Life In 19x19

topazg wrote:...

PPS Persuasive evidence about being the founder, particularly the history of http://senseis.xmp.net/?KGSRooms%2FAdvancedStudyRoom

To jump directly to the full history try http://senseis.xmp.net/?info=KGSRooms%2FAdvancedStudyRoom&unlimited=1. It does make it look like some of the current conversation could calm down and perhaps concentrate on the future. A real discussion of origins would seem to require having bluremi and perhaps antic around

personally I think that the ASR really lacks publication. I heard about it from a friend and once I heard about it I immediately joined. I think it's not that people don't like the idea, but they just don't hear about it.

YVW wrote:personally I think that the ASR really lacks publication. I heard about it from a friend and once I heard about it I immediately joined. I think it's not that people don't like the idea, but they just don't hear about it.

that might be true, how do you suppose we "spread the word" even more? on KGS the league is i think greatly known. I think its up to the people in clubs to spread the word of how good it is, i can't and won't pressure the in doing so:)

What about some advanced scripting foo?

Ask players to sign up, specifying their region (which is then used to sort people into groups by region, or half/half).

Then ask players to mark a certain minimum number of hours during "reasonable" times in their timezone (e.g. 5pm to 10pm during weekdays, 12pm to 10pm during weekends, something like that) in a scheduler.

Then players can challenge other players on the website simply by selecting a free slot in their opponent's schedule (in addition to spontaneous chat challenges).

Combine this with email notifications and mechanisms to aid rescheduling if needed, and there is practical no limit to how much you can help matters to move along smoothly.

Creating the software for this is not going to be trivial, but why not give it a try? It can be set up as an open source project, and there is no rush to get it done anytime soon. The worst that can happen is that it never gets finished.

For what it's worth, given that I am thinking about joining, but the above mentioned issues do worry me a little, I do expect that I would have enough motivation to make some time to work on this.

were looking into redoing the entire website (as you can see here) and if you're good in drupal we would welcome the effort immensely!

the problem is that last time we called on ppl to help out, about 10 ppl responded, then got a task, to never show up again (except 1).

the league is getting back on its feet again now, i can see that since were getting close to 300 players again and i see about 45 games per day being played in a steady pace. Also a flurry of dans has entered the league, there is no class from alpha to gamma that hasnt got a dan or two (scary!)

biggest advancement this month has been 2 major contributions for prizes! We will be able to give away 3 months subscriptions to KGS+ for 6 months and teaching games from yilun Yang 7p (for an unspecified amount of time!)

3 of our admins (including me) are currently doing the 20 hours of drupal tutorial videos (which are reaaaaally great) and we've got a good idea of what were going to build, it just takes time:)

also, if you're a coder and you know how to build drupal modules, it would help greatly to have an SGF handling module.

ok my rant is done:P

I'm not so keen on Drupal and probably won't spend hours watching video tutorials on it, but PHP and JavaScript are fine with me, and if the difficulty lies in integrating modules with Drupal rather than implementing features, then what's the point of using a CMS in the first place.

What do you mean exactly with SGF handling module? What functions should it have, and how would it be helpful?

What do you think about the scheduler/calendar functionality I outlined? As far as I can judge it from the outside and the comments in this thread, it seems to me that making it easier to get matches would be a very important thing to support.

Just to chip in. I've had put in place a drupal system for the University but after two years my view has become that a more ready made CMS would have been a quicker and more robust solution. If you have someone keen who wants to have Drupal development on their CV then its win/win but if you want a site up that does the job, is flexible and can be added to - I'd go with Joomla with this extension:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... ports/8546

Find a nice (free theme) and set the "authors" and other extensions as you want. It would be quick to build and should do anything you want.

It will look a bit Joomla-ish" but it will do the job..

with sgf integration i just mean that ppl wanting to use sgf on site dont have to code it manually to display it (so integration into wysiwig for example).

to add on my current state of happiness today a few more prizes got added again by a kind donater!!! We got most active player prize and several kyu prizes now!

W00T!!!

I think what the league is lacking is the ability to schedule the games with your opponents. That will be kickass. In Kaya.gs.



Also its not easy to motivate the strongest players in the league. Often being the strongest is just being the teacher of the league. So there is this constant pressure for strongest players to resign from the league. This happened in Alex's league , even though it had prize money, so the burden is even bigger in the ASR.

yes its alwas a big challenge to motivate strong players in the league, but even the insei league, with bigger prizes, have trouble with that as you say.

Still i tink our league is ''healthier'' just because its free the dans who are enrolling for the league know they will play weaker players and be more willing to do so. To top it of, next months alpha winner may choose either a tgame with yilun yang or 3 month kgs+!! The remaining prize will be given to the winner of the beta winners match:)

hows that for motivation?

Damn, I wish I had time to come back ...

One of these months ...

MagicMagor wrote:1. Getting a game
If the subclass you are in is pretty small, your having a hard time getting the minimum number of games, not even thinking about gaining enough points for a promotion.
This problem is maginified if you (like me) aren't online each evening, but only 1-3 times per week.

This is pretty much why I did quit. I was OK to play mostly weaker players for 2-3 months, but that plan didn't go so well as I wasn't getting enough games to promote or even stay at the same group.

i'm sorry to hear that.

We have since a while now made classes bigger (about 20 per class) and im not certain if you played in that setting.

We are working on the new site bit by bit and we plan to make a scheduling system within each class so you can either see when others are usually online or schedule an actual game. Would this help you?

I am new to ASR, so my opinion could be wrong but.... I will say it anyway.

In my view, the best way to get and keep ASR going is to create more of a community. Part of the reason I play ASR is to meet and get to know people who might be a little more dedicated and within a more controlled environment than the "English Room"

1) I think we should feel freer to play others outside the class you are in. It seems to me that there are no rules about who you can play with, if you do not need to get a point. In other words, if I am sitting online and no one from my class is available, why not just play with anyone who is available? We could play a rated game, a teaching game, or a free game.
Why should I go back to the English Room when there are like 30+ players logged into ASR without a game? I think if we make a clear policy that there are no penalties or restrictions on playing games in ASR outside of league games, that would help foster a greater community among us.
In addition, if a class member comes on, you can always ask your opponent to post-pone the game and go play a league game. The non-league games could be continued later or abandoned depending on whether it is a rated game or not.

2) It would be great if we could have an ASR space on the boards, where people could introduce themselves privately. Perhaps a child board that only ASR members can access.

3) Perhaps you could create an ASR fan page on facebook or something to increase the community beyond KGS. Even KGS does not have a fan page, and it probably should.

Anyway, these are just my quick thoughts. I think 1 is quite valuable and I will be posting non league games and comments in ASR room if it is allowed. If it is not, I think it should be allowed.