Life In 19x19

Horibe wrote:If our policy is to accept that some parts of the country will never have tournaments, if we make no effort to support face to face events....

Sorry, no specifics here, and no easy answer. But fundamentally, the AGA must have its ultimate goal real life club and tournament support. Everything wonderful and cool online must be designed to better serve this goal. Every proposal must be vetted by "How will this help get us a club in North Dakota, or an epic event in New York".

This entirely validates seigenblues' point about being specific. Who is supposed to establish this go community in North Dakota? Are there board members from North Dakota? Do we bus in a bunch of college students the way the Republicans and Democrats do during campaign season?

Or do we just sit around on the boards and assume that the only obstacle to a vibrant club in Fargo is that someone in the AGA (not those of us who talk on the boards, of course) isn't trying hard enough?

(P.S. Since it will be misinterpreted, this isn't a vote of full confidence in the AGA's organization, or even a claim that more can't be done. But just trying harder won't make hundreds of clubs spring up overnight).

I cannot agree more strongly with this statement. Right now, that question is answered:

1) the ability to play in AGA tournaments. (manifested by a rating & a rank.)
1a) records & statistics of all the tournaments you've ever played in & ways to track your progress. (AGAGD)
2) advanced content in the e-journal.
3) a yearbook.
4) a membership card.
5) The warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting your favorite hobby & furthering the US's representation of it (scoff if you like )
6) The ability to join a chapter & make your voice heard to the AGA board.

I think this is more than enough to justify membership, but there may be other benefits that either went unmentioned or could be added. For example, in the BGA, membership includes things like discounts on books, discounts on tournament entry fees, travel subsidies, youth subsidies, and loans of boards and clocks for tournaments. There even used to be a lending library service of some sort - that may be an idea for the vast USA. There are also intangibles such as the ability to become an insider - a volunteer or an administrator (if you're hard nosed you don't have to think of it as giving up valuable time for nothing; you could treat it as a chance to beef up your cv).

However, debates about things like the AGA often revolve around perception rather than facts. Those in possession of facts often act smugly and unwisely in ignoring perceptions. The art of politics needs to be cultivated.

Speaking as an outsider, who may therefore see some things in a different light, I get the impression that to many the AGA is like a bus that doesn't know where it's going, doesn't always stop at the right places, and sometimes veers across the road. People are never quite sure who's driving the bus. This is perception.

Those bolstered by facts will argue that the bus is indeed running, and even if a little late does stop at many places, and there's room on the bus for more, etc, etc. Same bus, but seen in two completely different ways.

In the current thread, I think one item on the perception side should certainly not be countered by so-called facts. It has to be challenged by changing the point of view. This is the item brilliantly summed up as the danger that the AGA could become a KGS suburb. There is a perception that you can only serve or benefit from the AGA if you do online this or online that. The perception is bolstered by things like obsession with online ratings, e-journals, e-books, e-tournaments, e-volunteers, and no doubt e-restrooms. Of course "facts" - such as the huge size of the USA and the money savings offered by the internet - can be marshalled easily against this perception. But that is no answer. The answer is to highlight the human side, to change the perception. Which should not be that hard when you consider that several hundred humans just travelled across the supposedly vast USA to go to a congress that has been hailed as a great success (thanks to humans).

The tools to highlight this different perception exist, but are not being used as far as I can see. The AGJ-e seems (to me as an outsider but also as a journalist) to have lost its way badly, trying, for example, to match Go World with pro-game commentaries rather than talking much more about AGA members. I may have missed some things, and I apolgise if I have, but I saw an apparently large editorial team producing many commentaries but I saw nothing in the journal about the many characters who must have made it to the congress, interviews about why they came, what they do back home, etc. Surely commentaries can be done on a demo board or after the event. You can't do interviews on a demo board, or by phone as well as you can face to face.

I also think administrators lost a trick by not commenting publicly on the Congress. They may feel that penning a few words for the AGJ is yet another chore in a busy schedule, but a stitch in time saves nine, and they would probably have to answer fewer whingeing e-mails if they would only communicate more (this applies to go associations in general, in my experience; it also applies in real offices!). In this communication, there should, quite simply, be less (if L19 is anything like representative) mention of databases, iPads, computer-calculated ratings and the like and more mention of humans (of course all the electronic wizardry can be used in the background, but as tools, not as part of the cargo cult we are seeing at present).

