Talk:Go (game)/Archive 2

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"Around 2000, in Japan, the manga (Japanese comic) and anime series Hikaru no Go has popularized Go among the youth and started a Go boom in Japan. In January 2004, the Hikaru no Go manga also began running in the American periodical Shonen Jump, which will certainly not spark a similar following in the United States."

This seems a little blunt to me. How do we know it won't. when I came across this, it seemed a little odd. Wouldn't it better better to ask a question instead? "Will the Hikaru no create a similar following amongst those in the United States?"--Jasohill 04:38, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The reader does not confuse rules of play, optional rules, and strategy if each of these is described in its own section. Concerning rules of play, we would not agree on any fixed text; therefore we should not try to fix any text but should just mention the contents of all go rules. It is important to mention optional go rules in an extra section so that the reader does not get an impression like "Oh, too bad, this game is useful for players of different playing strengths only." Strategy deserves its own section even if for no other reason than that strategy is important. Jasiek 07:54, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

2004-06-22 Jasiek: This Talk page needs compression the most urgently. - I have rewritten the essential rules section by making it essential. Any unrelated information has been moved elsewhere. Terms are avoided as far possible, in particular "liberty" is not used. The fewer terms the more easily the text is understood. The most essential removal is the ommission of anything related to strategy: life and death! The scoring is: more stones on the board (stone scoring). This has the brilliant characteristic that a concept of surrounded need not be explained on the main Go page!!! Explaining different scoring systems is a task for the Go Rules page! PLEASE do NOT add anything like complicated scoring systems to the main Go page! Recall that the average reader does know almost nothing about Go. - I will improve the Go Rules page later.


 * Hello, Robert. Well, many people have tried to do something with this page. As you see, this is already at 'featured article' standard. One point: this is an encyclopedia, so it is supposed to record facts first. About superko, therefore: as we both know, this rule is in fact applied much less in the global go population, than ko rules of other kinds. So, from a factual point of view, anything said about it must be said very carefully. Charles Matthews 10:09, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Hello, Evercat: Your wording of the removal rule is about as bad or good as mine:) One can endlessly change the wording of a rule text back and forth to no avail. What matters is the contents. And to some extent the wording, too, so that the readers recognize what they read earlier and want to read again. - So your wording is fine, too, and we may as well keep it. - It is much more essential that we keep the contents though. - Hello, Charles: Of course, this is an encyclopedia. Therefore I provide quality contents and facts only. I think that the Go page suffers from too much features, as you call it, and should be compressed to essential facts again. - Why have I included superko? It is easier to state superko than to state a basic-ko rule. The main Go page deserves that ko rule that provides the standard effect of prohibiting 2-play loops and has the easiest wording. The superko rule does both. - Hello, all: Ok, I understand your point to agree to real world rules. So I have changed to No Suicide again. In case of superko vs. basic-ko it is not clear. Even Japanese and Chinese rules have / had some superko rule. So using superko here agrees to real world rules at least as much as basic-ko does. In case of scoring, we really should disregard the real world conflict between Area Scoring and Territory Scoring and simply stick to the simplest, practical scoring, which can be taught to beginners: Stone Scoring.

Well, I still think citing any sort of superko rule here is below Wikipedia's standard of accuracy. Superko is not a rule of go, for almost all pro games, for example. Some form of words or link should be provided, for example jumping to an anchor point on go rules, which is more accurate, such as 'there is a rule that prevents repetition of position by forbidding plays'. By the way, the WP purist might find the use of the word 'essential' a problem here (POV). Charles Matthews 14:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

For information about superko vs. basic-ko see my major update (1) of the Go Rules page. There I explain why superko should be used and if this does not convince you, we might have a discussion that is more detailed... Wikipedia's standard is to provide accurate contents, I suppose. Complete rules are more accurate than incomplete rules. (Later there will be explanations of both rules.) I agree that "essential" is a little doubtful. So far I have used it on the Go Rules page for consistency with the Go page, but I would not mind its replacement.


