On Nova.gs I can play a 9x9 game with another go player and enjoy every second of it. The interface is superb and I love the stone graphics on the 9x9 board. The fact that the clock doesn't start until the first move is played means that I have a chance to properly say hello.

All of this is terrific but it doesn't explain why I like it better than L19; a wonderful resource for go players... as you know. Well, on Nova I never see a server review discussion morph into a discussion of economics. Nova is about go for the 21st century, a new way of accessing the richness of the go community by providing the tools for go players to meet and share their go experiences. It has nothing to do with economics.

I wonder if this is the appropriate place to ponder as to when nova.gs will get its own l19 subforum.

Anyway, just wait for more of the kgs players to migrate to nova. Then you'll start to reminisce about the good old days in which conversations didn't suddenly shift to economics and other silliness.

But then again... I personally enjoy some of that silly, inane banter.

Nova has an Off Topic chat room for all that silliness. Since it doesn't matter on Nova which chat room you are in to access the same games and player availability, it could be a fun place to hang out for those who like inane chatter. (oops, I mean deep thoughts)

Frankly, if nova needs so much advertisement to bring people there, it makes me think that it's not worth checking out.

There was a time when I was cynical about all the go servers and then I found Nova. Now I am playing again and having fun. I don't advertise, I appreciate publicly. I am in no way affiliated with the Nova developers, it's just a great go site that I want to tell people about. I believe this is an appropriate place for that. Spread the love.

As far as I can tell, it is one of the least officially advertised of the new generation of go servers. The devs started one thread here. That is the extent of their advertising (that I am aware of). They have also made follow-up posts, responding to the ongoing discussions about the server.

Any sort of "advertising" beyond that is simply users trying to get others to play there, because they like it that much (again, as far as I am aware of).

I think the devs are more concerned with spending their time building the best software they can, rather than getting people to use it. My interpretation of things they have said is that once they are satisfied with where the software is at, then they might possibly focus a little more on advertising or whatever to increase the user base.

I'm sorry, let me find you a link for the servers which have refrained from any advertisement whatsoever... I know they're here somewhere, give me just a little while....

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

From Merriem-Webster Online:
"pros·e·ly·tizedpros·e·ly·tiz·ing
Definition of PROSELYTIZE
intransitive verb
1
: to induce someone to convert to one's faith
2
: to recruit someone to join one's party, institution, or cause
transitive verb..."

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Well, it's nice to see someone studying their English. Keep up the good work! Perhaps you can keep everyone informed on your progress by posting in some other threads as well. Here's one for you:

in·sti·gate (nst-gt)
tr.v. in·sti·gat·ed, in·sti·gat·ing, in·sti·gates
1. To urge on; goad.
2. To stir up; foment.

instigator noun

a person who stirs up public feelings especially of discontent <an instigator who always managed to be innocently standing by once the fighting began>

It is nice to know that such studious people are interested in my favourite go server. I could add you as a friend on Nova and it would be easy for us to connect and get a game going. Friends on Nova are accessible from any page. See you there

I'm sure this can't be the strangest thread I've participated in on L19, but it's up there. I don't think I have anything to say about chat on Nova or economics*.

But I really like Nova.

* today.

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Occupy Babel!

Maybe threads are getting weirder and more argumentative since there's less content about go these days. I keep telling myself to use my posting powers for good, but I always switch to the dark side.

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be immersed

Thank you! You've already seen me there, and chatted with me. Just add cherrytree to you list of friends and Bob's your uncle. That said I don't think we'll really be 'friends' for a while yet.

"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."
- Benjamin Disraeli

The slickest UI in the world, without a solid player base, is of no use to me. Beyond that, however, I think it is trivially obvious that at present Nova is far from a slick experience. Hence I expect to be 'instigating' change (aka complaining about/questioning this and that) for the foreseeable future when I drop in.

Whether Nova succeeds will not be based on whether it conforms to my expectations or yours, but whether it appeals consistently to a sufficiently broad group of users to make it a reliable place to enjoy playing Go. Without that most people will choose to go elsewhere. I believe that is what sank Kaya. They had many good ideas. But they were sure that they knew what was best and that the world should just come and 'be happy'. The world just ain't like that! Look at KGS, IGS, Tygem, or any other active server. The vast majority of people play and/or observe. They don't chat, they don't review, they don't share anything. So how good is the experience for people coming for the first time, looking for a game? How easy is it to find out what to do in order to get a game? If there is no one to play at the moment, what factors will cause someone to hang around for a while and come back again later? Personally I don't think it is nice themes, but what does and old guy like me know?

I really hope that Nova succeeds. But I really hoped Kaya would too (I bought my account there). I think that there is a lot of scope for improving the experience of playing online. However, I also firmly believe that it all starts with having a good supply of opponents. Until we reach that point, we not only aren't done, we haven't really gotten started.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Nova is beautiful, and has surpassed Kaya easily with barely a whisper. I've known of it from the first time it was announced, and I've been checking in regularly but not playing (as I don't play correspondence games.)

I share the sentiment of Dave and others that what I want in a go server is people to play against. What I also value and is not really provided (although sure, it can be) by places like KGS and Nova is anonymity. Those places are designed to be social experiences and that is what many people like about them.

I will continue to play the vast majority of my games on Asian servers. However, tournament games, games scheduled in advance, teaching games with friends, etc., I will absolutely be scheduling them on Nova when possible. I gave up on KGS months ago, to be honest, as the experience was too laggy to compete with any other modern server.

When I started this old thread I was awed by the beauty and elegance of the web servers (kaya first, and then Nova) but since then I have seen Kaya go under and Nova become OGS and it's become clear to me that putting go server development in the hands of coders/developers/programmers (not sure what to call them anymore) instead of go players results in a lot of fancy programming without the substance that matters to players. OGS has become a bloated piece of web software that cannot support people with low end internet access. It's loaded with features that computer geeks love but go players couldn't care less about. When I log on I'm lucky if I can maintain a constant connection for more than a few minutes even though my connection is stable on KGS and pretty much every other website I visit. I have heard many others complain about this same issue but the developers of OGS dismiss it without even trying to troubleshoot the problem. Stable connection is far more important than good looks or the ability to integrate with facebook or G+. I hope the computer geeks enjoy the fancy and unstable OGS and have a lot of fun writing plugins for the server which will slow things down even more but I have gone back to KGS where simple works and players are abundant.

Regardless of the current state of OGS, this is false from a technical point of view. There is nothing forcing a web application to stream more data than a native client.

People, who started the thread to praise nova.gs but complain now about the OGS features, probably do not sufficiently appreciate that OGS is/was one of the few successful wester server launches in recent years - by merging nova.gs and OGS there suddenly was a large (though turn-based) player base working with nova.gs software. This (mainly turn-based) player base has requirements that may not map 1:1 with the generic "go player" of dfunkt's post, i.e. a working tournament system and pre-scheduling of moves is more important for turn-based play than say a constant connection.

You're probably right. I edited my post and took out this speculative statement.