[mgoetze]

 oryctolagi, on 2016-January-14, 08:30, said:

This doesn't quite chime with what you said in your original post. There, you were complaining about unsportsmanlike conduct such as walking away in mid-hand, irrational concessions, and so on. So, are you now saying you have a problem playing with beginners?

Every bridge player was a beginner once.

Oh come, of course no decent player wants to play with a random stranger who doesn't even know what a transfer is. Pretending otherwise is not going to help.

[gwnn]

My upvote above is conditional: of course it's also OK to play with total beginners, but only if it's for teaching purposes. That can be rewarding in its own way, but clearly the main idea of a bridge site is to play bridge, so you can't be faulted for not being interested in constantly teaching beginners. Especially when some of those beginners think they are world class and their favourite sentence is "?????????????????????"

[cjv123]

PS Wasn't trying to be a Drama Queen. I added in about Beginners playing in the seemingly non-Beginner area (i.e., not the area listed for "relaxed" games, where chatty instruction is appropriate) because it impacts my overall assessment. It was obvious to me from a long thread pinned to the top of another forum that the issue of player ratings is discussed a lot. Here I was only trying to talk thru the 25% or so of games with behaviors I consider trollish so I could "hang in there" because it's Winter in the Northern Hemisphere and Bridge rocks!

Anyway, good luck and good bridge to all of you.

[Vampyr]

 mgoetze, on 2016-January-14, 09:02, said:

Oh come, of course no decent player wants to play with a random stranger who doesn't even know what a transfer is. Pretending otherwise is not going to help.

Not wanting to play transfers with random partners is not the same as not knowing what they are. Especially as you have to discuss what you do over double, over interference, and then there is this "stolen bid" thing I keep,reading about.

I play with no transfers with unfamiliar partners -- if I can get them to agree on it. Partly just because it is fun.

[barmar]

 gwnn, on 2016-January-13, 13:21, said:

I haven't heard this suggestion that many times before, in fact I first heard of it a few months ago. I think it would be a great addition. I said it there and I'll say it here too, a lot of big sites such as Amazon and eBay have customer reputation already and it works out just fine. Yes, negative votes were a disaster on this forum last time, but I think it's solved in practice because a) you could only vote on someone once, b) you can safely have the voting anonymously, and c) people wouldn't care that much to try some sort of retaliation.

I don't think you can really compare us to Amazon or eBay. There's lots of money on the line on those sites, and they need to protect people from buying from an unreliable vendor. What's the worst thing that can happen if you get a poor partner on BBO? If it's in a tourney, you're out a dollar and an hour of your life.

[mgoetze]

 barmar, on 2016-January-14, 12:27, said:

What's the worst thing that can happen if you get a poor partner on BBO?

Well as you can see the worst thing that can happen is that people decide BBO is just not worth it and never come back. I guess you're fine with that.

[oryctolagi]

 mgoetze, on 2016-January-14, 09:02, said:

Oh come, of course no decent player wants to play with a random stranger who doesn't even know what a transfer is. Pretending otherwise is not going to help.

I don't know what your definition of a 'decent player' is, but I'm quite happy to play with an inexperienced partner. Not every time, perhaps, but they are all part of the Bridge community.

 gwnn, on 2016-January-14, 09:46, said:

My upvote above is conditional:

Thanks for letting us know - and rest assured you will be getting no upvote from yours truly!

[mgoetze]

 Vampyr, on 2016-January-14, 10:43, said:

Not wanting to play transfers with random partners is not the same as not knowing what they are. Especially as you have to discuss what you do over double, over interference, and then there is this "stolen bid" thing I keep,reading about.

Funny, I'm sure I've played thousands of hands with pickup partners where we both assumed transfers, failed to discuss what to do over interference, and got on just fine. Admittedly my pickup partners are seldom completely random, but I'm relatively certain that "have to discuss" is an overbid all the same.

[gwnn]

 barmar, on 2016-January-14, 12:27, said:

I don't think you can really compare us to Amazon or eBay. There's lots of money on the line on those sites, and they need to protect people from buying from an unreliable vendor. What's the worst thing that can happen if you get a poor partner on BBO? If it's in a tourney, you're out a dollar and an hour of your life.

That's actually my point. Amazon needs the rating system to work well, and they find that in general people do review each other, and other vendors, honestly. Otherwise, they'd find a different approach to verify purchases. I really don't understand what the problem is with allowing people to review their random partners once they actually played a few hands. This would avoid the obvious although hard to believe cases of fraud. Indeed, the fact that millions are on the line means that a lot of people have huge incentives to commit fraud on Amazon etc. Yet still, these instances of fraud must be in quite a small minority, otherwise the system would just collapse. Why would it be different on BBO?

