Popularity of Go

[psk31]

Increasing the base of the very casual player will be the foundation to increasing the popularity. I know there are clubs that meet in the local bookstores, cafes, etc., very public places. While I'm sure that players in these venues would gladly answer any questions from folks passing by, how many of them have a poster or a sign board on an easel explaining what's going on or for that matter, have a 9x9 board set up with someone there to show a couple of the basics like capturing, etc.?

While I was at the U.S. Congress, it was rather unique being on a college campus. There were a couple of times going through the hallway that I was stopped by people asking me what was going on. I would give them the 5 minute explanation and if they showed some interest I went a little deeper and always pointing them to the AGA website if they wanted more information. Not sure if any did, but the point is we have to be interactive with those around us who maybe interested.

[hyperpape]

For estimates of players in various countries, one might consider the Japanese go census, though it is out of date. http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/o ... ensus.html

[nagano]

Another reason there is difficulty spreading the game I think is that Go looks intimidating compared to other games because of the large number of points on the board. See this article for an example. I have seen a number of newspaper and magazine articles like this where the authors quail at the apparent complexity of the game.

[nagano]

There are I think two areas to focus on here: increasing awareness and increasing currency. Increasing awareness obviously has to come first, and the best way to do that is to simply tell people you know and maybe try to get covered by the local media. It wouldn't hurt if we all wore Go tee shirts either. Increasing currency obviously is an extension of increasing awareness, but it more involves encouraging beginners and helping them improve, hopefully kindling a desire to continue playing and become stronger.
But how do we achieve these goals? The exact strategy should of course vary depending on the culture and environment of each country. We need to identify what, if any, cultural tendencies can be taken advantage of to help the game catch on quicker. I'd be interested, if anyone here is in advertising, about your thoughts on this. We need to start looking at questions like: Why do countries such as Russia and Hungary (and Europe in general, though to a lesser extent) seem to have more players, and more strong players in particular? Increasing currency can only be achieved by developing a consistent and exhaustive curriculum sponsored by major Go organizations in each country, as exists in China and Korea. That will increase the level of strength enough that "professional" organizations in Europe or the U.S. won't necessarily be so much of a joke.

[hyperpape]

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't know what you mean to express by "currency".

[Li Kao]

Is there any data available how the go population developed in the west? In particular I'm interested if the general availability of the internet made the player number grow significantly. The advantage of easily finding opponents no matter how strong or weak you are is so big that I'm surprised that there was a notable number of go players before that.

[nagano]

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't know what you mean to express by "currency".

Perhaps I should have been clearer. The definition of "currency" I am using in this case basically means something that is relatively popular with the public, or at least well known in the society in general.

Is there any data available how the go population developed in the west? In particular I'm interested if the general availability of the internet made the player number grow significantly. The advantage of easily finding opponents no matter how strong or weak you are is so big that I'm surprised that there was a notable number of go players before that.

The internet definitely has caused a major boom. Besides the ability to play online, it was difficult if not impossible before to even get equipment, and at worst you had to make it yourself. As to the exact numbers though, I don't know.

[randraug]

Perhaps I'm having more luck than others, but I'm not having any trouble spreading knowledge about Go in my area (Defined mainly as my workplace). Reading books, carrying around a small 9x9 with stones, and bringing up Go in conversations has done much.

In less than a month since seriously deciding to pick up the game (I've played some here and there for a year) I now have five co-workers who I can play at any given time, a constant supply of possible recruits (Company is Japan based, have large number of engineers and technicians rotating in and out from there), and a possible in-house competition brewing if we can get enough interest.

Even better than that, one guy I introduced to Go owns a cafe and has entertained the idea of opening it on Saturdays as a Go Salon! With the ever present 'if we get enough interest.'

What seems to help is to make it presentable. Show them the 9x9 first. Give them the run of the rules. After 10 moves stop them and show them what's different between your moves and their moves. Then try again. After two tries they usually get the feel of what the game is about, on the small board.

I'm going to keep from rambling too much more. I do not think a champion or title-holder from America will help spread Go more than if we didn't. Another tv series wouldn't hurt much, but it would more than likely show late night on cable access than on network.

What would help the most with making Go more popular is going out, playing where people see, talking with people about it, and not be too serious about it when you're doing it. If you see two people stoically straining over a board as if at competition, you are less apt to ask what they're playing than you would two people amicably chatting while playing a friendly game.

PS - Hurray for first post
PPS - I do realize this topic is about national popularity. It has to start somewhere, right?

[topazg]

What would help the most with making Go more popular is going out, playing where people see, talking with people about it, and not be too serious about it when you're doing it. If you see two people stoically straining over a board as if at competition, you are less apt to ask what they're playing than you would two people amicably chatting while playing a friendly game.

[nagano]

This post is a continuation from here

So I have this idea for a collaborative Go site, that would serve as the central hub of the online Go community. Volunteers would compose news articles and open source books and problem collections, and then users would translate that material into their native languages, and promote the use of the site by other players in their country. A user would be compensated for his/her work by being provided a free go or language related service by another user.

[nagano]

So does anyone have thoughts about this idea?

