PSA concerning beginners

There are a variety for different things being mentioned here. Not all of which have to do with being a beginner and some things which may stem from deeper issues.

The first thing here is that players on OGS are not bound to an account. It is too easy to make a new account and behave poorly under the guise of a new account. Registering an account to an email should be a requirement. This will GREATLY reduce the instance of actual trolling.

The second thing is that a beginner WILL waste time, refuse to score, play random moves etc. It happens, in person, in go clubs, and on every server all across the world . It is had more to do with the ranks not properly correlate to skill. Between two 30kyu, playing a move like A1 might be new an exciting and something to wonder about. They might fill in their own territory or keep playing thinking it is possible to make an eye. However, between a 30kyu and a 1 dan this will perceived very differently or even disrespectful.

The best things then is to create a wider range of ranks or create “Rank rooms” - “Beginner Room 30K to 20K”. This will make sure that people of appropriate level players face each other. If the players are of similar level but exhibit behavior described above THEN we can take appropriate action.

However, Mark5000 is correct, We need to keep toxicity OUT of the community. Whether or not such actions are done on purpose we should behave in more friendly or at least understanding attitude. Report if we have a reasonable suspicion and move on.

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@RyuoHama While it might be convenient to play robots, I suggest highly that you do not play them. Anything with actual AI will be too strong and, from what I can see, robots without AI show an extremely high level reading for their rank and exhibit odd behaviors and incoherence.
While human players show bad moves a human will have played a move for a reason that we can talk about and understand. Was this a mistake? What was his or her plan? I played this because i though this. We can learn from other people because a same level player can see what the other can see.

My opinion is that you will get much stronger by playing humans and asking yourself.

  1. If you got the result you wanted and why did i get it here?
  2. Could my opponents have blocked that?
  3. If you did not get the result you wanted why? etc.

Once you have pondered about the game try it in another game. Then if the resulting trial does not workout try again or ask a stronger player.

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I’m 13k, and this means I play new accounts quite often. I have a couple of suggestions:

Could the website have an option for new users to say ‘I am a beginner’? If they select it, make their first game against an opponent who’s ranked below e.g. 20k. I’m very happy playing beginners, but I’m concerned it might put some of them off - their first few games are going to be against people who are vastly better than them. And if beginners played other beginners, you might get less complaints from more experienced players.

Often, if you try to talk to new users, they don’t respond. Of course, they might not know English, but I recently had a beginner create a second account to say that their old one couldn’t use the in-game chat (something to do with the way it’s set up). It would be handy if the website could tell me that my opponent cannot chat back - then I’d know they might be reading my messages, and I might say a little more than ‘Hi’.

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There is a whole manners for Go on sensei’s library @ https://senseis.xmp.net/?Etiquette
It talks about the face to face irl, and also about the internet go.

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Same here. I started to cancel games with new players not able to tell me if they are new at go.

I would prefer to either play a game with hight handicap against them or to do a teaching game with them.

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New accounts or more precisely, accounts to which no email address has been bound to, have no chat privileges, ostensibly to combat trolls.

Even if someone registers their account with an email address, unless they log out and log back in again, they cannot chat even if they wanted to. This tiny detail isn’t mentioned anywhere, as far as I’m aware.

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You can as many free email addresses as you want on the internet, therefor I don’t get how this should GREATLY reduce trolling.

It’s mentioned here

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I see...what you did there. (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
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It appears there’s an unusually high number of new players in September. Could it be the result of “The Surrounding Game” releasing on Netflix? Or is it something else?

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i would be very happy to have this as an option and as an opportunity for myself. I mean this is a sort of feature that could very well help with all ranks across the board. A ten Kyu learning from a five kyu, and a five kyu learning from a 1 kyu or above and so on.

I would also suggest promoting the “Learn to play go” function that is already on the website. Make it visible when someone creates an account, no matter what level they say they are. I remember back about five years ago, i thought i was close to being a four kyu player,… in reality, and because i didn’t know better, i was actually around a 16 kyu level. This does happen. and only with real instruction in how these things work, can a player who is new hope to understand things better.

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There is a bit of a back and forth here between what people think are important issues in relation to what is happening on OGS.

The bad manners
the Toxicity of handling new users
not enough functionality on the website to manage these issues
and lastly a way to ensure that new people only play new people.

However, i think that there are better ways of doing things that simply segregating users straight off the bat. and i do not think it wise to dictate to anyone who any one person can and cannot challenge. already in place is a system that prevents a greater ranking players record being smirched by a forced resign by a player that is being unbearably rude.

I do however think that educating new players and existing players on how to act and behave might be the better way to go about a task.

  1. Make the “Learn to play the game” function immediatly visable on a creation of an account.
  2. Make it so that one has to link up and confirm an e-mail.
  3. Add the teaching game option proposed earlier. (Because that would help a lot of people.)
  4. Upon creating a new account either put in a hyperlink to the etiquette of the game or simply list a few basic rules.
  5. Promote the use of Call a Moderator, If and when a situation arises where a player is either being rude, toxic, or Isn’t accepting that they have lost the game. Much in the same was as when two players cannot decide what is a seki.
  6. To make all of this possible i would suggest adding more moderators to OGS. But only to players that have proven themselves capable of being trustworthy, and have demonstrated that they have a fairly competent level of understanding of the game and an ability to mediate fairly.

I think if all of the above were put in to action then we would see a vast difference in what is now perceived as an issue that must be posted in the forums. OGS, is a great place to play GO, but it can only remain that way if the people on this site, are willing to not only help, but also do what is right in and of themselves to ensure that everyone’s experience of OGS remains as it should be, friendly, open and a great gaming experience.

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Agreed, but this:

I don’t understand. I’m ~8k and I have no problem playing newbies. At. All.

I just give ’em Handicap and/or play on smaller boards, also w/ hopefully appropriate HC, and enjoy them blasting me off the board :smiley:

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sorry, i should have made my post clear.

that was an example of some of the ideas that had come before. I’m against stopping new players from wanting to play more experienced players. Only in this way do people really learn. I have played people much stronger than me and learned a lot from the experience.

Also, side note, i think we are now about the same rank. Its only taken me a year or so but I’m finally above 10kyu.

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I feel like something else that could deter players is the starting rank being rather high. It starts at what, like 12.3k, which is way higher than most new players are at. Maybe start at 21k?

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The whole starting rank thing is an issue in and of itself I think. however, no matter what is done you are going to annoy some people. If you start it so low then you will have higher rank players having to work up from that rank and have that rank next to their name. Having people pick their rank is going to cause problems of weaker players claiming to be stronger and visa versa of that. Starting the ranking high will not only deter new players who don’t know the ranking but will also cause problems for the people of that rank who believe they are playing a person of that rank, even if there is a “?” next to the name.

The only other thing that can be done is to do a test or something, and that is equally as frustrating if not more.

No matter what is done in this area, someone is going to be annoyed.

Before you guys continue this discussion, best read the entire thread here: I think the 13k default rank is doing harm .

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Thanks for the link, will do!

I think it would be a good idea to allow new accounts to set their own starting rank up to maybe 1k, or possibly higher. This way beginners can start from the bottom and dans can start at 1k. Either way, I think airbaggers and sandbaggers would have their ranks adjusted pretty swiftly through regular play.

Much of this problem seems to stem from starting everyone off at the same arbitrary middle rank.

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Now you are going over old ground.

As @smurph said, this topic (the starting rank) is covered in depth here.

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Are we sure it’s a problem? Confirming e-mail is a bit painful, sometimes you want to try a website before giving up your e-mail. For example, lichess has an option to play completely anonymously against other anonymous players.

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