Pining for the original OGS, considering picking up go again

[Bonobo]

[..] For me the main difference between the two servers is that the old one has correspondece play as its main and only focus. Being mostly a correspondence player, I felt right at home there. Now that focus is somewhere else. There are many good things about the new server and my experience on it is mostly positive, but still somehow I feel like I'm a part of minority, whose needs are of secondary concern. That feeling is propably the chief reason why I'm not yet a paying supporter of the new OGS (the second reason is that I tend to avoid recurring montly Paypay payments like a plague), while I did support the old one.

I almost exclusively play correspondence games on OGS, so I’m part of that “minority” and I believe we are NOT a minority though I don't have any numbers.

I have decided for recurring PayPal payment of a minor amount that 1) doesn’t hurt me at all but which 2) if only perhaps 1/10 of all registered users (though also here I don't know the numbers) would do the same, would allow the OGS devs a comfortable life while being able to dedicate their work time to OGS. That it is recurring is also comfortable for me (because I’m lazy), but the main reason is that it allows them to (somewhat) extrapolate the income, which is important for any plans for the future.

So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time

[temifar]

… but the main reason is that it allows them to (somewhat) extrapolate the income, which is important for any plans for the future.

I don't really get that "easier to plan" argument. When I say (elsewhere) that I would prefer one time payments, I do not mean paying $1 now and then. I mean something like buying a year of membership for $50 (the number is approximate, that's what chess.com currently asks for platinum membership), or a half-year for $25. I'm not sure I understand why making plans for $50 your already have is so much harder than for $60 you might or might not have by the end of the year with the current OGS default of $5/month.

So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time

Well, for what it's worth, I've just subscribed for $2/month. But you probably still need to convince a couple more players before we can test your theory.

[hyperpape]

I feel like I've seen some membership based projects that hit a cliff with yearly subscriptions as members turn over at the end of the first year (but I can't remember what they were...). With a monthly subscription, people make a month by month decision and hopefully even if some people lose interest, it's at different times and you can see the trend ahead of time.

Edit: replaced "can remember what they are" with "can't remember...". Wonder if anyone would've ever noticed/commented that the parenthetical made absolutely no sense.

[Bonobo]

I don't really get that "easier to plan" argument. When I say (elsewhere) that I would prefer one time payments, I do not mean paying $1 now and then. I mean something like buying a year of membership for $50 (the number is approximate, that's what chess.com currently asks for platinum membership), or a half-year for $25. [..]

Mh… I think the devs anoek and matburt have something like that in planning, you’re definitely not the only one who prefers one time payments.

So … I believe that if every other regular OGS user would just give 1 or 2 €/$ per month, OGS would be as steadfast and ever-developing as a mighty tree in the storms of time

Well, for what it's worth, I've just subscribed for $2/month. But you probably still need to convince a couple more players before we can test your theory.

Cool I think I may thank you on behalf of all OGS. And it’s not a proven theory, of course, just a wishful hypothesis

[illluck]

Looked at OGS today, the side ad banners are gone - looks a lot better!

Personally, I'd be ok with one side banner on the right (2 was a bit too much). Not sure what the general preferences is.

[Bonobo]

Looked at OGS today, the side ad banners are gone - looks a lot better!

Personally, I'd be ok with one side banner on the right (2 was a bit too much). Not sure what the general preferences is.

All this is new for the devs too … anoek wrote on the OGS forum that he is still experimenting.

[hyperpape]

I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.

[Bonobo]

I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.

Yeah, that’s one reason why I don’t like ads at all but I fear OGS will have little influence on this b/c the ads are automatically served by Google, and AFAIK it’s only possible to exclude certain categories of ads (e.g. “adult content”).

Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.

For example, here: https://forums.online-go.com/t/some-ad-nits/5957, or in the main post where the introduction of ads was announced: https://forums.online-go.com/t/moving-o ... d/5727/102

[Leira]

Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.

True. However, I do think its part of moderator "duties" (if there's any such thing) to not only help maintain peace and general friendliness of the server, but also to actually assist the devs in what they can't do. For example, visiting this forum and monitoring what may perhaps be missed in the official OGS forum itself.

One thing this forum has that the other doesn't is the external reaction towards the server, from at least a certain part of the Go community. Many of those who left the server dwell here quite often, and do post their opinions thereof every now and then, as do many of those who have never joined for whatever reason.

Edit: also some OGS users show their dissent here more freely than they do there, again, for whatever reason.

[hyperpape]

I wouldn't necessarily mind side banners, but they need to figure out the color coordination. Some of the ads are just too loud.

Yeah, that’s one reason why I don’t like ads at all but I fear OGS will have little influence on this b/c the ads are automatically served by Google, and AFAIK it’s only possible to exclude certain categories of ads (e.g. “adult content”).

Anyway, I think it’s best if such feedback would be given on the OGS forum since the OGS devs quite probably won’t be able to monitor other forums etc. in a timely manner, and they welcome any feedback.

I thought adwords gave you more control than that, but I certainly don't know.

Good point about where to give feedback.

[Javaness2]

At the end of the day a server needs to pay its bills, so I don't see any real reason to complain.
However regarding the claim

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Currently, OGS is the fastest-growing western go server, bringing in around 1800 new players per week. We're pleased to say that 1200 of these players are brand new to the game, which to the best of our knowledge, makes us the leader as it relates to growing the western Go community.

Like Uberdude I struggle to believe that. Nearly 200 brand new players a day sounds ridiculously large to me. Nearly 100 (unique) pre-existing Go players join every day? Where are they coming from?

[Uberdude]

At the end of the day a server needs to pay its bills, so I don't see any real reason to complain.

There is quite a difference between a server paying its bills (hosting/bandwidth is what, maybe a few hundred dollars a month max?) and paying a decent full-time US software developer wage for the server to be under constant development. How much are they hoping to make? $60,000 a year? I've no idea how much you can make from the type and quantity of banner ads they now have (not so restrained!) and also wonder how many users will use adblock (I guess go players more than average of internet population, but some will turn it off to be nice to OGS) and how much of a return they will actually give advertisers (I think I am a very poor audience for advertisers and I imagine quite a few go players are like me: stingy techy males and not the impressionable middle-aged women who think the internet is that program with the blue e that actually click on ads whom advertisers love; but hey, if google can convince companies to give them money for ads people ignore kudos to them and good luck to OGS).

Compare this to old OGS, which to me was essentially feature complete from an end-user perspective as a great correspondence server*. It was quite a pain for dmg (the developer / server admin) doing some of the tournament draws (the Kisei was pretty manual iirc) and we did have occasional server outages which corrupted games (but dmg added admin tools which meant we admins rather than only him could fix them), but I would have been happy for old OGS to continue bobbling along with a new server admin rather than going to full-time development, which costs more like $1000 a year than $60,000. Of course there is a danger you can stagnate like that, perhaps KGS being an example of getting left behind because of lack of development. All water under the bridge now though...

* board thumbnails and better reviews with variations being the two major improvements I see in new OGS, apart from broadening to become real-time too.