Hello all dear friends of kgs
i would like to share here my experience of kgs in China so as to make it more accessible and enjoyable for more players.

first point
Many chinese players, especially if they are not high-ranked (other ones go to some meeting place if they are strong enough) are playing in some internet cafe. That means no java most of the case.
So that means to download and install it first. and to do it again and again each time if you dont get any special agreement with the owner of the place. That s seems futile, but it s like 15-25mn each time before downloading the client

second point
Freezing and disconnecting. Well chinese internet standard and wall makes it like this (i supposed it is related to this, not to the handling of java). At first glance nothing kgs could improve on it. Now handling of this is not so well made. You have to guess you get frozen, disconnect on your own with the main window, and reopen all again by yourself. The time you guess, you will have lost on time quite often. so some automatic procedure who detect your deconnection and reconnect you automatically would be a very nice feature.

third point
escape policy. The escape policy is not protecting you from this disconnection. at reverse each time you suffer from a disconnection, your partner will have the choice to leave if he is in a losing position. Furthermore, you will be the one to get punished by the system in this case of what i called reverse escaping. This is quite unfair especially when you think how chinese people dont like to lose their face.

Ok that s all, just trying to make kgs more enjoyable and competitive compared to other go servers here in China.

If KGS didn't use Java, the Linux and Mac users would be in the same situation as they are with other go servers. I'm not currently using Linux on my desktop, but I did for a few years, and having to use Wine etc. isn't very user-friendly or convenient. Not that I'm overly fond of Java, but at least it is platform independent and I believe that is a real advantage for an international go server that wants to appeal to a wide audience. (I also see a lot of low cost netbooks and laptops lately that come with Linux, not Windows.)

well i use linux too.
I just explained that java is not in use in the chinese internet cafe, so that is not so a real advantage for an international go server as you said.

What's the proposed solution, though? wms isn't likely to code and maintain a native Windows client, especially since the Java client is working fine.

What's the reason that Chinese internet cafés don't have Java installed on their computers? Could it be made more popular? (Probably not realistic.)

I recall wms mentioning the theoretical possibility of a Javascript web-based client, which would probably be the ideal solution, but it didn't sound like something that's actually planned, just thought about.

What server do you use to play on generally? Playing on a real time server without downloading software is fairly difficult.

Well i have my own computer and mostly playing on kgs now.
I just wanted to describe the difficulties encountered by a average chinese player when i want them to join on kgs.

The escaping policy remaining the worst point in fact.

I also live in China and play regularly on KGS.

In my opinion, being written in Java is not a problem as it makes the client multi-platform (I'm also a linux user.)

The biggest problem with KGS in China is not a problem with KGS itself, but with connectivity issues relating to the Chinese firewall. In addition, whenever I have been in southern China on business, I have always had problems connecting, whereas my connection is typically stable from Beijing.

I do agree that the escaper policy is a problem (more accurately, the lack of an escaper policy) but the KGS admins are certainly aware already of this thought and they clearly disagree. KGS is above all a friendly server, and the escaper policy accordingly assumes that your opponents will always return. I do not believe saving face is a legitimate issue with regard to playing go online.

you mean KGS admins disagree with this lack of escaping policy?

That s a nice point in that case, i hope it will change one day.

For me it s more as a lack, it s an absurd policy who encourage players to cheat. That s sad because i m sure that wasnt the way it was concieved for sure.
You have to suffer from disconnection to be aware of the problem, and maybe this is a missing point to make things changing by the conceptor.
(Who made a great job apart from this of course)

Last point is about helping handling the disconnection, i dont know if it could be possible that the client detects it and propose to come back at the same state you were before, like on some other go servers.

What would you change about the escaper policy?

I haven't had a problem with it, personally, but I'm also not disconnecting often (just once every 24h). I sometimes have players "faking" a disconnect when they're losing. It actually never happened when someone was winning, so I presume that they're escaping.

I may be missing the point, though, hence I'm asking.

I can explain it better , i thought it was obvious.

Well first i stopped to play ranked automatch you see soon why:

I suffer many disconnection, could be between 1 to 5 times during a game. I warned in my profile and ask people to read it and take care that i always come back.

the player i m playing has a choice when i disconnect: to wait me and continue the game, or to go away too. If he estimate the game as lost for him, he can just go away and never come back.

The actual policy makes that furthermore unfair: i m the one who will be punished if this happens too many times...

so i always rely on the friendly terms and i tell people sorry i have bad connection. so i dont play automatch ranked.

I generally will agree to finish a game that my opponent escaped, but my limited experience with this is that they (the escapers) only want to finish the game 3 months later, by which time I've forgotten the game completely, while they start playing much much better when they return to the game. My suspicion is that a particular sort of pervers player escapes a game, studies it, and only then offers to finish it.

I've never turned down someone who wants to finish a game he escaped, but I'm very glad the policy in place wouldn't penalize me if I wanted to do that.

If you're upset about the consequences of living with crippled Internet, it's probably in the long run better to band together with other people who feel the same way and push for change than to hope that every Internet application is optimized for crippled connections.

sakaibokou's problem is that kgs' policy is indeed a double whammy for those with fragile connections. Not only do fail to get the wins you deserve, you are unfairly marked as an escaper (and then lose games you may well be winning). The oro or tygem system, that give you 5 minutes to reconnect, is much more fair. In practice, the KGS system is only useful for people who need to leave for some or other reason, and have considerate and reasonable opponents, which I would guess is a tiny subset of users.

Edit: to be fair, the KGS system is useful for people who need to leave and don't wish to resign. Whether the opponent will resume the game or not is not so important, unless you do it often, which is then effectively what fragile connections are.

Sure, it's a tedious and ancient topic. But this is an angle that I hadn't really thought of (even though it is obvious now that it has been pointed out). My understanding is that the KGS system was designed to protect those with weak connections (e.g. modems) when in fact is seems to have the opposite effect.

thanks for your answers. even if it is an old topic, i am happy that some of you understood the problems underlying for bad connection with escaping.

Even if the system will remain the same