I'm interested in creating a style guide for Go material, so I'd like to collect opinions. I'd be thankful if you'd answer these questions. The guide, if made, could serve as a template for video titles, magazine articles, a revision of the Go Wikibook etc.

Feedback on the survey would also be appreciated. I'm sure a lot of other useful questions and options could be added.

I advise using whole answers in case the mapping of letters to answers is edited. Feel free to answer with a write-in if you don't agree with any of the options given. You could also use reply with "O / Other", "AOA / Any of the above" or "IDC / I don't care".

The Name of the Game

1. The game should be named A) Go B) Baduk C) either Go or Baduk.

Names

1. Name order of eastern professionals should be A) family-given: Shin Jinseo B) given-family: Jinseo Shin.

2. Chinese names should be formatted like A) Yang Dingxin B) Yang Ding-xin C) Yang DingXin D) Yang Ding Xin.

3. Korean names should be formatted like A) Shin Jinseo B) Shin Jin-seo C) Shin JinSeo D) Shin Jin Seo.

4. Doubled vowels in Japanese names and words should be A) unmarked B) marked with a macron C) marked with doubled letters or a U, following kana.

5. Eastern names should be A) allowed B) not allowed to include apostrophes.

6. Should A) "eo" and "eu" or B) "o" and "u" be used in Korean names?

7. Professionals should be named in the style of A) their country of origin B) the country in which they qualified as a professional.

Ranks

1. Choose the acceptable formats of rank presentation: A) 1k B) 1K C) 1 kyu D) one kyu E) first kyu F) All of the above

2. Choose the acceptable formats of rank presentation: A) 1d B) 1D C) 1 dan D) one dan E) first dan F) shodan

3. Are nidan, sandan, yondan, godan, rokudan, nanadan / shichidan, hachidan and kudan acceptable formats of rank presentation? (Y / N)

4. Can "p" be used to abbreviate professional dan ranks ("dan professional")? (Y / N)

Japanese terms

1. Should Japanese terms be given in italics? A) Yes B) No C) Only on their first introduction D) Only if judged obscure

2. When writing for a weak audience, A) mainly English B) mainly Japanese C) an even mix of English and Japanese terms should be used.

3. When writing for a strong audience, A) mainly English B) mainly Japanese C) an even mix of English and Japanese terms should be used.

4. When a choice is available between an English and a Japanese term, should the shorter one be chosen? A) yes, shortest by letters B) yes, shortest by syllables C) no, length is unimportant

5. Should Japanese nouns be pluralised with -s? A) Yes B) No C) Only when plurality is relevant

Colours

1. Choose the acceptable formats of colour presentation for the game role taken by a player: A) "black" B) "Black" C) "B"

2. Black should be referred to A) as "he" B) by the gender of the player, or else as "he".

3. White should be referred to A) as "he" B) as "she" C) by the gender of the player, or else as "he" D) by the gender of the player, or else as "she".

Move numbers and coordinates

1. The first move of the game should be presented as A) "1" B) "(1)" C) "B1" D) "Move 1".

2. Should coordinates include "I", the capital i? A) Yes B) No

I'll bite. The answers begin with a # character. Please assume IDC where
there is no answer. And I have added some topics at the end that interest me
as a very part-time go-writer.

---------------

I'm interested in creating a style guide for Go material, so I'd like to
collect opinions. I'd be thankful if you'd answer these questions. The guide,
if made, could serve as a template for video titles, magazine articles, a
revision of the Go Wikibook etc.

Feedback on the survey would also be appreciated. I'm sure a lot of other
useful questions and options could be added.

I advise using whole answers in case the mapping of letters to answers is
edited. Feel free to answer with a write-in if you don't agree with any of the
options given. You could also use reply with "O / Other", "AOA / Any of the
above" or "IDC / I don't care".

The Name of the Game

1. The game should be named A) Go B) Baduk C) either Go or Baduk.
# Go, but I don't mind other names.

Names

1. Name order of eastern professionals should be A) family-given: Shin Jinseo B) given-family: Jinseo Shin.
# A. For the silly reason that that is the order encountered when trying to read the names in the original script.