I think this (revamping the journalistic focus of the AGJ and getting administrators to communicate more, and even piddly ideas like a loan library) answers vash3g's slightly antagonistic questions (What will You do to help the organization? What ideas can you bring forth?), but I repeat that these are not really the right questions to ask anyway. A more fruitful question is something like: how can you get people to perceive the AGA as being interested in its members as humans?

vash3g wrote:Horibe: as ive asked of others on this very board in other topics:

What will You do to help the organization? What ideas can you bring forth?


I propose to all who read this to either Put Up or Shut Up. The time for bitching about what the AGA has not done or failed to do is over. The time to do something is now. If we all put in a little effort we could do a whole lot.

I consider this completly fair comment, and it is the main reason I spoke up initially against singling out people for specific complaint. It is easy to gripe, harder to do.

I simply implore the AGA to turn the boat around and put face to face go first, and to make sure that any wonderful and specific ideas serve the immediate or at least the ultimate goal of creating more face to face activity in this country. This plea is my contribution.

It is difficult to me to step up to the plate, when I disagree with the general direction we are heading. I am not going to work for online ratings and online tournaments when I believe they will only make it less likely that more tournamnents will be held and more people will attend them.

I recognize that many members would find such online services and events worthwhile. And if the result is more real people, with real avatars make realish connections that lead to realer connections at clubs and face to face tournaments, then I will be proved wrong, and delightfully so.

But there is a better chance of me being wrong if such online efforts are designed with an eye on what I feel is the correct ball, or combined with real support to clubs and tournaments.

Believe me, Vash - if I see the AGA calling for pitches that are over what I consider the right plate - I will not hesitate to step up and take a swing.

Mr. Fairbarn-

So much i could reply to! Let me confine myself to just one:

I really like your idea of using the EJ as a tool to highlight actual AGA members. I'll suggest it to the editor, & I bet he'll do it! He's really amenable to these things, usually saying things like "Ok, if you write it up for me, i'll print it!"

In other words, the question still comes around to "who will conduct these interviews & write these articles?" Would you like to do it? Won't take long...

But I bet a series featuring individual go clubs, who's running them, how well they're doing, could be pretty cool...maybe even paired with & publicizing a team tournament?

While running the congress, we actually had to write our own stories for the EJ, including writing our own quotes, pretending to ask ourselves our own questions, etc. I wished very much for someone, anyone, to e-mail me a bunch of questions about running the congress -- it's very hard to interview yourself.

~
So, boom. Anyone looking for a volunteer task that doesn't involve programming, here's one. Become an e-journal reporter. I'll even get you started.
1) pick a few major chapters, and a few minor ones.
2) send their contacts e-mails, ask them if they'd like to be interviewed.
3) interview them. Come up with some good questions.
4) write it up, ask for some pictures
5) send them to the e-j editors.

hyperpape wrote: This entirely validates seigenblues' point about being specific. Who is supposed to establish this go community in North Dakota? Are there board members from North Dakota? Do we bus in a bunch of college students the way the Republicans and Democrats do during campaign season?

Or do we just sit around on the boards and assume that the only obstacle to a vibrant club in Fargo is that someone in the AGA (not those of us who talk on the boards, of course) isn't trying hard enough?

(P.S. Since it will be misinterpreted, this isn't a vote of full confidence in the AGA's organization, or even a claim that more can't be done. But just trying harder won't make hundreds of clubs spring up overnight).

I certainly do not misinterpret this - I agree with the point completely, and I wish I had specifics.

However, I still believe the AGA "mindset" needs to be addressed. Andrew (seigenblues) is NOT asking for specifics on how to get clubs in N Dakota. Rather he states "...for large swathes of the central US region, commuting to tournaments is just not an option". He does not qualify this with "despite ongoing efforts" or "at present". Rhetorically, the remark admits defeat, and offers an online solution that, in my view, will make defeat certain - and not just in ungopopulated areas, but hamper efforts in "flourishing" areas as well.

Do I offer specifics for an effort that has already been abandoned? By the way, I do not believe Andrew means to admit defeat here, or even that the AGA means to. I simply submit that they have.

