Membership of the British Go Association hit a new post 1972 low this year - but why? Is Go becoming less popular, or is membership just less attractive? http://www.britgo.org/history/bgamem.html

hmm even the netherlands have more members in their association (about 800) thats quite concerning. maybe more promotional activities would help go in britain?

also, what would be a reason to sign up for the BGA? i only signed up for the dutch go assoc. because i otherwise could not take part in the national championship qualifiers.

_________________
admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

I don't know about Britain, but here in Canada there is very little reason to be a part of the Canadian Go Association. My membership from 1.5 years ago may have expired by now, and tournaments are so rare here that I won't rejoin until a new tournament that requires it is organized.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Most of us feel some obligation to help newcomers learn the game. Likewise we might feel some obligation to promote its spread in our home countries. I belong to my country's go association (the AGA) even though I don't play in tournaments any more and don't belong to a go club. I feel paying my dues is the least I can do tosupport the promotional activities of the AGA.

As for the apparently slow growth of membership ingo associations I wonder whether the internet has anything to do with it. On KGS or any of many different servers (e.g. IGS, wbaduk, cyberoro) you can get a game with a good opponent any time of day and any day of the week. If you have a go club near you likely only a dozen or so people show up most nights and the club only meets one time per week. The internet's variety and easy availability of playing makes belonging to a club or national association somewhat unnecessary.

This probably sounds awful but for me membership would seem much more attractive if I could easily buy Go books through the BGA online - since they had/have the best prices available. I guess I'm a selfish person but the retirement of the BGA bookseller and the lack of a replacement is why I let my membership lapse this year. I don't have the time to go to tournaments and am quite happy just playing online.

_________________
I am John. John-I-Am.

For people of gowan's and my generation I think this attitude was very common. Before there were just too many similar books, I used to try to buy every go book in English, most still unread, just to support the publisher. Like gowan, I also felt obliged to join my go association just to help the finances. I never once thought what I might get out of it, although there certainly were benefits, mainly the BGJ journal and the many tournaments.

I don't think younger people have become any less willing to be loyal or supportive, but such feelings are always finely balanced (there are so many things you can support - which to choose?) and probably the balance has altered in the case of go. If you and others can get most or all of what you want free from the internet, why support what seems an irrelevant organisation? Even among existing members, the "and others" is important, I think, because, even if we are reluctant to admit it, most of us perversely resent paying for something that others get for free, even if we don't necessarily want it for free ourselves.

In my case, I stopped being a BGA member a couple of years ago by way of a protest. The BGA has an e-mail forum and I got fed up mostly at people telling me they didn't want online discussions because they already got too many e-mails. For no doubt related reasons, most attempted discussions died after one or two posts. Also, some energetic people have tried to organise an online tournament for BGA members. It was popular on paper (and GoGoD, not otherwise involved, provided a trophy and prizes), but it virtually died when a large number of registered players refused to answer e-mails or even give out their e-mail addresses so that games could be arranged! That, to me, is just shooting yourself in the foot, and I see no reason to support such people.

As witnessed by British results in the recent London Open, as well as the declining membership figures, the bulk of the BGA seems to be at the silver end of the spectrum. It's great to have experience and hopefully wisdom in the mix, but with the attitudes mentioned in the previous paragraph so prevalent, there seems to be a disconnect between many of the old faithfuls and the newer generations.

I think the days of national associations are not necessarily over, but they probably do need a big injection of young talent. But it seems, from many postings here, that young people want different things from the older generations. One thing is actual benefits. The idea of a discount for books, mentioned above, seems a good one, though in the case of the BGA. at least, that's surely old hat? Another thing some younger volunteers want is more freedom and responsibility. I have some sympathy with their frustrations. There is probably too much old-style control freakery in some national association hierarchies (I don't think that applies to the BGA, though). Especially with fast-changing web technologies, volunteers must be allowed more often to try and fail.

Another thing younger people seem to want is more recognition for what they do. That's not unreasonable in itself - being able to put proof of "I did XYZ" on a CV is some compensation for volunteering one's time. There is also a human nature angle. I have said before that the way some strong players treat association volunteers like skivvies, there just to organise free trips for them to the Far East, is despicable. Free trips for the volunteers and young are much more important.

Out of the many associations that I've belonged to over the years, I've never gotten more out of them than what I put in, monetarily or voluntarily speaking. That's not the way it works. In fact, I feel like a deadbeat if all I've done is pay my yearly dues. They are volunteer organizations for a reason and not a Sam's club or a Cosco.

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

wouldnt be bad to skip country x association and someone aiming to make a worldwide go association with a world tour on tournaments and also some control in ranks worldwide to get rid of those pesky differences in strength ranges. also having connections over the entire world makes lots of things possible, like discounts or big sponsors. there is almost no go associations that makes it possible to play online tournaments that count for your rating.

