I don’t think either of those premises are necessarily true either, but they are questions worth asking.
Being who I am, I would ask “how are we sure of what we know” when it comes to the assertions, ideas, proposals, etc given in this thread. I appealed to “universal design” and accommodation when I argued for analysis mode enabled by default, but I’m really based towards that thanks to my time teaching teach jr high and I have no evidence to support anything I said in terms of OGS/Go based statistics.
It’s hard to measure “performance” when the analysis tool is enabled, but I would be interested to know if the API tracks analysis enabled/disabled. I’d be willing to do some analysis if it was something that could potentially be investigated. It would also be worthwhile to track vital stats like age to see if there was a group that does clearly benefit, but I know OGS doesn’t do that.
as someone who got into Go recently, the Analysis tool was by far my favorite feature about OGS when starting out (it still is, i’m a dirty analysis abuser). Go makes no sense, which is why you’re supposed to lose 100 games first. But being able to play out different variations means you can understand why particular variations won’t work - beginners aren’t going to know what a ladder is until they either get laddered or try it out in analysis. I really do think analysis tool makes the game easier to learn and less frustrating to play as a beginner.
I agree - this is especially persuasive for correspondence games, when there is time for the beginner - and the teacher, if involved, to explore with it.
I actually don’t care about people who use bots, except in the following situations:
They use bots inconsistently to mess with lower level players. If I’m 10k, I probably shouldn’t ever see a (good) bot if I’m playing other 10ks. If someone plays me with their crappy 10k bot, I’m cool with that.
Spamming. Bots can play 24/7. But I’ll be pretty bothered if every time I click automatch, I match against the same person.
They are using bots to get prestige. (Like a tournament of some sort) I don’t want to see a bot winning every human tournament
It’s still my opinion that having analysis disabled should be more of a cultural norm on OGS than it currently is.
I’ve repeatedly heard people on Twitch criticising OGS’ in-game analysis as an unfair tool and a detriment to the game, which is also my view. As a “crutch” it can be compared to computer score estimation, CGS’ atari-highlighter, and even (in an extreme comparison) Tygem’s bot purchase feature.
I see several possible levels of analysis tolerance in non-correspondence games. I know the analysis feature is currently required to support conditional moves.
Analysis permitted and default. This is the current situation, which I believe needs to change.
Analysis permitted but non-default.
Analysis only permitted in unranked games.
Analysis never permitted.
I favour the third option.
I don’t mean to be a “vocal minority” but, as I say, I’ve often heard the analysis feature criticised.
I don’t know if there’s a separate thread for this, but I’d like to know the general feeling.
I agree with @bugcat: as a beginner, conditional moves help a lot in avoiding at least the biggest mistakes and work out why bad moves are actually bad.
However, I do feel like this might just stop me from learning to read and making progress.
Plus, feeling guilty for using something that enhances my performance
You can stay all your life just playing games with analysis enabled for both players, but then you will miss some activities in which it’s not allowed. Like real life games.
I couldn’t agree more! No analysis and conditional moves allowed where you just play your sequence with no undos… Or of you need one then you’ll have to wait for opponent to play it out and then ask nicely.