Wish we had a better introductory Go website + goban applet!

[Hayang]

I agree with Dr.Straw on this.

Making things pretty is nice and good....

You're right on that the title is a little sensational, and hearing what you said calls for some correction. Maybe "Well designed/developed introductory website for teaching Go, and better java applet" might be better to describe this thread.

Let me just reiterate what I'm trying to say:

I think a good introductory website - one that is both well-written, well-designed, and yes, pretty, would be useful for many people who want to teach others about the game of Go. We could probably do better than what is available, and I have some ideas that I would put into use if there was a really good responsive, embeddable goban applet available.

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A side note about design, since you mentioned it and I like talking about it:
I don't think that design is about making things pretty at all, and I don't advocate just making things shiny. I'm totally with you on that! I never meant pretty, I meant well-designed.

I think all of those examples of good websites you gave are extremely well designed because their form follows their function. I think they are well-designed precisely because they do their job extremely well, with minimal fluff. Speaking of "pretty" though, they are actually very pretty websites, including Google, Stack Overflow, and A List Apart, even Github. And their aesthetics add to their attractiveness.

In the specific case of an introduction website for Go, the most important thing to design is still the content, but I think making it "pretty" is important too. Again, form follows function in good design, and I think part of the function of a website introducing Go is to retain interest in new players. A interactive tutorial that looks good while having a well-thought out teaching path will retain the interest of users (particularly young ones) more than, at worst, one that looks like our grandfathers' computers, with everything in long paragraphs of text.

[goTony]

A great idea! I think you can't go wrong with a professional looking presentation. I always recommend the Interactive Way to GO, its simplicity and teaching style are hard to beat. However modern graphics are more eye catching, and the what many people expect.

I also think well done fliers and posters can help to attract people.

Keep up the good work!

[RobertJasiek]

Needless to say, information must be correct. "Whoever has more territory wins." is false. (See the go rules forum for related explanations. Hint: prisoners are not part of the territory.)

[Hayang]

You are right, Robert. I better find a more correct way to put it.

[moyoaji]

I like the last line of the Japanese Rules of Go introduction: These rules must be applied in a spirit of good sense and mutual trust between the players.

---

If you are wondering what Robert is referring to, here are Robert's orderly rules of go: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/simple.html (Not to be confused with Robert's Rules of Order)

These rules are an absolute definition of the game of go. The rules don't have any holes in them where someone can create an illegal board position (assuming you allow suicide) and it contains examples of the rules being played out.

That being said, I find the document's wording difficult to understand. I don't see how the phrase "A black / white point is surrounded if no leaving path reaches empty first after black / white; an empty point is surrounded by black / white if any leaving path reaches black / white first after empty" would make sense to someone without an understanding of the game. Yet that is the definition of liberties and territory respectively. Additionally, it does not use these terms and that also seems like a glaring flaw.

In my mind any ruleset that does not include the terms "intersection," "stone," "capture," "liberty," "ko," or "territory" is limited because new players will need to understand these terms to effectively discuss the game with existing players. That's like making a ruleset for chess that doesn't use the terms "check," "checkmate," "capture," "castling," or "en passant." A ruleset without these terms can be useful in defining the game, but not so great for playing it with other people.

Your goal with this website is to create something where people can show people how to play this game with other people. You want it to look nice because people like things that look nice. Your whole purpose is too human for something so dry and heavy. Go theory and fights over rules and scoring is best left to people who want to fight over that.

If you can create something that concisely marries these two - the clarity of your presentation and the correctness of this ruleset - then you'd have something really special. But don't try to please everyone. I posted a set of rules here and what ensued was pages of debate over how "correct" the rules were. It was not productive.

Needless to say, information must be correct. "Whoever has more territory wins." is false. (See the go rules forum for related explanations. Hint: prisoners are not part of the territory.)

Actually, in his rules prisoners are. The PowerPoint he posted has this statement about capturing - "The black stone is captured and taken off the board. It is now White’s prisoner, and counts as a point of White’s territory." There is nothing wrong with defining territory this way. It works exactly the same as traditional territory scoring; the margin of victory will be identical.

If your problem is with territory scoring itself, please direct all complaints to the Nihon Ki-in (http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/english/contact.html) and/or Kansai Ki-in (http://www.kansaikiin.jp/doujou.html). If they stop using it, so will I.

[RobertJasiek]

prisoner, and counts as a point of White’s territory.

It is not necessary to confuse beginners by redefining territory differently from how it is used in go. Simpler and correct: "counts for White" or "scores for White" or "counts as a point for White" or "scores as a point for White".

[leichtloeslich]

I posted a set of rules here and what ensued was pages of debate over how "correct" the rules were. It was not productive.

You mean this thread? viewtopic.php?t=8520
Seems like you took a senseis page and naively modified it "slightly" to use territory scoring instead of area scoring, without realizing that this makes the rules as stated actually incomplete/inconsistent.
Then you get defensive upon people pointing this out to you.

In fact, the powerpoint presentation of the OP seems to suffer the very same problem: the question of what to do when your opponent just plops a stone into your "territory" is blatantly obvious to any beginner and should be addressed by an introduction to the game. (Imho it's more essential than explaining ko, let alone mentioning suicide.)

