I have no problems with that.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Fix'd.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

Nick, first of all thank you for your comments at the end of your lengthy post. I would like to move on, but I must respond to your comments about my post, in hope they will help you move on.

John did not call anyone's specific post "disgraceful hounding". He did not even say that hounding occured on these forums.

I read your initial question as asking "who quit", not "who hounded". I felt it was disingenuous because you clearly knew who quit. Apparently, that is not what you meant.

Again, I can only read what you say, "the AGA never seems to have a hand in" efforts to promote go. If you mean to emphasize the "seems" at least put it before the "never".

John did not prevent anyone from defending themselves, you decided to whether necessary or not.

Sarcasm? Sure, I was offended, as Phil Waldron was, by your remark about our tournament efforts. But my praise for your skill set is sincere. You are the type of young, cool - this game is not just for geeks, Asians and old men - sort that we need spreading go. You are in the mold of Gregory Lefler, and if you think I would mention you in the same sentence as him without being sincere, then you do not know me at all.

I am sure you teach alot. That is not my point. I teach alot, I give game reviews here, almost every night on KGS to friends and their opponents, and on GoDisc tourney games. I give go demos to parents who adopt children from Asia. I taught at a korean school. And I run a club where I am the strongest person almost every week. Maybe you teach more, I hope you do.

You were talking about contributing to the AGA. My name, email and phone number are listed as a contact. For 20 years I have made sure, 95% of the time it is me, that someone brings equipment and makes sure there is a club. For the same 20 years I have given up a holiday weekend so folks can play in a tournament. I have run an Easterns, two Fujitsus, a Congress and an OZA. This is the AGA.

Again, here is the problem folks. The AGA, AGF, Nick, Obama, Hikaru and Dominos are all succeeding in getting folks interested and aware of go. How can we get the AGA to stop tripping over itself and get more of these folks involved?

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

I guess the question that comes to my mind is, "What does the AGA want to do?".

I am an AGA member to go to tournaments. That's pretty much the only reason.

Maybe if the AGA had more clear goals, it would be easier for people to step up and try to achieve them.

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be immersed

If the AGA's goal is to "get folks interested and aware of go", then it seems like it's already succeeding with the Nicks of the world. Is there some other goal of the AGA that requires participation in its organization? Is it important to gather and organize the "independents", or is it sufficient for the AGA to say, "Good job! Keep up the good work," and then focus on other ways of getting people interested in the game?

Honest questions I don't have good answers to.

Hooray! I sure do love it when my favorite people start fighting! On the internet, even! The lack of proper nouns & intentional vagueness has also made this thread SUPER AWESOME.

Keith's point about moving on is timely, so assuming we're past the miscommunication about who-was-hounded vs. who-was-hounding, i'd like to pull out some really interesting points that came out of the discussion.

--

Re: what does the AGA want to do:

To go back to the AGA bylaws (which i've happily re-read as part of my candidacy), the stated purpose of the AGA is:

"to foster knowledge and appreciation of the game and art of "go" ... in the United States of America through publicizing the game; to encourage and assist in game activities and education; to promote tournaments, seminars, professional tours, congresses, and improvement of individual game skills throughout the nation; and to encourage intercultural and international goodwill through related activities."


With that as context...

As HKA has rightly pointed out, shapenaji's contributions to the AGA proper are tangential at best. Shapenaji -- I don't think HKA was being sarcastic at all, that it is instead a very meaningful question: Your efforts at spreading the game have all been substantive & important, but they are all outside of the AGA. Your efforts have been directly contributing to the AGA's core goals, so you've been pulling in the right direction, but contributing to the AGA's goals at the same time as criticizing it from outside may not, in total, be a net positive for the AGA.

So the question is: Do actions taken outside of the AGA towards the same goals actually help the AGA? I would say yes -- but that they could be better!

HKA hits it on the head here:


and I think he's absolutely correct when he says that .


So, i'd like to recast HKA's three questions in a slightly different way.

