How to study shape?

[QuestionMark]

First off appreciate your efforts! But I don't understand. You have an old school website with a product being produced on in an old school style. I looked at purchasing your product but held off. Then out of curiosity I checked out your website and saw this:

Important note: But this also means it is no longer economic for us to offer a reduced-cost subscription service. As of summer 2012, no further additions will be made to the subscriptions list, but of course all existing subscriptions will be honoured. This will also give us freedom to issue updates at more convenient times rather than every six months.

As someone who is younger and done some web development, I have thought why don't they change their model. You could get webhosting cheaper than producing on CDs and would allow you to keep your product on the market. I am assuming that is what your website is saying that, anyone who wasn't on the list after 2012 will never be able to get the product. With the model I am suggesting, you could keep your product on the market and cut your costs down at the same time. Whenever you update the package send out an email saying download the latest version and even provide a link. The user then can go sign in and dowload the product. I don't know how the site is run, but from an outsider this seems like a better option.

If I am wrong in understanding the website then I am sorry for this post. I just feel that this is a great product talked about by many, but is kind of like an exclusive club that nobody new can get into.

[Uberdude]

If I am wrong in understanding the website then I am sorry for this post. I just feel that this is a great product talked about by many, but is kind of like an exclusive club that nobody new can get into.

You have misunderstood somewhat. You can still buy GoGoD as a one-off purchase (a CD sent in the post). What you can no longer do is subscribe to get the updates (lots of CDs sent in the post).

But that notwithstanding, switching to an electronic rather than physical distribution model would indeed most likely reduce costs, but with some upfront cost to set up the system.

I think it would be good if TMark and JF did allow purchase of GoGoD in an electronic medium as they'd likely pick up quite a few new customers, but for people like Billy complaining that he can't use GoGoD on the train, the value of GoGoD is the information contained on the CD in files, not the CD itself. Just copy the files onto your tablet/phone, upload to your dropbox or whatever cloudy thing you like and use them there.

[QuestionMark]

Ah thank you. I thought the product itself was the subscription.

Yes forgot to mention that part, there would be some costs to setup like designing a new website and getting it made, but I think long term it would be a cheaper for them to produce.

[TMark]

I should first apologise for my earlier rant; you caught a grumpy old man on a bad morning. While there is much logic in the suggestion of having downloads, we have been rather stick-in-the-mud about the way we have done things, especially when my initial enquiries about download systems and security would have produced costs greater than previous sales. I expect that it is easier now but we have a saying that Real Life intrudes. For me, this was being diagnosed with cancer in March 2012 and spending 6 months on chemotherapy. During that time, I did virtually no work on the database and it was the main determining factor in removing the subscription option. I wanted to have the simplest system possible that I could operate without having long-term commitments. Unfortunately, Real Life is still intruding and I expect to have further hospital treatment for some months to come.

Best wishes.

[QuestionMark]

That makes sense. Like I said from an outsiders view it would appear easier and more cost effecient.

Best of luck with cancer.

Oh and ... Shapes are cool

[billywoods]

Anybody here should know that both John and I are fairly responsive to the members of the Go community.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but I genuinely have no idea who you are. I'm puzzled by the implication that I should. You may not realise that I am rather new to go, and very new to this forum, and my knowledge of you and John is limited to what I've seen you post (very little) and what is on your website (not the things I wanted to know). It may well be due to your absence because of your recent treatment (for which I wish you all the best).

It pisses me off slightly that a number of posters above seemed to assume that we would take no notice of the fact that some people could not buy GoGoD and would do nothing about it.

You have the privileged knowledge that you are not just some half-hearted publisher or seller who couldn't really care less about go because it doesn't sell very well. You know that you are helpful. I don't necessarily know this - when I look at your website, all I see is an unhelpful lack of the sort of information I need. Being willing to go out of your way to help someone is rare nowadays, and it's great that you are, but if you don't tell us, we don't know.

Now that I've found out that you're helpful, and I can actually buy GoGoD in a format useful to me, I'll reconsider it a little more seriously, and I may send you an email at some point to check that it will actually be compatible with the machines I want to use it on.

Just copy the files onto your tablet/phone, upload to your dropbox or whatever cloudy thing you like

The same complaints apply: 1. I don't have a CD drive to copy the files from, 2. there's no information about what file formats most things are in, so I don't know if my tablet / phone can read them. The sgfs will work; the books are probably just plain pdf or djvu or epub or something, but there's always the slight chance they're locked away behind some unhelpful front-end; the tsumego tester and database searcher almost certainly won't work, and so on.

Anyway, I'll address questions about this to T Mark or John once I've decided whether or not I want / can afford to buy it.

[emeraldemon]

I hope you can recover quickly and fully so you can keep bringing us more great Go resources!

[Uberdude]

1. I don't have a CD drive to copy the files from,

Doesn't Queen Mary have one you could use?

[billywoods]

1. I don't have a CD drive to copy the files from,

Doesn't Queen Mary have one you could use?

Sure, probably - if not then a central library would. But I can't email 700mb worth of files to myself, and I'm not spending more money on a flash drive. So I have to plug in my tablet and hope that the computer doesn't need to install extra drivers to read it (because I don't have the necessary privileges to). If it does, maybe I could speak to a member of staff, or find friends with CD drives I can use and flash drives I can borrow, or something. All of this for something I'm not even entirely sure will work on my machines.

