The first time I went to a go club, I’d only started holding stones the “proper” way for about five or six games. In the middle of one of the games that evening, a stone shot out from off the top of my fingernail and fired the stones in one area of the board in all directions.
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You need to wear in that fingernail!
Akira checks Hikaru’s hand and notices that Hikaru finger nail isn’t worn out from pickup stones,
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So X is about 75% in my school and the first response rate is about 30%. The total response rate from that X(75%) to players playing reaching 15k or better and playing for a couple of years is about 1% in this school.
So it seems possible to get a better result than 1 in a 1000 learning about go and sticking around longterm.
But it takes considerable effort. I must have spent about 1000 hours in the past 9 years to “harvest” 5-10 longer term go players out of a total of about 1500 children that have spent some time in this school during that time (of which maybe 1100 know the game exists, about 400 played at least a few games, about 150 kept playing occasionally, about 40 played dozens of games, about 25 reached 35k, about 12 reached 20k and about 7 reached 15k).
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At the end of the day teaching people to play go is probably an investment that might not even pay off in a generation
or two I imagine.
It’d be nice if lots of people who played the game one or twice fell in love with it but in some cases it might be more likely they grow up and tell their own kids about it than taking it up properly themselves 
Still great work teaching so many people!
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I seem to remember a quote by Pliny of Cato the Elder, along the lines of
“No-one who plants a fig tree lives to see it harvested.”
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An anonymous proverb often attributed to ancient Greece:
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
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The usual way to hold a stone let your opponent see better the goban.
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My son’s middle-school has a fall-festival fundraiser event where people (parents and teachers) setup and run various carnival games. I’m planning on making some oversized 9x9 Go boards for this event this year (if it isn’t canceled due to covid-19).
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So it seems possible to get a better result than 1 in a 1000 learning about go and sticking around longterm.
Indeed you can, that is why I think that children are the key to the promotion of ANYTHING. That is the age where you are more likely to pick something and stick with it regardless of how time-consuming it might be 
But if we are talking about campaing ads and promotion to adults? Things get much much harder.
But it takes considerable effort.
This is true and very very admirable. Especially if you take into account that what you do needs talent and skills. Inspiring people and making them want to learn anything, are skills that few people have.
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You can reach some adults through their children.
3 years ago I offered an adult beginners course in my village, but nobody registered.
But since about 2 years ago a few parents of the children club became interested after being badly beaten by their children at home. Before the pandemic we got together about once a month in a bar. Two mothers got to about 25k and one father got to about 13k.
Some families now have multiple players and a go board and similar befriended families.
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That’s exactly the reason why I am playing go now.
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I’m worried that the literature debate is derailing the thread to unnecessary degree. The example of the Russian LotR only goes to show that you can ruin a good book with poor presentation. My point is that the quality of the underlying story makes an amazing movie possible, not that any movie made from the story will be amazing. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Of course, movies are themselves creative works, and directors and screenwriters can change the story enough to make it better, but that’s a different question.
The fact that you did not enjoy GoT says very little about its merits as a story. It is indeed impossible to please everyone, but, while literature is subjective on an individual level, it is relatively objective at massive scales. The success of both the book series and the show are empirical facts. I think it’s far more constructive to assume that the average person can recognize a good story and try to work backward, even if you didn’t enjoy the story, than it is to assume that people are ignorant, seeking only sex scenes and violence. They could find far more of both of those sorts of things on the internet than in the weekly GoT episodes, let alone in the books. Why then did GoT capture so many imaginations? How else can you define the term “good story” than as a story which is good to many if not most people?
I happen to agree that the Stormlight Archive and many of Brandon Sanderson’s stories would make great movies, and I would bet money that they will eventually get adapted. Of course they would take significant investment. I don’t see how that’s relevant.
Go is not uncool or unpopular. It’s just a niche board game. You won’t be mocked for playing it, and many people will be curious about it if they see it for the first time. Most of those people will not be compelled to play it though. Fantasy had a reputation as non-serious because many critics thought they knew what a good story looked like, and tried to convince themselves and others that a fantasy story was less than other types of stories. Maybe that carried over and gave it a bit of a stigma. I admit that I was homeschooled and never experienced any issues from liking fantasy, so perhaps the issue was worse than I know, but I don’t think fantasy fans spent effort and money making their hobby more cool. Rather, it had merit and slowly grew until it was normalized, simultaneously becoming a safe thing for movie studios to invest it. The making of the LotR movies could then be seen as a consequence of the rise of fantasy in human culture, and not the cause of it.
