How to study shape?

[Charles Matthews]

the so-called "valuable resource" is indeed that - it's a huge chunk of the most significant game records, which for the most part existed previously on paper only. They have been digitised for you. This is the "legacy" that is going to make studying go significantly easier for the next generation. The complaint that it is in a "legacy format" - what do think it was in before?

I don't understand your objection in the slightest. Nobody is snubbing CD-ROMs - many modern computers are simply not built to accept them. The games themselves are a valuable resource. A CD-ROM, on the other hand, is as useless to me as a floppy disk or a roll of ticker tape, because I don't have a CD-ROM drive or the money to buy one. Unlike paper, they're not "legacy" - they're obsolete, and soon they'll be extinct.

(And somehow I think it's a gratuitous waste of time to spend countless thousands of hours digitising games to make them more widely available and useful, and then publish them only in a not very widely available, and so not very useful, format. It's none of my business, of course, but I'd have thanked anyone who told me that CDs were obsolete and jumped at the chance to make my product more widely available, whereas the reaction that Toge and I have had is somewhat different. I can't help but find this rather confusing.)

OK, you have had your answer: a polite request to purchase on a memory stick would have done something for you.

As for the rest, 0/10 for attitude. Server go may come to you, but for the rest (NB that server go is the blind leading the blind to some extent) you may have to meet it half way. A trip to Asia; or puzzling out material written in a foreign language ... need I go on? There is nothing at all that says that the information you need about go will automatically be available in English, explained at your current level, and in a format that happens to match the hardware you currently have.

GoGoD doesn't charge a commercial price for its product, you know. (The people who sell you machines very much do that.) I think, in return, you could at least try to be polite and appreciative. If you are confused by being told that the "market" is not the driver, and is not going to be the driver, for the global development of go, so much the better. You might then start to wonder what is.

[billywoods]

A trip to Asia; or puzzling out material written in a foreign language ... need I go on?

I am glad that there are people in the world who have this much free time and money to spend on a hobby, but I'm not one of them!

There is nothing at all that says that the information you need about go will automatically be available in English, explained at your current level, and in a format that happens to match the hardware you currently have.

Right. There's nothing at all that promises me that I have some inalienable right from birth for GoGoD to exist. But it does. Why? Because its producers and distributors want it to be as widely available as possible - the same reason you published your book online, and the same reason I help people on this forum. We all want go material to be as widely available as possible.

CDs are becoming obsolete - perhaps you could pop into your local HMV and ask them what this means in practice for those who sell CDs.

I repeat my advice: a simple line on the GoGoD website that says "we're happy to sell in other formats too - just get in touch", and a list of file formats for those who have non-Windows machines, would make this valuable resource far more widely available with 5 minutes' worth of effort. We (here on L19 reading this thread) know this like the back of our hands already, but we are a negligibly small proportion of western go players, and it would help everyone else (including myself before I found L19) to have that information come straight from the horse's mouth - that's all. If you can give me a good reason why this is an unreasonable and/or impolite and/or unappreciative thing to ask, please do. If you can't, feel free to keep criticising my manners / attitude / sense of entitlement / "street cred", I suppose.

[Bartleby]

It's not a question of "street cred," billywoods. There is nothing wrong with giving advice, and even constructive criticism can be helpful under the right circumstances. I will assume that you are trying to be helpful in your own way.

The problem is that you are coming off as criticizing TMark and JF (and I realize this may not be your intent) for the way they distribute GoGoD, and this is likely to cause some negative reactions. It's important for you to understand that GoGoD is essentially a monumental labor of love from two knowledgeable and dedicated people. It is ludicrously cheap for what is contains, and it is the product of many thousands of hours of work (including the entry of every game in the database by hand) for which its creators have received little, if any, compensation. (I wouldn't be surprised if the money from the sales of GoGoD barely covered the costs of creating it, without any compensation for the huge amount of time and effort involved.) I know you have indicated you are ignorant of the backstory, but in such situations, Google is your friend.

Your comments could be perceived as criticizing TMark and JF for not presenting their material in a format most convenient to you, even though this poses at most a minor inconvenience to you in the face of truly Herculean labors by them. I don't think this is what you meant, but you could perhaps be more careful about how you say things. The fact that this material is available at all to Westerners is the result of what is perceived by many to be a miracle of selflessness on the part of TMark and JF, and you are likely to get some backs up when you seem to be suggesting that they should have done more or done things differently.

[hyperpape]

Analogy time:

"I personally can't make use of files on CDs. Is there any solution we can work out, maybe a download?....Oh, you'll mail me a flash drive? Great! I think there's a lot of people like me, and you might get business from them if you made a note of that on your website."
:
"CDs are obsolete!"