[brutus61]

 cjv123, on 2016-January-14, 06:30, said:

So for me, another 24 hours playing solo "Find me a table" (since I'm new none let me sit at "Interesting" ones) has led to roughly 50% games with cold beginners imposing on non-beginner tiers, 25% drive-by trolls as I mentioned above, and 25% the Joy of Bridge. The Signal-to-Noise is too low for me. But I do want to commend the site and its software and some excellent players I've had the privilege to play a few hands with. Adieu.

one option you could use is to start your own secure table which will allow you to choose who sits

[brutus61]

 mgoetze, on 2016-January-14, 09:02, said:

Oh come, of course no decent player wants to play with a random stranger who doesn't even know what a transfer is. Pretending otherwise is not going to help.

A decent player reads profiles. Especially if their partner declares themselves a beginner. One helpful tool i have used is to prepare a statement of my system and limitations in chat manager and send it to the table at the beginning of a round with a new partner. Upon seeing this most people will respond with their playing skills that don't match yours.

[Al_U_Card]

I have to commend BBO for their efforts in this regard. They have provided everyone with a sufficient and efficient means to improve their bridge-playing experience. Wanting other people to (in)(de)form our opinions is a real rat's-nest of potential headaches for all concerned.

As it is, as in f2f bridge, you get to experience life and make your own choices. I friend people with whom I had an enjoyable table experience, enemy those that were incompatibly unpleasant and leave the rest to their own devices. Playing with an "unmarked" p when no friends are around is a great way of finding a new friend. Enemies are a one-off and well worth the pain for the gain of finding that new friend.

[gwnn]

 brutus61, on 2016-January-15, 00:28, said:

A decent player reads profiles. Especially if their partner declares themselves a beginner. One helpful tool i have used is to prepare a statement of my system and limitations in chat manager and send it to the table at the beginning of a round with a new partner. Upon seeing this most people will respond with their playing skills that don't match yours.

Actually, I would very rarely object to playing with a correctly marked beginner. I actually played a lot of BBO when I was learning bridge, and almost all partners were happy to play with me after my little "pre-alert". Unfortunately, only about half the beginners on BBO mark themselves as such. Also, a big % of people do not reply to table chat. This could be due to them not knowing about the chat window or due to rudeness. I don't know or want to guess what the reason is but either way, it's a problem that you apparently have never heard about. I mean, I play in the Forum Indy and I get about a 50% hit rate among the people who aren't regular posters, and this is supposed to be a friendly environment. Now, I understand that this is what's going to happen and do not get annoyed (by none of the above), but you can't just pretend that checking the profile and/or chatting will be a solution.

[spkcp111]

Why not let people use their REAL NAMES as tied to their ACBL# (WBF, etc). Make it optional. Are you going to play with someone who is accountable? Or someone who wants to play in the shadows? Just like anything else--if people think no one is watching, they'll behave poorly to the detriment of the game.

Secondly? Tie it to a club (ACBL). You're more likely to develop a permanent playing relationship. Who knows--maybe they're already in your club (or at least within reach via Sectional/Regional).

I DO think there are very egregious violations. Like cussing someone out, blatant harrassment and outright cheating. These things would get someone kicked out of a real club toot-sweet. Why is it OK to do this online?

[barmar]

 spkcp111, on 2016-January-15, 08:10, said:

Why not let people use their REAL NAMES as tied to their ACBL# (WBF, etc). Make it optional.

It already is. There's a place in the profile for your name. Some people actually put their real names there. Yellows and Stars are required to, it's optional for everyone else.
And if someone wants to advertise their ACBL#, they can put it in the notes in their profile; I'm not sure why they'd do this, there's not much someone else can do with this number (AFAIK, ACBL doesn't let you look up a player's history). Some people put their ACBL life master rank in their profiles, though (if you see "SLM", it means Silver Life Master).

[mycroft]

Those of you who think that Amazon and EBay reputation systems don't have "much" problem with gaming/trolling/vindictiveness should go Googling. I don't use Amazon, and haven't used EBay in mumblety years, but I have at least three acquaintances that had to go through a (tedious, time-consuming, frequently uncaring, and also frequently unsuccessful) process to de-troll their reputation. Sure, the big sellers are generally okay, but the ones that get 5-10 reviews a month can get absolutely hammered by one "guy with a perceived grievance" (and the big sellers have people to do the Amazon dance, and Amazon is more likely to talk to someone with $20K/month sales than $200/month).

I also note that even though Amazon/EBay/PayPal/... make it very very difficult to talk to a human about issues, they still need to hire several humans to be talked to, and others to write the avoidance software. BBO has a total staff of what, 10? I am pretty certain that volunteer yellows won't volunteer for this...

