Talk:Go (game)/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Go (game). Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

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Archive 10

References in popular culture

I found these on a list at Amazon. I don't have time to verify and add these to the article myself, so here are the data... :-) --Ds13 22:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Movies that reference the game of go
'Early Summer'
'A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen Awards Edition)'
'Dangerous Moves'
'Heaven Knows Mr. Allison'
'Kwaidan - Criterion Collection'
'Pi'
'The Pillow Book'
'Restless'
'Sanjuro - Criterion Collection'
'Pushing Hands'
'Fate of Lee Khan'
'Temptation of a Monk'

Fiction books where go is a major topic
'The Girl Who Played Go' is a great book. It follows the lives of a Chinese girl and a Japanese soldier in war in 1930's Manchurian China.
'The Master of Go (Vintage International)'. The author won a Nobel Prize for his work.

Music
'A Game of Go'

Books that have a passing reference to go
'Prisoner's Dilemma'
'Power Game'
'Introduction to Artificial Intelligence'
'Memoirs of a Geisha : A Novel'
'100 Strategic Games'
'Business Start-Up Kit'
'Forty-Seven Ronin Story'
'Things Japanese'

In the fantasy book series Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan the character play game called 'Stones' that is described pretty much like go. In the book series by Margaret Ogden written under alias of Robin Hobb the old woman teaches Young Fritz a game of stones; however this variant uses stones of three colors and slightly different ruleset. A comprehensive explanation of the game isn't given in the book. Khokkanen 21:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 18:55, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Several things.

If the earliest surviving references come from the 6th century BC, why does the start of the article give a date as late as 200 BC? Since I don't know which is right I haven't changed either.

In "Overview of the game":

"battle to maximize the area of their territory and the number of their soldiers (in Chinese rule)."

This would be likely to mislead newcomers; "territory" in the military sense includes the space occupied by one's soldiers, and newcomers would not know the technical Go sense. Also, "in Chinese rule" is bad English, as are some other things. Plus I don't think the difference between Chinese and Japanese scoring goes in an "overview". I've tried to clean and tighten this overview.

("strategem" is spelled "stratagem", but is probably intended to mean something more like "strategy"; "stratagem" has a much narrower meaning.)

DanielCristofani 11:46, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Rules question

As a Go newbie, I'd like to lend my perspective on part of this article that I find vague:

A player may pass instead of placing a stone. Two consecutive passes end a game, beginning the scoring

Does this mean two consecutive passes by one player, or does it mean that if one player passes, and then the other passes also, the game is over? What happens if player A chooses to pass, player B drops a stone, and player A passes again? I think this should be clarified. Thanks --Malathion 23:02, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

User A might say pass as much as s/he wants. if A passes and then B passes then game ends.Akif 16:42, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC)

From the previous sections of the talk page, I can see that there was a lively debate about how the rules should be represented. But I still don't think the section is up to standard:

I do not see why the word "points" in rule 1 should be italicized, or even be included. As far as I know, all of the English publications and pamphlets used the word "intersections".

The word "points" is used very often. E.g. "3-3 point", not "3-3 intersection". Besides, "intersection" is a big clunky word. Replacing "point" with "intersection" through the rest of the rules would not be an improvement. DanielCristofani 12:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Stones connected by lines are not called "chains". They are called "groups", at least in North America. I confess I'm not as familar with the European terms, but I do not remember hearing an European player use the term "chains" either.

The American Go Association calls these "strings", but they are not often mentioned except in teaching the game to beginners. See longer talk on Talk:Rules_of_Go. DanielCristofani 12:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The rule of including the number of intersections occupied by stones is only valid under Chinese and Ing counting.
Komi (compensation points) is not an optional rule. It is part of all rulesets of go.

Mimson 05:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I must comment about komi - in my experience, this may not be optional in many social situations, but komi is generally an agreement between two players on skill differences, I have played many matches without komi. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 06:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

But what happens when there's a "tie"?Mimson 06:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

When there's a tie, there's a tie, i.e. neither player is considered to have won the game. DanielCristofani 12:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

star point

Star points are quite important in Go theory I think, but there's none of it discussed here or the Rules of Go. I've redirected star point to this article for now, but it should have its own material in the future. Except as a point to place handicaps, I don't know much about star points and cosmic games, but I think some of you will. -- Natalinasmpf 28 June 2005 18:38 (UTC)

playing time

What's with the playing time being described as "> 1 hour"? Sure, in tournaments you do play with long times, but in clubs times such as 10min+10min (fast) or 20min+20min (slow) are quite usual, and both are well below one hour. 10 July 2005 17:42 (UTC)

[SandBoxer]: Usually those +20min and +10min are per stones such as 10 minutes per 25 stones placed. That could make an endless repetition if you keep playing.

Why is the maximum playing time 3 hours? I think in top-level tournament play 8 + 8 hours is not uncommon. If no-one objects in a couple of days, I'll change the maximum time to two days.

The Knights of the Square Table (I think now defunct organization) came up with a system for playing GO by mail, a system that I think could be easily converted to playing by Internet or e-mail. In such a case of someone making a move on a shared map, then opponent later making a move, in which the players can be in several concurrent GO games, such games can last years, depending on typical time intervals between the moves. User:AlMac|^(talk) 23:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Books

I don't know the mentioned book, but "maoist revolutionary strategy" seems to be a rather special topic. Wouldn't a selection of books for beginners be more relevant? -- Zoegernitz 6 July 2005 11:53 (UTC)

I added two good books for beginners from my own collection. Tree&Leaf 19:18, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

History of Go

In this article it seems more like the history of Go in Japan, with a couple of words describing China and none Korea.--Wooddoo-eng 10:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and the Japanese rules are given as the default. This may be true in the English speaking world, but still ... kwami 11:21, 2005 July 18 (UTC)

Well, it is true, outside Japan, also in the Korean-speaking world. It is simpler to explain the exceptions: Chinese/Taiwanese players, New Zealand. Some countries use Ing rules for tournaments, but probably have Japanese rules in most clubs. Charles Matthews 11:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Charles Matthews, I think your statement is somewhat too general. If I remember correctly, the Canadian rules state that one may use either Chinese or Japanese counting, with 6.5 points komi. And the AGA rules have the very significant modifications of superko and passing stones (which basically guarantees disputed situations can be played out, unlike the arbitrary judgement of Japanese rules). I am also under the impression that the Singaporeans use Chinese rules. So yeah, population-wise it is arguable that the ones who use Japanese rules are the exceptions. Mimson 04:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Go Players History

I noted recently on reading through wikipedia that many chess grandmasters have their own pages. Should wikipedia not have something like this too. Shusaku, Dosaku, Famous westerners instrumental in developing go, etc.