Now, read further in Andrew's post I quote above (#29). He speaks of an online tournament across sites - a club, a coffee shop and library. If the AGA explicitly proposed that 5 small clubs in the midwest - all "too small" to have a face to face event at the moment - would Chapter sponsor a combined online event - where you had to be a member of one of the clubs to participate. That would at least support clubs and provide a reason to join a Chapter, and a real benefit to being a chapter. That proposal, embellished with support for face to face events, might be the kind of specifics I would work for. If this was Andrew's intent, it was blunted, for me, by the quote I point to above.

What I fear is a very specific world, where the AGA runs monthly or even weekly events online to all members, and maybe raises some money that way, while attendance at face to face tournaments, where they exist, diminishes.

Horibe wrote:I simply implore the AGA to turn the boat around and put face to face go first, and to make sure that any wonderful and specific ideas serve the immediate or at least the ultimate goal of creating more face to face activity in this country. This plea is my contribution.

I would like to tell you a story of a member of our club. He was one of the two who re-founded the club while at the local university. The club has been around since the 70's in the area and had petered out as people moved away and more graduated. With help of a growing mass of friends and followers to our club we were 30 strong most nights. Let me tell you it was an awesome sight to behold. At our strongest he brought the US Go Congress to us as hosts. Through his charisma we descended by caravan to tournaments bringing 25+ people to tournaments. HKA will let you know yearly at the Maryland Open that it was a very impressive thing. In the end he is no longer with us, but his ideals have stayed strong with every single member.

We play go with each other. We have fun. We try hard to travel to tournaments. Going eight hours to a tournament then another the next day? No problem! This has dwindled in the last couple years but it will be nice to get back in the habit. The best I can do to encourage face to face is to go to tournaments within driving distance. This year I am hoping to go to Canada twice, Syracuse, Buffalo, Cortland, Maryland, Virginia, and who knows how many others. I will happily see my friends who come to the tournaments we host and at the end smile and invite them back.

I agree, face to face is the key here. Its a long tough thing to get going. Good luck building this in your area sir. Its a tough damn thing to do.

vash3g wrote:I agree, face to face is the key here. Its a long tough thing to get going. Good luck building this in your area sir. Its a tough damn thing to do.

I am glad we agree. I know your reference - routinely traveling to Baltimore from Rochester NY - and reviving go activity in a fairly isolated area. And I know he was unique, and I know it is hard. But I refuse, and if I may be so presumptious, he would have refused, to accept the verdict that "commuting to tournaments is just not an option".

It may be a quixotic quest - but the AGA needs to support, not hinder, tilting that windmill.

Actually, Horibe, a certain member of the board -- one who also stepped up to direct a congress on the other side of the country from where she lives -- actually drove to nearly every single go club in her region (central), a massive undertaking that took weeks & many, many hundreds of miles (if not thousands?). She went to as many meetings as she could, asked them what they needed, etc. She went to something like 30 clubs in two weeks? Anyway.

I'm sorry that you heard defeat where there was none. I'm glad you like the idea, even if my phrasing might've been sharper. Don't take my single "commuting is not an option" as anything like a statement of opinion from the AGA, or even as anything more than my interpretation of the opinion of some of the members in one region. Remember, i'm not deciding the what or the why of what gets done, and my interpretation of the board's reasoning is totally irrelevant.



Also, Mr. Fairbarn-

I'm quite acutely aware of your journalistic bona-fides. Your books are wonderful, and by themselves have probably advanced american go more than i'll do in the next ten years. Please take my flippant suggestion that you do the interviewing as more of a pointed jab towards our mutual silent audience...

It's also one of the best ideas i've heard in a while -- i do hope someone picks it up and runs with it.

I really like your idea of using the EJ as a tool to highlight actual AGA members. I'll suggest it to the editor, & I bet he'll do it! He's really amenable to these things, usually saying things like "Ok, if you write it up for me, i'll print it!"

This straightaway shows where the problem lies. It is the editor's job to make the suggestions, assign the reporters, etc. By all means contact and kick him awake, but the decisions should be his.

In other words, the question still comes around to "who will conduct these interviews & write these articles?" Would you like to do it? Won't take long...

You answer this yourself partly with your later points, but asking if I would do it surely is an illustration of missing the entire point. I'm in the UK. The idea is to get human contact. You can concoct an interview from e-mails and phone calls, but it's a lazy and poor way to do it. But I agree it doesn't take long. And one hour's work can leave a huge legacy of motivated people and material for use in further publicity, etc.

But I bet a series featuring individual go clubs, who's running them, how well they're doing, could be pretty cool...maybe even paired with & publicizing a team tournament?