::

"ehhhh, excooosez-moy, parley-vooze anglez?" ("excuse me, do you speak english?")
:
" WHY DO YOU STUPID FRENCH PEOPLE NOT HAVE SIGNS IN ENGLISH?"

[billywoods]

at most a minor inconvenience to you

I've said many times that I cannot access CDs, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm being taken seriously. After spending £20 on a CD full of sgf files, it may well seem like only a minor inconvenience to you to then spend another £15 on a trip to and from my nearest public library and a cheap flash drive to transport the files back home, but I hope you understand that money is tight and £35 is two weeks' food for me! And I'm not just talking about myself here, of course - Toge and palapiku have already raised similar concerns about the obsolescence of CDs, and I'd bet there were other people not on L19 who had come across GoGoD in the past and thought the same.

truly Herculean labors by them ... you seem to be suggesting that they should have done more

Well, sort of. I'm suggesting that their truly Herculean labours might just go to far more use if they spent 5 minutes updating their website a little bit. If I had put monumental amounts of time and effort into a project and intended to distribute it for free purely for its own sake, I'd be very grateful to know of any way in which I could spread it even further with minimal work. I am neither criticising their efforts nor telling them to do it differently; I'm just saying that there are people out there who want GoGoD and think they can't get it (like me a year ago), and I thought that they would probably be glad to know about this.

I am sorry if I have not come across as grateful for the work that T Mark and John have done. Of course I am grateful. I hope that T Mark and John don't mistake my comments towards Charles for comments towards them. I think they're doing a great job, and my only criticism of them so far is that they haven't advertised well enough how helpful they actually are. I'm a great believer in freedom of access to information, and I hope one day I can contribute like they have. And, indeed, T Mark turned up and told me that he would be willing to send me the files on a flash drive. So I have nothing to complain about.

[Charles Matthews]

at most a minor inconvenience to you

I've said many times that I cannot access CDs, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm being taken seriously.

That's because you are using overstatement. An external CD-ROM drive costs £15. This doesn't prove CD-ROMs are obsolete; it tends to prove that hardware sold without a CD-ROM drive recognises the drives are a commodity item.

[billywoods]

That's because you are using overstatement. An external CD-ROM drive costs £15.

I really don't know what more to say. Even if it wasn't completely vulgar of you to speculate about my finances, I've already told you I'm a student on a very tight budget. I think this discussion ends here.

[Charles Matthews]

That's because you are using overstatement. An external CD-ROM drive costs £15.

I really don't know what more to say. Even if it wasn't completely vulgar of you to speculate about my finances, I've already told you I'm a student on a very tight budget. I think this discussion ends here.

This is life in 19x19, remember. Not "life in general", which is not set up for the convenience of any of us.

If money is too tighten to mention, you are much better off not mentioning it, really. I'm not deaf, nor ignorant of students.

Just don't call "useless lumps of plastic" things that are quite the opposite. Cut your losses (a very good go principle) and don't lash out at volunteers. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

[Bantari]

I've said many times that I cannot access CDs, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm being taken seriously. After spending £20 on a CD full of sgf files, it may well seem like only a minor inconvenience to you to then spend another £15 on a trip to and from my nearest public library and a cheap flash drive to transport the files back home, but I hope you understand that money is tight and £35 is two weeks' food for me!

Well, what are you saying then?
To me, it seems like: "I CANNOT AFFORD your product (CD + CD reader) and its all YOUR FAULT!"

It may be that at this point of your life you cannot afford GoGoD. Does not mean the world should adjust - it only means you have to wait until you are in a better shape financially, and THEN buy it.

I hear your argument that CD/DVD is being phased out - but we are not there yet, and 99.99% of the world still has access to some kind of a reader. So, for now, whatever format GoGoD is released, its all good. Its still a TREMENDOUS value you get for your money - even when you pay for the CD + CDreader together - its still darned cheap!

And as for the argument that "you only need a part of GoGoD" - its like going to a library and demanding they sell you only the particular chapter of a book because you don't need the rest. How spoiled have we become as a community?

PS>
Geesh....If I made such a fuss about everything I cannot afford at the moment, I would not haver time for nothing else but complaining...

PS>
Hey Mark - THAT's how you rant!!

[Dusk Eagle]

And as for the argument that "you only need a part of GoGoD" - its like going to a library and demanding they sell you only the particular chapter of a book because you don't need the rest. How spoiled have we become as a community?

To be fair, it's not really like that, as digital products are easily separable whereas a physical book is not. Also, GoGoD really is multiple products bound together in a single package (which is perfectly fine). I know I mainly just use the database part of GoGoD.

As for the larger fight that's going on, I have my opinions on it, but I think it's best to just not get involved.

