Why does AGA not push KGS into a decent web-interface?

[Pippen]

KGS is a really good and stable Go place with simplicity. But since years it loses people because the java-client is just not up to date anymore. Shin‘s KGS website is working but does not offer the whole package. Why is AGA not updating KGS into a web-browser like OGS? KGS would flourish again and not die out slowly.

[Knotwilg]

KGS is a really good and stable Go place with simplicity. But since years it loses people because the java-client is just not up to date anymore. Shin‘s KGS website is working but does not offer the whole package. Why is AGA not updating KGS into a web-browser like OGS? KGS would flourish again and not die out slowly.

Fox has an executable client too and still it's very popular. OGS has a web client but is very empty at times.
I agree that a web client would be good but I'm not sure it is key to popularity.

[gowan]

The AGA is a volunteer organization so I suppose there might be a feeling that fixing (reworking) something that works is not worth the money it would cost to carry it out. As was mentioned in Knotwilg's post, the format of the website is not a determiner of the success. I think most go players couldn't care much whether java is part of it. It might be something related to where the players come from. Fox is very popular in the Orient and maybe KGS depends more on Western players. Two other go websites that seem to be more Western, Sensei's Library and Life in 19x19, also appear not to be thriving.

[HKA]

I am too much of luddite to understand the technical issue, but the answer to why the AGA does not update KGS is that it cannot.

[Javaness2]

Isn't it the American Go Foundation that owns KGS now?
Maybe they can ask Demis if he's got a spare moment

[Pippen]

They would just need to pay the author of shinKGS to finish the web-browser KGS. Not magic. I just wonder what their plans are about KGS.

[xela]

I think the client software is just one of many factors which affect the popularity. KGS and OGS are also caught in the vicious circle of: dan players don't go there, because they can't get a good game against other dan players, because dan players aren't going there, because...

For chess, noone uses client software any more. The two major servers are both web-based.

The KGS client is Java-based. Java is no longer ubiquitous the way it was at its peak. It's looking very dated now even compared to the Fox client.

Building a full web interface is an expensive and difficult job, and I can understand why the AGA wouldn't want to take it on. What about an open source solution? Searching today, I see that the KGS API now has some documentation, although it's not exactly easy to find (not linked from the home page). In the chess world, open source has been working very well for lichess. It also seems to be going just fine for OGS. Maybe the AGA doesn't actually need to do the technical work themselves? (Why did shinKGS not go further and implement automatch and reviews?)

[ArsenLapin]

I seem to recall the American Go Foundation being tasked with updating the client and server at some point, but then publishing a statement saying essentially "Thank you for asking us to do this but this is a daunting task and we just don't have the means". I can't find the statement again.

KGS had been very much a one-person project for years and years and I think any effort at maintaining this project needs to begin by a hard reverse-engineering step. ShinKGS and GoUniverse are pretty impressive but I don't think they will ever be complete.

[Kirby]

There are lots of players available 24/7 on fox, so it's easy to get a game. The ranking system is also better than KGS's for improving players. So if you just want to play games, fox is a better option.

What KGS had going for it before was the Western go player community. To get that back, it'd be more practical to have go events (e.g. tournaments or pro matches) that folks are interested in participating in and/or watching.

I suppose one important aspect for a client is to properly handle timeouts. I recall the first Transatlantic Go Tournament. That was a go event that garnered a lot of interest, but ended poorly, perhaps partially due to connection issues.

Anyway, IMO, the future of KGS is brighter if more events and/or activities are held there, aside from just regular games (for which a client like fox works just fine).