Well, let’s go with the flow. Alexander Hamilton, millions things I haven’t done, amending OGS’s TOS is for the battle 'gainst oppressors
coughs Sorry, I meant "let’s talk about how to improve the terms of serv
I feel like you don’t need to quantify this, just like the rest of the TOS aren’t really quantified and mostly constitute rough guidelines for users and alibis for moderators – which I think is a good thing.
Yeah, it’s technically possible for a weak player to win against a much stronger player occasionally, which is why (I’m assuming you meant this) you can’t really “predict” the result of a game just based on a supposed difference in strength, but in the vein of what we’ve been saying, I really don’t think the rankings are going to be significantly affected by this. (and if so, the cause would be more the fact that the current rating system is almost surely too volatile)
So the current TOS say this:
No Cheating or Computer Help
You can NEVER use Go programs (Leela, Zen, etc.) or neural networks to analyze current ongoing games unless specifically permitted (e.g., a computer tournament). The only type of computer assistance allowed is games databases for opening lines and joseki databases for corner patterns in correspondence Go. You cannot receive ANY outside assistance on live or blitz Go games.
Here is my proposal:
About receiving assistance while playing (human or AI)
You cannot receive ANY outside assistance, including but not limited to Go software (KataGo, Leela, Zen, etc.), with the following exceptions:
UNRANKED GAMES: (1) You can receive external assistance if you have the opponent’s explicit and informed consent. “Informed” here also means they are aware of the nature of the external assistance you’re receiving. As an example, teaching games are of course allowed. (2) In correspondence games, you’re allowed to consult game databases for opening lines and joseki databases for corner patterns, even without the opponent’s consent.
RANKED GAMES: (1) In correspondence games, you’re allowed to consult game databases for opening lines and joseki databases for corner patterns. (2) Ranked teaching games are allowed only as long as the teacher wins and it’s clear that the teacher is the stronger player, so that the ranking result is “correct”. (3) Special permissions, such as a site-wide recognized AI-assisted tournament.If you believe you know of a different situation that should be an exception, contact a moderator to ask for their opinion and permission.
Observations/motivations:
-
The current title (“No Cheating or Computer Help”) doesn’t quite cover the actual extent of the topic touched in the paragraph even in its current form, which is bad design for a Terms of Service page, so I changed it.
-
I specified that teaching games are allowed, and the conditions for them to be allowed in ranked form.
-
Since there was too much info, I reorganized the whole thing, so that the reader can quickly parse it and find the answer to the specific questions they may have.
-
I kept the clause about the AI-assisted tournament, but should that tournament really be ranked?
-
The “opponent’s consent” clause should also kind of take care of this:
If the game is unranked and the opponent consents to it, I can’t really see any reason for not allowing the consulting of AIs during a game, especially correspondence games.
I’ve long thought that AI assistance can be a valuable tool for learning, and that it’s a bit of a pity that these terms of service didn’t allow it at all and just lump it in the bucket of “cheating”.
In the above proposed amendment, I assumed people would agree with this, but of course feel free to change it if people disagree.
I guess somewhere in the TOS it should say “contact a moderator or ask a question in the forum if you have doubts about these terms of service” or something like that? I wrote it for the paragraph, but I think it would be good to have it as a general principle.
Who lives, who dies, who reads your story?