Time of game

Don't you think the time should be upped a little? Even beginner and amateur games often go past 1 hour, 30 minutes is actually the average time for a 5~15sec. per move blitz game. Also see my reply on playing time

This kind of things is flexible I will say. -- G.S.K.Lee 02:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The thing is that for most players, there are many familar situations that don't require any thinking. So the average time estimate, while correct, is quite deceptive. Anecdote: the professional entrance tournament in China allows one hour per player, which breaks down into an average of 24 seconds per move, assuming 300 moves.Mimson 05:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Possible positions- why 0.012?

Where does the 0.012 come from in " 3³⁶¹×0.012 = 2.1×10¹⁷⁰ possible positions ".

I know that there would be less than 3³⁶¹ possible positions as some positions would be impossible to ever reach in the course of a game, but why do we multiply the total valid and invalid positions by the number 0.012? Is there an obvious reason? If not is there an external referance to some math?--Fergie 13:03, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

See the link http://senseis.xmp.net/?NumberOfPossibleOutcomesOfAGame, which you can find in the section "The Nature of the Game". But keep in mind that all of these big numbers have essentially zero meaning for real play. --Macrakis 13:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Male vs. female go players.

Granted, it wouldn't be surprising if there were a genetic reason why the best male go players are better than the best female go players. The same mechanism that makes men so much more likely to be colorblind also makes men more likely to have a variety of unusual traits, both good and bad. But the "analysis" that was linked to was worthless. "Women were classically taught to play go; monks who had a talent for it played go with women and became their lovers; in go, every stone is equal; THEREFORE, every aspect of the culture fostered professional-level go talent equally in men and in women"?? Seriously. Given that women were encouraged to play go, we would have to ask whether and how strongly they were encouraged to win at go; we would have to ask whether the culture did as much to foster competitive spirit in women as in men, in general; we would have to ask whether women were encouraged to beat men at go; whether they were encouraged to play professionally; whether the same high-level strategic teaching was available to the top female players as to the top male players in the go schools; whether they were taught go at the same age; and probably a dozen other questions. Cultural factors are subtle and multifarious, and it will take a lot of analysis to correct for their influence, if it can be done at all. Instead, we are given old rumors about monkish seduction techniques.

Doesn't this all rather miss the point(s): go is the mind sport of complete information at which women are strongest, and the Chinese women have led the way? Charles Matthews 13:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I was just trying to explain/defend my deletion of some recently-added content, and to set a fairly high bar for anyone in future who might be inclined to make any claims along the lines of "men are genetically superior". That's all--if you want to add more about the history of women in go, go for it. Here, by the way, is the fluff I deleted; it had been added September 23 as I recall. DanielCristofani 09:08, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

"Analysis regarding how men and women compare when playing Go also exists. Playing Go: Differences and Similarities Between Men and Women suggests that top men players are stronger on average; the cause is hard to find, but probably it's not based on cultural or educational grounds."

The page has been updated to remove the part about the monks, but it still claims that cultural influences have been "eliminated" without doing one percent of the work that would be necessary to actually control for them, and other than that claim it is almost content-free. Thus it still doesn't deserve linking to. The current format of the link makes it look like a source which is being cited to support the claim that top male go players are stronger than top female go players; however, that claim could be better supported by linking to a page that has some actual comparative data on top male and female players. The page that used to talk about monks does link to lists of the top male and female go players in Japan (not in the world), but those pages are undated and not necessarily reliable, and give no indication of playing strength other than dan rankings.

DanielCristofani 09:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

history

The propoganda site of North Korea claims that Go was invented in Korea. [1] This isn't really surprising, since everything good in the world supposedly came from Dear Leader, but someone who knows more about the issue may wish to address it. --Carl 11:37, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Baduk

The following paragraph has recently been added:

Currently, Korea has taken the lead amongst East Asian countries in developing the distribution of the game around the world. Thus, the term "baduk" has become the most popular in reference to the game.

1st sentence may be correct (I don't know); 2nd sentence I find very hard to believe. Comments?--Niels Ø 19:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I've only heard "baduk" as "the Korean name for Go". The only time I've ever used the word is when buying a set in a Korean grocery store. Every native English speaker I know just calls it Go. (I'm in the US.) kwami 19:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

First sentence actually doesn't make sense in English because "developing the distribution of the game around the world." is too vague. If this means "production of Go pieces", I highly doubt Korean companies make more Go equipments than Chinese companies. If this means "Korean government and other Korean organizations are promoting Go abroad using the name of baduk.", then that's how it should be written. Using Google, "baduk" gets 240,000 hits, but if you subtract "go" and limit the language to English, almost all of relevant search results are Korean ones. Try guessing why anyone would write that the Korean name of "go" is becoming popular. --Revth 07:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I think most of the go equipment in North America is made by Ing anyways. Of course, this would fall under "personal research", but almost all of the go sets I see at the U.S. Go Congress are Ing. Mimson 05:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

"Baduk" certainly isn't the most popular way to refer to Go except in Korean. In the West it's universally called "Go", and there aren't even any indications that that is going to change. Even if some would like to change it (outside of Koreans), there would be huge inertia to overcome. 130.233.22.111 16:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Moving Go (board game) to Go

I propose to move Go to Go (disambiguation), and, after fixing all redirects, to move Go (board game) to Go. While many English-language users have never heard of the board game Go (I know that I myself did not hear of it until a few years ago), hundreds of millions of people in China, Korea, Japan, and other countries around the world are familiar with and play the game. Having Go as a disambiguation page is akin to having Chess as a disambiguation page–I have no doubt that consensus would rightly oppose this. In the same way, NPOV demands that we consider the usage of the term that is most meaningful for all people, not just for English speakers. NatusRoma 02:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the term that is most meaningful: I don't have any opposition, but it seems odd to argue "all people" against English speakers when this is the English Wikipedia. I don't think this has anything to do with a neutral point of view. Whenever I refer to the game, I usually call it the "Game of Go" since the word "Go" alone could throw someone off. --Sivak 03:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I hardly even know where to begin.

