GoGameGuru

[CnP]

I'm glad they made the announcement and I'm very much in favour of people not doing what they're not enjoying. I hope David gets some more time to play Go in the future and enjoys spending time with his new baby.

[Drew]

This may be the most disappointing part of the affair - the lack of understanding from the go community. Even from the early days of Ishi Press, a rather large number of people who buy a $5 book seem to think they have the right to enter into a long correspondence with the publisher. A fair proportion of them think they have the right to tell the publisher what he's doing wrong (it's always wrong never right). Another proportion just love to whinge. Surprisingly many seem to think they have the right to ask for favours, such as making a proxy trip from Tokyo to Osaka. I have heard the horror stories from Richard Bozulich, John Power, Bill Cobb, Sid Yuan, Chuck Robbins and others. And of course I can add my own. Only a fortnight ago a prominent member of this forum thought he had the right to ask me for free advice about Japanese art. In the past I have been pestered countless times to provide free help with school projects, translations, contacts, references - even requests to look at holiday snaps. T Mark shielded me from much of this with GoGoD. Now I just totally ignore e-mails and block PMs here (though several admins have abused their position to override this).

Is this behavior not the case for virtually any industry? This is why companies have customer service representatives. Customers routinely ask for the moon. Surely it is better to have them ask and be declined then to have them never ask at all because they're doing business with your competitors rather than with you.

I have heard the horror stories from Richard Bozulich, John Power, Bill Cobb, Sid Yuan, Chuck Robbins and others. And of course I can add my own. Only a fortnight ago a prominent member of this forum thought he had the right to ask me for free advice about Japanese art.

This is what you consider a horror story? Is there some reason responding "Sorry, I cannot help you with that." not sufficient? There must be more to the story?

I don't think the GGG problem represents a lack of understanding by the Go community. It takes literally 30 seconds to make a new post on their site saying "We're going on hiatus for X weeks/months while we sort some things out." That would have tamped down 90% of the chatter right away. It would have also created space for them to quietly clear their communications backlog at their own pace. This is all "customer facing communications 101" stuff.

[John Fairbairn]

Drew:

From my perspective, having known most of the people who have tried various ventures for the go world, the flaw in your stance is that this is an "industry" with "customers" and "competitors".

I don't deny that dreams of filthy lucre can flash through the mind, but nearly all of the people I know who have ventured into this field have done it out of love for the game and they have seen fellow go players more as friends and a community rather than a market. Even those who started off thinking there might be some money to be made if you do it "properly", only to find there isn't, rarely slunk away. They tended to stay, slimmed down maybe, simply because they have had that community spirit.

Not very long ago, go players met each other almost exclusively at tournaments and congresses, and these were often the only places to get meet suppliers and get books and equipment. This face-to-face contact, plus the slower pace of communications, created a better bond between the supply and demand sides. But even then it was far from perfect. There were always "customers" who thought they had bought the right to be persistent, belligerent, argumentative, patronising or disruptive.

With the internet, despite its benefits, we have opened the communication floodgates and lost much face-to-face contact, and in the process lost much of the feel of being a community. And venturesome, good-hearted people are now not allowed now to make mistakes and build up experience without being hung up to dry in public. That's the way of the world and I'm a dinosaur. I accept that. But I find it sad.

[Drew]

I do not share your outlook, John, but we do come from different generations. In time perhaps I'll come to see things your way, but I hope I don't.