Yes, taking the KGS rating repartition and applying it to the whole inactive population looks unreasonable to me.HermanHiddema wrote:I don't either, but I'm more specifically talking about 80% of the "active playing population". I think we agree that for every player in the EGD there's probably at least ten that "learned the rules". I just wouldn't count most of those as active.
Another data point for France:
Census: 20000
EGD: 5300
Took his licence for 2015: 1400 (source: French Federation)
The last number excludes some players of all strength levels (that play locally, don't go to tournaments and choose not to take their licence), so it would be a conservative estimate for the active population. It's still probably closer than EGD in my opinion (depending on your definition of "active").
I have trouble to see what the first number could refer to. I would say it is too low for "having been exposed to the game once". It might be reasonable for "having entered a go club at least once".