1) There are people who are already working towards the AGA's goals. How can the AGA make those people more successful?

2) How can the AGA be valuable to these people -- the surest way to "fold them in." Provide tools? Equipment? Good online resources?

3) What is the best way to leverage our national "structure of clubs & tournaments" to meet the AGA's original goals? & how do we grow that structure?


Wish i had some good answers

#1 and #2 are different. If the AGA is valuable to these external actors, they will join the AGA. If the AGA helps them succeed in their evangelizing, some of their "flock" may end up at AGA events.


Here's an off-the-top-of-my-head idea: GoDiscussions & lifein19x19 are both great forums, and show that there's a clear utility in letting the geographically disparate go players be able to talk to each other. Why not have forums like this at http://www.usgo.org/forum/ , which we can log into with our AGA #'s & set up aliases & profiles? In one swoop, that'd turn these from external discussions to internal ones. "Fostering discussion about go" certainly seems co-incident with the AGA's mission, and it depends on some interesting tech tools -- embedding sgfs, special bulletin board smileys, etc. For instance, suppose i wanted to start a go blog for my club & embed SGFs, can the AGA point me in the right direction?

I'm sure it's been discussed before -- was there any consensus?


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re: vash3g's comments: Did you include Alf's club finder tool on your list of upcoming projects? Last I saw it was really awesome but not completely finished yet...

I like this post. (I know, I know, there is an "app" for that).

It is a legitimate point. Personally, I think we need to "gather and organize" in order to have bigger and better events and maybe even, someday, truly homegrown pros. I would argue without increased numbers and substantial face to face interaction, the type of trust and organization necessary cannot occur.

However, this forum, for example, continues to thrive with many of the main movers, I think, having never met each other. Of course, I would argue that this is an ideal example of an online group creating an online forum - but it is undeniable that things can be accomplished outside the traditional vision.

Whether it needs to or not, the AGA would like to gather these folks. In the old days, we were the only game in town, if you built them they would come. This is no longer the case.

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

Like any volunteer organization, the AGA's primary mission is to serve its membership, i.e., to serve the needs of itself. You, me and every other AGA member are the AGA - we are the organization. It might sound trite but that's how volunteer organizations work. Agendas and change almost always come from the bottom up. So if folks are unhappy with the status quo, they need to form coalitions with specific goals and agendas, elect people who represent those agendas, and consequently change the direction of the organization. Barring a coup d'état is there really another way?

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Alf's tool = promote go = mostly finished chapters db

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

I wonder if, rather than "gathering," the focus could be on "finding and publicizing". The AGA efforts I've been most impressed with are things like the club finder. I'd love it if I could find the non-AGA Asian "clubs" or informal gatherings somehow with such a tool. I'm less interested in AGA-ifying those people than I am playing some Go with them (or maybe just watching some games if nobody wants to play me due to my strength). And if a few local westerners were in the same boat, maybe we'd end up with our own (possibly AGA) club as a result.

I guess my stance is that I am completely satisfied with where the AGA is today. They are basically my facility to play face-to-face. I want to play in some tournaments, so I pay the AGA some money every year so that I can participate in them.

Other than that, I don't really expect or see the need for anything else. Maybe I find a coworker that plays go. That's pretty cool, and I might try to play them. But I don't feel the need to "convert" everyone that I know to a go player. I also study a couple of foreign languages. There are some interesting sites for connecting with those people. If I have the opportunity, sure, it is cool to communicate with others studying the same language... But I don't feel the need to try to get other people to study the same language as me.

The Internet makes it easy to play a game of go 24 hours a day. There are enough people that participate in AGA tournaments that I can play face to face when I'd like, too.

I don't really see the need for anything more than this. More people start to play go? That's cool! If more people don't start playing go... That's fine, too.

If numbers started reducing such that I couldn't find people to play against... Then, I might be a bit more concerned. But I think that things are perfectly fine the way they are today.