One: hundreds of millions of people around the world play go, yes; but six billion people around the world go to places (e.g. by walking). If we were going to choose based on the popularity and importance of the thing being described, we would want to move Go (verb) to Go, not move Go (board game) to Go. Obviously this is absurd. The question is not what action is most popular, but what meaning the WORD is most popularly linked to. The board game is not called "go" in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean; all three use other words for it instead, though the Japanese one is related. Thus, it is NOT true that worldwide, the word "go" means "go (board game)" to the most people.

Two: What does the sound sequence "go" mean, to most people, worldwide? To start with we would want to check what that sound sequence means in Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, etc. But this too is clearly a false path. Since this is the English Wikipedia, we want to know what the ENGLISH WORD "go" means to most people who speak English. Otherwise, we would need to check every article in every Wikipedia to make sure that each word does not have the same sound as some more commonly used word in another language. This is ridiculous.

Three: If we do ask what the English word "go" means to most people who speak English, clearly it's Go (verb) again. But that is not enough reason to replace Go with Go (verb); the board game is important enough that the current method, putting various meanings on Go with links to articles, is probably the best approach.

Four: The problem with the Chess analogy should be obvious: the English word 'chess' does not have more than one important meaning. I have a hard time believing that this proposal was intended seriously. DanielCristofani 10:06, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

To figure out what should be located at Go, we must first ask if "go" represents one or more encyclopedic concepts in the English language. Because the answer is yes, there should be an article called Go in the English language Wikipedia. However, because "go" represents more than one encyclopedic concept in the English language, there should be a disambiguation page for these concepts in the English language Wikipedia. If no one of these encyclopedic concepts is significantly more important from a neutral point of view than any of the others is, then this disambiguation page should be located at Go. However, if at least one of these encyclopedic concepts is significantly more important than any of the others, regardless of what name denotes that concept in any other given language, the article describing that concept should be located at Go, and the disambiguation page describing all such encyclopedic concepts should be located at Go (disambiguation).

The verb "to go" and its etymology are appropriate for wiktionary, and therefore do not qualify as encyclopedic concepts. The most important of the encyclopedic concepts that "go" represents in the English language is the board game called "Go". Therefore, the description of this concept should be located at Go. NatusRoma 17:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

1. Read what you just wrote. It implies that since the board game and the verb both appear in Wiktionary, and it is appropriate for them to do so, both articles should be deleted from Wikipedia. You probably didn't mean to say that. So remove the "therefore".

2. This leaves something like "the verb 'to go' and its etymology do not qualify as encyclopedic concepts, they just don't", so your next move should be to start a Votes for deletion page to delete Go (verb) from Wikipedia. After that succeeds, and it is clear that other people agree that Go (verb) does not belong in Wikipedia, we can think about question three. (The last VfD for Go (verb) failed last May by a margin of 14 to 2.)

3. This is irrelevant until the VfD mentioned in 2 has succeeded, but it is an interesting question: if a word represents some encyclopedic concepts and some non-encyclopedic concepts, in the English language, and one of the non-encyclopedic concepts is vastly more important from a neutral point of view than any of the encyclopedic concepts, should the page for the word be a disambiguation page with a Wiktionary link at the top, or should it be the page for the most important encyclopedic concept? Maybe you can cite a Wikipedia policy that clearly addresses this, but I haven't seen one. DanielCristofani 21:53, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

What I meant, and what I said, was that the meaning of the verb "to go", as well as the etymology of the verb, is only appropriate for Wiktionary. However, I have reconsidered this, and have changed my mind about the etymology of the verb "to go". I believe that this etymology is encyclopedic, though the meaning of the verb "to go" is not. Furthermore, I think that this etymology is significant enough that the article about the board game should not be the article located at Go, and that Go should remain a disambiguation page. So consider the move request withdrawn.

To answer your question about dictionary definitions that are more important than encyclopedic concepts of the same English language title, Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What_NOT_to_put_on_disambiguation_pages suggests an external link to Wiktionary. The article Go presently contains a link to a Wiktionary article that discusses both "to go" and "go" (noun). NatusRoma 18:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

What NatusRoma said sounds good, and as a Go player I'm sympathetic, but if you go to Go on Wikipedia, you find lots of things called Go with articles: albums, films, game shows, etc. Where would those go if Go went to Go?

