There should absolutely be a link to http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/ right after one has clicked "I’m new to go"
Something BIG so people can see.
Something like “Hello. Click here to read a good tutorial about go for beginners OR click here to continue to explore this server”
We have something coming up soon for this 
If I recall correctly, OGS had completed a tutorial that appeared when you signed up as a new player.
However, I can’t find it anymore!
The reason I ask is because I wanted to introduce my friend to Go, and I really liked the OGS tutorial.
Did you guys take it down?
I think you mean the Player Guide, which no longer has a presence on these pages, but is still available here: https://ogs.readme.io/docs/ Presumably the developers will restore it to these pages when they have the time.
I don’t know what happened to the tutorial, but there is this thing, that might be of some use, although it is not so pretty as the OGS one was.
http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/
Great link 
Pls cf. the opening post:
IMHO IWTG, the Interactive Way To Go, should be a required course for every beginner.
There are several sources that would be very good to include in an intro page. IWTG is good and does not require an account but stops at the minimum needed to start playing with a full deck, i.e., ko.
For people new to the site, a reference to Senseis Library World Wide Rank Comparison table is useful to have http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison. Also useful for players here who decide to go to other venues.
321Go http://321go.org/home/ covers the basics but has more advanced material too; making a free account opens up access to a lot of resources (basic tactics, problems, a youth website, etc.) Language coverage is parochial compared to IWTG, just English, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish.
IGS also has a nice introduction to Go http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/introduction_of_go/ that goes beyond the basics IWTG offers and no account is needed.
In addition to IWTG, I refer new players to Senseis Library http://senseis.xmp.net as a reference. I think it’s worth directing attention to Basic Living and Dead Shapes and Good and Bad Shape. They can find just about anything else starting there.
Everyone gets told to do Go problems, there are probably lots of sources but GoProblems.com http://goproblems.com is old and has the 30k to 6d time trials.
Another thing that’s nice to know about is Go Proverbs. I guess there are online sources, I have a well worn copy of The Nihon Ki-in Handbook of Proverbs trans. & ed. by Max Golem.
One online source for Joseki is http://eidogo.com. It includes Joseki Tutor: Kogo’s Joseki Dictionary and Kombilo / Pro Game Database (which lets you select a series of opening moves and see games where that configuration occured.)
References to the various major Go organizations are a valuable resource. Six of them cover a lot of the world and the IGF lists all.
American Go Association http://www.usgo.org
European Go Federation http://www.eurogofed.org
Nihon Ki-in http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/english/
Korean Baduk Association http://english.baduk.or.kr (NK has one. So what.)
China WeiQi Association http://www.weiqi.net (Taipei and HK have ones too but that might start a war.)
Australian Go Association http://www.australiango.asn.au
International Go Federation http://www.intergofed.org lists 76 organizations in Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania
Don’t want to overwhelm new go prospects, do we?
There is also a resources page in the main menu: Play Go at online-go.com! | OGS
and some nice link collections in the forums:
I guess spreading introductory information around like Easter eggs for people to find could be fun for them. That’s if they know there are eggs to look for and are old enough to enjoy the hunt. I think younger ones might enjoy finding an Easter Bunny basket on the dining room table.
Having a dedicated main menu entry for a big pile of resources is not exactly hidden, is it?
You probably don’t realize you are making my point. Other Go Resources? That is right were a newcomer heads to find out the most immediate answers about what he needs to get started playing the game? Mixed in with other crap…I mean categories…like Comics, Music, Videos, Software, etc. That’s exactly what I meant about an Easter egg hunt.
I am thinking along the lines of a New to Go? button. I’m in the site now and I don’t see such a button unless I stared straight through it. Life is not easier for a newcomer if they have to learn the ins and outs of the site in order to get useful or helpful information. One reason for including the organizations is, among other things, they might find a local club where they can meet and learn from human beings. It might be their only opportunity in life to play across a real goban with real stones.
I could critique that Other Resources page but just one example: You got a game out of Asia where today’s strongest players come from China, Korea and Japan and not one of those organizations is listed but Argentina’s is?
No, you’re right, there used to be such a thing (mainly a go tutorial and I think 1-2 links afterwards), but it’s not accessible right now (hope it’ll come back, though).
But I don’t see the point in having a beginners’ link page, which would still contain a big pile of links (like all those different go associations), just to hide the ones you deem unessential.
I wasn’t thinking of a page of links although a focused set of links is not quite as useless as a general set.
If it wasn’t clear, I have in mind something a little more along the lines of what I’ve written in my sales pitch. A few brief paragraphs that give the user advice about some selected things. Tell them what it is, what it’s for or why they might find it of value at this stage of their career. The links are embedded in the discussion.
The three sites for introductions to Go are an example. IWTG is a basic “what you need to know to make an informed start” and it’s interactive aspects are especially good. It takes me about an hour to read through it carefully like I don’t already know it and calmly click in answers for all the problems; I think a beginner could do it in 2 to 2.5 hours. The other two cover the same introductory material but go further to the next level of concepts. They are more verbose, more of it like one encounters in an introductory book.
To keep things simple, the list is curated to give a few good choices, not an exhaustive list. They can be referred to other places on the site where there are more extensive choices. (That doubles as a bit of an introduction to what is where on the site.)
I can’t point to an example because I don’t recall seeing something like it. However, when I started I didn’t learn anything about go online. I had played one game with an old guy, had an elementary book already, didn’t play for years and started playing at KGS, DGS and a local club.
With the resources available online, I’d advise new players not to run out and buy books, especially not Joseki dictionaries. I think Graded Go Problems for Beginners (Kiseido) might be worth buying but I don’t know what’s available in e-books or the like. There’s a description of them at http://senseis.xmp.net/?GradedGoProblemsForBeginners
Splitting into learning about Go and learning about OGS is fair, experienced playrs aren’t going to look at a Go beginners page for how the site works.
Similarly, for “exploring the site”, I would favor something like I suggested for the learning about Go.
In keeping with the spirit of that I’d favor something similar that gives a brief guide about how the site works. One example: it took a while before I fully appreciated that the Forums are really a different site with preferences and messaging, etc. that is independent of the Go side. That was not intuitively obvious. I expect main menu choices to presented in the way they are to navigate within a site, not to a different one that is linked by a string (login and users).
One example of a different way to do it might be a Site Map like this which gives a tree structures to various things you might want to see https://www.dragongoserver.net/site_map.php.
The site guide already exists. See my previous comment, above.
I looked everywhere at OGS and I don’t see anything, not on the About page, not on the Other Resources page.
Oh, you mean the old thing of which there is no mention and to which there is no link from the OGS site? Did you look at the “skeleton” that I referred to?
I’ll have to get back to you after I finish going through it. I did not have a small book in mind, I really didn’t have anything in mind that wouldn’t fit on one page (say 8"x11"). Since I’m new and don’t know the site inside out, I can’t draft something off the top of my head.
First pass: That’s a good piece of documentation. As it is, a set of drop down menus for each of the main sections that shows links to the subsections would be nice; better than scrolling through the whole thing in case you know what you’re looking for. That roughly corresponds to the Site Map I linked to.
Probably good links. These things come in catgories of some sort so that one has some idea what River Mountain Go, Yunzi’s Pearl Tree are?