This is a good point. Maybe making a blog would be a good option, too. This way, the author is the author. If you really wanted a section for comments, you could do that, but it'd be less likely to spiral into debate.

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be immersed

I tried to offer a constructive summary, without comments from John Fairbairn. I assume it was worthy of less attention than the alleged derailment. I don't get this kind of self fulfilling prophecy. There's enough proof of explicit gratitude for the content posted. If the community is meant to suffer as some kind of punishment for not having scolded Robert Jasiek, then let it be so. We've been coping with him for a long time. I would think we're capable by now of getting the best out of his minority opinion.

The Participate conferencing software, authored by Harry Stevens, was (is?) a kind of super-forum in which the person who starts a topic is its moderator, with administrator powers over it. You could make it read only, so that only you could write to it. You could even make it write only, so that only you could read it. Often someone would create twin topics, one read only, where he or she could write what they wanted to without distraction, and a topic for free discussion. I used Participate in the 1980s, when it was part of The Source online service, and eventually became the Lead Helper for it there. Harry was (is?) an old-line Democrat who believed in power to the people, and Participate reflects that attitude.

Last I knew (in the 90s) it was being used by large companies and organizations.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I don't think it's an ownership thing: I think that most of us recognize that threads are being dominated by Robert's line by line refutations.

In the past, I recall that John found some relatively abstract topics I thought worth discussing uninteresting, and he said so rather directly, but he didn't tell me that I had to get out of his thread.

I don't think a blog (hey, was there something on GoGoD ), is such a bad idea, but why blame John for being annoyed by a problem that so many of us have complained about in the past?

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Occupy Babel!

I don't blame John, I've just seen this being played out many, many times before and the best resolution generally was to control who could get involved. Having the discussion in a different setting is something he can control. He cannot control whether certain people join his threads here.

Using vBulletin forum software what we used do was create a forum that was read-only for users by default, gave read/write privileges to the debaters that had been selected, and then created a sister forum that was open access (similar to the software you mention) where anyone could discuss the points brought up in the other forum.

At the risk of derailing the thread even more, let me say that I fully agree with John here.
And the solution, to me, is not really a dedicated forum functionality to block users or make threads read-only or whatever - its the self-discipline and general culture of the participants not to let the threads devolve into free-for-all but remain more-or-less focused.

But what if the self-discipline is lacking? Everybody gets caught up in the moment, everybody occasionally misses the right point to resign (i.e. stop yapping.) I know, it happens to me perhaps more than to others, especially when I get involved in something I feel strongly about. In my case, usually somebody would say 'cool off' or something like that, and it is sufficient for me to take a step back, reevaluate, and stop making a donkey of myself. Most of the time. I have seen this working for some others too, when they are running too fast and too far with their polemics or their tempers.

What else can be done? If there is really no self-discipline apparent by a person, it might be up to the other participants to simply ignore his posts, no matter how much the finger is itching to write a reply. This is one thing I did to some very pesky people back in the days - and it worked very well, overall. Its like training session: if this is how you behave, I am not talking to you until you change your tone, period. Can do wonders, especially if its not only a personal action but by the community (or the rest of thread participants.) Its one way of clearly showing that some things are not acceptable, without necessarily excluding or blocking a person - his views are still heard, but he does not get engaged because this leads to trouble.

I am not sure what the particular issue with RJ is. I find his contribution overall very valuable, but at times (often lately?) he can be like a little bulldog, latching on to a topic with fierce determination to prove himself right and everybody wrong, and he does not seem to be willing to make any compromise or give even an inch. He will argue line by line, word by word, trying to show how everybody who is not him is wrong... maybe its the age. I know I get more grumpy and stubborn as I grow old...

Still, I have not seen anybody say to him 'cool off, dude', not even once (which does not mean it did not happen, I just have not seen it.) Maybe this is the way, if it would work?

I have tried a different technique lately with RJ - to just cherry-pick one or two main points he is making, and hopefully guide the conversation so that he does not keep beating the dead horse over and over but at least there is some progress. Not sure how much success that was... but it was better than just word-by-word slap-fest. My next step was to be not answering, but it did not come to that, which was a success, I think.

So Robert - if you read this, what is it that can be done? I hope you realize that your particular flavor of jumping on every little detail you disagree on, and never giving an inch, basically arguing until the threads expire - its not cool. You have a lot of interesting stuff to say, but as I said before, the delivery sucks big time. You basically beating a dead horse, like you are unable to let the other gut have the last word for fear that this somehow makes you the loser in this discussion.

I remember there were times, back on rgg in mid 90s or so, when I had a similar style of arguing. A good friend told me what I am saying now: Just make a point, you don't need to argue with every sentence. Say what it is that you want to say, people will read it. There is no need to always have the last word. It took a lot of soul searching, I am still struggling a little, but at least I realize that I am obnoxious when I am obnoxious - and I usually try very hard to avoid it. Sometimes I fail.

One technique I had for a while was to try to say what I need to say in one paragraph, 5 sentences or less - instead of arguing each point word by word. So I quote one block of text (instead of each sentence separately) and write one block of text as my answer - and this forces me to reallt try to *understand* what the core of the argument is, and answer only that, rather than getting sidetracked by each little thing. Obviously I long since abandoned this method, and was never really successful, but the process gave me a lot to think about, and I think made me a better poster. Which only shows I was really badly messed up back then, heh.

In any case - as I said - I agree with John here.
But I would also like RJ to continue contributing.
There must be a way for us, as a community, to self-regulate in some way without John withdrawing or RJ getting banned or restricted by admins. I guess this is what I would like to happen, somehow... I like John's posts very much, and RJ is interesting too...