[jts]

And as for the argument that "you only need a part of GoGoD" - its like going to a library and demanding they sell you only the particular chapter of a book because you don't need the rest. How spoiled have we become as a community?

To be fair, it's not really like that, as digital products are easily separable whereas a physical book is not. Also, GoGoD really is multiple products bound together in a single package (which is perfectly fine). I know I mainly just use the database part of GoGoD.

As for the larger fight that's going on, I have my opinions on it, but I think it's best to just not get involved.

... I'm confused that you chose this part of Bantari's rant to dispute. It would be perfectly reasonable for libraries to make their books available to users as chapter-by-chapter pdfs. The files would load more quickly than a whole book, for heavily-read titles under copyright more people could be reading the book at once, and for many edited volumes, the user would only have wanted to read one essay/entry etc. anyway.

[billywoods]

Well, what are you saying then?

Mostly, I was baited by a stupid derailment. People told me repeatedly that I could access CDs because they had found ingenious solutions to my stupidity; Charles was consistently rude and dismissive; even Bartleby and xed_over, who made largely helpful posts, made one or two comments that made it clear they thought I was an idiot. Naively, I got annoyed and allowed myself to be goaded into talking about things I didn't really want to talk about to defend myself. I still don't want to talk about those things (or about the resulting argument about those things, or about this post, or...).

As for what I actually wanted to talk about: I'm pretty sure I made it quite clear in post 54 (and many since: 75 and the latter half of 80, for example). T Mark answered me satisfactorily immediately. But if you'd like to discuss further anything I wanted to talk about, please feel free.

[xed_over]

even Bartleby and xed_over, who made largely helpful posts, made one or two comments that made it clear they thought I was an idiot.

An idiot? No, not in the least.
Unreasonably argumentative? Probably.

Besides, I thought you were done with this discussion.

[Bantari]

Well, what are you saying then?

Mostly, I was baited by a stupid derailment. People told me repeatedly that I could access CDs because they had found ingenious solutions to my stupidity; Charles was consistently rude and dismissive; even Bartleby and xed_over, who made largely helpful posts, made one or two comments that made it clear they thought I was an idiot.

Ok, I think you are too harsh on yourself. I did not understand what they said as meaning you were an idiot, or stupid, or whatever. More likely - spoiled and slightly self-centered.

Here is what I would have done in your place:
1. Contact the GoGoD creator/distributor asking about other options (other then CD)
2. Lacking thereof, I would suggest help (maybe for a discount) - still in private mails, mind you
3. If that too failed, I would post here with a question if anybody has an idea, maybe even a solution - if, as you suggest and believe (which is not true) that CDs are obsolete, chances are many people had the same problem as you do, and chances are - the community has solved it somehow
4. If that still fails, THEN you might get upset, but not really at the world (i.e. the GoGoD creators, the community, etc.), but rather at the current circumstances YOU find yourself in. And then you can decide to (a) do without the goodies, (b) wait until your circumstances improve, (c) do something about your circumstances (help out in the local burger joint for a couple of hours - this might get you the funds you lack,) or (d) wait until GoGoD changes its ways and joins the 21st century (maybe offer some help here too?)

Instead, what you did looked like that:
THEY suck, and THEY make life uncomfortable for ME, and THEY use old technology, and why don't THEY accomodate ME, and THEY don't understands ME, and even THEIR website is bad, and yadda yadda yadda...

Do you seriously wonder why that annoys people? Regardless of the standing TM and JF have within the community.

[billywoods]

Besides, I thought you were done with this discussion.

So did I. I want to be done with this discussion, and I'm sure plenty of other people want this discussion to end too. But for every one person that wants me to shut up, there's another that replies to me. I can't really win. I've said twice that I want to stop talking about irrelevant things, but here I go again:

Here is what I would have done in your place:

You're misunderstanding my first post. I didn't complain about GoGoD. I complained about Charles's insistence that asking for GoGoD in non-CD formats was "technically snobbish". I told him that there were perfectly good reasons why one might want or need it in other formats, and so it would be snobbish to refuse to give it to people in other formats. T Mark then turned up and said that when people asked for other formats, they did indeed get them - that is, he agreed with me, even if he didn't agree with the way I said it. I'd like to stop talking about this, now, please. (For the third time.)

I did offer the advice that their website could use some improvement. There were a few bits of information that I'd have liked to see on the website that I couldn't find, which made me hesitate to give them money (and eventually I didn't). This is a shame both for me and for the sellers. It's friendly advice from one person wanting to spread go to another (well, two others), not criticism.

(maybe offer some help here too?)

If anyone asks me for help with anything I can do, they tend to get it. Why do you think I spend my free time giving advice online? It's certainly not because I can't think of more enjoyable things to do - it's because, like everyone else here, I want to help spread go.