 * Robert, I think you must be missing my point, though I'm really sure you do know what I'm saying here. If Wikipedia says 'the rules of go are these ...' then arguments why 'superko should be used' aren't relevant at all. You know and I know that in Japan and Korea the pros don't use superko; and in China the handling of triple ko has not _in practice_ been via superko. So, saying 'complete rules are more accurate than incomplete rules' is really beside the point. This article must only contain factual information about rules than cannot be disputed. That means it will not contain any complete rule set. OK, there is plenty of room in WP for all legitimate rule sets to be discussed. Charles Matthews 15:31, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see the superko vs Japanese ko debate as being very important: given that they're practically the same thing in 99.99% of actual games. I myself am more concerned with keeping things simple. In practice the rulesets give the same result, so if we're trying to give the "essential" rules, which more or less approximate all rulesets, why not stick to a simple ruleset (ie area counting, life and death is not a rule)...? Evercat 20:23, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry - saying superko is an accepted rule of go is a lie (not to put too fine a point on it); and 'essential' is pretty much a lie, too. WP material goes to dozens of other web sites; accuracy matters, and it would be better not to say anything specific about repetition than to get it subtly wrong.

Charles Matthews 21:31, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * As I said, I don't regard the ko rule debate as important, so go ahead and change it to simple ko, if you can word that concisely and clearly (I don't think, for example, that it's clear to say that a move cannot recreate the previous board position, as you really mean the board position 2 moves ago...) Evercat 22:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * To clarify exactly what it is I do regard as important - the "essential" rules need to reflect the mathematically and logically simple nature of the game. In my opinion New Zealand rules are the best for this, but since nobody uses them, I think Chinese rules are the right choice. Japanese rules, with all the special cases and rulings that Japanese counting forces upon us, are far too complicated and cannot possibly be considered "the essential rules". The essential nature of the game is simple, but this simplicity is not reflected in Japanese-style rules.


 * On a different note, I could argue that since China is a major Go playing nation, and apparently the place of origin for Go, Chinese rules have as much right to be used as Japanese... Evercat 22:52, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, can I draw attention to WP conventions on POV? I don't know why it should be acceptable to slant an introductory page in favour of one rule set.


 * NPOV is about what not presenting disputed material as true or false. Nothing in the rules section says that these are the rules actually played by, merely that they are the "essential" (ie basic, most simplified) rules. Other rulesets are more or less complicated approximations of them. Doesn't everyone agree on this?

I have in the past avoided contributing much to the WP go coverage since the talk on this page showed that people were mainly concerned to insert POV material on the rules. The NZ rules, in some version, are indeed played; but are a tiny part of world go.


 * Yes, I did acknowledge that.

The factual question 'what are the rules of go?' needs a scrupulous answer, in line with WP's standards.

I think those with strong feelings about how go should be taught can go and write a wikibook about it. I don't feel it is a very good use of my time, to go over repeatedly these very basic points about POV, in relation to this article. Can we just clarify that it should be written from NPOV? This matters greatly, considering that the go rules business has been treated as single-issue politics.

Well, I'm washing my hands of WP's go coverage again, until I get some acknowledgement that this article's future is in scrupulous neutrality. I just think it's wasting my time to have to type so much to get past all this opinion to some factual basis.

