Malkovich: The flood is coming

[CarlJung]

I just suggested to create a seperate sub forum for turn based play.

The Malkovich subforum with games aimed at the spectators, to give the spectators an insight in the players thoughts. The players have the obligation to comment on their moves and answer questions from the spectators. This does not need to be really long comments and questions, but they should provide some quality to the game for the spectators. This subforum should not have dozens of games, but a limit is not necessary as the quality is good.

The turn based subforum with games aimed at the players. Giving the players a chance to get experience. The principles are just the same and the players can still comment on their move if they want to and spectators can ask questions. But there are no obligations from the players.

I strongly object to this idea.

If one want's to play turn based games (for oneself, not the audience), why not do it on a turn based server? What's so terribly wrong with all the turn based servers that it warrants L19 to create a new one?

• If the players want commentaries on their games, why not play them on the already established turn based servers and post them in the game analysis subforum or the GTL once they are finished.
• If there is no commentaries from the players, a spectator can find higher quality pro games for free on the net and it would serve the same purpose for the spectator.
• The only reason I see to create it is if a spectator wants to inquire about a move for a game in progress. That isn't happening a lot on the already ongoing malc games as we could read in the initial post.

1. i dont mind moving to other forum. then who loses?? (forum an people who actually enjoy little commented game) what give you right to deny their right?
2. you are welcome to download professional game and not watch my game.
3. same answer. if you dont think you like it then dont watch..too simple.

Oh but little commented games are still commented games. They could still be instructive for the spectator and would very much be called a malkovich game. I have enjoyed your short comments. It's the no comments at all from any of the players that I have issues with. Such games seem to have no place on a discussion forum.

[topazg]

Actually, the biggest problem I have with them, and the No. 1 reason I stop following a Malkovich game, is 10+ moves per day.

I don't mind short comments, and I enjoy the magicwand games, but not when every time I see them I have to backtrack 40 moves just to see what happened.

I think 2 or 3 moves per day max is essential for them to maintain genuine educational value.

[Magicwand]

Oh but little commented games are still commented games. They could still be instructive for the spectator and would very much be called a malkovich game. I have enjoyed your short comments. It's the no comments at all from any of the players that I have issues with. Such games seem to have no place on a discussion forum.

agreed.. on your point.

[Violence]

But Topazg, a lot of moves can be explained by one comment... I do understand, however, that a lot of moves per day is hard to keep up with.

What if, every 10 moves, someone could post an SGF of the game with the comments from both players, for the audience? Every 10 moves, just add to that sgf. That would make things easier to follow, no?

[CarlJung]

Actually, the biggest problem I have with them, and the No. 1 reason I stop following a Malkovich game, is 10+ moves per day.

I don't mind short comments, and I enjoy the magicwand games, but not when every time I see them I have to backtrack 40 moves just to see what happened.

I think 2 or 3 moves per day max is essential for them to maintain genuine educational value.

Sure, it's difficult to keep up with the information overload. But is the answer really to limit the inflow? Or should perhaps one adopt a different mindset to the information? Having many pages of commented move to wade through sounds like a nice thing to have if one wants to study go. If it gets too much, just stop reading. So what if you miss some detail? You'll have a new batch of pages to sift for information tomorrow

[Magicwand]

Actually, the biggest problem I have with them, and the No. 1 reason I stop following a Malkovich game, is 10+ moves per day.

I don't mind short comments, and I enjoy the magicwand games, but not when every time I see them I have to backtrack 40 moves just to see what happened.

I think 2 or 3 moves per day max is essential for them to maintain genuine educational value.

so far i havent seen any 40 moves per day game.
when two players are all present it is only logical to play much moves as possible.
if i have 40 move to backtrack and read i would be happy.
again.. it is a preference and we can not fit everyone.
take it as is. nobody is forcing anyone here.
instead of trying to force the educational value try to find the educational value out of what we have. i think that is the solution and the joseki.

