BBO Discussion Forums: personal attacks on BBO forums - BBO Discussion Forums

 32519, on 2013-July-28, 02:00, said:

That would not be a positive move.

 32519, on 2013-July-28, 02:00, said:

There was a bit more to it than that.

Lurpoa at some point went from a normal poster asking some questions and even providing some helpful answers to a self-appointed Robin Hood trying to protect the interests of the repressed minority (so she believed). After a point almost all her posts consisted of heart symbols and bold, Comic Sans questions of "WHY?" whenever she thought a post was not long enough for her to understand (her posts are still available - check please). Then she started negative voting every post from a certain group of posters, and when one of these posters (who is probably the best player here and one of those from whom I've learned the most since I've been here) decided to retaliate, the mods stepped in and banned her in a few steps. Of course you can rewrite this timeline in a way where she is an innocent little flower who just wanted to spread the love and the majority bullied her and misunderstood her altruistic goals, but that would need so much spin that it would need a different solar system to support that point of view.

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No, that's not just what is going on. Please read the posts carefully, MrAce and many others have already explained what we don't like about (some/most of) your posts. The main problem is that you ask questions and ignore/twist most of the answers. Of course MrAce is right that we shouldn't answer at all but it's an addiction.

They gave me the ignore option just to hide posts from people that I don't find useful. I have found that using it has dramatically increased my enjoyment from these forums and lowered my blood pressure both.

Question to the mods - should this be moved from General Bridge to the General BBO forum?

 CSGibson, on 2013-July-28, 09:22, said:

IMO, using the "ignore" option is decidedly inconvenient. We find ourselves at risk of needlessly duplicating the thoughts of another poster who might actually have made a rare valid point. When I see an extremely close repetition of something I posted, I presume the blocking function was used There might be other reasons, but that one is in the forefront.

 aguahombre, on 2013-July-28, 09:56, said:

As long as one only blocks the posters who talk nonsense, that should not be an issue.

Disclaimer: this post is not intended to offend anyone who spews constant drivel.

I've had a small number of debates where my sanity has been questioned but nothing my wife doesn't do from time to time.

That yellow report button is all I need along with the discipline to pull back from the flames.

 aguahombre, on 2013-July-28, 09:56, said:

Actually, I'd appreciate it if you duplicate the thoughts of another poster that I've ignored if they actually pull together a valid point. I, and the hordes of others who use ignore for a select few rambling incoherents and/or posters whose posting volume far exceeds their posting value, might see the valid point that way.

 PhilKing, on 2013-July-28, 10:14, said:

None taken

 Vampyr, on 2013-July-27, 20:54, said:

You can kill-file harmless posters who irritate you

• Click your own name
• Edit your personal profile,
• Manage ignored users.
• Enter names of those you don't want to read.

Unfortunately, however, some enjoy posting venomous personal attacks and many enjoy reading them. Such people are unlikely to forgo their fun by kill-filing their victims. One-to-one and face-to-face the life-expectancy of those who insult others would be short but they are protected by the pack and the internet, moderators permitting.

 gwnn, on 2013-July-28, 06:56, said:

You can take up gwnn's challenge: read ♥ Lurpoa's posts ♥
IMO they're less offensive than the gratuitous invidious ad hominem vitriol about which Glen, Vampyr and 32519 complain.

I'm not sure what a personal attach is but I had someone do a whole line of ??????????????????????????????????????????????????? in the chat and exit as my partner when I miss counted the hrts suit in 3 nt. ~~~~~ seemed a little over the top !!

Hi notlaw52 and welcome to the forums.

I think that this thread is less about personal attacks in chat while playing on BBO and more about personal attacks in the discussion forums, ie like in this thread.

If you are new to BBO then I am sorry to say that a string of "??????" characters when you make the odd slip up with a pickup partner is not that uncommon. You just have to let it blow over, flag them as an enemy if you like, make a note not to play with them again if you like, and move on. I sure hope that you don't let the occasional experience like that dissuade you from playing on BBO. The world is large and BBO is large. The odd occasion like that is inevitable, but we all need to assign them their deserved prominence, which is to say none at all.

Re: Lurpoa

Downvoting is now disabled, and of course people can block her if they like. I am not sure, compared to some of what goes on here, that a permanent ban is justified.

 CSGibson, on 2013-July-28, 09:22, said:

Same here.

As a matter of fact, i did not even know Lurpoa was banned. Because she is in my ignore list and since i put her in that list i did not hear from her. ( she is the only one in my ignore list btw)

@32519 : Here is some other stuff that you probably don't know about Lurpoa. Besides her attempts to create new accounts to log in to forums, in order to;

-be able to vote more than 1 pesron can (some people in BBF reached their +reputation much more than their posts deserved and some people has been taken down in reputation by her and her accounts constantly and every day. (not that i give a rats @$$, and i did not)
-create virtual supporters to herself and act as if there are a lot of people suporting her and her weird actions by those accounts.