Charles Matthews 07:08, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, if you're not going to even attempt to edit the page to fix the problems you perceive, you shouldn't blame others if it doesn't end up the way you want. But if you show us a good way to solve this issue by actually editing the page, I'm sure most people will accept your version. Evercat 11:34, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have made one suggestion above. Long experience with Robert Jasiek, self-appointed rules expert to the global go community, made me clear this page in anticipation that we were in for another bout of Go Rules 101. What I object to is having to point out WP policy, not to Robert who is a newcomer here, but to others who must know perfectly well what it is. This was a featured article; I'm not interested in editing it until I can see a way to make some incremental step improvement, rather than just tinkering. Other passers-by seem to think otherwise, and the article seems to be degrading in parts. If it gets too bad, e.g. slants towards Chinese rules as if they were 'the' rules, I shall consider putting a neutrality dispute notice here. I actually consider making the rules bit such a focus is a distraction from getting other, more interesting stuff here. I have floated the idea of a WikiProject Go (not here, because I assumed we would run into the same sort of fundamentalism about the rules and get completely bogged down). No, I'm not interested in edit warring over these topics, and am looking for some sort of basis for discussion here. I'm a fairly well known author on this area, but if I meet enough wrong-headed attitude here, I think I'll go back to editing the maths pages.

Charles Matthews 12:11, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * We won't be saying that Chinese rules are the rules. I've edited it now to say that what is presented is a simple ruleset, and noted that different versions exist. There's nothing false or POV about that.


 * Nevertheless, I think it's more important to get Go rules to an acceptable state (which would describe both Chinese and Japanese rules, plus explaining the relationships between them) and I may attempt to do something with that page soon. If we can get it fixed, we can confidently refer to it from here. Evercat 13:02, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that NPOV should be maintained. I agree that the current headline, draft of "A simple Go ruleset", and the notes "This is a simple version of the rules. For a more detailed treatment, see Go rules. In particular, it is worth noting that there are several variants of the rules which may, among other things, count the score differently, but which almost always give the same result. Which ruleset is correct is the subject of a religious war." conform to NPOV. I disagree to Evercat's perception of the Chinese rules. Studied carefully, they are about as difficult as the Japanese 1989 Rules. I agree that superko is not used everywhere. I disagree that the basic.ko rule would be used as the ko rules everywhere. IOW, when explaining Asian rulesets and maintaining NPOV, it will be necessary to explain all those arcane details like hypothetical ko-pass rules. Jasiek 13:43, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I would like to apologise if I've been over-zealous in this matter. Of course Charles is right, we must document how Go is actually played by most people, and that means Japanese rules. I think a reasonable solution might be to leave detailed discussion to the Go rules page. We might:


 * Describe common rules such as the board shape, capture, etc first, that are common among all rulesets.
 * Describe suicide as prohibited, since 99% of games are played this way.
 * Describe basic ko rules, since they are far more commonly used. Use diagrams to illustrate.
 * Leave discussion of scoring till the end, and describe both area (Chinese) and territory (Japanese) scoring methods.


 * I see that the Go rules page is already somewhat like this, but the "core rules" at the top would probably need to go...


 * I think that scoring is the fundamental point of difference between the rules, and warrants a detailed (yet ideally still clear and understandable) discussion. We can also note the possibility of allowing suicide, and the superko rule, but these should (in my opinion) be relatively small notes.


 * I'll try to make a page like this at User:Evercat/Go rules soon, and invite everyone to comment on it. Perhaps not tonight, since I'll likely be watching football. :-)


 * Again, sorry for my more "ideologue" moments... Evercat 16:10, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Just a comment - scoring is a good illustration of the 'picture = 1000 words' riff, so that one way to do it is to get some diagrams together and let those take the strain. The result that area versus territory scoring is normally a one-point change in the margin, at most, is also worth documenting, but one does have to assume knowledge of seki; I do have a web page at NRICH which talks about the issue of showing that the one-point rarely happens. Charles Matthews

Once Again... the basic rulset seems like it was written for non-speakers of English, or perhaps those with v e r y short attn ... Maybe baby kittens appreciate this kind of clarity, but most grownups dont. This isnt the Engrish Vikipedio after all, there are plenty of other wikis (Klingon, Toki Pona) that can be places for explaining the rules in a language written for those hard of understanding. Stevertigo 16:49, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I think crystal clarity is to be aimed for in discussion of the rules... I also still regard attempting to define life and death in the rules as an unnecessary complication if we're trying to be concise here. It is of course necessary in the detailed discussion on another page. Evercat

