Life In 19x19

Now that T Mark Hall is safely and benignly looking down on the rest of us, I am glad to say I can make the first step in a promise to him to try to keep his beloved GoGoD going.

There are, however, quite a few changes. I have very little time, and have had to trim, and also call on the help of one of my daughters (who is not a go player).

The most important are:

1. We have a new site: www.gogodonline.co.uk
2. We no longer offer CDs - downloads only
3. The only item being offered now is the database of sgf games. The Encyclopaedia (including the Names Dictionary) has been removed from this package. You will need to provide your own support programs (e.g. Kombilo).
4. The price has been drastically reduced to US$15.

Continuation of this version of the project depends on it being a hassle-free operation. I personally will not be involved in any admin.

The present version has over 79,000 games. Mark left a fairly large backlog of games for me to process, and the only era which was left significantly underdone was the 1920s. I am working on that, but I am a tortoise compared to Mark's hare.

Our original aim was to get to 100,000 then stop. Our calculation was that by then we would have covered almost everything old, so that then mostly only new games would need to be added, which is a relatively trivial exercise. That 100k remains the target (with at least two updates a year), but instead of being five or six years away, we may need to learn to wait for the nightingale to sing.

Note that the database is and will be incorporated in various SmartGo products, in this case along with the Names Dictionary. There the games are heavily compressed and so are not usable by other programs, but of course you do get all the other SmartGo features.

In that connection you may wish to note that work "From the GoGoD Archives" also continues and our newest book "New Ways in Go" (a translation of Honinbo Shuho's Hoen Shinpo) has just been published as a SmartGo book. The next book, the Meijin Inseki's "Today We Have a Splendid Feast", is essentially just awaiting a cover design.

Thanks again for providing this terrific go database.

I do have one question that doesn't seem to be answered on the site:

Will future updates be provided free or at a discount once the archive has been purchased?

Will future updates be provided free or at a discount once the archive has been purchased?

A reasonable question. I thought it was covered by the FAQ but the answer is no - we want no hassle and think the price (which equates to $30 a year) is low enough already. However, if that aspect is important to you it may well (I haven't personally checked) be a feature offered by SmartGo.

Thank you for your continued work on the project.

Glad to learn that GoGoD is back. And thanks to your daughter for stepping in to help.

John,

I am not your man, but I hope you get an offer of a modest partnership from a web-savvy developer, who can maintain what you've already accomplished, and make GoGoD even more useful going forward.

Thank you (and your daughter) very much for trying to maintain it as best you can. Best wishes!

What are your plans for the encyclopedia?

What are your plans for the encyclopedia?

Nothing specific, beyond not maintaining it and spelling it as encyclopaedia However, I extract bits to make into e-books, and I also had a brief chat with macelee at Mark's funeral and suggested there may be a possible collaboration there. But it's far too early to make any commitments.

Now a question to you. Why?

Sounds like a very good incentive to transcribe games. So if you would like some help with entering games, I'd like to offer assistance. (I'm living in Vienna, Austria.)

By all means, thank you, and if it comes to more than a row of beans we can talk about free updates (which would apply to others). But you'll have to provide your own sources. The ones I'm using at the moment (ancient Kidos) are too valuable to leave my side.

John Fairbairn wrote:[..] you'll have to provide your own sources. The ones I'm using at the moment (ancient Kidos) are too valuable to leave my side.

Wouldn’t photocopies/scans/photos of these preciosities do as well?


Grtz, Tom

Wouldn’t photocopies/scans/photos of these preciosities do as well?

Leaving aside the considerable time that would be involved, the volumes are tightly bound and are impossible to open anywhere near flat for copying. Photos don't come close, either, and there are problems with Chinese numerals, poor print copy and disintegrating paper. Even just reading the original leads to crickitis of the neck.

If you are really considering manually transcribing data from 20000 games over a several year period, it might make more sense to spend a year or more automating the process, so that a computer program can do the tedious work for you. A good camera on a tripod could capture the images better and more quickly than a person with a bent neck. If the images are distorted because the pages are not flat, that can be corrected. I don't know the state of Optical Character Recognition for Chinese, but it might automate a good part of the process. Maybe Google would even be interested in this effort, perhaps as a trial or demonstration project: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library/index.html.

John Fairbairn wrote:

Wouldn’t photocopies/scans/photos of these preciosities do as well?

Leaving aside the considerable time that would be involved,

yes. Time and work.

the volumes are tightly bound and are impossible to open anywhere near flat for copying.

OK, so no scanning.

Photos don't come close, either, and there are problems with Chinese numerals, poor print copy

With all respect, John, are you familiar with the current state of photography and image manipulation? I for one have some experience with making photos that show “nothing” show “something”, and something recognizable for that. And anybody with a little experience with Photoshop or Gimp can do that, using “levels” and “curves”.

and disintegrating paper.

One more, severe, reason to digitalize it, lest they get lost for all future

Greetings, Tom

While many people have good intentions to help, probably few understand the nature and the challenge of the work John is about to take. Transcribing games manually is only part of the job. In addition to hard work and a lot of patience, the following are also required:

1) Good knowledge of Go history. It takes time to investigate the background information for old games and tournaments. Remember we rarely have any internet-based reference materials for old Go stuff. John's brain is better than Google here.
2) Mastering oriental languages, as the materials are mainly in Japanese (possibly some in Chinese and Korean). Even the moves themselves are most likely to be in Chinese characters.
3) Dan-level playing strength. When compiling old games it is often necessary to use judgement to correct mistakes in the raw materials. Remember game records in old books are not created with computers and errors get into them easily (many errors are fixable with good Go-playing skills).

Very few people possess all the expertise mentioned above but John is certainly one of them. In my opinion, the single most important thing for John is to gradually improve efficiency by improving procedures while going through the old materials. Sophisticated IT systems can help, but only to a certain degree.

On the other hand, a good IT system can surely be set up to save most contents in the encyclopaedia. (John I'll contact you in private to make a few suggestions).

John Fairbairn wrote:

What are your plans for the encyclopedia?

Nothing specific, beyond not maintaining it and spelling it as encyclopaedia However, I extract bits to make into e-books, and I also had a brief chat with macelee at Mark's funeral and suggested there may be a possible collaboration there. But it's far too early to make any commitments.

Now a question to you. Why?

It's just that aside from the database, the wealth of assorted goodies that was on the CD was alone worth the price. While I am looking forward to any new books you may produce, much of the material in the encyclopedia does not seem suitable to be incorporated in book form, and I was just a little saddened to see it go out of print. Good luck with your future endeavors - I hope the collaboration with Mace Lee works out.

Bonobo wrote:

the volumes are tightly bound and are impossible to open anywhere near flat for copying.

OK, so no scanning.

http://www.amazon.com/VuPoint-Solutions ... B002R0BFAA