2. Chinese names should be formatted like A) Yang Dingxin B) Yang Ding-xin C) Yang DingXin D) Yang Ding Xin.
# IDC.

3. Korean names should be formatted like A) Shin Jinseo B) Shin Jin-seo C) Shin JinSeo D) Shin Jin Seo.
# IDC.

4. Doubled vowels in Japanese names and words should be A) unmarked B) marked with a macron C) marked with doubled letters or a U, following kana.
# C, but not a big issue.

5. Eastern names should be A) allowed B) not allowed to include apostrophes.
# A. We sometimes find Western names with apostrophes, such as O'Brien.

6. Should A) "eo" and "eu" or B) "o" and "u" be used in Korean names?
# See end comments.

7. Professionals should be named in the style of A) their country of origin B) the country in which they qualified as a professional.
# Slight preference for B. It is common to give the alternate name in brackets.

Ranks

1. Choose the acceptable formats of rank presentation: A) 1k B) 1K C) 1 kyu D) one kyu E) first kyu F) All of the above
# A, for brevity.

2. Choose the acceptable formats of rank presentation: A) 1d B) 1D C) 1 dan D) one dan E) first dan F) shodan
# A, for brevity. (Also, "d" is a smalller letter than "D" and therefore less presumptuous.)

3. Are nidan, sandan, yondan, godan, rokudan, nanadan / shichidan, hachidan and kudan acceptable formats of rank presentation? (Y / N)
# N. I know the japanese number words thanks to Go, but the translations are both precise and more accesssible.

4. Can "p" be used to abbreviate professional dan ranks ("dan professional")? (Y / N)
# Slight preference for "D", but I do not share JF's disdain for "p".

Japanese terms

1. Should Japanese terms be given in italics? A) Yes B) No C) Only on their first introduction D) Only if judged obscure
# IDC. Also, it may be context dependent. I don't recall anyone using bold or
# italics in an SGF file. (I want to try it now.)

2. When writing for a weak audience, A) mainly English B) mainly Japanese C) an even mix of English and Japanese terms should be used.
# This is the first time it becomes clear that the writing in question will be
# in English. (Channelling RJ here.) That raises the question of what kind of
# English to use, which is addressed at the end. My answer is A.

3. When writing for a strong audience, A) mainly English B) mainly Japanese C) an even mix of English and Japanese terms should be used.
# The community seems to have settled on something between A and C. IDC because English
# is my native language and I learnt Go in the 1970s when the available written material
# was mainly from Japan. On the other hand, I had the good fortune to
# play a simultaneous game with Guo Juan two days ago, and felt regret that I do
# not know the Chinese terms for dame, hane, kosumi, ko and so on. Of course,
# Teacher Guo is accustomed to dealing politely with clumsy Western idiots.

4. When a choice is available between an English and a Japanese term, should the shorter one be chosen? A) yes, shortest by letters B) yes, shortest by syllables C) no, length is unimportant
# C. Clarity is more important than brevity, but that is a question of judgement.

5. Should Japanese nouns be pluralised with -s? A) Yes B) No C) Only when plurality is relevant
# B. Don't know why I feel so strongly about this, but it somehow triggers my inner pedant.

Colour

1. Choose the acceptable formats of colour presentation for the game role taken by a player: A) "black" B) "Black" C) "B"
# It depends on the context. See the end notes.

2. Black should be referred to A) as "he" B) by the gender of the player, or else as "he".
# By Black's preferred pronoun if known or reasonably guessable, otherwise as "Black".
# Anyone whose native language has grammatical gender likely feels differently about this.

3. White should be referred to A) as "he" B) as "she" C) by the gender of the player, or else as "he" D) by the gender of the player, or else as "she".
# By White's preferred pronoun if known or reasonably guessable, otherwise as "White".

Move numbers and coordinates

1. The first move of the game should be presented as A) "1" B) "(1)" C) "B1" D) "Move 1".
# It depends on the context. On a diagram as "1". In comments as "black 1".

2. Should coordinates include "I", the capital i? A) Yes B) No
# B, because that is how the Go editors that I use work on the screen.

--------------

Some additional topics follow.

A. Which system(s) of romanisation will be used for Chinese, Korean and
Japanese names. For example, the famous opponent of AlphaGo is sometimes
romanised as Lee Sedol and sometimes as Yi Setol. I have no preference for one
system over another, but a choice should be made.

