Small essay on LGs community

Today, as I rode the train, I was thinking a little bit about what LG means to me and how it's special — all those kind of things. I'd like to share some of those thoughts, because I feel talkative. It's more or less a quick analysis of LG's community.

Nowadays, when you browse the internet you'll see things like #MLG, memeblasts e.g. oversized pictures, TROLOLOLOLO roflcopterskates, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), etc. basically everywhere. Littlegolem doesn't have any of that, in the extreme case you'll find one of those: ":)". It's not a bad thing — I like this kind of mature atmosphere where you can talk properly. Someone here recently told me he visits LG in order to meet like minded-people and for intellectual challenge, I think that's how many people here feel and that mature atmosphere is fitting very well into it.It's still weird though: Everyone can register here, yet when I look around I feel like every third or so player here is some kind of professor or something. That's kind of amazing, seems almost miraculous.

It's actually not that hard to come up with a possible explanation: Littlegolem was created quite a while ago, back in 2002 when all these childish things weren't there. Then it maintained its serious atmosphere, because it never went viral so there was no flood of people who would change it. Rather anyone who joins would adjust his behaviour accordingly to fit in.

So anyway, I guess it is due to that atmosphere that people have a very serious attitude when they are here and I believe that is not limited to how they hold conversations. They also take their playing very seriously. Maybe too serious?Personally, I used to see the dots and boxes championship here as the actual world championship, just because the strongest players used to play here and there was no official one. Now I feel kind of silly about it, isn't LG just some webpage? I'm not even using my real name anyway (though many players here actually do use their real names). You also frequently see people complain about timeouts and how manipulating tournaments is terrible and all that, but then again, isn't it just a fun website? Can you actually count this as a "sin"?On a fun-based site, usually I would just play whatever I like to play and if I don't like to play it I just don't do it, so I resign or time out, because I don't get back to it. It would be kind of weird if you played on a fun-based site without having fun. People are spontaneous though, so at some point they want to play something and register for games, then 5 minutes later they want to quit again so they actually don't play. And then they are asked "do you feel bad for manipulating the tournament" and I'm wondering: "should they feel bad about it? It's just a boardgaming-site dude, or is it?"

People here play seriously and they have serious conversations, is that fun though? When I think about how I talk to my closest friends then... well, I'm not serious at all. I am super serious when I talk to someone superior than myself, like during an anal exam and of course exams are the most fun thing ever. Sorry, I meant oral. See, that's the kind of joke I'd usually pull in every fifth sentence, but not here, because I feel it's out of place — after all everybody is serious. Well, kind of exaggerating here, but you get the idea, right? (of course you get it, you have a 33% chance of being a professor after all and even if you aren't you still likely have a Ph.D)Now, to answer the question: Even though everything is serious it can obviously still be fun, I have had lots of fun during serious conversations and serious competition is very thrilling.However, LG may come across as somewhat intimidating. You don't want to look stupid in front of others which is kind of hard here, because everyone is a genius. This may actually be a problem for LG to gather new, especially younger, players. Seriousness makes it hard to get someones sympathy, in school you just pull a stupid joke and everyone is all over you, but getting someone to like you because of serious posts? That's hard. In other words, everyone feels kind of distant and you hardly find someone you can call a true friend. I think many people find LG and then after a while they feel stupid, because everyone else is kinda smart, additionally they couldn't befriend anyone either, so in the end they just drop out.

Alright, I guess that's all I can think of for now, this got way too long anyhow.

Oh, no this is terrible formating

https://xkcd.com/1386/

Well, you know, people on LG are geniuses *si... wait, let's not go there.

