Life In 19x19

While I'm disappointed about this announcement, I'm not really surprised by it, nor am I angry at the founders like a couple of people here are.

I for one am very appreciative of all the work the Kaya team has put in. It's a solid website. Leaving your jobs to work on a labor of love for any span of time shows admirable dedication to this collective obsession of ours.

Thanks for the hard work!

As the co-author of Nova, I just wanted to say that we fully appreciate how much effort went into building Kaya. It's an awesome project, and the developers, as well as the community that helped support them through development, should all be very proud of what has been accomplished.

It's hard to watch from this kind of tension and hard feelings from the sidelines. I know a fair number of people put a considerable amount of money towards the project, but I think it should be expected that whenever you fund a dream, it might not come out exactly as you hoped. I like to throw money at kickstarter projects and indie games all the time, but I do so with the expectation that probably only 10% will really reach 'completion' and be the awesome project they "sold" me on. That's OK by me though because there will be some that make it, and it's my hope that the people involved in the ones that failed will learn a lot and come back with a new idea that will succeed later. I have a trail of failed projects and dead start-ups in my past, and only a couple that have made it to completion or been at all a success. It's the nature of creation.

I will also say that we've been able to do what we've done at Nova because we have full-time jobs. Neither of us have to worry about money, and neither of us would feel guilty about not working on nova for awhile because it's just for fun and we don't feel like we necessarily owe the community anything. Consequently, because we don't feel like we need to work on it, I think we tend to work on it harder because it's fun instead of being a chore.

So with that in mind, it's my sincere hope that Conan and DP will love their respective new jobs, take some time to un-burn out from Kaya, then when they're ready and have the desire to write code for Kaya again in their spare time, they pick it up where they left off and continue building it up to the awesome system kayaners dreams of.

Kaya has a whole lot of potential, but in order for it to realize that potential I think the community needs to acknowledge that the funding that has been given to Kaya has indeed been used to achieve a great number of things, but what you see now is what those funds bought and neither Conan nor DP owe anything more to the community. Anything they do from here on out should be considered an awesome gift to the community, and should be thanked in kind. It's easy to give developers a hard time about bugs and issues, but the truth is if you pat them on the back and encourage them, rather than rail them about issues, those issues tend to get resolved a whole lot faster I know for a fact that when someone yells at me about something and demands I fix issue X, I will pretty much ignore them, even if it's something that really should be done... where as if someone else say "oh man, you know what would make my day? is if you did X!" I find it hard not to drop what I'm doing and do X


Anywho, I know I'm not really privy to some of the politics and history that's gone on, but my suggestion to everyone is to let bygones be bygones and help forge the future of Kaya by being positive and keeping it fun


- anoek

As far as I know, there are two people (other than Gabriel) posting in this thread who have built something substantial in the Western go world. Neither of them are angry and disappointed.

I just want to play games and review games with annotations without issues ...

Maybe that is too much to ask after more than a year?

duckweed wrote: Maybe that is too much to ask after more than a year?

There are many servers you can do this on. No one's forcing you to use kaya.

hyperpape wrote:As far as I know, there are two people (other than Gabriel) posting in this thread who have built something substantial in the Western go world. Neither of them are angry and disappointed.

As I've already stated in this thread, I am not angry about this situation. However, to this point, I feel that contributing money is a part of "building something substantial in the Western go world." Some people may not have technical expertise, but can contribute in other ways - like by providing money.

So I don't think it is fair to say that those that didn't pay money did not contribute toward building something. I have a "Founder Account" on Kaya, and though I did not provide technical help, I feel that I (along with several others) contributed toward building the server that exists today.

This is not to say that Gabriel et al. did not have a greater impact on the server than I did. But still, I think everything helped.

Sure, it helps. But it doesn't involve you in the actual process of seeing something through. My point is that the people who know what is involved are the most understanding.

Mef wrote:It was intended to be a partially crowdfunded, partially sponsor-supported server that would have two full-time programmers and a viable business model.

Out of curiosity - where do you get this info from? And do you have more details?
I have asked quite a few times about Kaya's business model and was blown away with something like 'now its not the time to discuss it' or the question was simply ignored. Have a missd a thread dealing with that?

Mef wrote:The assumptions were that with full time programmers there would be quick progress and rapid development, and with the sponsors and business model the server would become self-sustaining.

Bantari wrote:

Mef wrote:It was intended to be a partially crowdfunded, partially sponsor-supported server that would have two full-time programmers and a viable business model.