At no point do I say that Life and death rules are necessary - but only a hint at the introduction. L&D after all is a rather important concept in go. After a point, either something is alive or it is not. If you need some clarification on this fact, you can meet me on KGS and I can demonstrate to you which of your groups is alive and which are not. -Stevertigo 00:05, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC) ;)

Evercat, the rules most played are Chinese style rules simply because there are not too few Chinese on this planet. My guess about the most commonly used ko rules is a combination of the 2-loop restriction in the basic-ko shape combined by ignorance about whether that covers all repetitive play. It is an open question whether the rough understanding of the 2-loop restriction is in the majority derived from a perception of whole board position or of one local basic-ko shape. The Go rules text has started being deleted by me since it seems impossible to keep as much as one ruletext on a dynamic website. Probably any rule text requires an external link to it. - Charles, what is the URL of that page at "NRICH", please? - All: sorry that the Go Rules page is under construction for some days; I am much more busy with (almost) solving Amateur-Japanese Rules these days. Jasiek 17:06, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I dont think this above had anything to do with anything. I'm usually the last to criticise someone for their beginner English... ("but in your case I will make an exception"), however you do inspire an interesting point: Why not put the rule summary on a template page, so as to make them a little less "dynamic." -Stevertigo 00:05, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Stevertigo, the is no way I would ever tolerate Life and Death in a supposedly simple ruleset. Life and Death is strategy. Therefore if you need to mention strategy on the main Go page, then it must be in strategy section. Jasiek 07:11, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article I meant is at http://www.nrich.maths.org.uk/mathsf/journalf/jun03/art4/index_printable.shtml.

If there is a sign error somewhere, then ... I wouldn't be surprised. Charles Matthews 18:03, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not convinced that more games are played daily in China than in South Korea. This is probably a function of the number of commercial go clubs, and retired people spending plenty of time there. Charles Matthews 18:05, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I've written User:Evercat/Go rules now. It's still lacking much needed diagrams, but it shows the sort of thing I'm aiming for. Comments? Evercat 18:35, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Rules section now at Template:Simplegorules. Stevertigo 01:04, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer Stevertigo's version to what we have currently... Still, if we must describe Japanese rules, isn't it possible to leave out mention of life and death? We could, I think, say that stones which cannot avoid capture are removed as prisoners at the end... (and refer to Go rules for more detail) Evercat 11:58, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Stevertigo's version has the following disadvantages:
 * The "ruleset" is not a ruleset.
 * The "simple" ruleset is not simple.
 * Necessary and optional rules are not treated separately and that has the great potential of confusing many non-Go players among the readers.
 * Saying that a stone does not move is a terrible statement within Go rules because there can be millions of other things that the rules do not do and that therefore, according to the same logic of rules design require another rule each.
 * The rules remove both opposing and one's own groups simultaneously. At least the rules are so equivocal that readers might make this conclusion.
 * Life and death is, as you as Go players, should be aware of, is so difficult that it takes more than a lifetime to master it. Something that is that difficult ought not to be part of any rules.
 * Several groups with eyes are not treated by the rules.
 * Groups in seki are dead according to the rules.
 * Groups that change their status during the game have an unclear status. Are they both alive and dead, neither, undefined, or what?
 * "ko" is a term too unfamiliar for those readers not used to Go.
 * "ko" is a too specialized term. Some rulesets use one or several ko rules to restrict repetition but the general and therefore correct term is "rule(s) that restrict repetition".
 * "ko" is a particularly bad word if suicide of a single stone becomes a ko.
 * "no more gains can be made" is undefined.
 * A player "should" not pass but "has the right" to pass.
 * "are removed as captured prisoners" is unclear: Does this mean that in order to be captured, the liberties must be occupied? (No joke. This is a common reading of such a phrase.)
 * "other rulesets which count the score differently": It is immaterial how a score is counted. What matter is how it is defined.
 * The text fails to offer the clear structure of "Rules of play", "Optional rules", "Strategy". Jasiek 13:28, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, there you have the problem with getting fundamentalist about the rules (in an introductory article, rather than one devoted to them). You get hung up with defining the game,and making the rule set bullet-proof. Charles Matthews 14:19, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is it fundamentalist to point out the above charactericstics, many of which do not conform to NPOV? We may omit all rules on the main Go page or we may tell the truth about rules but we may not deceive and we should not confuse the reader. Jasiek 15:14, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually the ordinary reader is unlikely to be confused at the level of 'count' versus 'define' the score; it is people looking for difficulties who would find them there. The criteria do not really provide grounds for deciding between different versions of the rules, if the article goes beyong factual statements about official rule sets. Charles Matthews 16:08, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Although the rules of Go are very simple" is a false statement that deceives people. The rules could be very simple but in practice mostly complicated rules are used.

