Rengo is a binary issue for most people: OGS has it or OGS doesn’t. A basic implementation would mean a lot to people even if it lacks bells and whistles like auto-matching, graceful disconnection, and rank handling.
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Which average? Geometric mean?
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The rating is defined up to an additive constant. An average should be a function f such that
- a ≤ f(a,b) ≤ b for all a ≤ b
- f(a,b)=f(b,a)
- f(a+c,b+c)=f(a,b)+c
The arithmetic mean satisfies these properties, the geometric mean doesn’t.
Most of the time people use the arithmetic mean for simplicity. I am aware that a pair 1d+20k is probably weaker than a pair 10k+10k. So maybe other functions like
- f(a,b)= (2×min(a,b) + max(a,b))/3
- f(a,b)= min(a+b,2×min(a,b)+900)/2
would work better but again, for simplicity, I would pick the arithmetic mean.
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We can do take some sample games, and then use regression to find the best-fit function f to plug into this formula.
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Having a “rating system” for Rengo seems over the top. Just make it so we can hop in with four friends and play. Plain and simple. No automatch etc. needed either.
How long would it take to implement Rengo at the most basic level?
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On the aside of “what is this worth” (IE “what is a good bounty?”, as asked in the topic), I hadn’t meant to imply that “we should fully fund it”.
I was only meaning to give a sense of proportion.
And it turns out that that this is a justified goal, because it flushed out that at least some folk have really no idea what it costs to produce software. Or what plumbing costs for that matter (in the US).
I’m in the software industry, so it’s a topic that is frequently on my radar - the idea that software just happens cheaply and easily.
It struck me that anoek’s subsequent description of the real issues underlined my point: $1000 is a generous offer, but it is so much less than the actual cost of doing the activity (in terms of effort and time and opportunity cost) that it doesn’t really move the needle of prioritisation.
My own guess still remains that if you had $10k you still wouldn’t be fully funding the activity, but you might be starting to move the needle…
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Even if we strip it down to this much, it’s not something to be taken lightly, gotta be careful when touching that sort of stuff… I don’t sleep well when I destroy thousands of games 
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We already have a workaround: create an account, share that accounts name and password with your friend, and you can both login simultaneously and play moves with that account (and also ask your rengo-opponents to do the same thing for themself)
Of course this has limits, you have to do everything manually and keep track on who’s move it is, also the game will not be listed at your profile. But its still a working workaround if needed, so ‘how hard can it be’ to expand that system so that the there isnt the need for making the new account.
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Hm, so right now nobody has enough knowledge of the code base to make an estimate how long implementing some basic form of Rengo would take?
How about implementing the current fan-workaround as actually official version, in the way that “Rengo” will mean just a normal game between only two players, but since a “Rengo” flag is set, two other accounts get their moves forwarded by the system to be treated like moves of the two “real” players? That would totally suffice in terms of functionality.
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This makes it sound like it might be possible to have an overlay “rengobot” where an ogs game is hidden behind some kind of bot type that takes moves from the four players and shows them the board state instead of them players being directly on the ogs game page.
Or like an ogs rengo app…
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From my very limited understanding of just the front end, let alone the back end, a lot of important distinctions are drawn between player and spectator, and I can’t see how adding addition pretend players would be any easier to implement than adding additional real players.
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This could possibly work… If somebody coded up a bot to make moves by PM or something like that…
I can envision it having some initial state where you send it player ID for black team and then white team, it will generate a game against rengobot2 and then send the game creator the game link for all to watch and then it waits for those four players to pm in moves to play
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This sounds like fun 
Or even just have the players playing send moves and names in the game chat? I think I’ve seen some bots able to read that to accept undos? Ideally though OGS could also host the bot if it works well enough, rather than having to host the bot by some individual.
Still not as good as clicking the board I suppose though 
Edit: Although I suppose you can ctrl+click (cmd+click) the board, and it copies the coordinates of the move into chat, then hit enter. Wouldn’t be too bad in the meantime.
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Well, I don’t really know how to proceed from here on, but since I assumed it would be easier than it actually seems to be, I’ll just bump the bounty to $2000.
However, it must be Rengo where you actually click to place stones onto a board. Not just “text-based” feeding coordinates via chat input to some bot.
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If I was going to make a Rengo bot it would be for fun anyway. I don’t have experience running a bot, but I might try for fun, if I’ve some time, and unless someone else beats me to it
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Maybe we should advertise this bounty to the community with a banner pointing to this post? What do the other moderators think?
I mean, it seems possible to hack together something as an overlay/bot, as has been suggested, so maybe there are people in the community that could accomplish this and might be enticed by this bounty.
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I think there would need to be more details as to the ts and cs for paying out.
We have some conditions already (time limit, clicking screen for stone placement,…) but there may be others.
And maybe the bounty would need to be held in escrow until either claimed or returned if deadline passes.
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anoek gave you a ROM: large, and risky.
“Forwarded” from where?
What “board” or “game” are these flagged players clicking on?
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Since it’s a bot, it will have to be unranked - which I think was agreed “fine for Rengo” anyhow?
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Heh, to be unranked is not prevailing the no use of external help in my understanding of OGS tos.
Now that’s interesting point, will an AI partner in a otherwise rengo with human players be considered as an external help to the partner or just a partner?
(In some way, It’s even not a bot thing, It’s just that rengo being an exception to the rule of not being helped)