What I don't like is using the word "go" to search for things related to the game. I get much better results on search engines with "weiqi" and "baduk" when I want to research the game.
I play mostly on KGS using mostly Japanese rules. It's the default and most people use it on that server.
There is an interesting quote from JF's Introduction in his book "Gateway to All Marvels" which brings light to why the rules were changed in China:
In any case, the game itself also seems to have suffered some sort of upheaval in China soon after the GTAM, in Ming times, when the rules were changed from what we now call Japanese rules (territory counting) to modern Chinese rules (area counting), a revolution which may well have its roots in whatever burst of activity seems to have taken place in the 13th and 14th centuries. The available evidence suggests it might have been simply to stop cheating (by fiddling the number of prisoners). We do know that cheating became prevalent as go became more widespread.