Not sure what else to say.
Sorry for the long post.
I mean every word.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

For those, who are better in Japanese than mine, some introductory text of Hane's above mentioned book:

本手とは何か
「本手」という言葉はよくききますが,実際,どういうのが本手ななか,はっきりしないところがあるのではないですか.
「本手」をしっかり理解することで,碁の考え方,一手の価値判断の仕方が分かり,質が飛躍的に向上します.
では,本手とはなんでしょうか.
「自分は厚しくて,なおかつ次の狙いがある手」と,僕は定義しています.自分は守っておいて,相手が守らなければ厳しく行くよ,ということです.ただ厚いだけだと,ぬるいだけの一手ということなります.
僕の実利やアマチュアの方の碁を題材に具体例をお話ししましょう.

As far as I understand the text in bold, Hane defines HONTE as a move that makes yourself thick, and at the same time has a further aim.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Nobody has mentioned it in this thread, but I like "honest". I see it's been mini-debated on the Sensei's page for honte and that it wasn't popular, but it works for me to capture the sense of seemingly slack but proper. It's also a good mnemonic because the words look similar.

The difference between (exceptional) honte as used in professional comments / presented by John Fairbairn and (common) honte as advocated by Bill Spight resembles the eternal question "what is the meaning of a word?". "Exceptional honte" is in line with "the use of a word is its meaning" while the "common honte" school presupposes another meaning that is always "meant", but in which it is never actually used, because it is so common. Intriguing question. (The RJ position is "the meaning of the word is defined in my book on page 24".)

What probably matters to this discussion is, how Go is taught to Japanese beginners / intermediate players. Do professional teachers use "honte" when commenting the games of their kyu level pupils? Some posts alluded to a "honte in stages", i.e. some moves called honte, that wouldn't produce such a comment in a professional games. How common is this? E.g.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Why not ''a''? (From a recent game I reviewed)
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . 3 4 . . .
$$ | . . . . 1 2 . . .
$$ | . . X 7 O a . . .
$$ | . . . . 6 . . . .
$$ | . . . 5 . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Would a Japanese say the sequence is not joseki or would he point out that 'a' would have been honte? (I tried the latter, but needed a lot of words to say so.)

Personally, when I ended up writing / commenting in English (which happens regularly on the Go Teaching Ladder, that by the way urgently needs mid-high dan reviewers to review my games) I try to review with as little terminology as possible, but I guess a few "proper moves" occurred. I very much like the stylized "the safe and sound move" for honte, if only I would be able to recognize and play them (and not the slack moves that look similar to me).

I think John knows perfectly well which posts are contributing to a discussion and which posts detracting from it. I think the rest of of us do as well. As for technical solutions, I don't know why moderating one's thread should be a burden. 99% of the threads here need no moderation.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Just a few burdens for starters: having to monitor the thread with high frequency to avoid things getting out of hand; cleaning up the mess that develops when you're asleep in a different time zone; dealing with the person whose post you banned.

And even if you put counter-arguments, I still wouldn't do it.

I will add two more things:
- the danger of 'owners' deleting good posts which they simply disagree with - nobody wins, and
- as I said - I don't think phpBB comes with this functionality - so its a moot point, unless you want to do some serious code crunching and possibly invalidate patches, updates, and plugins.

_________________
- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

It does. To repeat myself, I feel that the main difference between John and me about go terminology is that he leans towards prescriptive definitions while I lean towards descriptive definitions.



We are talking about usage in game commentaries. There two types of honte receive comments, exceptional plays and doubtful plays. My belief is that it is the exceptionality or doubtfulness that elicits the comments, and that in between honte go uncommented. (Possibly with some exceptions, but none come to mind.) If only exceptional honte received comments, then I would agree with John.



Good point. That is why the books on honte, Segoe's, Otake's, and Hane's, are good references on the question.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I find John´s phrase for honte "safe and sound move" a good one. However I don´t expect the players to stop saying "proper move", which they said used posiibly for decades.

I remember I first run into this term in late 80's or so, when i was around 1k... in a commentary to one of Shuko's games. It gave me a lot to think, especially since the resources available to learn about it then were much more limited.

In my mind, I figured out something similar to John: 'honte' can be described by the whole bunch of S-es... Safe, Secure, Steady, Strong... but also Slow... I think it was the slowness that gave me the most to think, and which to me at that time was one of the most characteristic aspects of 'honte'. Each time I saw a 'honte' I could not stop myself from thinking 'that's Slow'.

The other most characteristic S-es of the bunch was Strong. A move which, while slow and safe, also had a visible strength which potentially went far beyond local situation and radiated across the whole board, sometimes defining or even redefining the struggle ahead, just by being there.

Safety was always just a minor aspect to 'honte' for me...

I always thought of 'honte' as 'proper' move, and sometimes as 'honest' move - a move with no 'hidden agendas', what you see is what you get... but once you see it, you appreciate it.

Some of John's examples were a little bit of eye-opening to me.
Makes me thing the pros don't have a very good grip on this concept.

_________________
- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I like this. Although I know it will never happen, I would not be unhappy to see honte translated as an S-move.



Two things about this. One is that it's ignoring my claim that the term is really just commentator rhetoric rather than a pro's theoretical concept (from which it follows that you can't properly define what doesn't exist).

But taking up the jokiness which is the main point of the quote, in preparing the piece on DoP I have found several rather different views by pros as to what it refers to, and although it is possible to reconcile them in a rough and ready way, the main difficulty - just as with S-moves - is that references to DoP only tell you there has been a phase-change in the game. As useful as that is, it doesn't tell you how to recognise phase-change opportunities for yourself, or precisely which move to choose if you do get that far. However, although a good grip is probably not achievable, at least by me, I have found something by Takemiya that I hope can serve as pine-tar.