neville is Vice President for the Australian Go Association Inc. and also runs the Canberra (Australia’s Capital City) Go Club. He is also the Oceania director for the International Go Federation.
The next step is harder, but would make club interactivity possible:
The current news are should be replaced by 3 possibie displays, selectable by icons
a. The news items
b. A list of the games currently being played by group members [it may be necessary to add flag to the game record]
or c. A list of the games the user is currently playing in the group
(really hard part) if a game in 1b is selected the game is shown in that area - or at the very least the group discussion is still visible, and the 3 icons above
if a game in 1c is selected the game can be played in that area - or again at the very least with the group chat still visible, and the options to return to other group displays a b or c
(This is a precious old copy that I have tacked to my desk of a comic from an Australian Gliding magazine. It might be that only a person who has been into gliding in Australia can fully appreciate, but maybe the sentiment translates somewhat…)
