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Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go again
http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=12463
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Author:  gamesorry [ Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

gamesorry wrote:
--The haunting point bug (https://forums.online-go.com/t/duplicat ... ments/5367, Recently gets fixed, cheers!).


Unfortunately I was wrong, this bug is still happening: :sad: :sad:

https://online-go.com/tournament/12120

Here's my guess on the reason:

There are multiple scripts running on the back-end. When a game ends, it creates a temporary game-ending event (x_i) in the database.

Sometimes there are multiple tournament-handling threads (T_i) running. The normal process would be:

Thread T1 fetches the oldest event e1
Thread T1 deletes event e1
Thread T1 updates tournament table
Thread T2 fetches the oldest event e2
Thread T2 deletes event e2
Thread T2 updates tournament table
...

The time between the fetch and delete operation is very small, so in most cases the multi-threads work well. The actual running order could be like:

Thread T1 fetches the oldest event (e1)
Thread T1 deletes event e1
Thread T2 fetches the oldest event (e2)
Thread T2 deletes event e2
Thread T1 updates tournament table
Thread T2 updates tournament table
...

However, the problem happens when the [fetch, delete] operation is not atomic:

Thread T1 fetches the oldest event (e1)
Thread T2 fetches the oldest event (e1) (!)
Thread T1 deletes event e1
Thread T2 deletes event e1
Thread T1 updates tournament table
Thread T2 updates tournament table (the score is increased twice!)
...

Author:  Gohst [ Sat Dec 05, 2015 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

This is certainly a reasonable speculation on how the bug happens. It's *very* easy to create issues like this with improper multi-threaded programming (I know this from long experience).

Author:  lorill [ Wed Dec 09, 2015 1:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

It might have been solved too, but the android client was nice (and my main way to play go), and disappeared without notice with the merger.

I didn't play any turned based game since. I do like the new OGS for realtime games, I just wish people would be more talkative, wait for reviews like in the old times on kgs.

Author:  oren [ Wed Dec 09, 2015 10:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

lorill wrote:
It might have been solved too, but the android client was nice (and my main way to play go), and disappeared without notice with the merger.

I didn't play any turned based game since. I do like the new OGS for realtime games, I just wish people would be more talkative, wait for reviews like in the old times on kgs.


If you like the old OGS app you can still use it to play on DGS.

Author:  Uberdude [ Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

So apparently new OGS is getting banner ads, which is something old OGS promised not to do. The devs don't have enough time to do it as a hobby anymore so want to earn money to make it a job. I suppose it's better than doing a kaya!

From the horse's mouth: https://forums.online-go.com/t/moving-ogs-forward/5727

Author:  oren [ Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Uberdude wrote:
So apparently new OGS is getting banner ads, which is something old OGS promised not to do. The devs don't have enough time to do it as a hobby anymore so want to earn money to make it a job. I suppose it's better than doing a kaya!

From the horse's mouth: https://forums.online-go.com/t/moving-ogs-forward/5727


Gotta make some money somehow. :)

Author:  Uberdude [ Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

I was actually rather surprised they think there's enough traffic to pay a competitive US software developer wage from a restrained amount of ads (not on game pages (yet!)). That post says 1800 new players a week joining which is darn impressive if they actually stick around and play go, but how many of those just click sign-in with Facebook, look around, and leave? (And how many unique humans vs alt accounts?).

Author:  oren [ Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Uberdude wrote:
I was actually rather surprised they think there's enough traffic to pay a competitive US software developer wage from a restrained amount of ads (not on game pages (yet!)). That post says 1800 new players a week joining which is darn impressive if they actually stick around and play go, but how many of those just click sign-in with Facebook, look around, and leave? (And how many unique humans vs alt accounts?).


Yeah, I really miss the old games list to see how many games are going on and what they look like. You can only get a list of real time games which is about 60 right now. I can't imagine ad revenue will be too much.

Author:  illluck [ Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Uberdude wrote:
I was actually rather surprised they think there's enough traffic to pay a competitive US software developer wage from a restrained amount of ads (not on game pages (yet!)). That post says 1800 new players a week joining which is darn impressive if they actually stick around and play go, but how many of those just click sign-in with Facebook, look around, and leave? (And how many unique humans vs alt accounts?).


"Restrained"...

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Author:  temifar [ Fri Jan 01, 2016 3:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

illluck wrote:
"Restrained"...

Attachment:
Ads.png

It still has your games in the center while the ads are restrained to the periphery. It easily could've been the other way around. ;)
The good thing about that horror is those are google adsense, which on my PCs are blocked on so many levels I have little luck seeing them even when I want to.

On the "old vs new" theme. I was a regular on the old OGS. Then I haven't been playing for some 5 years, starting againg only this summer, so I've missed the entire merger drama. For me the main difference between the two servers is that the old one has correspondece play as its main and only focus. Being mostly a correspondence player, I felt right at home there. Now that focus is somewhere else. There are many good things about the new server and my experience on it is mostly positive, but still somehow I feel like I'm a part of minority, whose needs are of secondary concern. That feeling is propably the chief reason why I'm not yet a paying supporter of the new OGS (the second reason is that I tend to avoid recurring montly Paypay payments like a plague), while I did support the old one.

