Don't like that analogy? Then consider the analogy about moves in a game of go. Not any one move usually makes a huge difference. But the collective does.

I don't think either is a bad analogy, but if it helps to think in different terms, anything that requires a large body of things/people will work:

* Enough drops of water to break through a dam
* Enough grains of sands to bury someone
* Enough matchsticks bound together such that you can't break them
* Etc...

You can't ignore the power of collective individuals. And the very essence of this collective power is composed of - individuals.

So whether or not you "buy the political argument", I think that it's clear that collective individual decisions work together to make a greater power.

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be immersed

For the love of all that is pure and holy... People, taken at face value, this was a casual comment that alluded, generically and non-specifically, to phenomena related to small user/viewer/player bases. It wasn't a literal argument, or a malicious retort.

During my relative inactivity here, the forums' lust for debate has noticeably increased. Actually, I could be wrong about that. Before, I recall drawn-out arguments and debate were largely confined to certain threads that I simply avoided. Perhaps now it is just more dispersed.

I would point out the irony of a lawyer saying you argue too much, but, in fairness, my appetite for argument here is quite low, since I do that every day...

Not really. Are there problems with it? Definitely. Does it apply in a closed economic system? Yes, under certain conditions.

No, I still don't like your analogy. The problem is not in the argument of individual vs. collective power - I agree with you there. But drops of water, grains of sand and matchsticks do not get impatient sitting around for 15 minutes waiting for a game. People are not flocking to nova because, until everyone else flocks to nova, they are being actively inconvenienced for their choice. By the time I have convinced a few of my friends to join nova, and encourage them to advertise it to their friends, and wait for news to spread to their friends and their friends, and a few other people on L19 have done the same and nova's userbase has doubled or tripled, months have probably passed and I am probably long gone (back to KGS, which it's still probably far easier to find a game on). That's why nova needs to be advertised far more widely and creatively. (If hundreds of people turn up for one event, they will all see each other, and nova will be seen - at least temporarily - as a server that has hundreds of users at any one time rather than 30. This probably leads to slightly more recommendations and slightly more people coming back and so on and an overall increase in the number of users. Far better than kicking people one at a time.)


If you enjoy thinking that I am arguing here because I am bored, do continue - but I think it's actually quite important for nova to discuss how best to increase the userbase, and (by the same token) whether or not dfunkt's way of going about things was the right one or not.

First, my post wasn't directed at you or any particular individual. Second, regardless of whether it was aimed at someone specifically, I didn't accuse anyone of arguing out of boredom (nor did I suggest I enjoyed any such suppositions). Third, as to whether the present debate/argument contributes productively to "how best to increase the userbase," I'll let the record speak for itself.

I don't want to argue, though I acknowledge that I should have anticipated an adverse reply to my post, so it's on me.

Forgive me for writing a seemingly adverse reply. I don't want to argue either. I want to talk about nova. Why don't you get involved in the discussion, rather than criticising it?

(If my reply was adverse, that's because your post was not about nova, it was about what unspecified other people thought about what dfunkt said about nova, which was unconstructive. That seemed like a derailment to me.)

I just love Nova. I can talk about my favourite server here on L19. I am not affliated in any way with the developers of L19 and their marketing strategy is their business. If you feel this is the thread to discuss economics and I'll go create another thread. Oh, I already did that. There is nothing wrong with appreciating a server which has everything I always wanted in a go server.

I especially love the previews of ongoing games on the main page. I know the developers have plans in mind to expand the sorting and searching of games being played, but even as it stands it is nice to see these games in real time. In fact, that most excellent method of showing game previews is carried on throughout the site in the group and tournament pages.

I don't feel that a user base will ever get started, if there are not those willing to participate without the convenience of an already existing user base. This is why I feel it is important to, as a "drop of water", continue to drop if you wish to break down a dam, even if others are not yet dropping.

It takes some faith and confidence that others will follow suit, but I don't think it will ever happen otherwise - just the same as an election result would never occur if nobody ever voted.

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be immersed

You can't credibly claim that my post was not "about nova" but the posts I discussing were. Your post being "adverse" was not an insult...just means you disagreed with me (which, as much I might like to think otherwise at times, is not necessarily worthy of criticism). I'm honestly not sure what your last two sentences mean.

I also like Nova. Logged on now.

It's worth distinguishing between thresholds and vagueness in collective action problems. These are two different phenomena, which people confuse because they both involve uncertainty about how much one's personal contribution matters.

A go server with N+k players is monotonically more fun than a server with N players, but it's impossible to say how much more fun it is. A neighborhood with N+k good citizens is safer than the same neighborhood with N good citizens, but it's impossible to say how much more fun it is. Is it your duty to play on a bad go server to make it more fun? Or to move to an unsafe neighborhood to make it more safe? (Or, to use an example Americans may be familiar with, to send your children to a bad public school?) Under certain circumstances you might be able to make an argument to this effect, but it's difficult to figure out what that obligations would be because it's almost impossible to say what effect one person has.