Creative Writing Debate
There are many lords and leaders in history who have been outmaneuvered, trusted the wrong people, or were simply stupid. Why would fantasy be any different? In fact, a hereditary title being passed to someone not quite up to the task is pretty common in history. Ned Stark was a good general, and an inspirational leader, but he was very bad at lying and seeing through lies. He trusted Catelyn, who trusted Littlefinger on the basis of their childhood relationship. He hired Littlefinger. Who else could he have hired? Was that stupid? Yeah, especially in hindsight. But it’s entirely plausible in the world that GRRM presents. You may have especially strange and set ideas about what kings and lords MUST be like, but that doesn’t mean GRRM is a bad writer.
As an example, Rudolf Hess, a person of some authority in a nation far larger and better organized than any feudal holding, flew the England in the middle of WW2 to negotiate peace, with almost 0 chance of success. Neville Chamberlin, before the war, constantly refused to confront Hitler to the great downfall of the whole country, and he was the prime minister of one of the greatest empires in history. Do you really think that feudal lords, who attain their position by birth, are always smart and cunning? Caesar himself was killed by treachery at the height of his power. If you had read his story in a book, would you say that he was too stupid to have been a roman politician?
Actually, Ned Stark is just the sort of person that in history was favored by fortune for awhile but brought down eventually. Charismatic, honorable, bold in warfare, and capable of making allies and inspiring loyalty. He made the mistake, like Napoleon in Spain or in Russia, of putting himself in a position in which none of his strengths could be brought to bear. I could even make the excuse that many of his biggest mistakes were made after he had been wounded and drugged. But the truth is that a good plot with good intrigue does not involve flawless savants.
Btw, suspension of disbelief is what you want. Maybe you mean resumption of disbelief?
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I think that we are still on topic, since some of the points made about a different thing, still apply in promoting Go and, actually, anything else. Those are some very broad ideas, so they are relevant.
The example of the Russian LotR only goes to show that you can ruin a good book with poor presentation.
I totally agree with that. Wouldn’t you say that this particular version was objectively bad, in terms of presentation? I think that most people would. And there is where the subjective, starts getting a step towards becoming something objective, when most people agree on it.
So, I think that we will agree that in general the following sentences are correct:
a) something can look good, but in essence be based on something that is badly made and cause some people to dislike it. (like the GoT scenario/story)
b) something can look bad, but in essence be based on something that is well made and cause some people to dislike it. (like the russian LotR)
If we agree on that, I think that this is a good point to take out of the whole discussion, that any attempted Go promotion will need both visual and essential quality.
Now, another thing that we can learn from the promotion of comic movies, fantasy movies and books and other things like that is that, quantity is also of essence. Imagine if there was only one LotR movie and no other fantasy film. Or only one comic hero movie and no other film. Then, regardless of how successful the initial promotion via those movies, the public’s interest would eventually fizzle out, especially at this day and age with so many distractions vying for our time and attention.
If we agree that all those issues are worthy of consideration, then I’d say that this discussion has been very on topic, because those are issues that need to be adressed by anyone that wants to promote Go in a more centralized way.
I say this because our own personal efforts, however meticulous or well-made or time-consuming, have a very local scope, because there are limits to how many things one person can do in promoting Go.
E.g. @gennan 's effort is amazing and needs a lot of time and talent, but we cannot clone him and ship 100 Gennan’s round the globe.
So, I assume that the topic is about ideas about large scale advertisement that will could be taken up by larger national organizations of players and/or pro players organizations. If so, a lot of time, money, effort and talent must be invested for a long-term and constant promotion and any isolated small effort will be like trying to drain a lake with a water flask.
That is my main point.
On some extra things:
The success of both the book series and the show are empirical facts.
I agree. So, is the success of some of totally perplexing and quite baffling artists due to the “magic” of marketing. In my country at this moment “trap music” is all the rage even though it barely classifies as “music” with all that autotune. The success of something, is not a gauge of actual quality.
Other notable examples … ehmmm … oh yeah. Smoking and drinking and consuming fast food. Some highly successful activities with billions of revenue worldwide. It doesn’t make it healthy though.
I think it’s far more constructive to assume that the average person can recognize a good story and try to work backward
Assumptions must be based/made on data and observations though.
As you said it is an empirical fact that the show was successful
It is also an empirical fact that the show was progressively more and more focused on violence and sex, and not the cohesion of the story. One could say that they knew their audience well, eh? 
Have a look at that:
The more the story was neglected, the more people tuned in.