_________________
admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

that all sounds good, but it is also too simplifying in my opinion. worldwide go association - IGF - already exists but another question is what it does, what authority it has and how much do local organizations want to obey it

world tour on tournaments - if you mean only for amateurs, it would be difficult for players to get money for their travel expenses, i guess this is already hard enough inside Europe, where we have a tournament tour (Pandanet Go European Cup)

unified ranking - again, even national associations inside EGF don't show much will to unify their ranking systems (and we all use the same GoR rating, not speaking about rest of the world with completely different ratings)

rated online tournaments - i would agree with your other propositions, they would be nice to achieve, but i doubt it is really good idea to rate real life and online games together - at least for unavoidable possibility of cheating when playing online. it is probably not a problem in current Pandanet Go European Team Championship, mainly because it is designed for the strongest players who cannot cheat so easily but how do you want to prevent a 10k from persuading his friend 5k to play instead of him and help him to achieve a long-desired SDK (or anything)

_________________
Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

but how do you check in real life tournaments? For all i know the same could be happening there because there is no id check when you play in a tournament.

_________________
admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

Some countries use GoR, some use it as a guideline and eg in Sweden we don't use it at all.

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

I can recognize about half of the top ten active players in the US, and I haven't even been to a tournament in two years.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

Not only that, but GoR varies between countries. A French 1900 is typically stronger than a UK 1900.

ok, i guess i also simplified it too much with the GoR mention but it was only side supporting argument for my (i believe agreeable) statement that it is difficult to unify only european rankings and that whole world would be even harder

_________________
Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

1. Anecdote or statistically based?
2. Are there efforts to fix it?
3. It must really tear your nerves up to lose to the French that way. Amirite?

_________________
Occupy Babel!

You have subpopulations which interact rarely with each other. When they interact the ratings adapt, but it is doubtful whether a hundred rated games (UK-FR) per year is enough to do so compared to several thousand rated games within the UK. That the winning rate of the UK in UK-FR matches is consistently at 40% or lower since at least ten years, indicates a difference in the local GoR if you ask me.

1. A bit of both. I did some stats on Panda.net tours when I was on the British Go Council and working to try and find a way of standardising ratings and ranks in a meaningful way. Much of the problem arose when the French started not allowing people to reset their ranks at the strong ends. So quick improvers gained their points by earning them (and, at the same time, taking them away from other stronger players) causing some pretty serious rank inflation compared to other countries. If my sources are correct, I hear it is going on in Finland too, but I don't know about other countries.

2. I'm not sure if you can. As tapir says, how can you know what needs fixing without a lot more international rated games being played. It's hard enough to get people within a country's organisation to agree what to do with their internal ranks (for example, currently in the UK, 2040 is 1 dan, due to a long complicated procedure that has a bunch of pros and cons of its own), let alone work with other countries towards a common goal.

3. S'ok, I'm Scottish, I bear the French no bad blood

The Swedish ranking system states that "if more than three games among the game results used for ranking up are against Japan, the Americas, Great Britain, Portugal, or a region within what used to be Jugoslavia, the Ranking Commitee will have to approve" (my translation).

This was written more than 10 years ago and I'm not entirely sure it is (still) valid, but it is a fact that some countries are stronger (and some weaker) than others.

If I understand correctly, the Finns (infamous for being stronger than their ranks) tries to "fix" their ranks by as often as possible rank up people two steps (so that the GoR gets reset).

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

I wonder what we can do to reverse this declining trend in membership ?
The first thing, I suppose is to understand it.

The headline on the front page of the BGA journal in December 1969 is "John Diamond retires" (well, actually from editing the journal). 42 years on the "Old guard" are still in charge. I wonder if there is anything in the current administration that inhibits newcomers from participating ?

I played hardly any Go during the 1970's but was an unattached member because the Journal provided useful information that is now available for free on the BGA website and elsewhere.

The members seemed more dynamic in those far off days. On the back page of the April 1974 journal, there is news of the Southern Go League involving the Woodford, Reading, Bristol, Bracknell and W.London clubs. Participants included F.Roads, J.Hawdon, K.Rapley, D.Hunter & T.M.Hall. Additionally there is news that a team of 6 led by Jim Bates & Mark Hall visited Paris for a weekend session.

The maximum BGA membership coincided with the time at which the London Go centre was in operation. In the year after it closed, membership dropped by 180 and has never recovered. There was also the BBC Open Door broadcast in that period.

There is an ongoing effort to teach children, but I noticed very few British youth at the London Open. UK entry at the London Open was down from 71 last year to 56 this year whereas foreign entry was constant at 43.

In the Dutch WinterGo (December 27-31) (entry 74) there were 18 Dutch players weaker than 10k. At London there was 1 UK player weaker than 10k. Maybe British tournaments are too formal or just not child friendly.

Finally, we chose AGA rules instead of the simpler and clearer French rules which may discourage people from taking up the game.

I think we need more carrots. Without incentives, why join? It costs you money, and you want to know what you get for it.

At the moment, this is:

Journal.
Cheaper Tournament Entry.

If you don't enter more than 6 real life tournaments, and don't read the journal, why should you join? With the introduction of Internet Go, and the steady decline of clubs and paid BGA members, I think there needs to be an overhaul into what can make the association something proud to be a part of.

I am a member because a) I'm British or at least live in Britain, b) I like Go and c) I want more people to like Go. As such, supporting the association seems important. I was on the council and involved in both the online activities, policy issues, and handling rating discrepancies and controversies, and when my personal life is less crazy, I may return to doing more of the same. In the meantime, it needs people with good ideas and motivation to do something about it to put their best foot forward and help. Stand for nomination for the council at the BGA in a few months, take on a role in a specific area, and see what can be done to make it more attractive, particularly with regards to people we know who are still active Go players but just don't have any good reason to be a part of the organisation.