On the other hand, if you're rowing a boat, or lifting up a car that rolled over your neighbor's kid, or voting for your regional AGA representative, the effect of an additional participant is quite clear. Up to the required threshold, every single person is completely necessary; past that threshold, additional manpower is superfluous. Now, if there's a kid crying in the street and seven neighbors run out to lift the car off of him, I think you would still feel like you had done something important even if later that evening you calculated that five people would have been enough. Likewise, if you vote for a winning candidate in an election, it's reasonable to feel that your vote mattered even if the candidate could have passed the 50% threshold with 5/7 as many supporters.

But that is because there is a binary outcome (pass the threshold, or fail to pass the threshold), and what you aren't entirely sure in advance is whether the threshold can be reached without your support; this is different from the vague cases, where you will definitely make some (pitifully small) contribution, but can't always choose your neighborhood, your go server, or your children's schools on the basis of that contribution.

Interesting argument, jts, and I can see the distinction you are making between a discrete threshold and "vague cases".

However, could we also see this as a situation in which there is some threshold on the number of users for which the server starts to become fun enough to play on a regular basis (eg. worth spending one hour of your time on every day)? Or perhaps, more fun to play on than all of the other servers for a set time period?

While it's true that we don't necessarily have a well-defined number of users for which this threshold can be met, and the threshold might vary from person to person, I feel that such a threshold may potentially exist for a go server. In the case of elections, and lifting cars off of kids - well, the number of people required to be "a success" is easily calculable. But in this situation, while the calculation may be difficult, certainly such a threshold exist, does it not?

Also, I don't think that any sort of "obligation" exists for playing on nova.gs, nor do I believe that an obligation exists for me to vote in an election. But I do believe that my contribution toward either will contribute to the collective result.

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be immersed

It's even worse than this because it's not N+k. It's the perception of N+k. People log on and they see how fast chat is going and how many games are up and active and these, rather than the actual number of people logged on, will decide whether the place feels busy or not. So, you could add myself, or perhaps oren, to a server and if we behaved like we do on KGS and mostly chat in private and not play a whole lot we won't make the place look busier, if on the other hand you grabbed someone very active in public chat or they play a hell of a lot of games a day, they'll make the place look busier than it actually is.

The way to build a base is not to go, sit and wait by your self. Instead, take a few friends who will play regularly with you (and hopefully with each other) then when people stop in and see active games they will be more likely to ask to play. Don't forget to play them when they do ask. As the numbers start to rise you will reach a sustainable mass. The trick is to find the smallest sustainable mass for you and a group of friends as this effort may take many months. No profit is ever made without investment, some are able to invest more than others.

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Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
My Website

I agree that you should get friends to play regularly with you. This will surely help.

I don't see why it is necessary to have the "smallest sustainable mass", however. The larger the mass, the better it would be, I would feel. While some may drop out over the many months that it might take, you'll have greater chance of having survivors when the original numbers are larger.

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be immersed

As to your first point, it's possible that server-quality all comes in a lump past some threshold, but I suspect you are conflating a threshold in your own willingness to use one server over another with a threshold in server quality. Let's say it's not about KGS or Tygem or Nova, but tennis versus KGS. At a certain temperature, maybe it gets too hot and I prefer to watch go in front of my air conditioner; before that point, I would rather play tennis. But my enjoyment of tennis doesn't itself have a threshold. Tennis gets continuously more miserable as the temperature goes up.

Turning the example around, we can hold the temperature constant at a balmy 92 degrees and take away players from KGS until I would rather play tennis again - and we can see once more that there is no threshold in the number of players that affects my enjoyment significantly, but a point at which my enjoyment of one activity intersects with my enjoyment of some other activity.

To your second point, I didn't really mean to make a strong claim about obligation. I should have phrased it as being about "making a contribution" or "participating in having caused something." The confusion about vagueness versus thresholds often arises in problems where people would feel obliged to do something, if doing it would "make a difference", but aren't sure how to tell whether they can make a difference - which is why I misphrased it as being a question about obligation.

Oh lord. The internet has struck again...

I like the Nova go server. When the board is set to full size and so is the browser, the appearance rivals any of the other go clients. Plus: all in the browser! No downloads! Anywhere you can surf the web, you can play go!

New features and refinements are being added all the time. The developers are very responsive during this phase development.

So, welcome to the present. Go presented with modern development tools. Come and check it out.

http://www.nova.gs

Can one download their games in sgf format on Nova? Thanks.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Yes. All games and reviews can be downloaded in sgf format.

You can even upload your own SGF files into your library on Nova

Every time I've looked at it there are zero live games being offered. Is there an automatch feature that I'm missing?