Yes, precisely.

While running the congress, we actually had to write our own stories for the EJ, including writing our own quotes, pretending to ask ourselves our own questions, etc. I wished very much for someone, anyone, to e-mail me a bunch of questions about running the congress -- it's very hard to interview yourself.

Yes. And again this shows the misguidedness of editorial staff at SB sitting with one pro when they should be out mixing with 500 members. It's slightly anachronistic now, but in the glory days of local newspapers, what really sold newspapers wasn't an interview with a celeb who was passing through, but things like the list of people who turned up for various funerals. This is why the first job assigned to many reporters, even those with degrees, was to go the cemetery gates and ask arrivals for their names. (You also learned things like how important it was to spell names correctly!)

So, boom. Anyone looking for a volunteer task that doesn't involve programming, here's one. Become an e-journal reporter. I'll even get you started.
1) pick a few major chapters, and a few minor ones.
2) send their contacts e-mails, ask them if they'd like to be interviewed.
3) interview them. Come up with some good questions.
4) write it up, ask for some pictures
5) send them to the e-j editors.

10 out of 10 for enthusiasm, but I don't think this list is quite right. the first step is to contact the editor and find out whether the idea fits in with what else is happening, and also to get an idea of required length. Also, rather than picking names from a list, pretend the EJ is a newspaper (well, it is) and look for the news - a tournament coming up, a member selected to represent the USA, a guy with a new way of teaching. Chase the news - it's no extra work. Personally I wouldn't ask people if they want to be interviewed. I'd just show up and show I'm interested (which I must be if I've gone to all that trouble). I wouldn't "come up with some good questions". I'd listen. It's good answers I want, not good questions. I wouldn't ask for pictures, I'd take them. Taking worthwhile pictures is a skill in itself, so ask for help if need be*. I know from experience that many people will whine about how hard it is to write it up. It's easy. Just imagine you've heard a piece of news (your interview), you meet someone in a pub and you tell him the news. Write it like that.

I'd also hope you could add a point (6) and (7). Point (6) would be: let the editor edit. Don't cry if he cuts or changes your deathless prose. Point (7) would be: Claim the money! I believe a small honorarium can be paid to members who write for the AGJ.

I expect this sounds brusque or overbearing. OK, it's half meant to be. Because, while this is something that can be done by many people with minimal effort by each, it works best if done right. More people will then read the results, more people will come up with news stories.

I like the idea that is being firmed up here. I like the e-journal as-is, but would love more to see this sort of local coverage. I like reading about various tournaments already, and a series of 'A night at the Podunkville Club' articles would go very well (and help with the grassroots bit). One small suggestion I could offer is, if focusing on a club or tournament, a game review from that tournament would be great. The levels of these could obviously vary with player strength, potentially offering more to the go public than just a review of professional games. The reason I like this is, it kind of ties everything in together.

And as far as John's suggestion of a small honorarium for writing goes, why not just offer a game review from someone 3+ ranks stronger? Especially as many of these articles could be written by players of any strength, that should be fairly easy to manage. That, and everyone's jealous of those EJ caps. =D

I would not have thought of volunteering to the EJ, but now am seriously considering it.

Chew Terr wrote:... One small suggestion I could offer is, if focusing on a club or tournament, a game review from that tournament would be great. The levels of these could obviously vary with player strength, potentially offering more to the go public than just a review of professional games. The reason I like this is, it kind of ties everything in together.

And as far as John's suggestion of a small honorarium for writing goes, why not just offer a game review from someone 3+ ranks stronger? Especially as many of these articles could be written by players of any strength, that should be fairly easy to manage. ...

I'll volunteer to do said game reviews, if I'm of an appropriate level.

After my recent experience at the Go Congress in Santa Barbara, I'd like to revive an idea I had a while ago. I'm certainly not the first to have it, but I've not heard it mentioned elsewhere. I think the AGA and its members would benefit from a formal tournament director instruction course.

It seems like there aren't as many large regional tournaments as there used to be, where someone interested in learning to run a tournament could apprentice. We have Ken Koester's TD Guide in PDF, and that's a great start. I'd like something more comprehensive. Probably setting up an online version first would be the way to do it; and having a couple of evening sessions at the Congress would be a good adjunct. And yes, I'm willing to work on this, and I'm hoping for much input from those with more experience than I.

