I found this thread through a different, more recent post.
I didn’t have a good experience with ? on KGS, so wanted to share:
I’ve played Go over 10 years. In the first couple of years, I played regularly enough to have a constant rank on KGS, but after that, I mostly prioritized playing in person.
When I would log back on KGS, my rank would be either ? or something like 3K?. I could never get games because people didn’t trust that rank. They were scared I was a sandbagger (even though I believe ? games did not affect the other player’s rank). This happened a couple of times and made me either “give up” or move to another Go server (Tygem, then Fox).
More recently, I started playing again after a long break. I came to OGS (because of the bad KGS experience). I feared the same would happen and it didn’t. I got a rank very quickly and easily found games. Frankly, this made me relieved. It was so much easier to get back into playing!
People are quick to judge, so I’d rather not have yet another label that’s difficult to get rid of / that people misconstrue.
Just my 2 cents.