Hello. My name is usagi and I'm a new helper admin here at the ASR. My first order of business was performing general maintenance on the websites and taking inventory of our assets which included manpower and resources. That's done now although we are still waiting on the domain name from Stalkor and a few other minor resources.

Second I am sponsoring new prizes and will work to teach in the room and shore that end up. I am working closely with humblelife in order to find good games to review and I will do some writeups. Kind of like what game of the month was supposed to be, but maybe something more akin to a weekly magazine style review. You can see the prize announcement at http://www.advancedstudyroom.com/decemb ... noucement/ or online KGS in our room.

I'd also like to hire someone immediately to help out with the room. You need to be solid 2d or stronger on KGS and I will pay you in cash every month. The job is simple; game reviews. We can discuss the particulars in person. You can apply my sending me a private message here on the forums.

Finally, for anyone concerned, I am in close contact with drgoplayer, kretzsche and andrew and I am passing everything I do past them for approval. The purpose of this is to ensure the continuance of the ASR and nothing more. No changes are being made to how the league is run. There are some temporary concessions being made to deal with the fact we only have 16 active players, but other than that no major changes are being made. For a full rundown please see the December 2015 announcement linked above.

Thanks and good luck. If you have been thinking about getting back into the game, or studying hard, now is the time!

I remember at a certain time there were many more players in the league. Do you know how many there were at it's peak? And when was that? I signed up again this last month but what with the low numbers and perhaps difficulties in time zones it was difficult or impossible to get a game when I wanted, as I have limited time to play games I usually end up just playing a game against someone else (or more usually, on another server altogether)

Actually I can remember at times even when the league was much bigger it seemed that sometimes I would get unlucky and be out in a group that never online when I was.

I wonder how much information you have available r.e. the reasons for the decline in numbers, and if now it's not going to be a self-perpetuating problem? I'd like to hear the strategy being put in place to increase the numbers, because I personally believe it's a good idea but perhaps poorly implemented.

I'd also like to hear from others on the forum for their reasons for not participating?

At it's peak there were over 300 active players. I forget the exact number it might have been as high as 600 actually. I forget actually, it was a long time ago.

As for not being able to find games, I have discussed some solutions with drgoplayer and other admins. We can allow players to play unlimited time games, we can allow games on OGS, and I am planning to make an "Available" button on the webpage. When you press it, it tells you who else recently clicked the button and where they are (KGS, OGS, etc.) and will send out alerts to people who have requested alerts. E-mail, push notifications, tweets, whatever. It can be automated. I think that would be cool.

These ideas will take time to implement of course.. maybe months, but I can do it.



In my capacity as "helper admin" I will donate some prizes, keep the league well-oiled, maintained, etc. I think it's pretty obvious what needs to happen if the room is ever going to get back to 200, 300 active members. Let alone 50. So I'll give it a shot for the next 2 or 3 months and we will see how the management feels about my work in the league.

I am not engaging in go club politics here. The ASR has 16 active members right now and almost all the admins retired. But the past is the past. I am only interested in promoting the ASR and helping people learn Go. That's what I am here for, that's all. Everyone wants to see people coming together in friendship and learning Go and that's what the ASR has to be about. That is what I want to bring back to the ASR.

For now, lets just make the league a friendly place to be and focus on quality games and quality reviews and quality learning, quality community, quality friendship. I don't see a need to rush anything as long as things keep improving slowly from here on in.

Baby steps

Just as a note the teaching position has been filled for now.

Do people actively review their games together in the ASR these days?

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North Lecale

Yes, but from the game records I've pulled it's around 30% of the time. It's one of the things about the league which I will be focusing on over the next few months. I'd like to see a review rate closer to 60% or 70%. That seems a bit more along the lines of what the ASR should be.