So, what’s relative here for Go promotion? We have to work with the attributes that the target groups actually have, not what we wish they had or we assume they had.
For example, I do not promote Go in my village. Why? Noone is going to play, I already know that. I made a couple of tries with some people that are already gamers and nothing came out. The rest of them haven’t figured out how to put garbage in a garbage bin yet.
Would I wish that people in my village were keen on playing Go and not throwing chewing gum in the damn basketball court. Yes, I so much wish so. BUT there is no data for me to assume that they are like that though, and ANY promotion that assumes that, will fail and lose time and money. 
Why then did GoT capture so many imaginations? How else can you define the term “good story” than as a story which is good to many if not most people?
By that standard then “gangnam style” with its 4 billion views just on YouTube is better than all the classical music ever written combined because it was more views and has inspired a lot of modern artists.
Ehm … no?
Popularity is irrelevent with quality.
There are some objective quality factors in anything that can be used to classify which is better than the other. David Beckham is a superstar. He is famous even though he hasn’t touched a football in more than a decade. Was he ever an overall better player than Joakin Sanchez who most people will have to google to actually understand my point?
No he wasn’t. Everyone knows Beckham. Joakin needs to be googled.
So, what’s relative here for Go promotion? We have to remember that Go is a good game, but being good does not mean that you can be or get popular. And vice versa, something that is popular, does not mean that it is something good or worth your time.
Go is not uncool or unpopular. It’s just a niche board game. You won’t be mocked for playing it, and many people will be curious about it if they see it for the first time.
As a kid you can get mocked just for having an odd haircut, let alone having a weird/niche hobby.
You assume that a lot of people are inherently tolerant about such things, but, again, not much data to support that.
I’ll give you an example as far as my country is concerned. Let’s say it is recess and kids have 15 minutes between classes. Choices:
Playing basketball? = Cool.
Playing football? = Cool.
Smoking or drinking a beer? = Illegal, ergo cool.
Doing nothing and resting? = Nice
Playing backgammon? = Cool.
Playing chess? = Pretentious mega-nerd
And that’s for chess, alright? You mentioned later that you were home-schooled so you missed out on that kind of crazy stuff, but kids can be very very horrible to one another. This has to be taken into account for any Go promotion.
Fantasy had a reputation as non-serious because many critics thought they knew what a good story looked like, and tried to convince themselves and others that a fantasy story was less than other types of stories.
Eh, not really. It was all that bad publicity about how fantasy novels and D&D are about the devil and witches and will corrupt your kids …
Similarly the same applies to oriental practices like yoga and meditation where in very conservative areas it can be seen as “unchristian” and “contrary to the ethics of the area” … also a thing that should be taken into account for Go promotions since it’s advertisement heavily relies on promoting a better way of thinking.
but I don’t think fantasy fans spent effort and money making their hobby more cool.
No, eventually that effort was made by people with power and money, in the movie industry.
So, quite a lot of things are on topic after all
for the slightly off topic tangent on GoT
The making of the LotR movies could then be seen as a consequence of the rise of fantasy in human culture, and not the cause of it.
LotR were the books that put everything else into the movie scope, since they were the books that even gave fantasy books credence in the first place as a literature branch. That is what elevated and insired all that came afterwords in terms of books and, when the time came, in terms of TV and cinema and popularity.
There are many lords and leaders in history who have been outmaneuvered, trusted the wrong people, or were simply stupid. Why would fantasy be any different?
Oh, yes, no argument there. But those that were inept on such an epic scale didn’t manage to last the year, as the local saying goes.
In fact, a hereditary title being passed to someone not quite up to the task is pretty common in history.
Greek history especially is quite extensive on that … oh, the amount of people without skills that just inherit power. 
He trusted Catelyn, who trusted Littlefinger on the basis of their childhood relationship. He hired Littlefinger. Who else could he have hired? Was that stupid? Yeah, especially in hindsight. But it’s entirely plausible in the world that GRRM presents. You may have especially strange and set ideas about what kings and lords MUST be like, but that doesn’t mean GRRM is a bad writer.
Here is the deal. A king/queen, be they good or bad, understand that they have an elevated position and they are there to RULE. That’s the most basic thing about any ruler, be it real or fictional. Be it a ruler that got deposed or a ruler that lived all their lives ruling and died peacefully decades later, you cannot be a ruler, unless you are, as the word demands, ruling people.
A ruler, like Eddard, cannot sit down, have all his retinue and trusted friends be assassinated in the middle of the street and do nothing. Killing his subjects is basically ending him as a ruler and demoting him as “just a man” and indeed later he acts almost alone and, of course, fails and dies. He was no longer a ruler and the fact that he passively accepted that is slightly unrealistic.
