I don't read vash3g's post #8 as asking to split this off into its own separate thread. But rather, I read it as any further discussions along these lines should be in a new thread (or by email)

I personally really hate all this thread splitting... it really makes it difficult to follow a conversation, because the threads aren't where I last remembered seeing them.

(maybe this post should have been in its own thread -- I've edited my original post and bogus title)

edit again: apparently, I re-edited this first post again, when I intended to reply to it -- thus unintentionally erasing and losing my original post -- now it really doesn't make any sense. sorry.

another edit (to try and fix my accidental erased post): I never intended to start a new thread. this was spun off another thread about 2011 congress losses, as I tried to half-jokingly express my surprise at pwaldron's side suggestion of cutting the ejournal comps to save money.

How about a different business analogy: supply chain.

If the AGA suddenly stopped including pro game analysis in the E-journal, I have at least a dozen other sources for pro game commentary I already use anyway.

If the AGA suddenly stopped all E-journal coverage of the Congress, I don’t currently know of another source for this information.

Rubin is entirely right. I think professional commentaries on games are part of a complete package for the e-journal, and it would be a shame to lose them. But there's a lot of professional commentaries floating around on the net. On the other hand, if tournaments in the US stop getting covered, the e-journal loses half of its reason for being. And though Congress is not the only event worth covering, it's the biggest and most important.

Don't forget that the ejournal coverage can also help to publicize the Congress and make it sound appealing. The overwhelming influence on attendance has to be personal experience and word of mouth recommendations, but it could make a difference on the margin. Pro commentaries won't do that.

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Occupy Babel!

This is a good point. Personally I think the E-journal does a fantastic job of covering the Congress, it is the best thing the e journal does and it is a great service to the members of the AGA...

...who are NOT at the Congress.

When we are asking Congress organizers to budget a Congress - in my view, to provide a good value for those who are coming - should that include the costs associated with the e journal? In my view the AGA membership as a whole gets that benefit, and those costs should be spread out to the entire membership, while the costs of pros, prizes and events at the Congress, should be borne by those who are present to enjoy them.

It is a bit of apples and oranges, and as long as budgets are not tight, money is fungible, but that is my view. The ejournal absolutely earns the expenses associated with it, but it should be in the AGA budget NOT the Congress budget.

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

Please none should misunderstand me - the ejournal should continue to cover the Congress the way it has. I think it is vital to have coverage and a record of this important event.

But I am not convinced that the above is true - it is possible the effect on the margin is a wash, or the opposite.

Again, some boring history. When the Congress started it was the only place in this country where you could play folks all day, for a week from all over the country and the world. And the more people found out about it, the more they came, and the more it grew.

Now however we have the internet. And the Congress has become more expensive. Now you do not have to travel to play go 24/7. And with the ejournal, a Congress veteran on a tight budget can feel that at least he will not miss out on everything, he can watch many of the games live and sometimes keep better track of what is going on (again, that is just how good a job the ejournal guys do) than the people who are in the middle of it. So in some cases, it might make a another difference on the margin - making it easier to justify not stretching the budget when someone wants to come.

Not sure I am right, but not sure I am wrong...

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

I'm not proposing a complete cancellation of the E-Journal, but I do think that the effort has gotten more and more expensive without a comensurate payback. Check the EJ from ten years ago and you'll see it did a great job of covering the congress. It did that without multiple people receiving free congress comps and without a full office.

What has the marginal increase in EJ activity been over the past ten years? For the most part, nicer photos and live game broadcasts on KGS. I'm not convinced the tradeoff is a good one when I think of what else can be done with that money.

I've made the suggestion of pro commentaries, but there are others. They could use the money to create really good publicity material for go clubs. Pay someone to compile a list of all Asian-language newspapers in the country. $2000 put towards a big online tournament for kyu players (books as prizes aren't that pricey) would be another way to go. Or perhaps they could save up for a couple of years and get a slick video made of the go congress that they could show to potential sponsors.

There are any number of good things the AGA could do if it wanted to spend money. I'm not convinced that covering the broadcasting the top few games of the US Open and Ing Cup is really the best use of available funds.

I'm not in the USA, nor an AGA member giving them money, but I like the E Journal broadcasts of top games at the Congress. Maybe you don't think promoting American Go to the rest of the world is a priority for the AGA's funds seeing as they didn't pay anything towards it, but it certainly provides a valuable service to the worldwide Go community, and I would be sad were it to cease.

While a full office is nice. The EJ office is now a combined EJ/pro room/TD office and sometimes AGA office. Often times the pros will lean on the EJ staff to make things happen or provide some support for them. It is a symbiotic relationship with the TDs who are in that office as well since we need to help each other to provide the coverage that the non-attending members and others get.

If someone wants specific EJ@Congress questions start a new thread and I will be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

Paying for people to attend a congress and part of the job is to replay games on KGS? sorry, this is a little bit over kill. I have attended congress in the past and allowed my online account to be used to replay a NAMT and actually ran moves between the room where everyone could see the pro game and where the internet access was. I actually did this for the Go community and did not expect to have my attendance paid for by the AGA.

but did you do it full time such that you didn't play any tournament games yourself? and miss the otherwise paid for meals because the top level players often play through lunch without taking a break?

This is a distressingly abstract thread. Apologies if this number is sitting in a budget on the AGA website somewhere, but what kind of money are we talking about? What does it buy? How much of it is an accounting artifact? (E.g., since registration for Congress includes fixed costs, comping a journalist his registration does not cost the Congress the full amount, unless he was planning to come regardless.) Is xed_over the only EJournal staffer, or are we talking about several people?