B. When writing in English, should one write in one's own dialect or attempt to
write in a way that is easier for an international audience? I assume the
imagined audience is similar to that of L19, which uses English but is
international. Since I am not a skilled writer, I should use my own dialect to
carry conviction, but avoid local slang and cultural references.

C. I write two game commentaries a week which try to interpret KataGo's
assessments. The opponent is always the same person and he always has the
black stones. (I can run KataGo but he cannot.) It feels better to refer to
"Black's blunder" or "White's oversight", rather than "your blunder" or "my
oversight", even though we know each other well. For learning purposes, it is
better to condemn the sin not the sinner.

It is tedious to capitalise "Black" and "White" every time, so I now write
"black stone", "white move", "black group" and "white weakness" without
capitals.

Access to my own mental processes sometimes lets me explain blunders
by reference to "my tiredness" or "my obsession with the bottom-left corner".
Referring impersonally to "White's tiredness" would be like Prime Minister
Thatcher's "We are a grandmother", which was rightly mocked at the time.
(I may have mentioned some local culture, but I think I got away with it.)
But all these self-inflicted rules feel a bit fussy when made explicit.

Hope some of this helps.

I didn't bite because I think ventures like this are unnecessary and risk becoming too prescriptive. But I was interested by some of thirdfogie's comments, so I'll have a little nibble.

To address the unnecessary/prescriptive comment first, the guiding principle must always be "form follows function." If you follow the form, it becomes restrictive and the text becomes bland. Go is a hobby. People want to be instructed or entertained. The fact alone sets the two main forms of writing style. There is a third one, the reference work, where a style guide may have great value. But the biggest flaw with SL as a reference guide is the lack of citations and the anonymity of most of the contributors. The whole edifice of SL is therefore built on quicksand. And, going off at a slight tangent, it is OK for SL to have a "house" style (as all newspapers do - but all different) but to impose a "go" style is "going" too far.

To turn to thirdfogie's points (though I do realise some he has deliberately blunted ), I think the same overarching remark about "form follows function" applies, but this can be usefully recast as "form does NOT precede function." I regard the business of using "she" for White as nothing more than virtue signalling. You are starting with gender awareness for "form's" sake and making what you write fit that. And, of course, you end up with infelicities such as writing "she" in games where, say, Michael Redmond is Black. If you really care about women in go, write about them properly - extol them and their achievement (as I did in "Five-star Kita Fumiko.")

Capitalisation for Black and White. I had this debate with my editor at Oxford University Press on my first book 50 years ago. It was already a long-standing debate because they had produced many chessbooks. There was also the related problem that newspapers and so on had started trying to reduce the use of capital letters in general (and the poet e.e. cummings also had a certain vogue then). The way we left it at OUP was a possibly diplomatic fudge - that my arguments were sounder than theirs but they were stuck with a house style. To cherry pick some elements of my argument, take "the black corner." If you recast that (a standard technique in linguistic analysis), which looks most correct: (1) "the corner is black", (2) "the corner is Black's, (3) "the corner is Black", or (4) "the corner is black's". I contend that virtually everyone would choose (2). This tells us that (Ina go context) in "the Black corner", Black is a noun being used attributively, which is a standard element of syntax (as in "a London fog"). It is NOT an adjective. There are also more subtle, psychological lines of argument. Go is a game between two opponents, who have to be personified. It is not a fashion show concerned with colour coordination. The psychological element comes in the confrontation. That is why we write "Reds under the bed" and not "reds under the bed."

d or p. I hate p even though I understand why people use it. My loathing has two elements, neither 100% rational. One is that d is the starting letter for the grade in all the Oriental languages, and it seems respectful to follow their usage. Related to that, in my mind, is the fact that 1p (or 2p etc), sounds like the way we talk about our currency in the UK (i.e. our equivalent of 1 cent, one peseta etc), and 1p and so on are such trifling and laughable amounts, it makes the designation of a pro as a 1p sound laughable.

