before cho nam chul imported japanese go into korea in early 70's go was considered as a casual game, not taken too seriously.
then attitude toward the game has changed somce because of japanese influence.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

This has absolutely nothing to do with "free stuff". It has everything to do with access to information and proper organization of the learning materials. Have you read books from either the Speed Baduk or Level Up series? These are among the best examples of the well-organised Korean curriculum.I've taken to importing books from Korea because the curriculum is designed to drill particular concepts into the brain over and over and over again. No other English language books come close in effectiveness. So in the long term these books may be part of the solution. However there are still some huge gaps in English language coverage (Endgame books, anyone?), and obviously the Korean literature is still vastly more complete. Developing open source resources using these techniques could help to fill that gap, not to mention improve the level of play in regions where Go books are hard to come by, or prohibitively expensive.

Not everyone can easily afford lessons, and the idea is to allow everyone to get something out in exchange for what they put in, which would hopefully be an incentive to get involved in the first place.

But the most important goal is to find a way to connect the Western Go community to the East Asian one. That will pay the most dividends in the future. Can you tell me of an existing site that can achieve these goals without a radical redesign?

The aim is to not merely provide a venue, but to give people an incentive to contribute. I believe that this is the most important missing piece of the puzzle.

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

Any number of sites come to mind.
Sensei's Library... why cannot this be used to post news or do translations. GoBase is already doing it (and rewarding the contributors in some way, I assume.) So does Go4Go. Other sites were mentioned as well. L19 already does something like that - you can post, translate, teach, discuss for some kind of 'reward' - status within community based on the number of posts, if nothing else, or how many people liked you. KGS is doing something similar - provides venue for teaching for some 'rewards'. None of this is new, and none of that is impossible (or even hard) now.



I agree, and this is what I have been saying from the beginning.
But then - it is this missing piece you need to provide as the 'concept'!

Step #1: Find ways to entice people to contribute.
Then see how it goes and decide if the current venues are sufficient or not.

This has to be worked out, in detail, and without clear plan on how to accomplish that - simply creating a website won't do much.

Among others, you have to answer such questions as:
1) How exactly do I 'reward' contributions?
2) How do I qualify contributions?
3) How do I restrict access to material based on existence and quality of contributions?
4) How do I handle those who are unable to contribute (too weak to teach or write and not able to translate)? (bottom-level border)
5) How do I 'reward' the strongest who are not really interested in receiving very much of what others publish? (upper-level border)
And so on...

For me, answering these questions HAVE TO BE the first step in any suggestion or proposal. Saying 'lets make a site which somehow answers the above questions' is like saying nothing at all. Creating websites and the back-end functionality is easy. Its the unique concept and its details that is hard. For what you presented so far, 'lets get people to do stuff for some kind of reward' any of the existing sites can do.

Anyhow - whatever you decide, it cannot be bad for Go, so you have my support. In spite of the fact that I don't believe you will have much success unless you approach the problem the right way - by working out the details first. If the details are worked out, and look good, I will certainly look again and revise my opinion.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

@Bantari I think there is a misunderstanding here. I am NOT advocating a "Build it and they will come" philosophy. Of course the details would have to be worked out before starting a new site. It's only that the sort of rewards system that I have in mind would be hard to implement on an existing site without drastically changing its nature. Out of existing sites, Sensei's Library would be the best fit, but do we really want to require that everyone who posts an article or even edits it be compensated in some way? I'd think that would be harmful to Sensei's Library. The system I have in mind is inevitably different both in its goals and methods that I think it really requires its own site.

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

Perhaps someone should bring back into vogue the classical Chinese way of playing - alongside empty-board baduk. It is known for its aggressive, fighting-intensive style due to the prevalence of weak groups arising from the crossed star point opening arrangement.

With an empty board, one plays from scratch, so opening theory can confuse most beginners. With a fixed opening arrangement, some of the guesswork is reduced, so playing baduk becomes just a bit easier.

Someone should bring back into vogue classical Chinese baduk - even if only on a limited basis.

I find the Speed Baduk series to be amazing. Too bad I did not buy the entire set. The high price of learning materials is one reason why it would be fortuitous to publish highly accessible baduk learning materials online in PDF format. The collections found at http://tsumego.tasuki.org are a step in the right direction. As well, the thread at viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10643 is another step in the right direction; most Go players outside professional circles lack the funds to buy even one game collection.

Some of the Chinese books have a similar format and so are worth looking into. For instance, these are a bit less expensive than Speed Baduk, but the format is similar.





This one can be found at: http://en.jd.com/product/chinese-books/10020881.html

It would be nice if these were published in English as well.

Perhaps selling it as a developmental tool is one place to start. Games are a fun way to develop mind and body, and baduk is definitely good for the mind. Selling it as a professional sport in the West does not seem likely at present.

I don't know of a website through which said goal can be achieved in the short term. That is a long-term goal at best. Perhaps the biggest step in that direction would be not only to attract pros from East Asia, but to create homegrown movements that take the game seriously. Perhaps this last development will be the catalyst for strong links between Western Go communities and East Asian ones.

To achieve the aforementioned objective, teaching the game to children is vital. At least this way Go becomes a treasured part of their lives. Making the learning of the game a fun experience is high on the list of priorities, I believe.

The Go curriculum in CJKT is, at the highest levels, professionalized. Which means that most children and teens joining a Go school seek to become pros, not just acquire proficiency at the game. In the near future, would the Korea Baduk Association or the Chinese Weiqi Association be coming to North America or Europe to look for players to join their regular pro leagues?

As well, we should ask ourselves who is intended to benefit from said contributions. We would like to see our contributions benefit someone directly.