And anyone that's read F-Book and T-ter know that real names don't mean squat. The "online disinhibition effect" overrides, even under their real names. And there's a bias (which, I will admit, would be cancelled by ACBL/EBU/... numbers - that's why they exist) - my name is unique in bridge, which is why I don't have it front and centre (and why I don't post on some Other Site). Dave Smith, though, or Andy Lee? Why would they care any more about this being tied to their "real name" than to some nick that is "unique, but can change"? Is it them, or is it one of the 26 others? Never mind the chances that the trollers/griefers/... are more likely to go after people outside BBO with the real name attached, and it's more likely (and worse) if the person being trolled is female/"foreign"/...

Enemies list and abuse@ work (as well as anything will work).

[gwnn]

Mycroft, could you elaborate on exactly how this is working? So you have about 3 friends (sorry, misread first) who are selling just a few tens of items per month, and some of their buyers were unhappy (justifiably or not), so they marked your friends as "1/5" and also managed to get dozens of other people to order stuff from your friends and mark them also as "1/5"? Or can you review sellers randomly, even if you can't buy anything from them? I'm obviously not perfectly informed on this but your testimony seems a bit weird, if this is it. If the majority of reviews are fake and trolling, I have no idea why Amazon would bother trying to vet them and not just chuck the whole system. I was suggesting that only people who actually play with a player to be able to review him/her.

I still find it hard to believe that because I miscounted trumps on a hand, not only will my partner give me a 1-star rating, but also ask a bunch of their friends to try to play with me and to give me 1-star reviews (or creepily messaging whoever I'm playing me to rate me low, with dubious chances of success). Are we seriously afraid of this?

This post has been edited by gwnn: 2016-January-15, 13:18

[Vampyr]

I have not played on BBO, so I don't know how prevalent bad behaviour is. But years ago I played a bit on OKBridge. OKBRidge charged a nominal fee ($99/year) for membership. I think that maybe the fact that people paid for the right to play filtered out some of those who weren't in it to have a good game of bridge. Would it help if BBO established a paid area?

[mycroft]

Mostly it was "I started a conversation to buy and..." and then add-ons. And of course, Amazon reviews. None of which were actually required buying the product.

I can see an attempt to restrict to "those who have played". But that still means that those that are creeps to the kibitzers/gross to those they deny seating to aren't regulated. The "One True Bidding Style" players, whether it be "we're right and everyone else is wrong", "we're right, and everyone else is just trying to confuse us", or "everyone bids this way in my local area, therefore everyone bids this way, and you're wrong" are going to downrep those that don't play OTBS. And we all know people who "can't play" - who occasionally do well - and we all know (but never admit) that there are people who know we "can't play" - and I, at least, occasionally do well. Then there are the people who model themselves after Barry Crane - do we upvote them for their skill, or downvote them because "I'm not playing with him again even if we have never lost"? Finally, what about those players who are good players and good people, but they and you so totally clash in style that it'll never work? I assume we all know one or two of these. Is that an up or a down or a nothing?

On OKB, the Lehman Protection Brigade was out in great force, and in my experience vastly overrode the "cost" part. It might help, but again, we'd have to decide what we're paying for. The payment would tend to at least cut down on the number of buybacks, I would expect.

I'm not trying to be a wet blanket (even if the number of hands I have played with a pickup on OKB probably hasn't broken triple digits, and I see no reason to change that - and the complaints in this thread is mostly why); I just don't see a solution outside of "play with people you know, play with the people they know, show yourself to be a good person and a decent player and grow your community". Oh, and "be a good partner yourself."

[gwnn]

Quote

Mostly it was "I started a conversation to buy and..." and then add-ons. And of course, Amazon reviews. None of which were actually required buying the product.

OK yea Amazon reviews are crap in that you can review stuff you aren't proven to own. (well it's not unconditionally crap, but it is much easier to doctor)

Quote

I can see an attempt to restrict to "those who have played". But that still means that those that are creeps to the kibitzers/gross to those they deny seating to aren't regulated. The "One True Bidding Style" players, whether it be "we're right and everyone else is wrong", "we're right, and everyone else is just trying to confuse us", or "everyone bids this way in my local area, therefore everyone bids this way, and you're wrong" are going to downrep those that don't play OTBS. And we all know people who "can't play" - who occasionally do well - and we all know (but never admit) that there are people who know we "can't play" - and I, at least, occasionally do well. Then there are the people who model themselves after Barry Crane - do we upvote them for their skill, or downvote them because "I'm not playing with him again even if we have never lost"? Finally, what about those players who are good players and good people, but they and you so totally clash in style that it'll never work? I assume we all know one or two of these. Is that an up or a down or a nothing?

Well, yea, these are all issues (being creepy to kibz should be covered by abuse, though). And maybe the rudest people are also the ones who are most keen to have their voices heard. You'll never be broke by underestimating the civility of randoms on BBO. I still think it's a nice concept, though, on my less cynical days. I have played with randoms a few times and had some nice experiences.

 mycroft, on 2016-January-15, 15:53, said:

Oh, and "be a good partner yourself."

OK now you're just being plain unreasonable.