[friedeggs]

why was the discussion on the merits of bboskill.com blocked?

[dwar0123]

friedeggs, on 2012-August-01, 13:10, said:

why was the discussion on the merits of bboskill.com blocked?

As you surely know, as you must have read it, it was blocked because it got derailed into a conversation on the merits of making suggestions via the forum. A conversation that devolved into a flame war and was hence locked.

By asking a question that forces that topic to be brought back up, you are not off to a good start in trying to reinvigorate the original topic.

A better way to have done it would be to ask, 'Now that the original topic has been closed due to an off topic conversation, can we talk about bboskill.com again?'

[Bbradley62]

Of course, bboskill.com is not really the main point of that old conversation either. The main question is "should BBO have a rating system other than BBO masterpoints and/or self-rating of general level?"

[TimG]

Bbradley62, on 2012-August-01, 14:40, said:

The main question is "should BBO have a rating system other than BBO masterpoints and/or self-rating of general level?"

Is BBO masterpoints a rating system?

[dwar0123]

TimG, on 2012-August-01, 17:40, said:

Is BBO masterpoints a rating system?

I would argue that it is.

However, it suffers two flaws, either of which makes it fairly useless for the average player.

1. Not very many players participate in it.
2. It rates players based on a total point system and hence tends to rate people more on how often they play(rated games) rather then how well they play them.

Both these points I am sure are obvious to you, not sure why you asked the question, other then to diss the idea that it could be considered a rating system at all.

Shrug, it is, just not a good one.

[Quantumcat]

Masterpoints are an OK rating system - you have to win or place to get any, so the 8s 9s and Ts must have won or placed in a large number of tournaments. But of course you can't tell whether they came third in x number of tournaments or won x/5 tournaments. And the 2s and 3s, you can't tell if they have played loads and loads and only placed in a few, or haven't played many at all but won all the ones they've played in. But at least you can say for the 8s 9s and Ts that they must have a certain minimum skill level, since it would be cost-prohibitive to become a T if you didn't win or place in a large proportion of your tournaments.
My personal opinion on ratings - I think every player should have a rating but nobody can see theirs or anyone else's. Then these ratings are only used for the "find me a game" feature. If nobody knows their rating or has the slightest idea how they are generated, there won't be cheating to try to raise the rating (no one would even know how to, and even if they did it would go back down again when they played normally), and people can't get refused a seat at a table based on their rating. It would be even better if the ratings were kept in an encrypted database so nobody can hack the site to obtain them.
I feel proud of managing to get a post into a BBOSkill thread since they always get locked or deleted eventually :-)

[Antrax]

Congrats Quantumcat. FWIW I think your post makes a lot of sense until the bit about encrypted databases. The main issues I can think of are:
a) HMFAG is not wildly used (IIRC)
b) When you use HMFAG it's not clear how to use the rating. I guess the user could specify it: "find me a game with players slightly better than myself" or something of the sort, but what happens if I sit down with my (true) expert friend? Who gets seated at our table?
c) It's unclear what to do with new users.

The feature would be much more useful if you could also reserve seats at your table based on it, but then an obsessive user could figure out ratings. Maybe if you could reserve seats based on relative skill level only?

[Quantumcat]

Everyone wants to play against/with people better than themselves - I was thinking "find me a game" will take you to a table where the average rating is +/- a small amount near your own. Since you don't know the ratings of players you shouldn't be able to tell whether they are bit above or a bit below you. New users can just be taken to a random table as per usual.

[fred]

Antrax, on 2012-August-01, 22:07, said:

a) HMFAG is not wildly used (IIRC)

I assume you meant to say "not widely used".

That would be incorrect. "Take me to the first seat available" is clicked a massive number of times every day. I would guess that roughly the same number of hands are played by people who use this method to get to a table as are played by people who use all other alternative methods combined (including tournaments and team games).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Antrax]

Thanks for both corrections. Honestly, I thought HMFAG isn't used very often simply because it's such an underdeveloped feature. I use it myself a lot and I always thought it could've been a lot more useful than it currently is.

[friedeggs]

dwar0123, on 2012-August-01, 13:16, said:

As you surely know, as you must have read it, it was blocked because it got derailed into a conversation on the merits of making suggestions via the forum. A conversation that devolved into a flame war and was hence locked.

By asking a question that forces that topic to be brought back up, you are not off to a good start in trying to reinvigorate the original topic.

A better way to have done it would be to ask, 'Now that the original topic has been closed due to an off topic conversation, can we talk about bboskill.com again?'

I fail to appreciate the difference between the two.

[Bbradley62]

friedeggs, on 2012-September-15, 11:07, said:

dwar0123, on 2012-August-01, 13:16, said:

friedeggs, on 2012-August-01, 13:10, said:

why was the discussion on the merits of bboskill.com blocked?

As you surely know, as you must have read it, it was blocked because it got derailed into a conversation on the merits of making suggestions via the forum. A conversation that devolved into a flame war and was hence locked.

By asking a question that forces that topic to be brought back up, you are not off to a good start in trying to reinvigorate the original topic.

A better way to have done it would be to ask, 'Now that the original topic has been closed due to an off topic conversation, can we talk about bboskill.com again?'

I fail to appreciate the difference between the two.

The last post in that original thread gave this very clear explanation of why it was closed.

barmar, Posted 2012-July-23, 11:36 said:

I'm sorry, but I feel it's necessary to lock this thread. I'm not trying to censor criticism of BBO, but this has turned into almost nothing but a flame war and name calling. And even the polite posts are just repeating the same religious arguments about ratings we've had dozens of times before, so no new light has been shed.

Your posting "why?" makes you look like a smartass, at best.