I went to Go Child this morning for the first time in awhile, and I noticed that it is no longer free. They are charging twelve dollars for a year of access. It sounds like a reasonable price, but I am hesitating.

Has anyone signed up?

Terri

Why pay Go Child when there are plenty of problems and lectures at Wbaduk for free

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Maybe because the commercial contents would be better or offering something still unfamiliar?

I go to the Wbaduk site and feel instant confusion. If you directly link to problems or lectures, I might use them. If they're only available in the app, I certainly won't.

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The advantage of Go Child is that there is an incredible number of very easy problems. Ideally I would like to have an iPad app that would have all of that content available offline.

I looked at the WBaduk iPad app. I already had it downloaded to my iPad. The problems look nice, but there really aren't all that many of them.

Terri

I'd say it's worth $12/year then for you. I use GoGrinder with sgfs from problem set cds, but they're a bit more difficult.

Goddess, how many are "not enough"? There are 2633 problems, 1161 marked as Pre-Inter (hard), for example.

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Even the easier WBaduk problems are far from no-brainers. I admittedly have fun with problems rated DDK, while playing there as 3 dan. Problems rated as dan level are pretty headache inducing to me. So the 1000s of "easy" problems on WBaduk aren't so easy on a closer look.

Well, if they decided to change money, how come they were asking for free advice?

viewtopic.php?p=85641#p85641

Sorry, but I feel used.

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I had used GoChild quite a bit a while ago, and the range and amount of problems is surely worth the 12$ if you compare it for example to a book. I must however admit that I find it difficult to bring myself to pay for something that I have already enjoyed for free - particularly as I have already done many of the problems around my level.

@ hyperpape As to WBaduk, I also find the service difficult to use. When I tried to log in today, it didn't recognize my account, so I made a new one. Then I tried to use the test room and found that it only works with IE. While taking the test, at one point I entered three moves, got an error message that I should only enter one move, but there was no way to retract the moves. I had to close the window. When I reopened it, it said that my id was invalid. I relogged in again and shortly thereafter committed an access violation, whatever that is. Then I turned on "compatibility mode" but it won't shut off, etc...

@bill - afaik, the person who asked for free advice is a (paying) GoChild member and not someone running the site.

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http://www.goproblems.com/ is good as well for random problem grinding, though I guess it's more clunky than gochild. I did sign up for go child too... And wbaduk is my main server...

On gochild it's easy to keep track of where you are in a set, you can flag interesting problems... So I don't feel bad paying for it.

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I should say, I haven't tried the Wbaduk iOS app, only the desktop versions. I'll try it on iOS, maybe it's easier to use.

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Sorry, I do not know about GoChild. Can any user improve the site?

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I think the improvement comes from the feedback the author/owner gets from the users via their own forum

It seems to me that Go Child has a lot more easy problems. I might end up paying for it. But I sure do wish that I would get an iPad interface if I am paying.

Terri

I paid the $12 a few weeks ago. At first, I was annoyed having to pay for a site that used to be free, but I do think the cost is well worth it. I use it literally every day on my laptop at work and I like the variety of problems it offers, including the Segoe tesuji dictionary. I've solved nearly 5000 problems since I signed up, so I'm probably getting my money's worth

If you solve problems well enough, you can also win challenges that extend your membership (I think the norm is 20 extra days for most of the challenges). A skilled player could probably extend their membership indefinitely if they wanted.

I've been trying out WBaduk's Test room (more comments about it here), and GoChild is looking more attractive by the moment. The comparison reveals some of GoChild's features that might help justify the price.

First of all, it works fine. Hardly a bug in sight.

Second, it is run by one person who listens to and responds to criticism on a public forum. When he decided to make it a pay-for site for example, apparently there was initially some irritating battery-type icon that ran down indicating your time left to do free problems. Some people didn't like it, and he re-thought and re-designed his concept. Now there is a (still fairly large) set of problems you can do for free without constrictions, as well as a way to win some free access to the other problems.

Another feature I like is that you can custom-label problems, and then filter a set in order to do ones that you like for a particular reason.

On the downside of the comparison, if I recall, there are not many whole board problems on GoChild and the categories can be a bit odd (dong-dong groupings?), and the reward system simply encourages you to do lots of problems instead of helping you discover and focus on particular weaknesses. Notwithstanding, there is a lot of bang for the buck.

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