I agree with Kirby.

I think L19 as a whole is thriving, and one of the big reasons for that is the Malkovich games. There is a wide spectrum of commenting verbosity, but even the people who don't say much are generally good at answering questions.

This seems like the wrong time to try to place restrictions on Malkovich games (either quantity or quality). I do agree that tools to make it easier for people to track only the particular games they are interested in would be handy. But reacting by trying to restrict an activity that is obviously really popular seems backwards to me.

P.S. Number of Malkovich games started recently, by week (most recent week at the end of the list): 3, 4, 2, 2, 0, 2, 5, 4. I don't see any big trend.

Let's do it the other way around. The light/no commentary people get to move.

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I see no need to place restrictions on games. People have different tastes and different habits. That doesn't mean we have to restrict any players or viewers. We can accomodate everybody easily. We need one forum for those who like long comments, one for those who do little or none. There is room for everybody.

As I said earlier, I intend to implement that unless there are vigorous objections. Today is busy, so I'll probably do it tomorrow afternoon.

There may be a possible third forum. Magicwand is so busy, we could even give him his own forum.
( actually, I'm about 1/4 serious about that )

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I'd like to suggest that the subject of each Malcovich game thread would say whether the game is supposed to have extensive comments or light/no comments.

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Why should anyone move? People know what to expect from the various personalities involved. I don't see a need to segregate the players. Besides, what do you do with a game played between a talker and a not-so-much talker? If Magicwand doesn't type in enough explanation for you, then don't watch his games... (except for the one I'm playing with him, of course ^^)

PS after seeing Joaz's latest: "Magicwand, the world's strongest 3d"... Seriously, has he lost a game on here yet? Anyway, I don't really care that much, I just don't see the need to do anything.

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He lost to zinger in game #33. I'm not sure if there are any others.

I honestly don't see the problem with the current setup. Yes, I would prefer if people commented slightly more. However, I can keep track of which games are more likely to offer higher quality commentary, and only view those topics if I feel like it. It's the same with the Off-Topic and General Go Chat forums - I'm not interested in 90% and 40% of the threads there, respectively, but I know which ones I am interested in and stick to those.

I actually enjoy watching games even with just one-line comments, and I see no real reason to move them. I'm not opposed to Joaz creating a new forum either, with the new forum being for those who want to play with minimal/no comments about their thought processing. However, I am adamantly opposed to a restriction on the number of games of a certain type that are allowed to unfold at once, for the same reason I am equally opposed to restricting the number of active threads in the Off-Topic/General Chat forums.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Creating a new forum is fine with me, but I'm strongly against anything that involves someone other than the players deciding what is and is not a "Malkovich game". I'm not sure whether there are players who feel that the games they play in the Malkovich forums are not actually Malkovich games.

It's clear that not all the ongoing Malkovich games are exactly like the first game that was played, but I don't think it's so terrible that the form is evolving into different directions. I enjoy several quite different commenter styles: the traditional long diagram commentaries, Araban's video commentaries, Magicwand's brief "feel"-based comments. I think some of these differences might even give some insights into differences in the way the different players think, which seems like exactly the sort of thing the name was referring to.

Furthermore, although I haven't played much yet myself, I feel there's a lot of educational value in just trying to justify my own moves in writing in a public forum. Possibly Malkovich games that are mostly instructive to the players and not to the spectators should have another name, but I think making this distinction now is premature. It's a hard distinction to make in any case, since the strength of the spectator would matter a lot in determining what is useful or instructive, and since things that are intended to be useful aren't always, and things that are not intended to be useful sometimes are. To me it seems better to stick to a simple and clear definition like "games that are commented by the players during play" instead of trying to dictate how the games should be used.

As already said I think the idea of a Malkovich-Game itself is fantastic and actually I enjoy Sols videocommentaries as much as magicwands entertainment-comments of course each person has a different style of commenting.
Nevertheless I'm sure the creation of a new subforum for just turnbased games like on DGS/OGS will give some benefit for every willing malkovich player, because people who would like to play without the pressure to comment on the game would have a possibility to play without the need of littering up the malk-forum. Maybe there even can be a new feature to send an auto-challenge to a game via PM with an automatic created thread in the new subforum or something

Basically, the point where I disagree with you is here. I don't think that they are littering the forum.

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I think that the term you want is 'devolving'. The players in question are simply doing less. Not different, just less. Unless you consider snide comments about one's opponent to be an improvement in a different direction.



The strength of the players is not the issue in defining a Malkovich game, for there is always someone who is of the proper strength to benefit. The goal of a Malkovich game is to be explicit, not to be strong.

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The term I wanted was "evolving", which is why that was the word I put in my post. It's a simple, objective word that carries no value judgement of any sort.

It seems clear that you don't like the more sparsely-commented games. That's fine. However, others do -- I do -- and it seems somewhat presumptuous of you to just dismiss the possibility that this might be so. "Not different, just less" is self-contradictory. Less is different. And in some cases, more is just not better.

To be clear, I absolutely don't want the richly-commented games to go away. I just don't see why there's any reason we have to choose between the two -- can't we have both? Having too many threads is not something I see as even a potential problem. I'm under no obligation to read all the ongoing threads. In fact, even now I do not. If we ever reach the point where it becomes technically hard to keep track of the threads we do want to follow, we should implement some technical solutions, such as special filtering and subscription options. However, I don't think we're there yet, and besides, that's the sort of problem we want to have. That problem is just a direct indication that a large number of people are enjoying the forum and participating.

There are enough objections - particularly Daniel the smith's - that I am putting this idea on indefinite hold. There is a problem, but I want a better solution.

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We could always say a maximum of 5 Malkovich games going on at any one time, with no-one involved in more than one of them. People put nominated matchups up and we have a poll vote - highest votes gets selected to play. That way, it serves the community's interests rather than the desires of two players.

if you want community intrest then as long as there are few people who are intrested in watching the game it should be ok to play.
they always can ignore if they wish.
i dont know why this issue came up.. but..after my games i will quit playing until 100% of members agree that it is ok for me to play.
why??? because i have to serve the community's intrests.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

You don't need 100% of the community's support to serve their interests, just like how the President doesn't need 100% of the country's votes to serve.

NOOOOO, please keep playing! If people aren't interested then they don't read - but I enjoy observing for sure, as do many others!

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

I think that's MW's point...

I just suggested to create a seperate sub forum for turn based play.

The Malkovich subforum with games aimed at the spectators, to give the spectators an insight in the players thoughts. The players have the obligation to comment on their moves and answer questions from the spectators. This does not need to be really long comments and questions, but they should provide some quality to the game for the spectators. This subforum should not have dozens of games, but a limit is not necessary as the quality is good.

The turn based subforum with games aimed at the players. Giving the players a chance to get experience. The principles are just the same and the players can still comment on their move if they want to and spectators can ask questions. But there are no obligations from the players.

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Laurens
Go school: freegame's Teaching School
Author of: The Next Move a book for 15-3kyu players.

I would be very disappointed if this thread deterred Magicwand from playing games.

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be immersed