Don't get me wrong - I never said any of this was impossible. I just thought Charles's complaint of snobbery was ungrounded, and T Mark and John were unwise for not being clearer on their website.

[QuestionMark]

I can understand your frustration as technology is changing. You could PM them and ask what formats they use or you could request for sample material of the GoGoD to be put on the website.

If you have questions as to wether it would be worth it then we should start a thread about it. I would be curious, as someone who doesn't own GoGoD, to see how the community ranks the product and to see if it is worth buying.

[xed_over]

Real Life intrudes. For me, this was being diagnosed with cancer in March 2012 and spending 6 months on chemotherapy.

oooh.. very sad to hear indeed. Many well wishes and speedy recovery and long life if possible!

[xed_over]

All of this for something I'm not even entirely sure will work on my machines.

billy, TMark already said he'd ship on a USB flash drive if you just ask.

I can tell you, many of the programs are written for Windows machines so if you have some other OS, those won't be useful to you, but the html text files of all kinds of interesting history and other information would still be available to you on any OS, as well as the thousands of games. And apparently, Mr Matthew's book.

the Kombilo database is Python based (and Open Source), so it should run anywhere (though you may need to fiddle with the dials a bit depending on your OS). I've only been successfully at getting Kombilo up and running once or twice myself, and still don't have any other database -- still wondering what all the hype is about

But I still love having all the games, and I dig though them to find stuff from time to time (even without a database).

Or you could import the games into your own database, if you've already purchased something else already.

Its well worth the price. Over the years, I've bought at least 3 CD's (I never went with the subscription service anyway), and I need to buy another just to get the most latest updates. Hoping to do so at this year's US Go Congress in Tacoma.

[Charles Matthews]

if you are going to be technically snobbish, you are hampering your development as a player

This comment annoys me, for two reasons.

Firstly, are you aware that CD-ROM drives are being slowly phased out by some large computer manufacturers? I don't think I remember the last time I held a CD or a DVD in my hand, because they're useless lumps of plastic that have since been superseded, but more importantly than my opinion is that this opinion is very widespread. This means that it's (slowly) becoming harder and harder to buy machines that will read CDs. It is technological snobbery to publish valuable resources in only a single medium which some people cannot access. It is not technological snobbery to ask for it to be made more widely available.

Secondly, I spend an hour or more on the train most days, and I can carry small objects around (e.g. phones, tablets or books), but I obviously can't carry large ones (like heavy laptops or desktop computers). So, if I actually want to make that time useful, GoGoD is pointless, because I have to leave it at home. My time is better spent if I pay twice as much money on far less information by buying a single go book - which I simply can't afford to do, so I don't do it. The inability to find cheap, portable resources which are a good use of both my time and my money is hampering my development as a player.

It is only worthwhile annoying people if it's in a good cause. Of course I realised I was being provocative. Here's the deal: the so-called "valuable resource" is indeed that - it's a huge chunk of the most significant game records, which for the most part existed previously on paper only. They have been digitised for you. This is the "legacy" that is going to make studying go significantly easier for the next generation. The complaint that it is in a "legacy format" - what do think it was in before?

Exactly how people value what they say is "valuable" tells you a lot about them. (Think of the environment?) What I'm reading here is someone giving a consumer complaint.

[Charles Matthews]

Hi Charles, just wanted to thank you for your work. It has certainly improved my game. Your experience, unfortunately, is a good example of why supporting folks like you is so important. The worst part, at least from my perspective, is that we'll never know what your next Go book might have been.

The book called Fighting Fit was the next project with Kim. Referring to the other thread in which I talk about "exemplars", it was a collection of examples of positions taken from amateur games. So, a middle game book. A couple of British players who saw it didn't like the style. So it was hard to go on after that.

It's a good illustration of the difference between "European" and "Asian" thinking I was talking about, given that the same players liked Shape Up!. If you try to get exhaustive about the middle game, I think what you get instead is exhaustion?

[billywoods]

the so-called "valuable resource" is indeed that - it's a huge chunk of the most significant game records, which for the most part existed previously on paper only. They have been digitised for you. This is the "legacy" that is going to make studying go significantly easier for the next generation. The complaint that it is in a "legacy format" - what do think it was in before?

I don't understand your objection in the slightest. Nobody is snubbing CD-ROMs - many modern computers are simply not built to accept them. The games themselves are a valuable resource. A CD-ROM, on the other hand, is as useless to me as a floppy disk or a roll of ticker tape, because I don't have a CD-ROM drive or the money to buy one. Unlike paper, they're not "legacy" - they're obsolete, and soon they'll be extinct.

(And somehow I think it's a gratuitous waste of time to spend countless thousands of hours digitising games to make them more widely available and useful, and then publish them only in a not very widely available, and so not very useful, format. It's none of my business, of course, but I'd have thanked anyone who told me that CDs were obsolete and jumped at the chance to make my product more widely available, whereas the reaction that Toge and I have had is somewhat different. I can't help but find this rather confusing.)