Out of curiosity - where do you get this info from? And do you have more details?
I have asked quite a few times about Kaya's business model and was blown away with something like 'now its not the time to discuss it' or the question was simply ignored. Have a missd a thread dealing with that?

Mef wrote:The assumptions were that with full time programmers there would be quick progress and rapid development, and with the sponsors and business model the server would become self-sustaining.

I'm pretty sure we both have the same information available to us (the kaya announcement that mentioned they had a fully developed business plan) -- I was simply trying to describe the sentiment at the time and what the expectations those who were contributing would have been. I haven't seen or read about the details of what kaya's business plan are/were.

Well, well, well.
I'm not angry or disapointed or anything, but maybe it's time to look back at what went wrong? If for no other reason so that others may learn from the mistakes.

Personally, if I would (or could) engage in a similar project I would have concentrated on core features mostly mimicing KGS (chat rooms, review tools etc). Only after that would I get into "cool" stuff that "no other server offers" (video, malkovich), nice but not so important things (voiced countdown, chat translation), and arguably unnecessary or even stupid features (muzzle, karma).
The second thing that comes to mind is the interface, had it been the first shot I wouldn't mind (it's not core) but I understand that quite a bit of effort was spent on it.
There are a couple of things to say:
Terrible management of space (start game button takes the equivalet of three chat lines of space, 6-7 lines if you count the whole start game block, just to mention one example)
A mix of alignments (left, center, right) and fonts/sizes that defies all rules of thumb when it comes to graphical design).
Lack of customiziation (not important by itself, but a lean and simplistic layout with the possibility to change "items" to the way they are now would have been much better).
For example the way some tabs of games show a preview kind of board and a big fat avatar: Make it look like the everything tab (minus the alignment issues) with the option of turning on the "fat" view. (Of course, this falls under my first objection to the priorities as well, the "fat" view isn't core).
Lastly some minor nuances that should have had priority:
I never know if I'm logged on properly, there are a couple of different timeouts so that sometimes I disappear from the user list, sometimes I can chat but not see others chat etc.
In some cases the chat section is shifted so that I cannot see what people write, eg after maximizing the browser window and restoring.

I have talked with quite some people about why they don't play on Kaya, and apart from "too few games" all have said "bad priority" (eg review is more importand than muzzle), some disliked the interface, and more than I would expect disliked it being web browser only.

/Mats

Is it actually time for the obituary? I agree with others that Kaya has spent too much energy on cool features while alienating users with shaky core functionality and an unpopular way of starting games, but just because the developers won't be working full time on the project doesn't mean that it's dead in the water.

First of all, the cool features are indeed cool - and could still prove valuable. The malkovitch tag is a fantastic teaching tool, and the automated translation could potentially open the door to, and encourage the cultural exchange with non-western-speaking Asian players. Why this has not been pursued more aggressively is beyond me.

There are however reasons to doubt Kaya's viability. Mosart has mentioned a few significant weaknesses of the interface. What stands out to me is the baffling lack of better review tools. Gabriel's reasoning for not implementing them, that users haven't yet discovered the current features, is questionable at best. My impression is that the current review functions, while better than they were a year ago, are still too cumbersome and non-intuitive and lacking in core marking functions.

Many of us have invested time and money in Kaya, and we had high hopes. We found Gabriel's promise of a modern go server exciting and inspiring. Just because he has not succeeded at making a sustainable business model does not mean that we have to abandon our hopes as well.

I think the comparison to nova.gs is interesting. Similar to Kaya, Nova is a two man show and both teams have developed a well functioning web based go server. The most significant difference I perceive is the attitude of the developers. Nova appears to add features based largely on what people mention in chats, whereas Kaya has developed a good deal of machinery to deal with suggestions and difficulties. While Nova's casual and personal approach feels refreshing and flexible, I suspect that Kaya's more formal concept of tweakis and feedback might be better suited for the long haul.

Gabriel clearly hasn't given up on the project - just on it's current ability to provide a full-time income. I don't think we should give up on it either. We should continue to press Gabriel to improve and refine his already good product, and visit it more often.

Did you know that there is an ASR League on Kaya?

@ Gabriel ----->

mohsart wrote:Well, well, well.
I'm not angry or disapointed or anything, but maybe it's time to look back at what went wrong? If for no other reason so that others may learn from the mistakes.