Names: this is a huge and changing topic. As an example of "changing" I will cite just the recent Japanese legislation that has made the Japanese order (family name - given name) as written in western letters the official form in many contexts. Koreans and Chinese rarely follow the common practice of sucking up to westerners by giving a western version. Western practice is usually to follow Chinese and Korean custom, and so we get (on Google) over 6 million hits for "Mao Zedong" and only around 100,000 for "Zedong Mao." Koreans have their won special quirks. Lee Changho (instead of Yi Ch'ang-ho) comes from the days of semi-colonisation when Koreans did suck up to westerners by turning their names round. That meant saying Chang-ho Yi but a common sound change then had to be invoked in just the same way as even posh BBC newsreaders talk about Laura order instead of law and order. It's even more complex in Korea though because the South Koreans choose to use an intervocalic L whereas the North Koreans chose R (hence Ri instead of Lee). It is further complicated immensely by the fact that Koreans are free to choose their own way of westernising their names. The result is that you can only really know how they write their own names by knowing the person. Otherwise you guess. And if you guess, you often get a huge range. For example, the well-known 9-dan Seo Neung-uk appears as Seo Nunguk, Seo Neunguk, Seo Neungwook, Seo Nyungwook, Seo Nungwook, So Nungwook, Suh Neungwook, Suh Nungwook, and Seo Nungwuk (and maybe others). Then there is the 9-dan Ch'eon P'ung-cho who appears as Chun Poongjo, Chun Pongjo, Chon Poongcho and Cheon Pungjo, but his own preferences (as on his business card) are for Chun Poongjho and Viktor Chun. Both these last unusual forms derive from the fact that he is a Russian speaker. And there's a lot more to it, both inside and outside these countries - note that even people who use the solecism Kaiho Rin write Honinbo Jowa and not Jowa Honinbo. Let's not forget, too, that western names have their numerous foibles. I just passed a street the other day called Beaulieu Gardens. That's "bewley" to the people who live there. The way GoGoD tries to make sense of this confusion in the case of go names is to use the western-favoured and/or academic Hepburn, McCune-Reischauer transliterations. The merit of McC-R for Korean is that it is the only system in regular use that allows you to convert the transliteration back to hangeul. The Koreans' own latest official transliteration system is not without some merit, but it is aimed at lost tourists asking for directions rather than go players.

This point about names, a subset of wider cultural differences, brings me to what I regard as the most interesting aspect of thirdfogie's post. He speaks against cultural references while actually using one. I see the point, if you are writing a technical manual or for children, say. But western go players are a well-educated and well-travelled audience who are well aware that cultural differences exist. Indeed, in very many cases it is the exotic differences that have attracted them to the game in the first place. So people writing for western go players have to decide whether they are writing to instruct or entertain them, or whether they are writing peer-reviewable academic works such as rules texts. I would argue that, in the case of go, instruction and entertainment can usually be grouped under the same heading. And since forms follows function, the format of what is written about go in such cases should strive to be instructive and entertaining. Despite being often well-educated and well-travelled, the western go audience is not always well-educated and well-travelled within Asia. For me, the biggest knowledge gap in the western go audience is in awareness (let alone knowledge) of go in ancient China. Much of my own recent writing has been an effort to plug some of this gap. I have a new doorstep book on the topic. If you didn't know that in go Yangzhou was China's equivalent to Edo, or you didn't know who Stinky Toes was, you have a knowledge gap I am about to fill! But even cultural references outside Asia have value, too. They can be used to provide simply a relaxing change of pace in a dense book, or to shine a sidelight on another quite different difference. Or even sometimes just as reminder that cultural (or language) differences do exist. Diversity should be celebrated.

One of the first English go books I read was Ishi Press's Basic Techniques of Go by Haruyama and Nagahara. I found the use of Japanese terms for go intriguing and drew me to the game rather than driving me away. Similarly I had no trouble with Japanese name order. If we are going to be polite with people from other cultures it doesn't take much effort to learn how to address them.

Pros can just use the terms in whichever language they normally use for them.

A writer　or　speaker should always use a general pronouns opposite to their sex, for many obvious reasons. It baffles me as to why this isn't the normal practice.

I mean if we didn't use 'black and white' and instead used two made+up terms it would be obvious that they're proper nouns and therfore the technically correct words are Black and White. Haha, I mean if the stones aren't literally coloured black and white we still use those terms. How is it even a debate?



Heh, I always read out p as pence so I don't hae that problem



This is a controversial and unpopular opinion, but I don't think Korean letters sbould ever be romanised.

That is a good caveat . . .

The way I would write a book intended for a wide audience is different from how I'd write casually here.

Names

0. The name of the game is Wéiqí. But 바둑 might be better as a universal name. 囲碁 is more of a poetic name not good for practical use in the Latin-Germanic speaking world.

1. Names should be used in the original transcription order unless speaking casually.

2, 3, Separation of any sort should just be between the family name and given name. There's no need for separating and capitalising the start of syllables in the same given name. Also, people in the west should use the hanyu pinyin romanisation that includes diatrics, people CCP china can skip this for the sake of speed because they already know what they actually sound like and have to use pinyin to type all their letters so diatrics would make things slow for little benefit. But if you're writing for a western audience and are only transcribing names then use diaitrics. In reality, there is absolutely no need to romanise korean script since it was designed to be as easy to learn as possible Just have an index on the sounds.

4, 5, 6, Japanese romanisation should follow kana to carry over it's convenience, as that the simplest way, and the aim in writing for a general audience should always be practicality and convenience in expressing the actual sound over arbitrary stylistic preference or correctness in the language it's being transcribed to. To deliberately throw away the convenience of kana and the fact it can be mirrored with latin letters is crazy. We could argue that just like Korean script should be used as is, hiragana should also be used as is. If you choose to romanise a Korean or Japanese name and know how a person romanises their own name, then use that regardless of which format you're using.

7 You should use the style of name they would likely identify more strongly with, which is probably the name used when they grew up as a child, so the country they grew up in most.

Ranks

1, 2, 3, 4, 1k & 1d 1pro. No need to use non-English terms when such direct english equivalents exist, like shodan or nidan, instead of first dan or two dan, however 段 doesn't have quite an exact equivalent, and even if step was the equivalent word it would be confusing for english speakers who are not used to it's use in that way. And whenever possible, avoid bias to any specific language outside the language you're writing for, so use the chinese characters that are used universally between Chinese, Korean and Japanese, so, first 段 or two 段, and when introducing it state it's pronunciation in chinese, duan, and Korean and Japanese, dan.

Terms

1 When first introducing a foreign term, use italics.

2, 3, 4, Avoid using foreign terms when a direct translation of the term can be used, and when foreign terms are used, avoid being biased to any one language outside of the language you're writing for unless it's the language you normally use when playing as a professional, so Korean pros should be biased to Korean terms an Japanese pros should be biased towards Japanese terms.

Colours

1 Black and White.

2, 3 Okay, now you baffle me as you gave the option of using he universally for both colours but not the option to use she universally for both colours? Not that meticulous . . . I'll explain one reason. Even from a traditionalist perspective, when referring to someone other than oneself, it's basically old-school good manners of not being narcissistic to assume the opposite characteristic of oneself. Maybe some people might extend from this and say you should always universally use she, since the writer or speaker or doer of anything in general has traditionally been assumed to be he. I guess that's a point. But there's absolutely zero justification for the pathetic and lazy attitude of using he universally or the gender of who is writing or speaker, those are cringe, sorry Charles Murray . . . Of course if you know the pronouns of the people playing, you should use those pronouns.

Which raises an important point. Capitalised or not, technically the correct pronoun if your referring to a colour making a move is it.

Notation

1 I think it depends, if you want to save space just use 1, if you want to be thorough say move 1

2 And in WeiQi and Shogi We really ought to use the Asian format of using arabic numerals from left to right and worded numerals top to down 7-VII or 7-Seven. Otherwise the cost of excluding I from coordinates is more than the benefit, but I think, inspired by word correctors flagging only i when it's uncapitalised, that it would make sense to use uncapitalised i as it break consistency no less than excluding i.

One modest suggestion:

I believe we should start writing possibly all player names, Asian or other otherwise as:

Familyname, Givenname

The comma makes it unambiguous which name is which. Westerners are familiar with this usage on forms.

English publications have made such a hash of the name order, even using both orders in the same book! I’m never sure unless I either know the name of the player, or at least one of the names is more obviously either personal or family name.