Overall very true. There's one thing I'd like to add here. The design of the site and its goal are not likely to attract a lot of youngsters. What youngsters are attracted to are "stuff that jump around with lots of colors". Angry Birds! Or real-time games in general, war games with lots of animations and sound effects. Hell, who wants to spend more than 5 seconds on a static page nowadays? Well, let these rare weirdos come here and leave the shiny stuff to the others, that's great as it is, at least for me. Probably not much for Richard's wallet. But apparently he didn't make the site to fill his wallet, rather he stands for what he likes and kudos for that. Just wish more people would give him some support for his hard work, though.

Much respect for Richard's work, true.

When browsing the forum or talking to some of the players here I noticed quite a few of them are actually friends with each other (not saying if they were before or due to LG). I know quite a few examples of very young players that were attracted by LG and still stay.

However, about the intimidating atmosphere and feeling stupid.. This forum might be serious but bashing people for not so thoroughly reflected posts still happens. The bashs might be more smart but yet..

Does it make you a weirdo to just play board-games? I mean, nowadays that itself is kind of weird? Anyway, I also like those rare weirdos that come here and stay. Though I must say I also like some of the other weirdos, that come (which in itself is weird) and then unfortunately don't stay. Sometimes, after a player leaves LG, I think maybe I could have made him/her stay, if only I had loosened up our conversations a bit making it more fun for that someone to be here. And with that I don't mean spamming everywhere, acting stupid and destroying LGs nice mature atmosphere, just opening up a bit, maybe adding some serious humor. I think even serious weirdos can sozialise with each other more and personally I thought I was missing out on that a little bit when I was here. Well, maybe just a little, overall I agree that LG is great as it is.

I almost only know people that like boardgames.

But apart from the Internet I know almost no one that likes competetive games (and I consider games for 2 players with no luck involved are kind of part of that).

Well, I was feeling young when I joined LG ;)

Yeah, are there any other kids on this site? I'm 14, haha!

The structure of the site does make it very impersonal. Forums seem hidden away and there is no summary of in game conversation. Being asynchronous the conversation is fairly stilted and you might make moves in 30+ games each time you visit the site.

My experience of abstract players is varied but there are a larger proportion of people with difficulties maintaining social interactions represented than in the wider public.

You can say that again :)

Jugular, your last observation definitely strikes a chord with me.  And I'd hate to get all Arts/Sciences about this, but I feel it does make a difference whether you're the sort of person who thinks of abstract games primarily as a family of combinatorial structures or who, on the other hand, regards them as an art form.

Certainly I reckon that that polarity goes some way towards explaining the otherwise mystifying antipathy to Chess which is to be found in many abstract fans.  I mean, it's not hard to see why Chess might not appeal to a certain kind of technical purist, but on the other hand its legacy of exquisite games is pretty much unanswerable.

And I'm still trying to figure out how something like the *same* polarity aligns with the reigning preference which one seems to detect nowadays for placement over movement.

You could posit it is driven by the filter of Chess or Go being your entry (or deeper entry) into abstracts (which probably accounts for 90%+ of abstract gamers).

If Chess was your path to the "combinatorials" you prefer movement and if Go was your path you prefer placement. This chimes with my experience as a Go player turned placement game fan. I have no idea how robust it is in general. And regardless it may just be a correlation reflecting some deeper cognitive affinity.

Are you perhaps suggesting that placement fans are more "liberal arts" and movement fans are more "science and mathematics"? If so, I wouldn't say that I've seen such a strong correlation in my experience.

It's noticeable that the chat is more relaxed in the less intense games on the site. Einstein Wurfelt Nicht & Streetsoccer (and I would imagine WYPS) are where you go if you want the occasional hello.

I always found it obvious that the mathematicians see those games as a family of combinatorial structures AND as an art form at the same time. At least that's my view. Pretty curious to learn it's different for some people.

Maybe your theory holds. My entry to the world of abstract games was neither Chess nor Go (and I dislike both games to a certain degree) but another placement game and in general I tend to prefer placement games.