The ordinary reader would hardly be confused by
 * "ko" is a too specialized term.
 * "ko" is a particularly bad word if suicide of a single stone becomes a ko.
 * A player "should" not pass but "has the right" to pass.
 * "other rulesets which count the score differently"

Some ordinary readers are confused by
 * Saying that a stone does not move
 * "ko" is a term too unfamiliar
 * "are removed as captured prisoners"
 * The text fails to offer the clear structure

The ordinary reader is confused by
 * The "ruleset" is not a ruleset.
 * The "simple" ruleset is not simple.
 * Necessary and optional rules are not treated separately
 * Life and death
 * Several groups with eyes are not treated by the rules.
 * Groups in seki are dead according to the rules.
 * Groups that change their status during the game
 * "no more gains can be made"

The ordinary reader is deceived by Jasiek 16:32, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * claiming that life and death in rules would be simple

Robert, 'although the rules of go are very simple' isn't a sentence, it's a clause. It can't be true or false. It is a concessive clause, so people will expect a qualification to follow. Anyway, WP didn't get nearly 300,000 pages written by being legalistic in this way. Charles Matthews 16:38, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Many pages are written faster if they have NPOV and contain the truth. Then everybody agree to them, discussion can be avoided, and instead the next pages can be written. Jasiek 17:10, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You know, this page has twice been featured on the Main Page, as an example of the best WP writing. Of course it should be made as accurate as possible. Charles Matthews 17:37, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It deserves contents as good as it is praised for :) BTW, if you did not like lists, then the list text might as well be changed into prose. Concerning the rules section, I still think we should just have a link to the rules page and nothing more or alternatively a short note that there are simple as well as complex rulesets (i.e. no reference to their contents) and that variety is created by the capture rule and restricted by some restriction rule. Jasiek 06:45, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Jasiek wrote: "the [there?] is no way I would ever tolerate Life and Death in a supposedly simple ruleset. Life and Death is strategy. Therefore if you need to mention strategy on the main Go page, then it must be in strategy section." Well so it is decreed! Our resident Kisei Jasiek has said it so, and so therefore it so must be. He will not "tolerate" it otherwise! :P


 * Jasiek again: "Many pages are written faster if they have NPOV and contain the truth. Then everybody agree to them, discussion can be avoided, and instead the next pages can be written." Indeed, Jasiek knows that the way to do wiki right is to "avoid" "discussion" by making sure our pages "contain the truth." It is so decreed. I will ask the resident software gurus to remove all the talk pages from wikipedia, since that should then make things go "faster." -Stevertigo 07:10, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Simple rules are a vehicle to broadly describe the game
I'm not sure whether it will help for me to put my oar in, given that I am far from expert on go rules, but sometimes a fresh perspective can help advance a longstanding discussion. I have recently written a summary of the rules for Settlers of Catan. My purpose there was exactly what I think the purpose of a simplified ruleset should be here, namely to give someone unfamiliar with the game a general sense of what the gameplay is about. Of course we must avoid saying anything untrue and we must be NPOV, but precision and the inclusion of variations are less important in this context than having rules which are concise, easy to read, and cover the most basic information.