The direction this conversation took is interesting. Yesterday, I submitted something to the ejournal about my last club meeting (I won't say what, 'cause hopefully it'll get published). Today I read all this...

John Fairbairn wrote:Of all the million things the AGA could do for its members, especially in the wake of the enthusiasm created by an apparently very successful congress, the only thing that stands out in the follow-up so far is a call/promise to "improve" ratings. Administrators giving members what they want can justify it just on those grounds, I suppose, but how do the members themselves justify this obsession with numbers?

First, if you are an amateur you are weak anyway, so a even a grade (as in "I'm 1-dan which is like a black belt in judo") is not likely to impress anyone much. If you want to measure your improvement, OK, but getting a spuriously accurate number like 2345 is meaningless. You may be the equiavlent of 2319 or 2678 the next day without having played a single game or studying, depending on your bowel movements, the bills that arrive in the mail, or finding a valuable antique in the loft. What's wrong with simple 1-dan, 2-dan, etc? They may not be finely calibrated, but you know you're improving anyway if you beat the guy who used to beat you, and being 2345 has no real value in predicting whether you'll beat a 2344 guy.

I've asked this question on the BGA forum before and never saw a satisfactory answer. The nearest I can get to an answer is that western go has a lot of number-oriented people. Liking numbers doesn't necessarily make them useful, though.

This is not idle sniping. I think a rational answer would benefit national associations and adminsitrators. If there is no rational answer, I think administrators should work instead towards putting time and resources into other areas of go development. For those who need their number fix come what may, they can e.g. use the graphs on kgs instead.

I absolutely agree with what you say.

However - to play the devil's advocate here:
If such meaningless rating issues bring in more people, keep more people in, and generally makes it more likely to get people to pay their dues, then it probably has a good value to play this angle, rational or not. Human nature is weird and the art is to figure out what gets them moving rather than what's logical.

Having said the above, I would like to also add that:
The better trick is, I think, to educate people about how meaningless such numbers are. Not sure how to do that, though. Go players seem to be obsessed with those silly numbers...

seigenblues wrote:In other words, the question still comes around to "who will conduct these interviews & write these articles?" Would you like to do it? Won't take long...

So basically, we are back to the 'Put up or shut up' response. Here is what I think:

People vote for the Leaders, who all campaign and make promises and apparently have ideas. Where are they and their ideas now? The first and most important thing to get followers and volunteers is to give them something worthwhile to follow. This includes the leaders up front and highly visible. Arguments like 'because you love the game' does not cut it since there are many alternatives to give your time to (KGS, L19, etc) which seem to already successfully doing what AGA is trying to get into. Take for example the new proposed Kaya.gs server... what a great opportunity to offer help!

I see the shadow of what somebody else said the AGA (leadership) wants: 'come up with an idea, execute it, and hand it over to us in a ready and neat package so we can take the credit.' Not many people go for such stuff, it makes you feel used. And it gives you the feeling that what you do you do because it is important to you and not necessarily AGA. Once you get bored, they just drop the project until some other fool comes along to hand them the complete and neat package on a silver platter.

I think what people say is perfectly right: As the leadership, you need a clear set of prioritized goals and then demonstrate the will to find resources to accomplish these goals. THEN people will follow and volunteer. If what people get instead is "well, what don't YOU do something".... can be depressing.

So we have a finger-pointing game instead: We elected you, now do something. Well, we cannot do something without you doing something. We cannot do something without you doing something... and so on.

PS>

To be honest - this is not problem exclusive to AGA. I am following discussions about EGF and PGA as well on various forums, and all these organizations seem to have similar issues. From the time when i was following various chess organizations - the problems are even worse there! Not sure how to solve it, or even if the issues are inherent to a volunteer-based organization. Maybe its some basic flaw in the organizational structure? Or wrong expectations?

I think the only way to get a grip on what's going on is the transparency somebody already mentioned. And I don't mean just the minutes from meetings, but also more personal access to the board members and decision makers. This would imply more accountability, even if it means occasional hurt egos.

For example, to stay on topic - what happened to the board member who got elected on the platform of transparency? Did he 'forget' about the promise after the election? Or is he working hard to give us such transparency but is blocked by the other board members. If so, why? Are there valid reasons? Or is there something to hide?... I know this can bring out some dirt, but you often cannot clean up the house without a shovel, so maybe this is what is needed?

Just saying...