Richard Moxham ★,

Have you played the old Asian/Chinese game of Go (aka WeiQi in China and Baduk in Korea, etc.)? LIke Chess it has many "abstract fans". The playing pieces are placed on the board (a grid like Chess, but larger, usually 19x19, but smaller games can be played, like 13x13) and never moved (only removed when captured). The play is, IMO, more organic than Chess; and I find the Go/WeiQi player population to have a slightly higher "Art" type (and female too) percentage of population compared to Chess.

purgency,.

You have some interesting thoughts ( essay on LGs community ).... I wonder how many people here on LittleGolem have connected up else-where (on FaceBook, or Google+, or LiveJournal, or "In Real Life") after meeting here.

Carroll ★, funny.... and good point. ;-)

jugular, depending on which games, how many, and how often a person plays here I think the  structure and "impersonal level" varies substantially.  For example I only play a few games here, which then allows me a little more time to be personal; additionally since I only play a few games I have an easier time remembering who I played, recognizing/remembering them, and starting up a conversation, which in some cases the conversation got moved to email or FaceBook connections.  So a lot depends on the player, IMO.

All,

As an analogy, this game server (LittleGolem) compares to other board-game-servers in my experience in a similar way that the LiveJournal social website compares to FaceBook; that is FaceBook (and more so Twitter) tend to have people post short bits (with not much depth, and photos on FB) where-as LiveJournal tends to be longer essays.... for what-ever that is worth.

P.S. - it would be nice if we could "+1"/like (agree with) posts here. :)

+1 to:Are you perhaps suggesting that placement fans are more “liberal arts” and movement fans are more “science and mathematics”? If so, I wouldn’t say that I’ve seen such a strong correlation in my experience.

and +1 to:I always found it obvious that the mathematicians see those games as a family of combinatorial structures AND as an art form at the same time. At least that’s my view. Pretty curious to learn it’s different for some people.

Hi Sighris

You wrote:

"Have you played the old Asian/Chinese game of Go (aka WeiQi in China and Baduk in Korea, etc.)? LIke Chess it has many “abstract fans”. The playing pieces are placed on the board (a grid like Chess, but larger, usually 19x19, but smaller games can be played, like 13x13) and never moved (only removed when captured). The play is, IMO, more organic than Chess; and I find the Go/WeiQi player population to have a slightly higher “Art” type (and female too) percentage of population compared to Chess."

I don't really follow.  Summed up (if possible) in one sentence, what's your argument here?

Hello Richard Moxham ★ ,

Let me try again, but it will take more than one sentence.

Have you played Go?

I ask because I would guess you have, but I'm not sure.... and in my experience: there are many “abstract fans” who play Go.  The Go playing pieces are placed on the board and never moved. (that is in reference to the last line in your above post, 16 hours ago).

 In my experience the Go player population has a higher percentage of  (using your word) “Art” types (and female gender too)than that of the Chess (a moving piece game) population / crowd / players, which in my experience seem to be more of the "Science" types.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of mathematicians, programmers, and scientists who play Go too; but I would say less so than Chess, and the programmers I have met who play Go often have expressed something along the lines of "programming is as much an art as science" and "there is an art to playing Go as much as a science", but the Chess players I have met (with some exceptions of course) tend to have a stronger belief that programming (and Chess) is a pure science, no art needed.  To clarify, I'm not saying that belief is true, I'm just pointing out that I have noticed a difference in the personalities of the players of Chess and Go.

If I had to sum up the above to be as short as possible, then: I agree with jugular- "Are you perhaps suggesting that placement fans are more “liberal arts” and movement fans are more “science and mathematics”? If so, I wouldn’t say that I’ve seen such a strong correlation in my experience."

Is that easier to understand?  Not a strong argument, more like just sharing my observations / opinion on Chess players and Go players.

BTW, Go has a "legacy of exquisite games"too.

I don't have any friends.  I have a few acquaintances who don't want to kill me.

"I got no friends, Donnegan, not even you."  -> Vera Cruz 1954  :-))