For example, to say

Go rules of play set the following: * two players ("Black" and "White") * the board with its lines and intersections * black and white stones * alternate play * play of one's own stone on an empty intersection

is much harder to read than "The go board comprises the 361 intersections of a 19x19 grid. The two players, "Black" and "White", each have an unlimited supply of stones of their own color, which they take turns placing on empty intersections of the board." If you know nothing whatsoever about go, the first thing you learn is that two guys take turns putting stones on a board. The purpose of these sentences is not to be a reference for someone who knows go and is unclear about some fine point of the rules, it is to introduce a complete stranger to the most basic thing about the game.

The second most basic thing, which I suggest should come next, is a statement of the objectives of the game. To say, as the article does now, that there is "some scoring to define the winner at the end of alternate play" conveys almost zero information. Yes, the scoring system defines the objective of the game. Yes, if there are two different scoring systems, there are technically two different objectives of the game. Yes, if you precisely state one scoring system you are in danger of giving the POV impression that it is the standard one and the others are variants. My proposed solution to this conundrum is to sacrifice precision in this context (precision which belongs on the rules page) for a statement that is generally informative and broad enough to be true no matter what rules one plays under. Thus we could say something like: "The twin objectives of the game are to capture enemy stones by surrounding them, and to claim territory by fencing it off. One captured stone is equal in value to one intersection of claimed territory." Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the statement is technically true under all rulesets, if you consider that in area scoring the intersections under your own stones are part of your territory, so that counting your stones is a part of counting your territory. While my proposed statement doesn't convey with 100% precision how to count up the score, it is accurate, NPOV, and conveys the gist of the game without descending into detailed discussion.

After stating the basic mechanics and the general objective, I would add sentences to explain that stones survive or are captured in connected groups, and that recreating previous positions is forbidden. It is preferable not to go into detail in any case, so the ko rule should be finessed with a generality similar to that of the objective. (I don't know enough about the various ko rules to propose language that is informative, accurate, and general, but I expect that it could be done.)

Again, the motivation behind laying out a basic description of the rules is not to allow anyone to sit down and play a game based on them. The intended audience should be be people who have no clue what go is about. The basic rules are a vehicle for explaining in broad strokes what happens in a game.

Peace, --Fritzlein 08:09, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Of course, most people want, first, some sort of basic instructions for a game. They don't (in most cases) want to learn the exact rules, until they are convinced they are going to spend time playing it. But you can see how this has all turned 'theological'. I have spent time trying to add material to Robert Jasiek's additions on Sensei's Library, to make the rules something accessile to the ordinary reader. This is hard work. Here, we should have a good encyclopedia article; and all those who think they have 'better ideas' about the exposition can be called to account on that. Charles Matthews 08:34, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Stevertigo, you seem to prefer the template to be edited rather than the Go main page. Why not. Where is it? What is the URL of the template, please?

Instead of having meta-discussions, can we stick to factucal discussion? I.e., Stevertigo, why do you think that Life and Death is simple while it requires conceptually hard definitions like at http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j2003.html ? (You do not mean "presence on the board in the position at the end of the alternation" with "Life and Death" since you refer to "eyes" when you speak of life and death.) Jasiek 10:21, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

After studying some manual and by guessing, I have found the template's URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%3ASimplegorules Jasiek 09:33, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Jasiek, I left a link to it above, -- take a look. A simple Template:simplegorules will get you there.

