Li Kao wrote:wms wrote:Not sure about that. If that is a policy, then it's the first that I've heard of it. I just assumed that the problem was that there weren't enough people who wanted to leave their computer on all the time, playing go.
I just asked on the computer go channel. And it seems like there is an unofficial policy that at least gnugo bots won't be approved(for having a rank), because there are too many of them already. They want to see original bots.
Personally I disagree with that notion. I think that more ranked bots in rooms like "The Ranking Room" would be helpful. Even if they're boring old gnugo. If one fears the influence of bots on the ranking system/rank inflation for bot abusers once could limit the number of ranked games a human may play against a bot, instead of limiting the number of ranked bots.
There was a time when there were dozens and dozens of GNU clones running around with ratings (not necessarily a bad thing as long as they don't clog up the EGR, but it got to a point where it felt like every room with 5 or more people had bots called RoomXYZBot001-003....). It ended up being a fad and I think the point wms made was spot on (people got tired of leaving their computers running the bots).
What ended up being an issue though (curiously) was not as much rank cheaters but an artificial rank bubble...you see a side effect of people starting up ranked bots because they it is popular means they also pick the bot that's popular...and in...2007 I think it was? That bot switched from GNUGo to Mogo. This meant that suddenly you had a step change where a whole fleet of bots suddenly went from 7k to 4k. For the bots themselves this isn't much of an issue, they play lots of games so their ranks adjusted pretty quickly. The big chunk of the population that had been playing them in ranks games for the prior 6 months however got a big boost because all their wins against a 7k used to establish a rank were now wins against a 4k. Of course due to the nature of the kgs system it all more or less sorted itself out within 6 months, but it still caused a bit of a stir right when it happened...
Just another reason why it was decided to favor original bots over common clones...