The disambiguation page currently at Go would...wend its way to Go (disambiguation). NatusRoma 06:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this. Right now, the "Go" article redirects to this game, but it obviously has other notable meanings (the English verb, the fairly popular Movie, various popular songs. Given the broad range of subjects, shouldn't that article redirect to Go (disambiguation)? I didn't want to change it myself as it seems that there has been quite a lot of history to this debate, but as I'm new on it, can anyone explain why this is the current state or if it is a mistake? --DDG 15:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

After reading this discussion it's now clear to me that Go have to be a disambiguation page. I was going to correct it since it now redirects improperly to Go (board game). I've stopped only because I wasn't sure if the correct action would be to move Go (disambiguation) to Go or make Go a redirect to Go (disambiguation) instead. Any thougths? Regards Loudenvier 16:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

To exemplify Start is itself a disambiguation page as I think Go should be, so Go (disambiguation) should be moved to Go. Since Go already exists, administrator intervention is necessary to commit this move. Any more thoughts? Loudenvier 16:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Right, to have Go be a redirect to the disambiguation page would just be unnecessary. I am actually an administrator and I can execute this move, but I'd like to see a little more consensus here before I execute the change. --DDG 16:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think there's no subject in the english encyclopedia under the Go title that is so much notorious as to deserve the title of Go or the redirect. If Go redirects to Go (Board Game) then we could pretty much move Go (Board game) to Go with no change whatsoever in results, since the redirect actually make Go = Go (Board game). (Just to add a few more cents to the discussion...). If a move had been proposed before then the consesus we had already on this section would be enough to commit the move, but you waiting a litle longer will make no harm (and can avoid a possible mistake, lest somebody come up with a revolutionary, impressive argument to keep things as they are right now... :-). Regards. Loudenvier 21:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

playing go

I understand this is not the most adecuate place to ask this.. but I dont know where to. Would be most thankful for answers in my talk page. Anyways, I had stumbled over a wiki with a number of go games being played, and I can't find it again. I wanted to start playing and in spite of being in Japan, finding someone who will play with me is harder than one would think. Anyone can link me there? thanks --Lacrymology 03:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm adding this here rather than on your own talk page in case other readers are wondering the same question. There are many possible places to find out more about playing Go in real life or online: the wiki I suspect you found is an excellent place to start: Sensei's Library. From there you will find links to local Go clubs and national institutions, and to various other online locations where Go can be played and is taught. Good luck with your future addiction to the game! --JennyRad 01:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I have been directed to the Sensen's Library already, and learned a lot there, but I am talking about somewhere in wikipedia where people played go games. I guess it doesn't matter anymore.. might have been part of the dead wikigames? --Lacrymology 04:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

You can play on KGS or one of the various other Go servers. 128.6.175.80 19:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Wrong numbers for chess

I think that the number o possible chess moves is vastly underestimated in this article. I've read that after only 50 moves you could have ~10^160 possible situations on a chess board. The thing is: no one really knows how many chess positions there can be.

The only way to get an estimate like that is to define "situation" or "position" as including a listing of all previous board positions as well. Granted, that can be relevant for draw by threefold repetition, just as it can be relevant in go for ko rules. Basically, the 10^43 to 10^50 estimates for chess are comparable to the 2.1*10^170 estimate for go, not to the 10^(10^whatever) estimates for go. DanielCristofani 01:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Concern about intro paragraph

There's a paragraph in the article intro that may be slightly incorrect or possibly out of place:

Weiqi is definitely an important part of the Chinese culture, but the Japanese copied it and promoted it though comics and animations. That's how the name "Go" became popular in the west and this Chinese boardgame weiqi is even misunderstood as having originated in Japan.

Two questions/concerns:

I believe the name "Go" (from the Japanese "igo") was used in the west long before any Japanese comics or animations were imported and became popular. Therefore, if there is any confusion about the game's country of origin, it's not for the reason stated.
Is confusion over the game's country of origin (if there is any) significant enough to be included in the article's introduction? The history of Chinese invention and migration to Japan and Korea is made clear later in the article.

Thoughts? --Ds13 01:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, so I zorched the paragraph. DanielCristofani 02:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. It is not ruled out that China took it from Tibet, even ... though chances are that there will not be evidence to settle the origins (cf. chess,up to 1000 years later, with no clear answer). Charles Matthews 10:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Go boards

Go boards, or gobans (btw, could someone add a redirect for goban? There isn't one currently), are quite important pieces of equipment for players of Go. There are various different types and qualities of boards. Some have achieved a historical, even legendary status. This all of course applies to stones as well, but since they aren't generally considered as important, the stones article as such could be incorporated into Go boards article.

~~In another words this is a request for someone to start either a Go board article (currently a redirect) or a Go equipment article.~~ Khokkanen 12:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about this. There already is Go equipment article. I had misspelled it earlier. Khokkanen 12:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Chinese versus Japanese scoring methods

I believe that the philosophy behind Japanese scoring can be seen if it is compared to a war. First, consider each stone to be a soldier or group of soldiers. If Area scoring is used, then when a player places a stone in a dead terriritory, they have wasted a life or lives of people on their side of the war. These incongruencies only matter at the end of the game when the average scoring between white and black is similar. Obviously if one person has a huge advantage, the scoring methods are not a matter of consequence. Though I understand that the chances that white and black have very similar scores is small, I still think it is an issue.

Theoretically, a person in the lead can potentially lose using Territory scoring if he constantly puts stones in the opponents territory that are well under the opponents' control. Obviously a better player that is in the lead would unlikely do this since they've gone so far into the game and are winning. But the problem is if both players are of equal skill. If this is the case, then every point is critical. If one player thinks that trying to capture a questionable area is risky, he would attempt it under chinese rules and wouldn't attempt it under japanese rules, unless he evaluated it as profitable. If a position is profitable, then of course a player would capitalize on it, but if it isn't or if it is really hard to determine, then the scoring method matters.

If you consider yourself the General or King of all the soldiers represented by your stones, then you do not want to sacrifice lives in a war that is already won or lost. Before the endgame, with either scoring method, you are penalized for placing stones in your own territory. This isn't done explicitly, but it can be shown by you "wasting" a turn, where you could have put your stone somewhere else to capture more area or territory. During the endgame, most fights have determined a winner except for a few leftover risky manuevers. Territory scoring would penalize you for making the mistake if the risk you took was not good, and Area scoring wouldn't. This doesn't make sense.

It is in this way that the Japanese scoring method is more elegant; not because it is the tradition or that there is a "beauty of omission." Lives matter, and that is why in the game of Go, we consider things Alive or Dead. It doesn't make sense that a ruler would risk any more lives of his people if the war is over. In conclusion, Area scoring allows for riskier play and Territory scoring allows for a person to balance offense and defense, while agreeing on an end of the game sooner too.70.111.251.203 14:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

As you have pointed out, given the analogy between Go and war, it is a problem that under area scoring, there is no penalty when you get your own stones captured (get your own soldiers killed).

