An overview of what's most popular at Sensei's Library

[Knotwilg]

From the list at http://senseis.xmp.net/?MostPopular we can draw a few conclusions about what SL readers prefer. More speculative are conclusions about what go players want to read and which people are drawn to SL.


Technical pages

1. Joseki
2. Tesuji
3. Life and death
4. Seki
(3-4 joseki)
(4-4 joseki)
5. Ladder
(tsumego)
6. Fuseki
7. Basic technique
8. Tenuki
9. Miai
10. Sente
11. Aji
12. Net
13. Hane
(Chinese fuseki)
14. Kikashi
15. Ko
16. Framework
17. Sabaki
18. Monkey jump
19. Squeeze
20. Enclosure
21. L-group
22. Keima
23. Bent four in the corner
24. Oi-Otoshi
(two eyes)
25. Gote
(san ren sei fuseki)

The three most popular technical pages are also indexes. The first real concept is "seki", then comes "ladder" and third, somewhat surprisingly, tenuki. The subject of ko seems underrated. There is a lot of ko material at SL. We have undertaken a few attempts at organizing it well but still not to the preference of the readers.

People

(Hikaru)
1. Shusaku
2. Go Seigen
3. Lee Changho

During its peak popularity, SL was inundated with Hikaru material and still bears many traces of that era. Next to that imaginary creature, Shusaku, Go Seigen and Lee Changho are SL's favorites.

Indexes

1. Beginner study section
(joseki)
2. Proverbs
3. Rules of go - introductory
(tesuji)
4. List of Korean names
5. Go servers

If we remove indexes about the organization of SL itself, we end up with this list.
The popularity of indexes seems to indicate that players drawn to SL have already been introduced to the game and are mostly interested in beginner material. Experienced players may use SL as a joseki reference. Korean names are significantly more popular than Chinese or Japanese, for an unknown reason to me.

EDIT: the rules intro is not really an index. It has moreover been viewed 17000 times so SL may boast at least a few thousand introductions to the game.

Computer & server go
1. KGS
2. GNU Go
3. Go Suite
4. SGF
5. Mogo

There is obviously a major correlation between KGS and the SL readership. IGS pages are not nearly as numerous in existence or readership.


Particular

1. Japanese name suffix
2. Rank - worldwide comparison
3. Nuclear tesuji
4. Smallest group with two eyes
5. B2Bomber

A few pages in the top 100 are very unexpected or outright bizarre. The Japanese name suffices' popularity must be due to an influx from outside the go world. SL readers have an avid interest in knowing how strong they really really are. The nuclear tesuji is one of the oldest humor pages. The "smallest group ..." is the centrepiece of some original research at SL. Last but not least, the B2Bomber is a Western go invention. It hangs in there at spot n° 100.

You can look at the page itself to see the actual numbers, find some capital omissions in the above overview or speculate with me how to interpret the figures.

[xed_over]

Korean influence has greatly increased in recent years. The new AGA Pro system is sponsored by the KBA, for example. I encounter more Korean speaking people/players now than I used to for Chinese/Japanese.

A lot of Korean names are showing up in international tournaments. Not knowing any language other than English, its difficult to look up info about the rising stars. Its difficult to search for non-English characters in SL, but once you find their English name (maybe from Kin's site), you can copy/paste the Hangul/Kanji/Hanzi into Google to try and suss out a little more info.

There's a lot of info on Japanese and Chinese players on SL, but not so much for the Korean players -- yet.


I also look up technical terms on SL quite often... not to study the subject matter, but to show my Korean or Chinese friend, in their language, what term I'm trying to describe (when using the English/Japanese term).

[ez4u]

The distinction between index and non-index pages seems suspect to me. Readers do not necessarily know that 'joseki' is an index page. They simply want info on some joseki or joseki-related concepts.

[Mef]

Very interesting list to see!

On the technical pages here, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a strong effect of "What would a beginner get linked to from elsewhere". Seki is a tricky concept a beginner may stumble upon and then get linked to the SL page, while ko is probably explained when they learn the rules (so less common to link to).

I would guess a large number of SL hits are direct links given to explain a concept to a beginner.

[ez4u]

Take the list of top pages and input the items into google. I think you will have a better explanation of why top items are what they are.

[Knotwilg]

Could be, but don't forget that nowadays a google search is not independent of the one who's searching. Google presents results based on your browsing history. A go player may think that the rank of a Sensei's Library page on "Life & death" is the equivocal result of a search with those keywords. Someone who has never played before and comes from a religious or philosophical background will see the SL page only after a multitude of existential references.

[tapir]

3-3 invasion used to be very popular, then I made a WME and butchered the visitor count (renaming old version and making a new page).

[DrStraw]

Could be, but don't forget that nowadays a google search is not independent of the one who's searching. Google presents results based on your browsing history. A go player may think that the rank of a Sensei's Library page on "Life & death" is the equivocal result of a search with those keywords. Someone who has never played before and comes from a religious or philosophical background will see the SL page only after a multitude of existential references.

All the more reason not to use Google. Use StartPage, which uses the Google engine but does not store any information about you so it does not return anything based on Google's massive collection of data that it has stored about you.

[ez4u]

Could be, but don't forget that nowadays a google search is not independent of the one who's searching. Google presents results based on your browsing history. A go player may think that the rank of a Sensei's Library page on "Life & death" is the equivocal result of a search with those keywords. Someone who has never played before and comes from a religious or philosophical background will see the SL page only after a multitude of existential references.

All the more reason not to use Google. Use StartPage, which uses the Google engine but does not store any information about you so it does not return anything based on Google's massive collection of data that it has stored about you.

Good points both. So after retesting with StartPage my original point stands. Only 'ko' is problematic since that is the stock symbol for coca cola, overwhelming other meanings.

[DrStraw]

Could be, but don't forget that nowadays a google search is not independent of the one who's searching. Google presents results based on your browsing history. A go player may think that the rank of a Sensei's Library page on "Life & death" is the equivocal result of a search with those keywords. Someone who has never played before and comes from a religious or philosophical background will see the SL page only after a multitude of existential references.

All the more reason not to use Google. Use StartPage, which uses the Google engine but does not store any information about you so it does not return anything based on Google's massive collection of data that it has stored about you.

Good points both. So after retesting with StartPage my original point stands. Only 'ko' is problematic since that is the stock symbol for coca cola, overwhelming other meanings.

I think Coke should be sued for use of a term which has been around for 1000+ years! Oh, wait. I bet Japan did not copyright it, and even if they did I bet the USA would not honor it.