http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposa ... game-of-go

I have used Senseis Library many times.

It's useful, like Wikipedia, but on the other hand I don't find
unstructured forms of information useful for getting real knowledge, just like
on Wikipedia you can get a mix of good and a mix of bad.

In the end, a 9p like Nie Weiping is an excellent player, but a 7p can sometimes be
a better teacher.

If you look at stackexchange.com, it is a perfect way to learn things,
because people who give good answers are rewarded points, and people
who give bad answers are subtracted points. So, your ranking in go
does not automatically determine the respect you get. People look at
your answers, and judge whether you answered the question.

So, if you want to ask something like, 'is this play an example of aji
keshi,' you will not be ignored. Everyone using the page will see your
question, how many replies it has received, and if other people have
already given a good answer.

In that sense, SL is an encyclopedia, but the idea of stackexchange is
to create dialogue around complex topics (math, programming,
languages) so that anyone (beginners or experts) can benefit and help
others.

I like the idea. I hope that it takes off.

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be immersed

I remain a skeptic. I wish you the best of luck, but a Stack Exchange go site has already failed once (shidogo.com)

I watch and wait to see. I am following, so you have one more follower ... but don't get your hopes up.

The only SE1.0 sites that successfully launched themselves already had well-established user bases in academia (mathoverflow.net) and businesses (serverfault.org).

I have monitored the site for new users on a daily basis. Actually, there are about 5 new users a week, on a good week.

Shidogo only failed because it failed to gather a user-base before introducing the SE-method of sharing knowledge. Hence very few people ended up learning about it.

I posted that in the wrong forum, not realizing that there was a forum for new websites.

As the site gathers momentum, it will move into the planning stage, and they will assign us a URL. The planning stage is to ensure that more people know about the site this time. Shidogo failed because only like 20 people ended up hearing about it.

20 people sharing knowledge is not enough to answer questions about go. With 300-400 users, the new site will be able to ensure that everyone can ask questions that will get good answers.

I have a feeling some people may think that the site is meant to be like an organized forum. The site isn't meant to replace a forum. It is about pure strategy, or references.

A good way to learn about this is to simply try asking some questions on mathoverflow.net

On that site, it is very difficult to ask a question that will not be closed as irrelevant.

For people not familiar with the StackExchange method of determining the relevance of questions, here are some examples of stuff that's not useful to people who are trying to learn.

Asking for a reason why something (go-related) happens (not go-related)

IE,

Why is it that there are so few books about positional analysis, when it is one of the biggest differences between pro-thinking and kyu-thinking?

This is a perfect topic for this forum, and for Sensei's Library, but not for the new site.

In my view, there are only two ways to make this question on-topic:

1 -- a so-called big list question:
What are your favorite books about counting?
And everybody answers with a good favorite book.

Result: The list of references becomes publicly available. Mathematicians using Mathoverflow.net find this quite handy indeed, because it means you don't have to go through dozens of books by yourself.

2 -- An example from one of your own games, which you lost, due to failing to answer your own question as you were playing, IE
How can I quantify my territory/influence at this stage in the game?

The other way of course requires you to include a link to an image of an actual position or positions in one or several of your games.

People versed in positional analysis can do some quick counting, and someone at dan level could answer this very quickly. I'd make sure to choose a position from one of my actual games, where I lost due to the other player's superior counting.

It would also be fun to watch dan players talk to each other about their own positions from their own lost games, if you are a kyu!

For people who, like me, are struggling to learn counting, that answer would provide a good guide, because they could read the question and learn from the answers. And for the OP (original poster), it would be a strategic tutorial provided free of charge by someone who's probably also asking very specific questions about their actual games.

In short, ladies and gentlemen, it's nothing less than a revolution.

In essence, the site will eventually be quite good for shaping up your game.

I think, then, you'll need to get people on board with the same vision. Right now, it looks like even some of your 40 followers are not really looking at the site from this angle.

I still think the technology will be very clunky for what you want. Maybe there's nothing better at the moment, but that doesn't mean it's good ...

Good luck building critical mass. The first thing you need is to build up the website with interesting material which attracts the right initial crowd.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.