Also, given the analogy between Go and war, it is a problem that under territory scoring, land occupied by soldiers is not counted as territory of the occupying power, and is not considered to have any value.

And given the analogy between Go and war, it is a huge problem under both scoring systems that the soldiers cannot be moved from place to place. Also, it is a problem that groups of soldiers die when there is no empty land next to them; realistically they would carry enough supplies to survive for at least a little while. And it is a problem that there is no way to kill enemy soldiers EXCEPT by surrounding them entirely. Also it is mildly unrealistic that there are no stones representing civilians, and that the continent is a perfect square, and that pieces can be placed anywhere on the board--if they are parachuting in, surely the planes they came from should be represented?

Offhand, I think the analogy between Go and war is so loose and unreliable that nothing can be concluded from it about which Go rules are best. DanielCristofani 22:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Article name: Go, WeiQi, or Baduk

What do you guys think the name of the article should be? I think it should be either WeiQi or Go. There are basically two deciding factors: place of origin or superior rules. If we regard place of origin as more important, then WeiQi. There is a debate about the Chinese or Japanese rule systems, but essentially, Chinese is simplier and applicable if the game isn't a close one. Japanese, though slightly more time consuming and complex, is probably more accurate. Shall we take a vote? 70.111.251.203 23:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

No, 'go' is the common name in the West. Charles Matthews 23:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Charles, Go it the western name, and should be used on the English Wikipedia. --Falcorian ^(talk) 00:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Moku

I've nominated Moku for deletion; the info it contains is: "In Go, one moku is a point gained by surrounding territory of one intersection, or by capturing one enemy stone." Mikker ^... 04:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Historic Japanese example of three-color go?

I have a photograph here that I was hoping a go historian could help me intrepret (or ideally, translate). To me, it appears it may be a 10x10 goban with three colors of stones: black, brown, and white. The photo was taken in old Matsumoto Castle. Translations? Theories? Or is this simply not go at all? --Ds13 22:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Black stones were made from Nachi Black Stone, white stones were made from clam shells, uncoloured pottery stones were supposed to be used as white. -- G.S.K.Lee 17:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Computers and Go

Computers and Go section talks about the "virtually unlimited placement of each stone". Perhaps this should say "large number of possible moves" as the number of moves is very limited to perhaps 362. Stephen B Streater 17:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Chinese and Japanese

How come there aren't any chinese words for the terms? They all seem to be japanese: komi, fuseki, joseki, seki, etc. Are there even chinese versions of the terms? 70.111.216.118 17:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Everyone in England uses the Japanese words (unless they are Chinese or Korean people). Stephen B Streater 17:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Same in America. Wasn't go most popular in Japan, and weren't the best players Japanese, at the time when people in the West started becoming aware of Go? DanielCristofani 19:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Even some of the Chinese and Korean players use Japanese terms in the UK, in my experience, making life easier for all of us. (Hi, Stephen, long time no see!). But while I don't know that the Japanese were strongest when Go started spreading to the West, it was, I'm fairly sure, them who actually introduced the game to Westerners. I'm fairly sure that the Go Almanac in our Club library says something to that effect; that the Chinese kept the game to themselves, but the Japanese were prepared to pass it on to the rest of us. --JennyRad 23:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Then I am afraid the reference you sought in your Club contained some biased information. Japan became an important gate to Eastern Asia culture to the Westerners after WWII as a result of its political alignment changing, while direct cultural interflow with China was blocked by the Cold War. Hence it has nothing to do with "Chinese keeping the thing to themselves" nor "Japanese prepared it ready", it was simply because of historical reasons. -- G.S.K.Lee 14:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting notes. One thing I've heard about the game is that it was "invented by the Chinese and perfected by the Japanese". I think I saw it on the cover of a book. It could be in part relevant to the topic at hand. --Sivak 00:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Perfected" is a bit much, specially considering how Korea has been doing recently. Maybe "developed further"? DanielCristofani 02:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jenny :-) Also, Chinese is a tonal language. At least our Japanese pronunciation is vaguely correct. Stephen B Streater 08:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What would make the most sense is to just use the English equivalent of the terms. Komi, fuseki, joseki, and so forth all mean something to even the average Japanese speaking lay-person. To your average English speaking person, they mean absolutely nothing. I feel that by continuing to use non-English terms in Weiqi, we are doing more than paying homage to its Eastern roots, we are propagating the idea that Weiqi is a game only of the East, when it could be a game of the world. --BenjaminTsai ^Talk 09:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Be that as it may, Wikipedia should conform to prevalent terminology, because Wikipedia is not a soapbox, nor a publisher of original thought. 130.233.22.111 16:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Chinese game

Weiqi is the original name for Go and is still widely used around the world and should be in the introduction of the article. Including native text in an English article is a useful. Many people want them because they help future researchers to further the study through native sources. Native text can be encyclopedic information and has many benefits. It is unwise to remove native text JUST because this is an English encyclopedia. It would be foolish to not add native text to articles.

Go was invented and developed in China and therefore is a Chinese game. Just as Shogi is called Japanese chess and Xiangqi is called Chinese chess because they originated from those countries regardless of the fact that they are played alot in East Asia and the West. The English name Go also originated from the Chinese character 碁 (Go). Saito Hajime

I think the question is not whether the translation Weiqi should be referred to in the introduction, but whether it should be in the first line, or only listed as the first foreign language translation. I know of no English speakers who call the game as Weiqi - they all call it Go.