[amnal]

It's a nice idea, but the implementation seems likely to be an utter nightmare. At the very start, you have the problem of how to encourage anyone to use it - why should people leave lifein19x19 to chat, for instance. And why is your knowledge repository better than Sensei's Library? Will your joseki resources be better than eidogo, bru.go, josekipedia etc.? It will be somewhere between hard and impossible to depose these existing sites.

As well as this, it isn't completely clear to me why you'd want to. There are several excellent go resources, each of which work very nicely independently. Why would your hub be better than these?

On top of this again, you have the problem of getting volunteers. This probably sounds pessimistic (though I think also realistic), but I think it will be really really really hard to get people to do what you want them to. Not everyone will sustain the same level of enthusiasm, or in the same direction, as yourself.

One thing your project has that nothing really currently implements (that I know of) is the idea of constructing solid resources, like entire 'books', by volunteers trading things with each other. Whilst tremendously hard to implement and encourage, it would be something new and a real addition to the go community if you could make it work - a Go Teaching Ladder of general go knowledge. This seems like the most realistic starting point for you, and you'd need to make everything simple enough that people could get involved easily. If you can manage that, you can work on anything you like and people might use it, but I don't think people will use your site to begin with unless it offers something really new.

EDIT: 'Really new' is somewhat unclear. Clearly there are problems with existing resources, or new joseki references would not so frequently spring up (all slightly different and with different cool features). But the trading knowledge thing is the obvious 'worthwhile' thing, to me, that you've suggested.

[nagano]

I have no desire to "depose" any existing sites, and I don't even want it to be specifically a fuseki or joseki resource. I don't want it to be a general chat site either. I don't even intend to start something like this myself anytime soon. What I'm talking about has several fundamental differences from (most) anything attempted before. I will enumerate them here:

1. Users receive instruction and study materials from stronger users.

2. Users too strong to be taught much receive some form of (non-monetary) compensation.

3. Users write open-source books and other instructional materials.

4. Users develop a standard curriculum for strengths from 30k-9d.

5. Users encourage players in their country to get involved with the site, and translate the interface, articles, and open-source books into any language they know.

6. How much a user puts in is directly proportional to what he gets out.

[Bantari]

To me this this is another attempt to solve the symptoms rather than the problem.
The problems are, as I see them:
1) lack of (strong) players to teach for free;
2) lack of (strong) players to write Go books for free;
3) lack of good study materials in English (lack of translators, lack of permissions to translate, whatever);
...and so on...

You cannot solve these problems by providing (yet another) venue for stuff nobody is really doing (for free).

When I say 'for free', you can insert the details of the 'barter' system you propose - once you have the details. And when you do that, when this is worked out and attractive to strong(er) players to such degree that they start actually contributing, then we will have a different discussion. Until then - I think there are better ways to popularize Go and to contribute to a Go community. See if you can translate some existing Go books into whatever language. Or some websites. Or anything... post more good games or problems to L19 if nothing else.

[tapir]

To me this this is another attempt to solve the symptoms rather than the problem.
The problems are, as I see them:
1) lack of (strong) players to teach for free;
2) lack of (strong) players to write Go books for free;
3) lack of good study materials in English (lack of translators, lack of permissions to translate, whatever);
...and so on...

You cannot solve these problems by providing (yet another) venue for stuff nobody is really doing (for free).

When I say 'for free', you can insert the details of the 'barter' system you propose - once you have the details. And when you do that, when this is worked out and attractive to strong(er) players to such degree that they start actually contributing, then we will have a different discussion. Until then - I think there are better ways to popularize Go and to contribute to a Go community. See if you can translate some existing Go books into whatever language. Or some websites. Or anything... post more good games or problems to L19 if nothing else.

Well, we started the whole discussion in a thread about Joanne Missingham and the utter lack of english go news about even the top events in the world (Asian Games here). This lack is imo much bigger than any lack of books or teaching or so. (You can have english go lessons and teaching games online, and in europe you will quite often meet former insei or actual professionals to comment the games at tournaments these days, there are more go books available in english than i will ever read.) And there is no collective drive to translate news already... people write individual blogs but it doesn't aggregate very well. I feel very much cut off, I can find kifu somewhere often, but weak as I am I just replay them have some thoughts about it... it would be nice to be able to connect to players emotionally and follow them on a more regular basis. Probably this is unimportant fanstuff to some, but I would so much like it (even if I probably can't give anything back).

But of course there is the big question mark with the volunteers. Those who can translate, why should they do it? I don't translate my daily newspaper either, if dear friends ask, I do translate single articles but that's it. Why should anyone bother to translate news for people who are too lazy to learn Chinese, Korean or Japanese? (It is altogether a different issue than sharing other knowledge, which is widely done - even for free - but because it helps people improve it is seen as part of the general endeavour as opposed to professional news which is seen as geek stuff even if the same people know the current player base of half a dozen football clubs. )

+ I believe the amount of people being active online on an issue like go is limited. Every new page will have a tough time to receive enough activity to reach a critical mass to take off. A lot of pages fail to do so. Take a look at josekipedia or dinerchteins go news and sensations page to see what I mean.