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be immersed

Y'know, it doesn't even need to be as radical as coalitions and coup d'états (although that is fun). How many folks with a beef against the AGA have brought it up to the head of their chapter? Sent an e-mail to their district representative? That is how an organization works, with discussion between members and representatives. You can't expect your concerns to be heard if you don't talk directly to the people who can address them. Only when that fails is it time for revolution.

I will say, no matter how much these threads sometimes seem like they will go out of bounds, they are important. I think many people are happy that there is real conversation between the older members and the new ones(at least I am). It actually gets me excited that there ARE people in the AGA(and quite a few not directly involved) who are working this hard to spread this game to as many people as they can.

Although, I will say HKA has done a good job of sending a positive message across, I'm very surprised with how some of the older members(both in age and in AGA) reacted here. I don't understand the constant aggression towards shapenaji. I really don't. He seems very enthusiastic about wanting to help the AGA. If he was not, he wouldn't be here at all. I also do not think this forum's population is here to cause trouble with the AGA. As far as I've seen, we actually WANT to help in however way we can. (Even if the best most of us can do for right now is answer your questions.)

I couldn't resist posting this, even if most will ignore it.

And finally, a thank you to the people who are vocal about their disappointment so that it will lead to development

-From a person who's not in the "go scene" at all.

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I know nothing.

Ketchup makes several good points. I've said this before but disagreement is a good thing. Happily agreeing with one another is nice, feels good, and is affirming, but it rarely moves things forward. We all want what we believe is best for our mutual passion - Go - so I think it would be useful to refrain from second guessing each others motives and simply work through substantive issues as they stand or fall.

Bottom line: I think we can (should) sufficiently bracket our egos to work through what would be beneficial to the AGA in the long term. What I find frustrating is the squandered talent that is collectively available. Let's give each other some credit for Christ's sake!

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

I started an similar topic over here:
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... f=22&t=809

Lets get some ideas then we can find those of us who would be willing to take on these projects.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

HKA:
You took the initiative, and I'll follow suit on moving on, with just a very few clarifications. (Very few, since the bulk of this misunderstanding seems to rely on "Whom" being applied to the direct object or the subject in JF's post)

With regard to the AGA "never seems"-"seems never" piece, I was specifically referring to media... my understanding is that most movies with chess in them, tend to have some consulting from chess players. We could learn from the USCF on this.

If JF was not referring to me in whole or part, then I'm more than happy to apologize.
JF: if you were not referring to me, Good-O! I'm very sorry for impugning your good opinions with this sidebar.

HKA: Thank you for the comparison to Greg Lefler, I never met him, but I've seen his impact and heard stories. (Also the comment about being cool, I have to admit, the short, oversensitive and overweight kid with asthma that was me is quietly amazed)

Lastly, I feel like whenever I have an opinion about the tournament system, it gets taken personally by someone. It's possible that my opinions are a tad heavy with hyperbole, but I feel like my so-called antagonism toward the AGA is pretty minimal. There seems to be a default hostility toward my posts. A sort've "Oh god, who is he attacking now?", I don't know that I've said anything antagonistic to either of you guys except in defense of myself...



Andy: Way to come in and clear up our semantics problems after the fact... sheesh... slacker

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

yes, I believe it has been discussed before, and (not speaking in an official AGA capacity) I believe the decision was to simply post a link on the AGA site pointing back to this forum with an official AGA subforum

the only thing missing is logging in with one's AGA #, but I wonder how important it is to keep the discussions "private"

I agree with you, however, I wonder how many members even know who their chapter representative is? Or how to communicate with them. And if they do know, do they feel like they are being heard?

Since the AGA subfourm has been linked from the AGA website, it feels like this is a semi-official way to talk to the AGA and voice one's concerns, and know that someone heard you, even if they may not agree.

I dunno, the number of chess sets I see in media that have a dark square in the lower right hand corner is pretty depressing.

It is also worth noting, for perspective's sake, that the USCF has even more problems than the AGA.

I would be interested in hearing what the USCF is like. I was wondering the other day if there were any lessons the AGA could take from the USCF.