Any tips for the transition to KGS? Or is it just a matter of, go and do it? I am still only playing 9x9 and 13x13, and I vaguely remember those being unrated on KGS.

Looks like I'd better tear through remainder of my self-imposed small-board requirement and start playing 19x19 then

Thanks, that's very helpful!

No problem. There's one other option, I didn't explain. If you sign up for KGS and only want to play 9x9 or 13x13 games, for example, you can check an option to have no rank. In this case, your rank will always show up as "[-]". You cannot play rated games when this option is checked.

This option doesn't have much purpose, except to hide whatever rank you may have accumulated on the server from other people.

No problem. There's one other option, I didn't explain. If you sign up for KGS and only want to play 9x9 or 13x13 games, for example, you can check an option to have no rank. In this case, your rank will always show up as "[-]". You cannot play rated games when this option is checked.

This option doesn't have much purpose, except to hide whatever rank you may have accumulated on the server from other people.

So, yeah... If you want to have a rank, 19x19 game is the only way. If you really enjoy smaller boards, you can enjoy them without the pleasure of a rank

The [-] is a nice way of signalling that you intentionally don't have a rank, compared to a [?] where you might have just not earned a rank yet. It also serves the function of making it possible to remove a player's games from the rating calculations without deleting the account.

I wasn't aware of this latter point. That's interesting.

The former point has little value, because a player can toggle [-] on and off as they please. Both [?] and [-] could describe the same user. Maybe today the guy wants a rank and tomorrow not.

IMO, beginners should not bother having a rank until they have played for one year, or until they play at SDK level, whichever comes first. They advance so rapidly that thinking of themselves as thus and such rank is more hindrance than help.

Sure, if a player wants to go out of their way to make a feature useless for their account they can, but many players use it effectively to distinguish between an account that doesn't have a rank yet vs. a rank that will never have an account.

A player is not going out of their way to make the feature useless in this case. Like I said, the feature serves a single purpose - hiding one's rank from other people (and, presumably, to keep one's rank out of server calculations). The feature does not serve the purpose of indicating that one will never have a rank, since users can toggle it.

If the server desires to have a feature that allows one to indicate that an account will never have a rank, then the feature should exist as such: users should not be able to toggle the [-] on and off. For example, when you register, you could create a permanently unranked account.

I'm not saying that KGS should do this, but let's not pretend that the feature is something it's not. The [-] rank indicates this: the user is currently opting not to have their rank shown. The length of time for which this is in effect is entirely up to the user.

I was under the impression that admins could force [-] as a sort of punishment and way of maintaining the rating system against wanton sandbaggers, but maybe I'm wrong.

Like I said, the feature serves a single purpose - hiding one's rank from other people (and, presumably, to keep one's rank out of server calculations).