[tj86430]

I only use search.php?search_id=newposts to read the forum, and therefore
- I don't care if there are 1 or 10 subforums for these games (or anything else for that matter)
- when I click the little "view first unread post" icon to the left of the topic, I get to the first move I haven't seen, and I don't usually have to backtrack anything.

[topazg]

But Topazg, a lot of moves can be explained by one comment... I do understand, however, that a lot of moves per day is hard to keep up with.

What if, every 10 moves, someone could post an SGF of the game with the comments from both players, for the audience? Every 10 moves, just add to that sgf. That would make things easier to follow, no?

Not really. I'm not so fussed about the comments anyway. I take and leave them for the most part. However, when playing through professional or amateur games, or doing reviews of weaker players, what I find instructional and educational is the way the dynamics and flow of the game change. Seeing groups appear, become weak, see the aji appear, get used, the direction of the game change, and so on. All of this makes Go very interesting to me. To come and see 30 new moves and a very different feeling board position means I lose the feel of the game, at which point it is uninteresting to me and I stop following it. I don't have time to replay through 50 or 60 posts to get the move order, comments, responses, and flow that make it interesting.

Having 10 moves summed up is an improvement, but not a great one as it is still a) 10 moves in one go, or more likely, b) 30 moves in 3 .sgfs if there were 30 moves before, and c) requires each individual Malkovich player to embrace the concept.

I don't mind, they are for the community as a whole, not just me, but the reason I have almost stopped following the Malkovich vs Kirby games, and to an extent yours against magicwand, is there are just too many moves being played.

3 or 4 every day is fine and good for me, and it also keeps up the suspense and interest of "what happens next?" Most of my improvement at Go comes from stopping, analyzing, thinking "what would I do next? Why? What would I be aiming for?" and so on. Doing this and then seeing a stronger player's plan is enlightening because you've had the chance to go through the process before seeing the game unfold. I think the educational value is far higher if the games move slower, but it depends what the purpose and priority of the game being played is.

Sure, it's difficult to keep up with the information overload. But is the answer really to limit the inflow? Or should perhaps one adopt a different mindset to the information? Having many pages of commented move to wade through sounds like a nice thing to have if one wants to study go. If it gets too much, just stop reading. So what if you miss some detail? You'll have a new batch of pages to sift for information tomorrow

You miss the point. It isn't information overload. It's just playing through a game record with comments doesn't have the same educational value to me as thinking about the position myself and then observing someone else handling the position as it unfolds. It's a very different process.

[daniel_the_smith]

Well, expect my game to slow down a lot now that nothing is clear any more...

[Phelan]

After reading some of the comments (I skipped a bit, sorry), I am now against having two different subforums. I don't think we have a problem with the current way things are done, not yet anyway.

[illluck]

Am I the only person who prefers the sparsely commented games? I find that they are quite entertaining, and very detailed comments (with multiple diagrams) tend to make me lose interest XD

I guess it's because I'm watching for the excitement rather than to learn, but is this a bad thing?

[Joaz Banbeck]

...
I guess it's because I'm watching for the excitement rather than to learn, but is this a bad thing?

It would be if I did it.

[illluck]

It would be if I did it.

)

I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Do you mean that it is a bad thing for you to watch for excitement?

I mean, no one is forcing you to watch for entertainment instead trying to learn (they aren't mutually-exclusive anyways - I feel that I learned quite a few useful things from Magicwand's games).

[ketchup]

This move is bad timing.

I couldn't resist the pun, because it is.

[ross]

1) I don't think creating a non-Malkovich turn-based forum is a good idea--either play a low-commentary Malkovich game, or go to a real turn-based server.

2) We desperately need an "ignore Malkovich games" feature. Maybe as a temporary partial solution we could use the "Mark Forums Read" link on this page, but put it elsewhere (like on every page, or at least the "Unread Posts" page, so it's a single click?