I find the document's wording difficult to understand. I don't see how the phrase [...] would make sense to someone without an understanding of the game.

The wording reminds me of the logical rules of go, which I find much easier to understand than Robert's kind of convoluted language.
Anyway, I don't think either is meant for beginners.

[DrStraw]

A great idea! I think you can't go wrong with a professional looking presentation. I always recommend the Interactive Way to GO, its simplicity and teaching style are hard to beat. However modern graphics are more eye catching, and the what many people expect.

I also think well done fliers and posters can help to attract people.

Keep up the good work!

I completely agree with this statement. The problem is that I don't see lots of flashy color and glitz as being professional. The front page for our university's private access was recently redone. It now has no menus and minimal text, but does have lots of pictures and color and buttons to click. It looks like it is designed for a bunch of kids who cannot read instead of for a professional organization. If well done, it can look okay, but glitz can never replace a well organized arrangement of material. I am very happy with the stuff we have at present and would rather see all efforts directed to producing better content than a different presentation.

[xed_over]

In fact, the powerpoint presentation of the OP seems to suffer the very same problem: the question of what to do when your opponent just plops a stone into your "territory" is blatantly obvious to any beginner and should be addressed by an introduction to the game. (Imho it's more essential than explaining ko, let alone mentioning suicide.)

Needless to say, information must be correct. "Whoever has more territory wins." is false. (See the go rules forum for related explanations. Hint: prisoners are not part of the territory.)

Its not necessary to be so pedantic in an introduction to Go. An introduction should be just that... an introduction, a starting point. There's plenty of time to get into the exact precision of rules definitions later (which have never been exact nor precise throughout the history of the game anyway).

[HermanHiddema]

Do you guys agree that the community could benefit from some well-designed and developed web tools?
(Developers, do you know about any current development projects in Go?)

Absolutely agree. IWTG is a good concept, but the execution is appallingly outdated. Not only is it ugly, it needs either flash or java, meaning it does not run on any mobile devices or tablets.

I love Sensei's Library for its content, but its style is 10 years out of date.

KGS has great features, but visual appeal is not one of them.

There are a few projects that are breaking new ground, either technologically or from a design perspective. Pandanet 2.2, the latest version IGS client, looks great, for example. And projects like OGS and Ootakamoku are definitely moving forward and using new technology in interesting ways.

[Bonobo]

EDIT: Sorry for being grumpy.

Sometimes being grumpy is totally OK, otherwise some people don’t get how serious one is

It seems to me that someone is trying to do something productive and helpful here, I'm just a little frustrated by some of the negativity.

Exactly the same sentiment for me. And respect to you, Hayang, for taking up even the shallowest criticism as a friendly suggestion.

Reminds me of “Don’t let those who say ‘it can’t be done’ stand in the way of those who are doing it.”

What goTony says: “Keep up the good work!”, don’t let anything demoralize you.


Greetings, Tom
curious to see what you’ll come up with

[Boidhre]

This is 100% pixel ratio:

I still find that text harder to read than it should be. It could just be me though.

[Rowen]

This has been quite the hot topic and I wanted to chime in. I believe that a more modern look, better graphic, ect would help in the long run. Presentation and first impressions go a long way - with video games being prominent with the future Go players lives they come to expect realistic, nice looking visuals. Seeing graphics that come from the 80's - 90's would turn them away (not all of them of course), but most.

A lot of gamers - which most of the up coming Go players are- equate outdated graphics with poor/inferior game design. So why not attract them with a realistic board and stones? An attractive menu system and good functionality? After all its new players we would like to attract and were not getting any younger.

Also to implement something like that into KGS shouldn't be too difficult from what little I know of programing - hell I would even pay for an upgrade like that as long as it was maintained and of high quality.

Perhaps KGS could go open source and some talented folks could assist? There has to be some talented folks out there that could make great graphics given specs by the developers and then implemented. In effect giving the coders time to code while the community assists with graphic creation.

Sorry for the long post, I just strongly believe the two go together.

[Bantari]

EDIT: Sorry for being grumpy.

It seems to me that someone is trying to do something productive and helpful here, I'm just a little frustrated by some of the negativity.

I assume you are talking to/about me.
In this case - you are right, my apologies.
It *is* something nice the OP is trying to do.

PS>
While I stand by what I said, I was maybe a tad too harsh.
As a matter of fact, I considered what I said more of a constructive criticism.

It is great to have motivation and people willing to do stuff, I would never say anything against that. But I think that it is also important to have some community input as to which direction is the most beneficial. OP can listen to it, or not, but its nice to have such input. This is why I said what I said. And besides, it is my belief that lack of pretty interfaces is *not* what "severely hampers spread of Go", so I had a beef with the premise itself, I guess, which contributed to my tone. Now that the title (and the premise) was changed, I think the message is much more on-point and I am more agreeable.

[DrStraw]

I assume you are talking to/about me.

Or me.

But what is the point of posting a question if only positive responses are acceptable? You have to accept the good with the bad and get a sense of the balance of opinion. It seems that the majority like the idea and therefore it seems appropriate to explore further. But getting down on those who are not so enthusiastic is not a good policy for open and free discussion.