Author:  Bonobo [ Fri Jan 01, 2016 6:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

temifar wrote:
[..] For me the main difference between the two servers is that the old one has correspondece play as its main and only focus. Being mostly a correspondence player, I felt right at home there. Now that focus is somewhere else. There are many good things about the new server and my experience on it is mostly positive, but still somehow I feel like I'm a part of minority, whose needs are of secondary concern. That feeling is propably the chief reason why I'm not yet a paying supporter of the new OGS (the second reason is that I tend to avoid recurring montly Paypay payments like a plague), while I did support the old one.

I almost exclusively play correspondence games on OGS, so I’m part of that “minority” :-) and I believe we are NOT a minority though I don't have any numbers.

I have decided for recurring PayPal payment of a minor amount that 1) doesn’t hurt me at all but which 2) if only perhaps 1/10 of all registered users (though also here I don't know the numbers) would do the same, would allow the OGS devs a comfortable life while being able to dedicate their work time to OGS. That it is recurring is also comfortable for me (because I’m lazy), but the main reason is that it allows them to (somewhat) extrapolate the income, which is important for any plans for the future.

So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time :-D

Author:  temifar [ Fri Jan 01, 2016 10:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Bonobo wrote:
… but the main reason is that it allows them to (somewhat) extrapolate the income, which is important for any plans for the future.

I don't really get that "easier to plan" argument. When I say (elsewhere) that I would prefer one time payments, I do not mean paying $1 now and then. I mean something like buying a year of membership for $50 (the number is approximate, that's what chess.com currently asks for platinum membership), or a half-year for $25. I'm not sure I understand why making plans for $50 your already have is so much harder than for $60 you might or might not have by the end of the year with the current OGS default of $5/month. :scratch:

Bonobo wrote:
So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time :-D

Well, for what it's worth, I've just subscribed for $2/month. But you probably still need to convince a couple more players before we can test your theory. ;-)

Author:  hyperpape [ Fri Jan 01, 2016 3:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

I feel like I've seen some membership based projects that hit a cliff with yearly subscriptions as members turn over at the end of the first year (but I can't remember what they were...). With a monthly subscription, people make a month by month decision and hopefully even if some people lose interest, it's at different times and you can see the trend ahead of time.

Edit: replaced "can remember what they are" with "can't remember...". Wonder if anyone would've ever noticed/commented that the parenthetical made absolutely no sense.

Author:  Bonobo [ Fri Jan 01, 2016 8:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

temifar wrote:
I don't really get that "easier to plan" argument. When I say (elsewhere) that I would prefer one time payments, I do not mean paying $1 now and then. I mean something like buying a year of membership for $50 (the number is approximate, that's what chess.com currently asks for platinum membership), or a half-year for $25. [..]
Mh… I think the devs anoek and matburt have something like that in planning, you’re definitely not the only one who prefers one time payments.

Quote:
Bonobo wrote:
So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time :-D

Well, for what it's worth, I've just subscribed for $2/month. But you probably still need to convince a couple more players before we can test your theory. ;-)
Cool :-) I think I may thank you on behalf of all OGS. And it’s not a proven theory, of course, just a wishful hypothesis ;-)

Author:  illluck [ Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Looked at OGS today, the side ad banners are gone - looks a lot better!

Personally, I'd be ok with one side banner on the right (2 was a bit too much). Not sure what the general preferences is.

Author:  Bonobo [ Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

illluck wrote:
Looked at OGS today, the side ad banners are gone - looks a lot better!

Personally, I'd be ok with one side banner on the right (2 was a bit too much). Not sure what the general preferences is.

All this is new for the devs too … anoek wrote on the OGS forum that he is still experimenting.

Author:  hyperpape [ Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.

Author:  Bonobo [ Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:55 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

hyperpape wrote:
I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.
Yeah, that’s one reason why I don’t like ads at all ;-) but I fear OGS will have little influence on this b/c the ads are automatically served by Google, and AFAIK it’s only possible to exclude certain categories of ads (e.g. “adult content”).

Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.

For example, here: https://forums.online-go.com/t/some-ad-nits/5957, or in the main post where the introduction of ads was announced: https://forums.online-go.com/t/moving-o ... d/5727/102

Author:  Leira [ Mon Jan 04, 2016 6:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Bonobo wrote:
Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.


True. However, I do think its part of moderator "duties" (if there's any such thing) to not only help maintain peace and general friendliness of the server, but also to actually assist the devs in what they can't do. For example, visiting this forum and monitoring what may perhaps be missed in the official OGS forum itself.

One thing this forum has that the other doesn't is the external reaction towards the server, from at least a certain part of the Go community. Many of those who left the server dwell here quite often, and do post their opinions thereof every now and then, as do many of those who have never joined for whatever reason.

Edit: also some OGS users show their dissent here more freely than they do there, again, for whatever reason.

Author:  hyperpape [ Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go a

Bonobo wrote:
hyperpape wrote:
I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.
Yeah, that’s one reason why I don’t like ads at all ;-) but I fear OGS will have little influence on this b/c the ads are automatically served by Google, and AFAIK it’s only possible to exclude certain categories of ads (e.g. “adult content”).

Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.
I thought adwords gave you more control than that, but I certainly don't know.

Good point about where to give feedback.

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