I hear you, and I do not have a clear answer here.
My impression is that on-line faceless games are different from face-to-face interaction.
I am not really sure why, but this is how I feel. There is so much more to face-to-face stuff... tone of voice, body language, and so on... to be nice to somebody takes an effort, since you can say the same words and stiff be offensive or polite... To be polite in 'real life' means more to me. I understand that the same reasoning can be applied, people can say 'thanks' automatically, but it is usually very easy to tell - and regarded appropriately.

Typing 'hi' and 'thx' is meaningless to me, and one reason for that is that this stuff can be typed in without any effort, and you still not sure if it is meaningful or not, sarcastic or not, or whatever.

As I said - a parallel for me in on-line interaction would be typing a whole sentence rather than some silly abbreviation like 'gg'. If you can't be bothered to type in 'have a good game' then how meaningful is the 'gg' that you type? And how should it show any respect for the opponent and for the game?

Well, but this is just me, and I understand that various people have various ways.
If all this 'thx' and 'gg' make you happy, I will keep typing it before/after games. Enjoy.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Dang, I thought I had written a P.S. that said that the last paragraph was more of something I'd wanted to say all thread, rather than something directed at you in particular, Kirby. Not that I thought you shouldn't respond, but I wasn't intending to call you out.

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Occupy Babel!

Ah, man. I think I just get off on arguing too much. It's pretty fun.

Thanks, though.

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be immersed

Unbelievable, we are discussing whether greeting people is meaningful or not.

Politess, by definition, is a set of protocols. Greeting does not have to be sincere. As a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with sincerity.

"Good morning" is not to be taken literally, i.e. it does not mean "I wish your morning passes well". It can (but does not have to) mean "I am here, I saw you, if you wish we can start a conversation, etc".

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

Isn't this dependent on the person? When I say "Good morning.", I do mean precisely what you said it doesn't mean: "I wish you a good morning." When I mean "Hey, I'm here, etc.", then I just say "Hello!". (A friend got me out of the habit of saying "Hey!", because she'd always respond: "Hay is for horses."

Sorry, I meant "it does not have to mean ...".

Some years ago when I was living in germany, I had a boss greeting people all the time by saying "mahlzeit". I am not german native speaker but normally, you say that before meal, no? That was his way of greeting (informally of course). No need to say he was a fat guy

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

"Mahlzeit" literally does mean "meal time", but in some Southern regions people tend to say it around noon time as a greeting. Kind of like "good day". It's not done in my area (close to the French border), but I believe it's common in Baden-Württemberg and especially in Bavaria. Quite possibly in Austria, too. Maybe in other areas too.

Nah, actually it's quite a common greeting in many parts of Germany. (The appropriate response is "Mahlzeit" - similar to answering "how do you do?" with "how do you do?"). In the south though, they'll greet you with: Grüß Gott (short for "may god greet you"), which to my non-native ears sounds like a command, as in: "Say hi to god!" Wouldn't it be kind of silly though to stubbornly pretend that that's what they meant?. Some Germans do exactly that, responding: "I will if I see him." This however is at least kind of funny, and a good deal better than not responding at all.

Btw., I don't necessarily have a high opinion of people I don't know, and while some of those who don't type "hi" and "thanks" are perhaps non-native speakers or whatever, my general assumption is that they are jerks. (At least online). Perhaps that's the desired effect, though writing: "You are not worth wasting my time" would be more explicit.

Edit: I just realized that my post is a bit hypocritical, because I do in fact stubbornly pretend that the lack of greeting is intentionally offensive, despite the fact that some of you have pointed out that you don't mean it that way. On the other hand, I'm never offended when someone says "hi," and I do wonder if avoiding a meaningless pleasantry is worth the risk of offending somebody - be they hypocrite or not.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I would like to wish you all a very good morning, and success in your endeavors!

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

That's internationally rude, Chew. The morning has ended long ago.

Wait, you mean I'm supposed to already be awake? There isn't enough coffee in the world...

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

I agree. Very good post.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

The down side to a well-defined set of pleasantries is that it provides cover for the truly unpleasant people. ( Anyone read 'The Sociopath Next Door'? Or 'American Psycho'? ) If it were custom for everyone to be natural and honest and sincere, these people would be outed easily. But all you have to do is memorize 20 trite phrases, say them at right time, wear a tie and smile at people, and you fit in. You can be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Consequently, I am suspicious of people who fit in too well, who always say the right things, and who always have the knot of their tie adjusted just so. And that suspicion has done well for me.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

When you press the "review" button, it is *YOUR* review. It appears only in your game list. When you close, you can choose to save or not. Your opponent is not given that option when they close. If they want their own review, you have already taken the "easy way" of pressing the button, so they'll have to open their game list (or yours) and choose to re-open the original game. Then they'll have their own review that they can save or not (and you can't) which will appear in their game list.

Did you ever notice that most everyone on IGS says: "Let's begin and enjoy a great game."?

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Patience, grasshopper.

I rest my case!

Hi all,

Well, I know it has been a few days since this thread has been posted too, but I just found it (being new here) and I hope I can provide some insight as someone who is relatively new to Go and very new to online Go.

In general, so far, I have found the vast majority of people on KGS to be polite and friendly, with unfortunately one exception. In my second game on the server, I joined a 9X9 game that was open to anyone (and I clearly identify myself as a beginner). That the player didn't greet me didn't seem odd to me (because I had just started playing on the server after all). What did bother me however was that the only thing the player said to me was to order me to resign, After I resigned, he (or she) simply disappeared. It made me feel as if he viewed me as a waste of his time. Even a simple hi at the beginning and a thanks for the game at the end would have taken a lot of the sting out of his telling me to resign.

Whether here or on KGS or on another server or forum, we are creating a community of people who play Go. Different communities of course can have different rules of behavior, but those rules are important to maintaining a community. This is true, even if the responses are canned responses like on IGS.

More importantly, I think they throw away lines help us to remember that we are playing another person, not a computer. Perhaps the international online chess community doesn't communicate during games; maybe that is because the online chess players have played against computers for so long, that they no longer really care if they are playing a computer or a person? Indeed, with chess, if no one says anything, how can one be sure one isn't playing against a bot?

I am certainly on the side of politeness. Greetings and farewells may seem meaningless, but they provide the person who uses them a little reminder that they are interacting with another person. They tell the receiver, that they are viewed as a person. And that, I think is the foundation of a good community, whether online or in real life!

--
Bill

I think after that we should add a spam filter that removes auto generated messages. Since while you can argue that the user typing a greeting is worth something, auto generated greetings have even less meaning.

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Sanity is for the weak.

IGS is a system that has users from many different countries, of which many don't speak English. Canned greetings are thus (for now) the only plausible way of adding a veneer of civility.

I'm a bit of a sociopath myself. It would be a nice option to be able to select chat/no-chat on autoplay.

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I am John. John-I-Am.