Personally, if I would (or could) engage in a similar project I would have concentrated on core features mostly mimicing KGS (chat rooms, review tools etc). Only after that would I get into "cool" stuff that "no other server offers" (video, malkovich), nice but not so important things (voiced countdown, chat translation), and arguably unnecessary or even stupid features (muzzle, karma).
The second thing that comes to mind is the interface, had it been the first shot I wouldn't mind (it's not core) but I understand that quite a bit of effort was spent on it.
There are a couple of things to say:
Terrible management of space (start game button takes the equivalet of three chat lines of space, 6-7 lines if you count the whole start game block, just to mention one example)
A mix of alignments (left, center, right) and fonts/sizes that defies all rules of thumb when it comes to graphical design).
Lack of customiziation (not important by itself, but a lean and simplistic layout with the possibility to change "items" to the way they are now would have been much better).
For example the way some tabs of games show a preview kind of board and a big fat avatar: Make it look like the everything tab (minus the alignment issues) with the option of turning on the "fat" view. (Of course, this falls under my first objection to the priorities as well, the "fat" view isn't core).
Lastly some minor nuances that should have had priority:
I never know if I'm logged on properly, there are a couple of different timeouts so that sometimes I disappear from the user list, sometimes I can chat but not see others chat etc.
In some cases the chat section is shifted so that I cannot see what people write, eg after maximizing the browser window and restoring.

I have talked with quite some people about why they don't play on Kaya, and apart from "too few games" all have said "bad priority" (eg review is more importand than muzzle), some disliked the interface, and more than I would expect disliked it being web browser only.

/Mats

Contrary to what as a user you evaluate, what our observation suggests is that we had to focus even more on user aquisition.
Review tools has been mentioned over and over to make it an easy pass-over from KGS to Kaya. But the vast majority of our registered users didnt open a sandbox. MY conclusion for that is, along with other observations, that review tools represent a very small % of the activity of a Go server. You can check IGS, KGS, Tygem, Wbaduk combined and compare the number of games vs the number of reviews, and see that there is a 100/1 relationship.

The number one concern is being able to quickly find a game. If you concentrate on looking deeply to technical aspects, you will not be able to understand why Flyordie has more users than Kaya.

On the other hand, much for full SGF-review support has been done, and its not far away from being implemented. Mainly, the lacking part is on the Gospeed Board to draw and post those properties to the server.

daal wrote:Is it actually time for the obituary? I agree with others that Kaya has spent too much energy on cool features while alienating users with shaky core functionality and an unpopular way of starting games, but just because the developers won't be working full time on the project doesn't mean that it's dead in the water.

First of all, the cool features are indeed cool - and could still prove valuable. The malkovitch tag is a fantastic teaching tool, and the automated translation could potentially open the door to, and encourage the cultural exchange with non-western-speaking Asian players. Why this has not been pursued more aggressively is beyond me.

There are however reasons to doubt Kaya's viability. Mosart has mentioned a few significant weaknesses of the interface. What stands out to me is the baffling lack of better review tools. Gabriel's reasoning for not implementing them, that users haven't yet discovered the current features, is questionable at best. My impression is that the current review functions, while better than they were a year ago, are still too cumbersome and non-intuitive and lacking in core marking functions.

Many of us have invested time and money in Kaya, and we had high hopes. We found Gabriel's promise of a modern go server exciting and inspiring. Just because he has not succeeded at making a sustainable business model does not mean that we have to abandon our hopes as well.

I think the comparison to nova.gs is interesting. Similar to Kaya, Nova is a two man show and both teams have developed a well functioning web based go server. The most significant difference I perceive is the attitude of the developers. Nova appears to add features based largely on what people mention in chats, whereas Kaya has developed a good deal of machinery to deal with suggestions and difficulties. While Nova's casual and personal approach feels refreshing and flexible, I suspect that Kaya's more formal concept of tweakis and feedback might be better suited for the long haul.

Gabriel clearly hasn't given up on the project - just on it's current ability to provide a full-time income. I don't think we should give up on it either. We should continue to press Gabriel to improve and refine his already good product, and visit it more often.

Did you know that there is an ASR League on Kaya?

@ Gabriel ----->

Kudos to this post .

Kaya.gs wrote:Contrary to what as a user you evaluate, what our observation suggests is that we had to focus even more on user aquisition.

Sorry to jump in like that, but - How? How are you going to 'focus' on that?
You can't just order the users to come.
You have to offer what the users want, first and foremost, and THEN lead them on the path you think is better.