gogame I see Fritzlein's point, though I read only about 5% of his above long-worded statement. By the way, I have written very complicated articles on both life and death and joseki, as well as created a separate entry for go terms - go concepts can be dealt with too. First timers will be befuddled. And since were at it, why not unify these with a template ? Be well. Stevertigo 23:01, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for those pages; I've added the Go category to them, and also added them to the list of go topics. There is a question in my mind about these boxes, now that we have categories - they are going somewhat out of fashion. I'd agree that it is helpful to have some sort of tutorial structure in mind. Charles Matthews 07:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fashions come and go Charles. The new template syntax allows a bit more flexibility for these, and provided people use them appropriately, they might see a resurgence. But then, bellbottoms didnt see a resurgence until the nineties, and people who wore them in the eighties were probably justifiably ridiculed. ;) -Stevertigo 10:52, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

-- [Funkyj] "OH NO, not the basic rules" I hear you cry...

From the basic rules section:

''Stones must have liberties (empty adjacent points) to remain on the board. Stones connected by lines are called groups, and share their liberties.''

This is overly vague. What does it mean to be "connected by lines"? Aren't all stones placed on the board connected by lines? What is to prevent a newbie from thinking a two space jump is connected and considered a single group?

The true intent here is "two stones that are vertically or horizontally adjacent are called groups". I'll take a stab at fixing this. No hard feelings if y'all revert my changes away.

Of course a few good diagrams illustrating adjacent stones and unconnected stones. The diagonal extension and the one space jump are usually used to illustrated unconnected stones as these are the closest stones can be without being adjacent.

Funkyj 01:29, 2004 Sep 3 (UTC)


 * Good idea, so I went and made 2 pics that look spiffy enough to catch interest :). Also including descriptions, so anyone can understand. I had to rearrange the layout some, to work around the template. Now the 'Game 5...' pic is a bit out of place though, hope it fits somewhere on the page, I think a picture of the whole board should be along the description... --fbjon ^^ 4649 23:21, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, moved the game 5 pic myself, looks a bit better now. --fbjon ^^ 4649

I can't figure out how to edit these template thingies i.e. so I'll just let my comment here stand and y'all can fix this vagary yourselves.

Funkyj 01:48, 2004 Sep 3 (UTC)

I do not know where exactly I should make a comment, but I would say that depending too heavily on the concept of life and death in explanation gives only the readers with a fair level of understanding to re-evaluate the nature of the game. It would be too abstract for the beginners to get the feel of Go through life and death only. The situation is very much similar to that of axiomatic approach in maths. No elementary school kids learn Peano's axioms on the set of natural numbers, though they know how to deal with natural numbers. The axiomatic approach is fine for computer programs, but for human beings, a verbal explanation must be more intuitive.

The usual notion of territory seems very essential to me. I made an attempt to explain things around the concept of territory in the corresponding article in Japanese. I hope that the editors can consider convey the attractiveness of Go to the people who do not know about the game, other than the aspect of complexity. I would say that the most attractive aspect of Go is that it gives an astounding analogy (or the simplified form) of the real-life conflicts in human societies. The current article completely lack that perspective. Only those game freaks may become interested in Go (in terms of the Game per se, rather than its history in the Oriental culture) reading the current article, but not necessarily the ordinary folks.

User:Principia Apr 23, 2005


 * The article should not be written in order to make go 'attractive', but on a factual basis. (I say thias as a 3 dan player, writer on go, and teacher, who has been serious about go for over 30 years). Charles Matthews 08:11, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Of course, the article should be based on the fact. As you, Charles, have responded to Fritzlein, the Wikipedia project can be improved only by the concrete contributions instead of mere criticisms. I consider proposing a rough description of the game, and ask for the opinions from the folks, before actually updating the article itself.

User:Principia Apr 23, 2005

Combinatorics - Wish list
In the paragraph describing the number of possible positions and games, could you please add a section describing the derivation of the numbers? Could this be combined with the section that mentions the Mathematical Theory of Go?