People who are reminiscing about the glory days when men were men and things were cheap should acquaint themselves with Baumol's cost disease. When a society gets really productive at some things (making laptops, for example), activities that have only become slightly more productive (recording a kifu, for example) tend to get more expensive. Acting as though contemporary game-recorders are just lazy sunzabitches is misguided.

Since we are "lazy sunzabitches" i will respond the only way i can. With snarky truth.
Please note that the EJ Team Recognition has most of the people who are on the EJ team from the last congress. Chris has been posting this at the end of each week of congress as a little bit of thanks to us. But since I promised snarky I will break it down furthur:

AFAIK there are 3-4 full comps for congress for the E-Journal. These are based on need of the people involved with helping run the week. In the past I have needed one due to being in debt, like a multitude of college age students, and would not be able to go to congress without it.

Who we is and what we does:
Chris Garlock: writes, edits and manages the team bringing coverage each year
Todd Heidenreich: Records games, live reviews with pros, takes pictures, provides support as needed, manage recorders
Steve Colburn(me): provide IT support, provide equipment, update usgo/go congress websites, manage game records, find beer, take pictures, record games, provide support as needed, manage recorders
Sweety/Mach4/Mef/Flameblade/javaness/[name ive forgotten]: our awesomesauce KGS admins who will provide kicks and bans for rowdy viewers
Chris Berg, Dennis Wheeler(xed_over), Richard Dolen, Solomon Smilack: provide morning and night game broadcasting
[many names of volunteer game recorders who offer]: game broadcasters who say "can i record for night tournaments"
Brian Allan, Phil Straus, Jon Pinkerton: protographers who play during the day and night and take pictures on the side. there are more of these and different ones each year, pay close attention to those 'images by' credits
Paul Barchilon: reports and works with the youth room all day each week, runs the redmond cup
[Congress Directors]: Often busy but they keep us in the loop of interesting events around congress
Tournament Directors: report on their tournaments, only two that i know of get comped and thats cause its a loooot of work
Professionals: review games, be awesome, show us how we were stupid in our games

These are most of the people that help out. While this is just a list of people and jobs, there is a lot more work to any one thing.

Game recording: most people are SDK or stronger. It takes long concentration to sit next to a strong player and watch to make sure that your KGS board matches the actual board position. They can play quickly and at odd moments which will force you to figure out which came first, middle and last. This is especially suck during a ko fight and when a lot is happening. Add in byo-yomi on top of that and your nerves become a little frayed. Doubt me? Sit next to two 6d+ players and record their game. If you can manage it, comment on what the player is doing, what they're muttering and how black's fidgeting is not affecting whites play.

While those game recorders are providing coverage to those outside of congress, the rest of the team is busy on other projects. We are setting up for the night's games. Updating and editing stories and photos for the website. Making sure game records are easily find-able. I have heard a few times that people AT congress need to use the EJ to get caught up while they were busy playing in some tournament. We generally have about 3-4 hours in the afternoon to do something for ourselves. Its generally relaxing for the next busy time to start. Some play tennis, some play Frisbee, some play go.

Equipment: at this point most of the things we use are self-bought and provided over the years. At this point I require a 92-gal rolling tote to carry laptops, surge protectors, extension cords, Ethernet cables, mice, gaffers tape, switches, bottle opener, and printer toner. My co-workers on the team each bring one or more laptops and some selection of the rest of the listed items.

Our day is generally started at 8am when we arrive in the EJ room and start getting ready for the day. This time is spent setting up laptops and getting the pairings(hopefully a bit early) for our recorders for you to watch. Noon is when we try and get some lunch and switch off with those recorders who have games were people did not stop for lunch (1 hour, no more, return to play). 6:30 is when we start setting up and rushing to get new recorders setup and generally panic and reset the strong players room for the night games. First couple nights this can take up to 45 minutes or an hour. We end somewhere around 11pm-12am with the nights news and posting of all games. We try and get some fun in after that to celebrate a good night by all. Then we sleep and it all starts over again.

I think i answered a bunch of questions you didnt have even. Any more?(not snarky, honest)

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

http://www.usgo.org/files/pdf/budget2011.pdf

Seems like FY 2010 had about 3k in travel that's specifically for Congress + WAGC and about 13-14k for the Ejournal in total. However, it's not possible to see how much in total was used specifically for Congress or if the costs allocated to the Ejournal is complete.

The FY 2011 budget included about 12k for the Ejournal. The FY 2011 annual report (http://www.usgo.org/files/pdf/rpd2011.pdf) mentions that actual figures in 2011 came 3k under-budget for Ejournal and Yearbook (which was about 2.5k), and I would assume most of the cost decrease was due to the Ejournal. However, this cannot be verified because the 2012 budget is neither attached to the 2011 annual report (despite a statement within the report) nor found at http://www.usgo.org/organizational-information

It's worth mentioning that the accuracy of the budgets may not be accurate for even the actual figures. The budgets are not required to follow any standard accounting policies as far as I know (though admittedly I'm unfamiliar with US not-for-profits), and I couldn't find disclosure of policies used for the budgets. A comment in the 2011 annual report explained that 2009 and 2010 Congress income received had improved the FY 2011 bottom line, which suggests that cash basis accounting was used - possibly adequate for an organization like the AGA, but proper cost allocation is difficult even with accrual basis.

Anyways, back to school work

I should mention that the congress budget is not the same as the yearly aga budget. Im sure a few things overlap but i dont believe that is many.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

That makes sense, though I guess that the congress budget is not available to the public?

I have never heard of a congress budget being available to anyone outside of the congress directors.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements