To represent the AGA you normally have to have both [1] Played 10 rated games in the last year and [2] had no membership lapse for 2 years or something? maybe more Recently I read a long post on the AGA Chapters about these 2 rules from a strong player and wanted to know how AGA members viewed them.

I'm a (lapsed) AGA member, about to reregister with a tourament later this month, and I approve of both rules. Still, I have reservations, and would prefer that the continuous membership rule had a bit of a grace period for players whose memberships very briefly lapse.

My lapse wouldn't be covered--it was several months. But I have no ambitions of representing the US unless there's an international 5k tournament.

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Occupy Babel!

I'm an active member and I voted "YES!" on the 10+ rated games requirement, but didn't vote at all on the other side, because I agree with it in principle, but as hyperpape said, I think there could be a 1 month or so grace period.

The ability to renew for multiple years in advance alleviates this, but that just means it'll be a problem to remember to renew every three years or whatever.

The answer's gotta be Richard Nixon.

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be immersed

Hyperpape hit the relevant point. I like the idea that one should be a member, but there seems to be no room for minor oversights.

As for ten games a year, that seems low. I could go for 15 or 20.

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Wasn't there serious talk about the grace period awhile back, i.e. with someone involved in the decision making process participating? I can't figure out where I would have read that, but I know I wasn't inventing the idea of the grace period.

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Occupy Babel!

I also think that 10 games is too much. It's easy to get 10 games in for me these days due to the monthly rating tournaments in the bay area, but when I lived in Michigan, I might have played around 4 games a year.

I think that being a member should be enough, even if you haven't played games - or at least if you play a couple of games a year, it should be sufficient.

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be immersed

I think it's reasonable to expect a certain level of commitment from someone who hopes to be the American representative to an international tournament.

Taking your case as an example, I think someone in North Michigan might have a reasonable complaint. Someone in Ann Arbor would be within 4-5 hours of several tournaments a year, and I don't think that's too demanding.

It's also possible to play rated games outside of a tournament. That might defeat the purpose of a rule, but it's always open.

I wonder how many players are geographically remote enough to have a complaint by my standard? The Dakotas, Alaska, parts of Kentucky, Wyoming, and scattered parts of a few other states?

(1 word grammatical edit)

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Occupy Babel!

If you're going as the representative of the AGA, then yes a continuous membership would be proper. Having said that now, I have no idea as to what kind of reminders the AGA sends out to let you know your membership is about to expire. From what I can tell from the comments, it doesn't appear to be much if anything. Another organization I belong to starts sending out renewal reminders via email several months before it expires and they come on a regular basis. Sort of like that little warning at work that lets you know your password is about to expire.

I think 10 games would be okay. Hyperpape makes a good point on localities. Unless you live close to active Go clubs where you can get either into a monthly ratings tournament or get some rated over the board play you're only choice is to back up the bags and burn some vacation time and money going to a tournament and hope you can get 10 games in. Which might be difficult, I don't know.

In my case I got to go to the U.S. Congress this year. I just realized I played only 6 rated games, primarily because I was going to lectures and game reviews. But the chances of me getting another 4 AGA rated games in by next congress are slim to none.

Of course not that I'm going to be representing the AGA soon as well, unless a 29K tournament comes up.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

Have I missed something on another thread, or is this unnecessarily coy? I presume "a strong player" is Feng Yun, who appears to believe these rules shouldn't apply to her and other pros for the Bingsheng Cup. Should they? Surely that's the more interesting question to debate.

FWIW I found her arguments weak and self-serving with more than a touch of hubris. Since quite a few AGA members and hard-working volunteers, including some present on this forum, have expressed support for these rules, her attempts to label them as silly, shameful and exclusionist seem to show high disregard for members she claims to serve. I'm sure there is a case to be made for not having such rules, but "I wanted that free ticket" is not the best line to take. Nor is "some members are more equal than others". She may have a case under the heading of "doing more for the AGA than most people", but as an outsider I can't judge that.

Well I guess that you would want people to stay members, but do you really want to use this approach to make them never lapse? I mean people are human and forget, if you've been a member for 20 years, are you really a freeloader if you lapsed for 20 days? I don't think so. I am still shocked that this rule appears to be so popular that it has resisted attempts to remove it. Given that there is this 10 game requirement, why not just insist that only games played while a member count and add that to must be a member to represent your country? For an amateur organisation, it does strike me as a piece of super harsh regulation.

10 rated games doesn't seem so bad to me, especially since you can submit club games as rated games. (That's right isn't it?)

Yes, you can submit club games as rated games. I don't think it's done that often (I've never witnessed it at either club I've participated in), but it's doable. That won't help players who aren't near a club, or lack suitable opponents, but it could make the situation less burdensome for some players.

The AGA sent me one notice a month in advance when I was about to lose membership, if I remember correctly. They might have sent two, but I know I received something.

The continuous membership rule is for one year, by the way. http://usgo.org/tournaments/Admin/

I remember that when I first read the rule, I thought Feng Yun was the most likely to be affected, as she typically only plays in the Ing Masters. But while I can't claim to know her entire circumstances, there is plenty of worthwhile competition available where she lives.

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Occupy Babel!

As I've said before somewhere on GD, I think both are good ideas, but the implementation of "continuous membership" I think is very poor. I would like to see the ability to pay for missed months in a lapsed term and for it to be counted as continuous. So, for example, if you were a member, lapsed for a couple of months due to personal life, forgetfulness, money, any number of reasons, and suddenly realised, you should be able to pay for the "last two months and the next ten" as your yearly subscription, which can then be treated as continuous.

I think the lapse-attack is way too harsh at the moment.

(PS Not that it affects me in any way )

Such tolerant attitudes are noble, and make me think well of those who hold them. But they do presuppose you are dealing with equally decent people, and also that AGA membership is not to be treated all that seriously.

I think very few people would seriously expect to go to an insurance company when they lost something and still make a valid claim once they realised they had forgotten to renew their insurance by a couple of months. That's the real world, where people take things seriously. But it seems that quite a lot of people believe that in contrast the AGA is just a bunch of amateurs that you don't have to take seriously. From what I could make out, several of the volunteers who run the AGA became fed up with such a view of their work. That was compounded for them by the same disdainful people suddenly realising that the AGA had to be taken seriously because it had free tickets to offer. But instead of saying mea culpa, must try harder to remember next time, they started slagging off the volunteers and demanding exceptions.

My sympathies are entirely with the volunteers. I do think, at a purely objective level, that the rules are a little rigid, but the empathetic priority is surely to get the attitude towards volunteers right before you try to modify the rules. Feng Yun's diatribe shows there is still a serious attitude problem to overcome.

The only thing that irritates me about this thread is... how many "hidden" discussion lists does the AGA have, and why are foreigners on them and local AGA members are not?

(not that I have anything against foreigners participating in our local discussions)

edit: nevermind. just checked my email

I think while there may be a reasonable intermediate position involving a grace period (and I'm not wedded to the idea), by the time you hold Topazg's position, you should just say there's no reason for the membership requirement, above any beyond the requirement to play 10 games. I'm not saying that's a terrible position to hold, mind you. I just don't see the point of having a membership requirement if people can fail to reregister for several months and be exempted.

P.S. Since we're now mentioning Feng Yun and her comments, are they publicly available? I couldn't find any discussions when I went looking for AGA chapters whateveryacallit.

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Occupy Babel!

If you play only one game a month with a buddy, you'll easily meet (and pass) the minimum games requirements.

It's not that hard to do, but I guess the question is more of, "should it be a requirement". I don't personally feel that it should.

If you're a great player, but don't participate much in the AGA, does that really matter? For really strong players, their devotion to go can be seen by their strength - a 9d on KGS isn't 9d because he/she's just goofing around.

If people could participate in more international tournaments without being a part of the AGA, then it wouldn't be a problem. But if the AGA is the only bridge to participating in these events, do you really have to feel indebted to the bridge? If requirements are so strict, I think that it might be time to try to start making a new bridge...

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be immersed

It's a valid question. Normally you want to don international honours upon your active community members. Somebody who turns up only once a year, or hasn't played in 10 years - not the best choice. The usual measure if activity in tournaments, certainly an active teacher can feel slighted by that measure - but can you really measure teaching activity? It's a question of being fair and being seen to be fair.

I guess I just wish that there were more access to international tournaments for strong players, even if they are not affiliated with the AGA.

It kind of reminds me of the time that Lee Sedol took a break from the pro scene.

You bring up a good point about teachers, by the way.

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be immersed