A more detailed discussion of these numbers may be found on Sensei's Library at http://senseis.xmp.net/?NumberOfPossibleOutcomesOfAGame John Tromp 14:00, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

Ranking
I think the close discussion of ranking, Elo-style, may well belong in a separate article.

Charles Matthews 21:32, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Considering the fact that we moved the detailed description of various rules of Go to a separate page it seems appropriate to move the Go/ELO material to another page.

There is an article on the Elo rating system. It seems to me like it would be appropriate to link from the Go article to the ELO article and augment the ELO with a discussion of it's use by various Go associations.

Funkyj 21:45, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid that if you go into it, there is much more to say about the rating systems than pure-minded Elo-style. So, perhaps Go ranking and rating should be created (NB that rank and rating are felt to be different by go players, typically, and that is one thing to explain.) What needs to be here is something like (a) what dan and kyu are, in general terms, (b) the (limited) way Elo-like systems are currently used, and (c) some account of the 'width' of the go ranking scale.

Charles Matthews 21:54, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

TDerz Tommie By chance I did this just today, without knowing from this discussion here! I simply wrote something concerning Ranks and Ratings in Go. Only later I discovered that there exists here a sincere and in depth discussion and struggling of how to write something. First I encountered the wiki-article of how a stub must grow. Was it ok to write something directly? Or should I discuss days before amending/writing s.th.?

If so please tell me, I'm quite inexperienced with Wikipedia.


 * It's fine: see Be bold in updating pages. Charles Matthews

The [] focussed unbearable much on chess. Hence I recycled my thoughts of a reply to Tim Krabbé's article (I believe somwhere on ), which was unecessary denigrating to Go. Insinuating that Go players would claim that Go is the better game, using a false argument, proving it false the article tried to score a cheap point: giving some piece of decades-old Dutch chess- and Go-history where the earliest Dutch Go players where beaten in Go by the (non-convert) chess playes. Fact, alright, may be ... he concluded from this little anecdote that Go cannot be such a deep game (I write now from memory and hope I do not the reciproke unjustice to Tim; the whole story was on the Dutch mailinglist). My conclusions were rather that Go and Chess are both full-information games without chance and as such quite related, therefore they also would attract the same/similar people to play it. Hence, the anecdote would rather (only?) prove that good chess players can be good Go players (if they want to: world champion Emanuel Lasker (1d?), late Jürgen Dueball (4dan Go, chess SG Solingen, Bundesliga Germany, ELO 2455, , German top in Bridge) etc., father Fritz and grandfather Felix wrote Go history in Germany, all playing Go, chess and Bridge)). It depends on the persons who are so much interested in thinking sports; the beauty of it is in the eye of the beholder and the depth ... can be measured in ELO difference from beginner to top. By chance having just read books from László Mérõ (where he gives this ideaof using ELO to determine depths of sports, I thought I'd add it to the site. Tommie 00:29, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, here at WP we have to pretend that go and chess are not in competition. (In fact it is obviously not a zero-sum game anyway.) But from the WP angle, our 'neutral point of view' policy means that in the end we should give rather objective discussions. By the way, welcome!

Charles Matthews 08:17, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have now created Go ranks and ratings to allow accurate discussion, not suitable for this main article.

Charles Matthews 09:53, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Broken internal link
"Depth of the game" is linked to a section lower that doesn't exist in the current page.

Shermozle

Why not add an instructional manual to Wikibooks?
It would seem to an interested observer that the best place for really detailed rules and instructions would be an extensive set of articles over at Wikibooks; the article here could have a drastically cut-down version to catch the eye. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 08:25, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I've written a couple of such introductions, and would wish anyone who wants to undertake it good luck. Charles Matthews 08:57, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is a great idea. LegCircus 16:15, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Oops!
The article seems empty. I cannot find any trace of vandalism in the history of the article. Maybe this is a problem with my browser? Can anybody confirm?


 * It was vandalised at 00:36, 27 Oct 2004, and not restored for about 8 hours. Evercat 12:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)