Shogi is almost exclusively played in Japan, and Chinese Chess is almost only played by Chinese, so these names are appropriate. Go is played widely outside China, and just because it is thought to have been invented in China (I believe there is no proof of this - that's for another debate), it is not obvious it is still a "Chinese" game. Programmable computers were invented in Britain, but we don't refer to them as British computers. Stephen B Streater 07:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

In Singapore the WeiQi association is called "Singapore Weiqi Association". Seeing that English is an official language of Singapore, I think it is safe to classify Singaporeans as native English speakers. So there you have it, some 4 million and one native English speakers calling WeiQi Weiqi. :) --BenjaminTsai ^Talk 08:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the question of whether Weiqi was created in China or not, there is no serious scholary dispute on this subject that I am aware of. What is largely unknown is when Weiqi was first played, not where it was first played and developed. What is not in dispute is that Weiqi experienced a renaissance in Japan after the game was introduced from China to the Japanese imperial court. The Japanese subsequently played a significant role in spreading the game to the West, and it is for this reason that most English speakers in the West refer to the game by its Japanese name, 'Go'. --BenjaminTsai ^Talk 09:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

So we could keep the "English" Weiqi and delete the Chinese characters - not many native English speakers use these to describe the game. Stephen B Streater 11:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Including the Chinese characters (native text) for Weiqi can be encyclopedic information and has many benefits.

DISAMBIGUATION is #1 benefit. Even if you cannot read the language, by comparing the glyphs, you can at least tell if any two terms are related or not. e.g. There are a few articles here about the name Zhang Bao, but they are all different persons with names written differently in the native text. Native text confirms they are different. If you go to the library and pick up any book about China written in the 1800s, you will have a hard time mapping between the transliteration then and that we used in modern books. An obvious example is Peking turning into Beijing. This name is so well known that their mapping causes no problem to anyone. But how about other less known terms? The Chinese language uses many homonyms, any one spelling can easily maps to 70 to 80 different Chinese characters. Multiply that by multiple systems of transliterations. You basically have no way to disambiguate many terminologies without cross referencing to the native writing.

Enabling further research is another benefit. Imagine you hire an interpretor to help you research the history of someone called Zhang Bao in China. The first thing he would asked you is how to write the name in native text. The pinyin Zhang Bao can also be spelled Cheung Bo in Cantonese. How would he know you are not looking for Cheung Bo instead???

Graphic search on the Internet is yet another benefit even you can benefit from without knowing the language. Open up Google image search and cut and paste some native text from an Wikipedia article into Google and you open up a whole new world of visual information that you may not have by using English alone. Saito Hajime

I like the Chinese characters too. The question is whether a foreign translation of the word "Go" should be included in the first line of the introduction. Is the most important thing about Go that its name in Chinese is 圍棋, or that it is a two player deterministic game? Is it the cultural background or the details of the game itself that are most relevant to the definition? The Chinese characters don't even appear properly on my Englsh Language IE5 at work, and I'm sure the same applies to many reading this article. Stephen B Streater 07:02, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The Chinese translation and native text for "Go" should be included in the first line. Just as the articles Shogi and Xiangqi includes both the translation and the native text in the first line because they originated from and were developed from those countries. And Shogi is NOT almost exclusively played in Japan, and Xiangqi is NOT almost only played by the Chinese. There are Xiangqi and Shogi Associations, Clubs, Organizations, and Federations worldwide because those games are played widely outside of China and Japan just as Go is, by many people regardless of their race. Saito Hajime

It is interesting to compare the introduction to that in the article on Chess. That introduction says nothing about where the game came from - it talks about the game itself. The history is in the history section. If someone looks up Go in Wikipedia, will they find it more informative to be told where the game originated, with (if their browser works) Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations, or to be told something about the game itself? They would not even recognise a Go game from this introduction. Stephen B Streater 08:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

See below for more general discussion about the introduction. Stephen B Streater 08:15, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Both the cultural background of the game AND the details of the game is important and relevant in an encylopedia article and both should be included in the introduction because of disambiguation and helping future researchers. The article on Chess doesn't mention the history in the introduction because the origins of Chess is controversial and unknown unlike the origins of Weiqi (Go), Shogi, and Xiangqi which is known. Saito Hajime

Strategy: High or Ultimate?

Okay, granted, 31x31 go is more strategic than 19x19 go. But it's still go! :) It seems to me that the difference between go and other strategic games is that go is pure strategy. No random element exists in the game (except for deciding who plays white, for even matches; technically, this is before the game starts, so it shouldn't count). Comapred with, say, Risk (which also achieves a "high" strategy depth), go is far more strategic. And I would argue that no game will ever achieve a greater strategic depth, simply because go has several thousand years of head-start in terms of human understanding of the strategic depth. Wadsworth 15:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't know how to answer that, really... Go may be the "ultimate strategy game", but then again many other games are marketed as that. Perhaps we could change the strategy depth to "Very high"? I'm not doing this myself, of course. Not without hearing from the folks here.

And 31x31 Go? Does that exist in real game sets? 961 stones would be quite heavy. :) --Sivak 17:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a 38x38 version or something like that where you have 4 19x19 boards placed in a 2x2 configuration. It has been played at the US Go Congress as a Go variant. Basically the size of it makes joseki and fuseki relatively useless and not to mention that a game would take such a long time. Imagine reading ahead on it.