What for me seals the deal is the actions of his wife. No ruler (by position bred to be wary of tricks) trusts just one person and refuses to summon and take the councel of other advisors. She learned about that dagger, automatically assumed that it was true (it is not as Littlefinger had a good reputation or anything).
I could have believed that a ruler then proceeds to summon their leader of the guard/law/espinage and ORDER THEM (as rulers do) to get to the bottom of this and maybe inform the proper authorities that a dagger was found and witnesses that claim that it belongs to Tyrion. This would have made Littlefinger commit to his tale and make him sweat if it was a lie (which it was).
Even a bad ruler ORDERS someone else to do something about an issue. Rulers, usually, tend to be bad at actually doing stuff on their own. Their job description is to RULE and to ORDER others.
It it like right now, Bill Gates learning that there is a bug in Windows 10 and call everyone in the company and say “stop working everyone. I will fix this singlehandedly” … would you have believed that tale? Would you have said that this is a good CEO? No. So, why would you believe that a ruler would abandon their kingdom and go on a clandestine, secret quest away from their seat of power in order to gain personal revenge (without EVER doubting the veracity of the ONLY witness she had) and, upon finding that person revert to “going through a legal process” via which she eventually loses (again because she is in the power of OTHERS and away from her kingdom and her subjects that would have enforced her rules).
This is madness. This is forced plot of monumental lack of logic.
I was trained for 4 months as an army officer during my mandatory army service. The first thing they taught us? While training we are nothing, because we hold no rank . We are at the bottom of the hierarchy. When we get a rank, we are also nothing if we have no people of lower rank below us.
It is the most basic stuff about ruling and hierarchy, I really cannot stress that enough. If you doubt that I should inform you that my current rank in the Greek army is Captain. This means that I am supposed to command around 100 people but, since we are in the reserves, I have no authority and no troops. Ergo, my CURRENT and REAL rank during peace, is nothing and all I have is a uniform with three bronze stars in my closet
No subjects == no rulers.
To return to books, the only adverturer-ruler that I can think of that is correctly written as such is Bruenor Battlehammer. He usually leaves his seat of power in full understanding of the implication that he rules noone when he does that and he indeed does that because he was an adventurer BEFORE he was a ruler. It makes sense as a character, whenever he does that. Some other times when he has to rule, his obligations prevent him from departing his kingdom, as they should have prevented Catelyn had she been written with even an ounce of realism in being a ruler.
As an example, Rudolf Hess, a person of some authority in a nation far larger and better organized than any feudal holding, flew the England in the middle of WW2 to negotiate peace, with almost 0 chance of success.
While this is true, I have to point out two things.** A)** it is still a mystery why he did that and B) this exemplifies my example. A ruler/general does not disentangle themselves from the environment and the people they rule, else they have no authority and they are just “a commoner”.
A letter from Hess would have carried much authority to the British, had Hess remained in Germany.
Hess himself, away from Germany and his seat of power, was “just a man” of no consequence.
So, your historical example proves that this is a VERY bad idea that came about under mysterious ciscumstances and made by a person that was not “groomed” to be a ruler…
If you think about it you will struggle to find an example where an actual lord/king/queen/general/ruler of any kind would willingly separate themselves from their subjects in times of danger.
Btw, suspension of disbelief is what you want. Maybe you mean resumption of disbelief?
I meant to write that suspension of disbelief is interrupted, but I got sidetracked. Thank’s for letting me know and informing of the term “resumption of disbelief”. I was not aware that it is in use, but it is a good phrase to know.
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https://gobase.org/studying/articles/rehm/
Small articles about Go, in Dutch, for sending to newspapers.
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Convincing a major cellphone manufacturer (Samsung) or just a mobile carrier to preinstall a Go app on their phones would be awesome.
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Playing Go on a magnetic set with someone in your group (friend, family, coworker, spouse, etc) in an airport terminal while you are waiting to board your flight (high visibility).
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Last byo-yomi or last call to board? 
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That is actually an awesome idea!!! I wish I had 100 thumbs up for that.
I was passing by to just say again that we need to adapt to the attention spans of the present, because I saw the new trailer for the Foundation series by Apple, and I remembered the parallels we drew about promotion from GoT.
One comment underneath put it in a more eloquent way I could have ever done:
Tough times for promoting a game (or a movie) without mega-graphics, even though Go can have conflicts aplenty.
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