Make "analysis disabled" the default (poll) - COMING SOON!

It will only lead to a lot of ladder misreads. Most kyu will do the same error, that Zero bots do.

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I don’t use it anymore, so I don’t care, but the analysis feature (in correspondence) was the main reason when I switched to OGS from another server.

Correspondence play is (from my perspective) not meant to be as close an experience as OTB games as possible. There is a very long tradition of correspondence games, much older than online play, and in that tradition analysing with the help of real boards was always allowed (even expected I’d say). Also correspondence play does not need to be a means for learning ‘real’ play. There are people for who correspondence play (including analysis) IS the real thing. I’m not one of them (anymore), but I don’t see a reason to make their lifes harder.

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Seriously, please do not disable it. Or at least keep it enabled for ladder games, games generated by sitewide tournaments and automatch games.

Pretty much all of my games are corrs from one of those sources, and i feel its so much easier to use the tools that ogs provides for checking different variations, than it is to re-create the entire board on some sgf-editor at the moment when i need to calculate ko threats.

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Seriously, please do not listen to someone who is saying they will still use analysis if it is not allowed anymore. Or just enable ogs ai during games if that’s how it works, since lots of people have to re-create the entire board on their bots.

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But why? BOTH players have the same tools at hand, so it shouldn’t make a difference.

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This is exactly the point of correspondence games for me. I don’t have time for live games or to think about/study ongoing games between moves

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You could make the same argument about botters. But we do care if we’re playing a real person.

Similar with analysis. It’s much cooler to participate in reading battles trying to outsmart each other knowing that it’s all brain and your opponent doesn’t just click through variations.

It’s especially relevant on 9x9 since if you’re using analysis for real, you play out the game to the very end minimaxing it to half a point.

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That line of thinking makes a tacit assumption that everyone who can use the analysis tool should use it, and I have the opposite opinion.

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I don’t think there is any difference between (human with good imagination) and (human with bad imagination that uses analysis), both may have equal rank and play style.

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Analysis mode is actually quite a good tool for accessibility reasons.

Plus, I suspect it honestly doesn’t help as much as people make it out to. It confirms what you suspect or know already.as in, it’s hard to find a “novel” move or to read deep beyond your currently level of creativity. If you don’t see the large knights move, then analysis mode won’t help you find that large knight’s move. It really only helps for small scale local situations, in which case the reading can be tedious.

When I used to come home from 12 hour shifts (where I sat at a computer and did a lot of writing and thinking), and I wanted to play go despite being tired, I would just have analysis enabled and would set the clock to 1hr so I could just focus on the strategic stuff and not worry about small scale deep reading. During those games, I certainly wasn’t really playing above my rank at all. Analysis mode helped me play at my rank when I was drained and tired.

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I’ve been playing some analysis-disabled correspondence games, and I love it. It is dramatically quickly (on the scale of correspondence) improving my skill.

That’s why I voted to have it off by default: I think encouraging this experience is worthwhile, and I prefer not to have to self-regulate: I prefer to have it switched off by the system at the beginning.

I withdrew this position based on Kosh’s arguments - in particular, the problem that “the default” is in fact “the only choice” for ladders and tournaments. That would cause this thing that is supposed to be a choice to be inflicted on everyone, which is not fair. (Compared to the current correspondence case, where I can always chose to turn off analysis for myself, if I am strong enough willed).

That said, I really truly do recommend DDKs playing with analysis off. It’s worth it.

(Jury’s out for me whether TPKs should have trainer wheels for learning to read: it might be a good thing)

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The argument that it improves your reading to disable analysis is not valid in this discussion: enough players here are not obsessed with becoming the strongest they could possibly be. So why force your own goals onto others? Especially since anyone can already choose not to use analysis as a basis. We even have a special option in the site’s main settings for this.