I don't think it should be changed to "ultimate" because that implies that you could not increase it (hence the 31x31 Go reference), and because frankly Ultimate sounds a little silly in this context. I do however support a "Very High" rating. --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I could live with "very high". I wonder if there are categories of strategy games in the various strategic depths... that would be cool. I'd be interested in learning to play all the games with "Very High". Wadsworth 18:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

One could certainly create such categories, this is a wiki. :) Also changing it to Very high. --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

~~This of course brings us to the next point which is: The template doesn't seem to like multi-word entries... Hmmm, anyone able to get it to work? --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)~~

Nevermind... I must have done something wrong. Changed to Very High. --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Very high sounds good to me. 0s and Xs=5, Bridge=18, Chess=25, Go=30 on the complexity scale apparently. Stephen B Streater 18:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Complexity scale? I would think that chess should rate higher than go on a "complexity scale", as you've got lots of different kinds of pieces, more complex rules (en pessant, castling, etc). Some games have tons of rules, such as "Warhammer 40000". Now there's a complex game. The nice thing about go is that it isn't complex, just very, very deep. And extremely strategic! :) Wadsworth 01:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Complexity is something like: How many level do you need to get from a complete novice to the best player in the world - where each level up means you beat the previous level approx 68% of the time - 1 sd I think. Stephen B Streater 05:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

If game complexity is in question, just check up on that article. 71.250.1.198 20:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

I find the current introduction unsatisfying. To my eyes, it is too long and says almost nothing about the game. A layman looking up Go in Wikipedia would not even be able to recognise a Go game from this. I propose changes along the following lines:

Splitting off the history into the history section, except perhaps to say it originated in China between 2000BC and 200BC - quite an uncertainty, but interesting nevertheless.
Splitting off the foreign language section which dominates the current introduction (see current discussion above).
Saying something about the game: two players move alternately, 19x19 board, black and white stones, objective to surround territory, most complex game of this stature.

Stephen B Streater 08:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Go for it! Looks good to me. Wadsworth 14:02, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave this up for a few days, and if there are no objections, I'll go ahead. Stephen B Streater 07:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree, except the game itself is not complex--the game is difficult and its strategy is complex. DanielCristofani 21:28, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Uhh. Given that more than "a few days" have passed since 2 April, is this supposed to be fixed now? The intro still lists a lot of translations, and right in the beginning too. In my opinion this would be improved if you didn't have anything but English in the first paragraph. E.g. saying just "Go is a strategic, deterministic two-player board game originating in ancient China, before 200 BC. The game is now popular throughout East Asia and on the Internet. The object of the game is to place stones so they control a larger board territory than one's opponent, while preventing them from being surrounded and captured by the opponent." is better than splicing a bunch of alternative names (and MANY of them at that!) in the first sentence. It would be further improved by stating the most important things first, instead of last. When the game was invented or how popular it is now is surely less important information than what the main objective is. My order here would be 1) What Go is, 2) What the main objective is, 3) Its current popularity, 4) Time of invention. Does this sound like a bad idea (and why)?

The next paragraph could then give the popular alternative names in English and possibly the original language so that no matter which name you know, you know you have found the proper article. Names and information that don't serve that purpose (e.g. the information that 圍棋 is in Traditional Chinese does not serve that purpose, but the name 圍棋 itself possibly does and the name Wéiqí certainly does) could be moved to its own section along with the etymologies and component analysis (which, interesting as it is, is closer to trivia than a proper introduction to the game). It's just too cluttered now, and I don't think much of the information is of interest to most people, or at least so much more interesting than the rest of the article that it should be in the introduction. If you put detailed information in its own section, you can then be very selective of what to state in the intro, and ensuring that most readers recognize one name from the list (if they know any) should suffice. A rose by any other name... 130.233.22.111 19:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Terms?

Looking around the net you will find many instances of loan words from Japanese used for describing elements of the game: situations, strategies, shapes... I find that this article is lacking in these, despite their importance in the go world. Maybe the use of Japanese itself should be researched and included in the page. The term I missed the most was "atari" - the situation where a chain of stones has only one liberty, often referred to in go rules. Someone should include this. I noticed it was present in the German article (while reading) and someone should try to have it included here as well as more of these words. For an extensive list of Japanese Go terms look here. You'll find much more useful Go info and discussion also on that Wiki site. --Jason Bell 22:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Jason Bell,
Personally I don't like Japanese terms. It misses one important element - understandability. I can read an English equivalent word and extract its ideas or its concepts briefly. Sometimes the English term explains itself well. What's more, learning such kinds of terms are a bit like reinventing the wheel, so to speak. You may not agree or understand. Let me explain that bit. for instance, every Go player must know the concept of "atari" (or how they play Go). However there may be some people (even experienced) who haven't heard of this term before. Now you tell them this situation (one liberty left) is called "atari". They learned it (the term). What does it do to improve their Go skills?

By the way, I would like to give a piece of advice which you or others might be interested. It may not be 100% correct in every sense, but try to get the theme of this advice. The best way to learn Go is NOT to focus much on "academics" like Japanese terms and classification, as opposed to the practical stuff. I see some people spend much time arguing for, say, the sublety of an English term and the equivalent Japanese term (eg Fuseki vs arraying stones vs opening strategy). They are somewhat splitting hairs, really. Proverb: "Focusing on academics lose 2-stone strength". :D
--Wai Wai 20:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Rules complexity

"Low". Heh. Heh heh heh. Stevage 12:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The complexity of the rules you actually have to know to play the game is quite low. Some rulesets are very complex, of course, but I don't know that there's a good reason for that; it looks more like an artifact of history. DanielCristofani 13:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to teach someone the rules well enough to play a game in 5-10 minutes. The rules are very, very simple. The complexity comes on a higher level; in the same way, basic arithmetic is dead simple, until you start worrying what "addition" is. The sort of stuff that, say, Robert Jasiek gets in a twit about on the rec.games.go newsgroup - in some senses those aren't rules direct - they're consequences of the rules, meta-rules, not fundamentals. The rules are very, very simple. --JennyRad 17:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is precisely because the rule is simple hence the game is complex, for the rule gives minimum restrictions on possible game developments. -- G.S.K.Lee 12:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I think you're half right. All else equal, simple rules might widen the search/move space of a game, which increases complexity. But simple rules do not guarantee a complex game. Go is typically played on a massive 19x19 board. 9x9 Go is far less complex but has identical rules. At the extreme, tic-tac-toe has simple rules but very little complexity. The potential width of a game's search tree (and how long it can sustain that width) is a good proxy for its complexity. --Ds13 16:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Baduk is not as prominent as Weiqi

Weiqi is in first sentence because Go originated from China, NOT Korea; baduk is not widely used in English. RevolverOcelotX

