Life In 19x19

Magicwand wrote:

MountainGo wrote:By the way, Magicwand, are capital letters, like, against your religion or something?

it is my signiture. i hope people dont mind..

Ah, okay then, Mr. cummings.

Magicwand wrote:

MountainGo wrote:

fwiffo wrote:By the way, Magicwand, are capital letters, like, against your religion or something?

it is my signiture. i hope people dont mind..

Actually, I'm a 7D writer, and I find it disturbing when weaker writers show others poor spelling and punctuation. If you want to write well, you must write every sentence like a professional. Many useless sentences will do more harm than good.

kirkmc wrote:Actually, I'm a 7D writer, and I find it disturbing when weaker writers show others poor spelling and punctuation. If you want to write well, you must write every sentence like a professional. Many useless sentences will do more harm than good.

you are not only 7d writer but also 7d in wits.
i had good laugh. thank you.

I also agree with Magicwand, and finds topazg suggestion (unhidden comments) worth a try.

Another thing that bothers me a little, is the fact that some variations given are 10 or 20 moves long, I assume almost no player in the 5k - 10k range can read accurately so far (except some straightforward sequences, and for that I'm not sure). I find wms and Magicwand more honest on this point (They read 3-4 moves and says : "I feel it good", even if sometimes they make mistakes).

The Big Brothers Malkovich games are an interesting concept, though hard to follow and to put in place.

Tell me if the idea seems inconceivable, I was wondering if we could develop something between an SGF viewer and a wiki, where the players would have only access to the main branch, others could add their comments, we could label comments as good / bad, etc. It seems that Josekipedia is not so far from that.

We could also nominate a (team of) referees to a Malkovich Game, a stronger player than the 2 opponents, whose task would be to give his impressions on every move of both players. Often, games go so fast without really interventions of strong players that weak players as me can't evaluate variations given by players (that's why I follow mainly games between strong players).

I am one of the weak players Magicwand is referring to. I recognize part of the variations I give ridiculous - in these cases I have tried to say so in the comments. In these cases, I just give the variation as an idea that something starting like that would perhaps happen.

If you find my variations ridiculous, as they often must be, then please make a (hidden) comment pointing out why - so that I could learn something about the game. At some point, there were some comments from stronger players, like sol.ch, in our game (which I am eagerly waiting to be able to read when the game is over), but now no-one bothers to comment on the game. Probably there are just too many Malkovich games simultaneously.

It seems we cannot satisfy all. Joaz demands many more comments than I can write, Magicwand wants me to shut up. Go figure...

Magicwand has a valid point, one that I have found myself agreeing with in principle. However, I do believe there is a balance that can be made.

I like providing variations. As I've played more in this format, it's become more of a tool for myself than for my audience. Playing a Malkovich game, for me, is my newest way to improve on consistency in my plans. I can go back and see exactly where I abandoned my plans for something silly.

Lately, I've tried to reduce the number of variations I show because I don't think it adds anything. I like topazg's idea to separate sections, and I like magicwand's to-the-point comments and the idea that the moves themselves should say most of what you want to say.

For beginners, I try to touch on ideas and concepts, not go through variation after variation. I think this is better for someone to learn from, as they are forced to think about the idea and apply it themselves, instead of memorizing sequences ... which is the exact thing I DON'T want beginners doing.

[quote=Tryphon]Tell me if the idea seems inconceivable, I was wondering if we could develop something between an SGF viewer and a wiki, where the players would have only access to the main branch, others could add their comments, we could label comments as good / bad, etc. It seems that Josekipedia is not so far from that.[/quote]

Well, Tryphon, I've already begun thinking about designing a Malkovich type tool. There are a number of things that would be nice to be able to do, but can't easily be done in a regular forum thread.

If I can get something done in PHP, I'll see if it can be added to the site, as the site is open source. However, I have severe limits on my time currently, so I've got nothing together yet. If I ever get something off the ground on this, I'll let everyone know.

me and magicwand seem to be similar, typing style aside. in my malkovich ive made a total of 1 diagram so far (and it was 3 moves). i kinda see making the diagrams as a waste, when i can explain what im thinking in text. those who make tons of diagrams, i really dont read them, makes me lose interest. though sometimes i wish magicwand would go into at least a bit more detail (ideas behind the move behind made), i dont think the way he does things is bad. on the other hand, i really like the way araban is doing things, so i dont have to read through the diagrams, i can watch them.

Araban's videos are interesting but it's hard to look something up.
I really like text comments, so I don't have to watch the presentations, I can read them.

Next time I play one of these I'm going to try embedding SGF files if there are lots of variations that I want to show. It takes up less space than multiple diagrams and lets observers navigate them out naturally. I think seeing the moves played out in sequence in an SGF viewer is easier and more natural than reading numbers off a diagram. It also takes less work than diagrams to create an sgf file.

I find the current SGF viewer in the forums to be difficult (for me) to navigate. I always find myself downloading any SGF and running through it in Drago or CGOBAN.

I don't like the video commentaries. They are much slower than I would read, and text has the additional advantage that I can skim over sections that are obvious to me.

I like Araban's Malkovich videos; I find them to be an efficient way of communicating, with diagrams and words overlayed in time rather than just spread out in space. Sometimes I get a bit tired of scrolling backwards and forwards through the usual Malkovivh commentaries (it's no biggie, but I prefer how streamlined the videos are).

It seems to me that some people like short explanations, some people like long; some people like text, others like video.

The merits of a particular style of comments can be debated, but I think ultimately each player should make the type of comments in-game that they feel most comfortable with themself. If some other person does not like that style of comment, they do not have to follow that Malkovich game.

Dusk Eagle wrote:It seems to me that some people like short explanations, some people like long; some people like text, others like video.

what you're saying is true, but don't forget, the purpose of Malkovich games is to get inside the head of Malkovich (the players) to see what they see -- remember the movie?. How can we see if they don't describe it best they can?

xed_over wrote:what you're saying is true, but don't forget, the purpose of Malkovich games is to get inside the head of Malkovich (the players) to see what they see -- remember the movie?. How can we see if they don't describe it best they can?

On the contrary, I think that we're able to see what each player considers to be most important. If they don't cover something that you are interested in, feel free to ask the player - many Malkovich games could use more comments directed to the players.