And here is my personal struggle with her in BBO; after all this happened, she must have felt lack of attention from me (due to ignore button in BBF) one day she found me in BBO. Asked me to play a game with her. First i thought this was an attempt to break the ice between us and i accepted. I played with her about 10 tortuous boards and said that i need things to do, said thanks for the invite and left. 2 days later she invited again, and i found an excuse. 5 minutes after i refused she kept on inviting "seat reserved" msgs. This abuse kept on for a while even when i was in a game with other people. She sens approximately about 8-12 invitations per hour.I even told this to Justin in BBO. He laughed. I did not report her to Fred or Uday or to a yellow, expecting it to be over at some point. After all i kinda find it a little funny for us so called adult people to ask these guys constantly to babysit us. But it did not stop and i think i had to talk to Diana_Eva or some other yellow to stop this abuse. She has been warned and kept on doing it for a while and then she stopped. During all this, after the first and second invitation, i did not even reply to her, just remained silent and she disappeared from my life.

 inquiry, on 2013-July-27, 09:09, said:

The problem is that the moderators don't seem to recognize personal attacks. It's akin to letting the village idiot be town sheriff. My rabbit knows more about forum moderation.

Now its safe to write those last two sentences since the moderators don't take it personally.

 glen, on 2013-July-28, 17:25, said:

well, i agree with the mods. i don't consider that offensive enough to warrant interference. obviously you set the bar at a different level. there is no objective standard, so you're bound to see some posts you don't approve of.

 glen, on 2013-July-28, 17:25, said:

From what you wrote and from the information that i see in your profile about interests, i assume you prefer more of a military like moderation in a bridge forum. Frequently ban, lock, edit and lose already a few regular posters in these forums. It ain't gonna happen. Get over it.

I agree that Fred, Ben and Barmar tolerate us up to a point. And we try not to abuse their tolerance. BBF is still a very small community if you check the number of people who are regularly posting.

Back to what you just wrote. Lets understand what "personal attack " means. Here is an explenation from a dictionary. "Making of an abusive remark instead of providing evidence when examining another person's claims or comments". When we look at this definition, most of us have performed personal attacks at some point, including your last 2 sentences.

But imo you are looking at the entire thing in a vacuum. Basically you are saying "if this is written in your rules, you should apply it regardless of circumstances that created it" (correct me if i am wrong) However forum admins have whole lot other responsibilities.(And as far as i know Ben does it totally voluntarily and for non professional intentions) When someone creates a forum, about bridge, they have a goal. And in order to reach this goal or satisfaction they prefer a civilized manner. So they make guidelines about it. But they do not look at the incidents in a vacuum. For example if Mr Doe's contrubution to the forums (which is not money btw) is very important for bridge, for those who can learn a lot w/o paying money etc etc, means Mr Doe is oneof the corner stones of this forum. Now and then if Mr.Doe loses it and says/does something which is considered as crossing the line,( who btw was constantly provoked to it) Dont expect mods to ban Mr.Doe right away. It ain't gonna happen. As far as i know Fred or Barmar or Ben, from the way they expressed themselves in forums, they would ban Mr.Doe if his behaviours are result of just the way he is and can not hold himself w/o crossing the line frequently, then even if Mr.Doe's name was Mecktunesboin, they would not put up with it after a certain time.

But this is not the case. You want mods to totally ignore the circumstances that created the situation and act like robots. Did you ever play with GIB ? GIB is a very good example of what happens when you take the human factor out of something and programme it to do things that are written in its database.

I understand people have the right to post whatever they wanna post and it is natural. But so is farting. First couple times people may not react to it when you do it, but if you continue doing it frequently just don'd cry and call it a personal attack when people close their nose and tell that you stink ! (I already supported you that people who rush into this man's room when he screams "i am about to fart" do not have an excuse to complain about it) You are more than welcome to quote me on this.

 MrAce, on 2013-July-28, 16:47, said:

This is really terrible behaviour; but should it have any bearing on forum participation?

 Vampyr, on 2013-July-28, 18:39, said:

Yes of course imo. This abuse was totally due to my disagreements with her in forums. Before our sour relation in forums i did not have this.

EDIT: For the record. Lurpoa was not banned (if she is banned, i don't know anything about it, i just learnt today in this topic from 32519) due to our incident in BBO. This was long time ago. As i stated i put her in my ignore list and i thought thats why i don't see her arroubd very much except than seeing her upvotes to people who disagrees with certain people.

 Vampyr, on 2013-July-28, 18:39, said:

Do you think Lurpoa was banned for ♥♥♥ symbols?

Google the threads ...

Obv Hrothgar should be banned as well (and he would even have been banned from a poker forum), but mods don't see it that way. There was a thread a while ago (you probably recall it), whre he wondered why he had not been banned, considering the language and vitriol used, but whatever!

Anyway, coincidentally, he is now posting theoretical contributions in the non-nat bidding forum for the first time in ages, so he is safe.

 MrAce, on 2013-July-28, 18:31, said:

You assume incorrectly. I do not recommend banning; I do recommend editing or deleting posts that have personal attacks. If they attempt to circumvent the edit and/or deleting of posts, then stronger steps would need to be taken, but these should just be temporary measures. In short personal attacks should be removed from the forum, but not the people doing the attacks if they get back to bridge.