Look up the word prominence. Go is the most common name for the game, and Weiqi and Baduk are secondary names for the games. Google search indicates 700,000 for Weiqi and 460,000 Baduk. That is a "prominent" name. A "Prominent name" does not mean the game necessarily originated from Korea. I think you are confusing two words together ; Prominence and Origin. See Wikipedia: Manual of Style. Deiaemeth 00:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

My view is that if we are going to have foreign names (as is the trend on English Wikipedia, which has an international audience), we should have both Weiqi and Baduk which are both widely used worldwide. The origin of the game is not relevant when you consider this naming policy is widely applied eg Falklands. Stephen B Streater 13:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

There used to be a better explanation, with igo as the correct Japanese name also, in a box. Charles Matthews 12:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

My take on these things is that if English speakers are very likely to use the term, it should go in the lead. Other names can be mentioned in the second paragraph or later. Stevage 12:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand why a revert war has occurred over something so pety as the ordering of alternative names for Go. Honestly, do we have to start switching them around at midday to reflect a diplomatic balance, or can we accept that most people have an attention span long enough to enable them to read the first sentence. Re Charles point, what happened to Igo? ZincAtari

capitalizing go?

Hi, I'm a newly registered Wikipedian, please excuse if i don't know all the proper behaviors yet!

A few days ago I edited this article, changing "Go" to "go". A few minutes later it was reverted with the comment, "Why not Go?"

Answer: the usual convention is to capitalize copyrighted games such as Monopoly, Boggle or Trivial Pursuit, and not to capitalize classic games like chess, backgammon, or bridge. Wikipedia follows this convetion: please note that none of the latter games is capitalized in their Wikipedia entries. Capitalizing the name trivializes the game.

It is sometimes argued that "go" should be capitalized because the English language contains a verb that is spelled the same; however, context cues make it easy to tell the difference. Please note in the Wikipedia entry, "bridge" is not capitalized.

So I'm hoping that my edits can be reverted.

Dear anon,
It would be nice if you could sign your comment next time. To sign your comment, simply type --~~~~, the system will auto-generate the signature. Thanks for your co-operation.

Back to your question, it doesn't matter as both are acceptable, but capital "Go" is preferable as it makes it more distinct that "Go" is a game, not to mean the English word "go". This is why some authors advocate capital "Go" more than "go". Sensei's Library uses capital "Go" too. What's more, "go" is a word of high frequent usage. It helps in some situations as when we mention "Go" and "go" in the passage. I realise you mentioned "context cues". Content cues helps, but why not make it easier for newbies and readers?

The only reason to use "go" (to mean a game) is to follow other traditional conventions (but go can be capitalized or not, so it's a bit different). Apart from this, it has no practical benefits.

Anyway, I deem it is trivial in my view. I'm not a hypercorrect person. Instead of focusing on trivia, I'd better spend my time to add contents or improve the quality of the articles. After all, it's just my two cents. Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticising you, or make you angry. Don't take it too seriously.

After all, welcome to this family. It doesn't matter at all even if you made wrong edits. Here encourages "editing". :) --Wai Wai 16:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Wai Wai,

Let's see if my signature comes thru! (If not, I'm "kibiusa".) You're right, capital or not is a relatively minor issue. Especially since I never even noticed that Sensei's Library capitalizes it! But i guess I'm outvoted; Gobase also capitalizes.

I just don't like the implication that go is in the category of games like Boggle, Trivial Pursuit, Clue, Sorry! . . . I think having the name non-capitalized gives the reader the subliminal message, this is not a "flash-in-the-pan" type game from Hasbro or whoever, it's a cultural artifact.

I guess it's not all that trivial to you, or you wouldn't have reverted the article . . . :>} In fairness, I should point out that I did the same edit on a few related articles.

And thanks for your welcome!

Kibiusa 17:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Quicky reply, Kibiusa :) !
You learned fast too :D.

Yes, probably they all appreciate the practical benefits given by capital "Go". Frankly I always prefer the big "G" as it has more benefits than small "g". I don't mind if one insist on small "g" nevertheless. Why do I always prefer? Think about it. If people keep following the same old and traditional conventions all the time (even if they are not good), how would society improves? Go is the same. New ideas are coming to against traditional wisdom once in a while, which is healthy.

I see what you mean. Well, in my viewpoint, there are people all over the world, native or non-native English speakers, western and eastern players, and so on. Different people may get different feelings when they read "Go" and "go", but I think this implication is not going to be strong. Take me as an example, when I have a quick read of both words, I don't have such a feeling. After you mentioning, it might be so on second thoughts. As you see, the feeling is not strong anyway. By the way, do you know someone read big "G" as honourable? The idea is probably coming from the concept of "He" (God) and "he" (although it has religious meaning in that case, you get the idea).

In addition, the familiarity of one subject/issue may affect one's feeling to the same thing too. Let's talk about search engine optimization (SEO). If you have some knowledge in SEO, you may smell spamming and will not go to that site, say, when you read a link that is over-optimized. However most people (outsiders) will not feel/think so.

You said, "I guess it's not all that trivial to you, or you wouldn't have reverted the article . . . :>". Hehe... You are quite smart :P. But you miss the point that it's not me who revert the change. It happens to be a passer-by like me who answers your question. :-)

Good to see your thanks! Thanks for your attempt to contribute too. Be bold in updating wiki articles. I look highly forward to your next contributions.
--Wai Wai 20:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Time to archive?

This page is 62KB long. Should we archive this page and start a new one?--Wai Wai 10:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Conflict

This page claims that igo is older than backgammon, but the backgammon page claims that it is the oldest recorded game. --A Sunshade Lust 00:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Since no one has responded, I have removed the comparison to backgammon. Unless there is a very good source showing that igo is older than backgammo, there is no point in putting it back in.

I've changed the backgammon claim. Backgammon is not older than 400 years, probably less. It's the backgammon ancestors that where played 4000 years ago. Anyway, it is silly to compare ages of so different games. --81.39.159.42 18:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)