That's also a very nice answer

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

One thing I've noticed about stronger players is that they can rarely answer questions without seeing a concrete position. IOW, stronger players take a lot into account (possibly a lot they don't even realize) when making judgments, and they just can't answer questions that don't supply that information. It's not that they won't, they literally can't.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

That's very much understandable. But sometimes it's also possible to give small hints that are too abstract for a stronger player but can give a kyu player a starting point. For example Bill said "difficult to help without concrete example" but he already gave me something valuable to think about. I appreciate every answer.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Sorry if that response was abrupt. I was reacting because I feel as if you're telling people "I want answers, but only on my terms." And on top of that, I think your terms are ones that make it harder for you as well as for the people who are answering. They're happy to help, but it's much harder if you insist on avoiding particular positions.

Maybe the conflict you're thinking of isn't real: examples help give context to abstract principles, while those principles help summarize what you learn from the examples.

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Occupy Babel!

But I already got some very nice responses that include information new to me. I can easily draw a diagram of the imaginary example I gave (5 heavy stones etc) but I don't see what it would add to the core question, other than eventually introducing some tactical discussions which concern the specific position rather than the abstract concept.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

That's sort of my point: the things that are abstract concepts to us, are much of the time to stronger players just tactics. Imagine a 20k wanting to know which extension to make when he's about to lose 25 critical cutting stones in a snapback. There's no answer to his question because he's thinking about the position all wrong. This happens so much that I basically never ask vague questions any more. Invariably when I ask "should I do X or Y here?" the answer is "W or Z, and both X and Y hurt your position."

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

I see your point.

But you can also look at it this way: Imagine a 30k asking "is one eye enough to live?". According to the general principle, the answer is no. And that's what he wants to know.

If he was asking the same question with an example, you would probably say, "but this eye is false" or even something like "why don't you escape to center instead of making an eye here". You would probably be perfectly right but that's not the bit of information he is asking for.

Another example "is it good to have a weak group between two weak opponent groups?". The very simple answer would be yes (of course with some more generic explanations like because you spend one move to protect and your opponent two moves, blablabla). This alone is a valuable piece of information. It may not always be true but the fact that it is true in 70% of cases is enough for somebody who is ignorant enough to ask this question.

If a 15k tries to get this simple information by an example from his own games, I can imagine the tactical discussions that would be involved

Anyway, I totally accept that you also have a point, but that is the other side of coin in my opinion. Therefore I still value generic questions and answers, with the condition that everybody is aware of the fact that they cannot be applied blindly.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

The correct answer is, Maybe. As for what the 30 kyu wants to know, I can only guess. That's one reason to ask for an example.



That may reflect your experience. If so, that is too bad, as that kind of thing can be frustrating. At the same time, however, I think that you underestimate our intelligence. There is no guarantee that the student knows what question to ask. In fact it is a commonplace that understanding the problem or question can get you most of the way to the solution or answer. What is the point of answering the wrong question?

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill, I know you sincerely want to help and I greatly appreciate it. In fact your first post was already informative enough.

But I think that's enough with this "how to ask questions" kind of discussion.
Unless somebody still has something to say about my initial question, I consider this thread closed for my part.

I don't know how many times I thanked for the answers in this thread, but I don't mind doing it again. Thank you very much

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.