How does this site become popular?

Nobody uses this site because nobody uses it. If people used this site then people would use it, but nobody uses it. How can this site gain popularity in either Japan or the west, or both? Get your gaijin minds off cartoons for a minute and join the brainstorm session. I think some sort of memey gimmick mechanic/variant could go a long way. All this site needs is to attain *some* notoriety by *some* means, and it'll have an opportunity to take off.

@anavrin I don't know if you meant it, but your post reads like a troll post. But I'll answer it anyway because if you look back through the forums, you'll find that this gets discussed all the time, probably twice a year.

The problem is essentially that to get more players here you really have two things to do:
1. Appeal to Japanese players, who are - by and large - the majority of all shogi players.
2. Appeal to non-Japanese players.

The problem with 1 is pretty complicated, but what it really boils down to is that the JSA (Japanese Shogi Association; government sponsored) has quite the stranglehold on all things shogi.
They have their own blitz shogi app (Shogi Wars) that they push pretty hard. From what I understand professional players are ""Highly Encouraged"" to play on Shogi Wars exclusively as sort of a brand thing. Thus, Japanese players tend to stay there where all the professional players are. As you said "If people used this site then people would use it".

As for 2, the problems are really just the typical problems with shogi in the West: nobody knows about it. The few who know about it aren't particularly inclined to play it, and those who know AND want to play are 99% probably chess players already, and are more comfortable playing chess.

I'm personally not in favor of a "memey gimmick mechanic", whatever that might entail. I'd rather people come here because they enjoy the game as it is. We also have a bunch of variants already, and lishogi is already hands-down the best online site that hosts Chu Shogi. You could appeal to both groups by improving the site in other ways (you can freely submit code for review on the GitHub), or by having some games up yourself, so that new players have somebody to play with.

japanese players do use this site a lot, but it's used mainly for pre-arranged 1-on-1s and/or closed events between people they already know elsewhere
this does not translate to people waiting in the lobby which is what i guess anavrin means by "no activity"

what i can suggest anavrin do is to get some of their own friends into shogi and have their own closed events

One posibulty would need some investments( money, time, coordination, sweat and blood

Lishogi or shogi in general would need to coordinate and sponsor training and playgroups in schools and universities, coordinate partnerships with chessclubs or libaries. Maybe try and convinced some chess-youtbers or streamers to learn shogi and make content about it. And for me the Kanji was a bit of a hurdle to begin learning until I switch to chesslike pieces so for real boards we should habe consistent international normed pieces( which maybe is a bit hard for japanese players to accept).
And since most none japanese shogi players are very interestet in Japan maybe a annual tournament where the winner(s) gets to fly to japan.

So the less heavy investment would be chessclubs, libarys and universities and then youtbers and then the rest
Maybe lichess need some kind of an map were we can see where are more active users in the same area which would encourage personal meetups and more games

IMO the most important issue isn't even publicity or funding, but the lack of development manpower. Lishogi is maintained by one dev. You might even notice the little "beta" beside the Lishogi.org logo in the corner of the website. Meanwhile proprietary sites/apps are backed by an organization and even Lichess is big enough that they can hire their own developers in addition to many open source contributors (they have a full-time mobile dev working on their mobile app too, lots of people these days seem to prefer playing on their phones). If anything I am actually surprised Lichess got to where it is, especially when sites like chess.com try to hold a monopoly over online chess, throwing money around buying out other sites and having exclusive sponsorships with GMs.

>I think some sort of memey gimmick mechanic/variant could go a long way
meme variants are that, a gimmick. Once fads reach the end of their life, they don't have staying power.

>You could appeal to both groups by improving the site in other ways (you can freely submit code for review on the GitHub)
I wish I knew scala :/

I think having more games in the lobby and in particular rated games in the lobby, would be ideal. A lot of people seem to like chasing expertise in a subject and chasing numbers (elo/glicko2) 1500, 1800, 2000, whatever it may be, seems to be a way for people to prove that "expertise". I imagine many people come from lichess and expect to instantly be able to do the same on lishogi, however the small lobby makes it hard to gain a rating and get games (not impossible, just hard). As others have mentioned many games are also externally arranged (no problem with it, just probably not the type of games OP is looking for). OP probably wants named and rated opponents to play to gauge their skill level / improve ( I apolgise if my assumption is incorrect).

Hm
chess and shogi are ver different in certain area. I dont see a reason someone would believe that that your chess rating would be reflected on your shogi rating

Hello, I'm a new player, only recently out of the tutorial.
* To get new players, the most important difficulty level for a bot to have is the difficulty that would be exactly right for someone who just completed the tutorial. Right now, level 1 bot makes completely nonsensical moves (I first played it before I even knew how the pieces move or how promotion works or that pieces can be dropped, and somehow I still won, so it can't possibly beat someone who has read the tutorial), while level 2 bot is a bit too hard. Maybe make the level 1 bot more capable?
* After reading Lishogi's tutorial on shogi rules, the next thing I wanted and expected was a readable (= not video) guide to basic strategy (perhaps in the same interactive format as the rules tutorial). That seems to me the obvious next step for someone learning shogi. The only thing Lishogi offers is the page lishogi.org/resources , which has 17 links (mostly videos or puzzles), and the only one that matches what I wanted at all is the Wikipedia page for shogi openings. That's not ideal. The most guidance on strategy I've found on Lishogi so far is to replicate what the (level 2) bot seems to be doing.

Off topic but I might as well dump it here
* There's a typo in the tutorial - "kmate" in lishogi.org/learn#/15/1
* Creating a game involves setting byoyomi, the meaning of which I had to look up on Wikipedia. It ought to be explained on Lishogi itself.
* "Engraved shogi.cz - black and white" is easily the best piece set, for a newbie who wants to over time memorize the kanji while also constantly being reminded of how they move. But it could be further improved by making the red color brighter, because it's not visible enough on the upgraded black (Sente) tiles.

Reconnecting