That it would be unfair is equally not a valid argument. For one everybody has the same tools at their disposal, and secondly you can’t even know if your opponent uses analysis or not, so why would you care? The only reason I can think where this is a problem, is when you run a (semi-)official tournament on this platform, but in that case you would use custom games with analysis disabled anyway.

Just let people decide for themselves how they want to enjoy their go playing pastimes.

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I agree entirely. However, which option we present as default informs the culture we establish on this platform. If we set analysis enabled as the default, people who have just started playing Go may be lead to believe that this is a normal thing to do - and I don’t want that. I will speak plainly and selfishly, I want a culture where using analysis is not considered the norm. At the same time, I don’t wish to belittle and bully those who do use analysis - I simply don’t wish it to be presented as the preferred way of playing.

So, instead of presenting either as the default, why not leave analysis unselected, and make the player choose which option they want. Make it clear that either choice is acceptable, and that as a server we don’t have a particular view about whether you use analysis or not.

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Couldn’t have said it better. This is the main question that is at stake here.

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Yes, except that is what I call forcing your own goals onto others, instead of leaving them the choice.

With the option in the settings, this is the status quo.

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Well, no, it quite clearly is not. Currently, analysis is enabled as default. You have to tick a box to disable it. I am suggesting that there be a drop-down box, where the player can choose to either enable or disable analysis, rather than presenting the biased option of “disable analysis”.

In regards to this, aren’t we all doing that? I would love to hear the reasoning anyone has to show that their preference is entirely selfless, and not in any way forcing their goals onto others. ^^

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First of all, I just want to say that I really love this discussion. It is clearly an issue that people both feel quite passionate about and have a lot of diverse perspectives on. Despite significant disagreements and incompatible preferences, everyone has expressed their views with civility and appreciation for nuance and compromise. I think it is quite remarkable to see such conversation in an online forum (a lot of places on the web would have reinforced Godwin’s Law by now), and it’s an inspiring example of what makes this community great.

A lot of people have already made arguments that I would have made, so I will just try to clarify my opinion and defer the rest to what has already been said.

Ultimately, I could live with whatever is decided. If a lot of people wish to have something different than what I want, why should my preference stand in the way of how they wish to play a game on the internet?

I have a preference toward disabling analysis for these reasons:

  1. As @Legault and others have stated, I like how it reinforces the concept that it is not the norm.
  2. It also has the effect of disabling score estimation, which I think is detrimental (as I discuss in previous posts linked above).

However, the usage/availability of score estimation is quite a different issue altogether, which I think should not be directly linked to whether analysis is enabled. I guess I’m of the mindset that the former issue is less likely to be addressed than the latter, so I see disabling analysis as a stop-gap to disable score estimation.

I’m actually supportive of having analysis enabled for correspondence and disabled for live/blitz. However, since I would also like to see score estimation disabled by default for all games (except for maybe in unranked games without mutual agreement), I’m willing to sacrifice analysis in correspondence for the sake of seeing score estimation go as well.

I like analysis in correspondence since I do think it is reasonable and within the spirit of classic correspondence games from the age of paper and post. I dislike analysis in live/blitz, since I think the power of this tool becomes amplified when there is time pressure.

A long time ago, I raised the question of analysis on these forums:

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Why? How are you sure it’s not the norm?

The old Chinese guys at my old go club would often flip their yunzi stones over in a live game and play out sequences they were curious about, then go back to the regular game and then they tried to play the sequence that worked for them, only for the other to have withheld a move or variation knowing that the other might have seen it. That is literally just analysis mode in real life.

And since we know people use it in games on OGS, with a fair amount of frequency, it is the norm to be able to use it.

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Well, not using an enabled tool is possible, but using a disabled tool is not.

By the way, i don’t want to take a stance on what ought to be the norm, I frankly do not really mind either option. My argument is mostly that it is nice if the site would be as inclusive as possible.

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Without analysis as default, people will share variations and talk about game they are playing now much less often. Few review after anyway.
It will be lonely…

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