As for the rest of my post - please note that I know how you feel... and what I say is not meant as bashing, but rather as constructive criticism. I would like Kaya to succeed very much, and I find it frustrating that the project struggles so for what I think are very avoidable reasons. Anyways - if you have enough negativity, just stop reading right here.

Kaya.gs wrote:Review tools has been mentioned over and over to make it an easy pass-over from KGS to Kaya. But the vast majority of our registered users didnt open a sandbox. MY conclusion for that is, along with other observations, that review tools represent a very small % of the activity of a Go server.

Not sure you can draw such conclusions...
Its not the percent of activity that matters, but what your customers perceive as important, what they want and what they need (or think they need.) If you don't give it to them, then it does not matter how much you crunch the numbers, people will go elsewhere - especially since perfectly reasonable alternatives do exist!

You might have a vision, but people have a vision too. Unless these two visions merge, you will not be successful.

From the developer's perspective - if users keep mentioning a specific feature, review tools in this case, as missing, while you claim it is there, then there is an obvious disconnect. Either the feature is not right, not intuitive, not where expected, or whatever... I mean - people do not keep asking about it out of malice, do they? You really need to get to the bottom of this and then fix it - or you will never have a successful application.

A proper approach as a developer, to any customer request, would be: ok, I think what you ask is there, but can you please tell me why do you find it insufficient, and I will fix it. Instead, what I hear is the mechanical 'drop a tweakie, maybe we look into it' or 'its already there, you just have to do it our way.' The notion you have that why worry about features users ask for since there are so many features alread people don't even use - from the developer's perspective this is just wrong! If any developer working for me said something like that - I might just fire him/her on the spot! Its like you writing the software for yourself rather than for people to use. Listen to your customers! They are telling you what they want.

I mean - this goes back to what you say you want to focus on - user acquisition.
To do that you have to first give the users what they want and how they want it, how they are used to it, and how they want to use it. You need to listen. If you have a better idea, then you still need to do it the way users want, and maybe THEN train the them to do it your way... But from the number of REPETITIVE requests, which seemingly go unanswered, if seems you guys are not doing it.

I think that a lot of what mohsart is saying is true, his tone notwithstanding - and you might help your own cause to listen to that rather than being defensive and/or dismissing it as you seem to be doing.

The same goes for lots of other stuff you have (or don't have, or have it in a way people don't like.) Match setup, rules, timing, etc... I am no Kaya expert, so maybe all of this has been solved, but I hear a lot of griping about stuff like that... little things people want and they want it in a specific way...

Ask yourself this: People were very excited when Kaya was announced, to the point they donated a lot of money to you guys to see it through. To the point of being ready to abandon their old pastures and move on to Kaya even in its half-baked state. And they kept telling you they want this and this and this... and it seems like instead you implemented that, that, and that. Now it seems many are disappointed, and more still turned away and gave up. Why? Do you really think it is because they were just toying with you, its somehow their fault? I don't think you are self-critical enough, and what I see is you 'blaming' the people for 'not seeing' rather than looking into how can YOU improve what YOU do to make people more happy. Even if you think you know better - it does not make it so, and dealing with people can be tricky.

PS>
It has been mentioned to you quite a few times that your priorities are backwards, and I agree with that. You implement all kinds of bells and whistles which bloat the software and which are not important or even used right now. Karma, muzzle, streaming, whatever - people probably can fill in all kinds of stuff here... Its almost like you guys are creating a 'proof of concept' rather than a serious application.

I think you should put the effort into developing or improving the features people ask for. If, as you say, some features are there but people are not using them - you really need to get to the bottom of WHY people are not using them, and then YOU need to redesign so that people do. Maybe they don't want/need those features, maybe they are designed badly, or maybe they just want it to be different. This is the core of what makes a Go server a success. Again - it seems like you develop Kaya for your own pleasure rather than for others, concentrating on what is most fun for YOU.

It seems to be a very developer-centric approach.
To repeat myself - I think you would do much better if you try to listen to your customer a little more.

Bantari wrote:

Kaya.gs wrote:Contrary to what as a user you evaluate, what our observation suggests is that we had to focus even more on user aquisition.

Sorry to jump in like that, but - How? How are you going to 'focus' on that?
You can't just order the users to come.
You have to offer what the users want, first and foremost, and THEN lead them on the path you think is better.

As for the rest of my post - please note that I know how you feel... and what I say is not meant as bashing, but rather as constructive criticism. I would like Kaya to succeed very much, and I find it frustrating that the project struggles so for what I think are very avoidable reasons. Anyways - if you have enough negativity, just stop reading right here.

Kaya.gs wrote:Review tools has been mentioned over and over to make it an easy pass-over from KGS to Kaya. But the vast majority of our registered users didnt open a sandbox. MY conclusion for that is, along with other observations, that review tools represent a very small % of the activity of a Go server.

Not sure you can draw such conclusions...
Its not the percent of activity that matters, but what your customers perceive as important, what they want and what they need (or think they need.) If you don't give it to them, then it does not matter how much you crunch the numbers, people will go elsewhere - especially since perfectly reasonable alternatives do exist!

You might have a vision, but people have a vision too. Unless these two visions merge, you will not be successful.

From the developer's perspective - if users keep mentioning a specific feature, review tools in this case, as missing, while you claim it is there, then there is an obvious disconnect. Either the feature is not right, not intuitive, not where expected, or whatever... I mean - people do not keep asking about it out of malice, do they? You really need to get to the bottom of this and then fix it - or you will never have a successful application.

A proper approach as a developer, to any customer request, would be: ok, I think what you ask is there, but can you please tell me why do you find it insufficient, and I will fix it. Instead, what I hear is the mechanical 'drop a tweakie, maybe we look into it' or 'its already there, you just have to do it our way.' The notion you have that why worry about features users ask for since there are so many features alread people don't even use - from the developer's perspective this is just wrong! If any developer working for me said something like that - I might just fire him/her on the spot! Its like you writing the software for yourself rather than for people to use. Listen to your customers! They are telling you what they want.

I mean - this goes back to what you say you want to focus on - user acquisition.
To do that you have to first give the users what they want and how they want it, how they are used to it, and how they want to use it. You need to listen. If you have a better idea, then you still need to do it the way users want, and maybe THEN train the them to do it your way... But from the number of REPETITIVE requests, which seemingly go unanswered, if seems you guys are not doing it.

I think that a lot of what mohsart is saying is true, his tone notwithstanding - and you might help your own cause to listen to that rather than being defensive and/or dismissing it as you seem to be doing.

The same goes for lots of other stuff you have (or don't have, or have it in a way people don't like.) Match setup, rules, timing, etc... I am no Kaya expert, so maybe all of this has been solved, but I hear a lot of griping about stuff like that... little things people want and they want it in a specific way...

Ask yourself this: People were very excited when Kaya was announced, to the point they donated a lot of money to you guys to see it through. To the point of being ready to abandon their old pastures and move on to Kaya even in its half-baked state. And they kept telling you they want this and this and this... and it seems like instead you implemented that, that, and that. Now it seems many are disappointed, and more still turned away and gave up. Why? Do you really think it is because they were just toying with you, its somehow their fault? I don't think you are self-critical enough, and what I see is you 'blaming' the people for 'not seeing' rather than looking into how can YOU improve what YOU do to make people more happy. Even if you think you know better - it does not make it so, and dealing with people can be tricky.

PS>
It has been mentioned to you quite a few times that your priorities are backwards, and I agree with that. You implement all kinds of bells and whistles which bloat the software and which are not important or even used right now. Karma, muzzle, streaming, whatever - people probably can fill in all kinds of stuff here... Its almost like you guys are creating a 'proof of concept' rather than a serious application.

I think you should put the effort into developing or improving the features people ask for. If, as you say, some features are there but people are not using them - you really need to get to the bottom of WHY people are not using them, and then YOU need to redesign so that people do. Maybe they don't want/need those features, maybe they are designed badly, or maybe they just want it to be different. This is the core of what makes a Go server a success. Again - it seems like you develop Kaya for your own pleasure rather than for others, concentrating on what is most fun for YOU.

It seems to be a very developer-centric approach.
To repeat myself - I think you would do much better if you try to listen to your customer a little more.

Advanced SGF markers are the 21st idea in order of votes on User voice. It was a huge priority when we started, and it was lowered as we read more and more about what our users were voting for

Listening goes both ways. The reason why we chose to be so open about our user feedback is for users to be able to see themselves what they, as a community are asking for. We then take that input, compare it to other sources of information, the cost of implementing it, and the value of having it. We have the more transparent process of any other server, which gives you the opportunity to disagree with it.

On this side of the court, i have heard at least 50 "this is a must" feature requests that range from money betting to draconian moderation and we pick which one we want to do from the combination above, plus our own ideas and experimentations.