[BunnyGo]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-06, 12:55, said:

I have modified the forum software to prevent long strings of hearts. If you are a sick individual...you can get around this restriction...I will seriously frown on anyone trying to circument this restriction.

I assure you I have gotten more calls to the moderator on the string of heart issue than any other single topic.

 matmat, on 2011-August-06, 14:18, said:

♥♥♥

Thanks, Ben!

Jeez matmat, really living up to that "resident troll" title.

[inquiry]

A post in the TD forum was edited to remove the name of a free TD that the poster was unhappy with.

[glen]

I was just about to post multiple hands to highlight the "man with no name" trilogy using a long stream of font symbols, when somebody changed the terms of service.

[inquiry]

 glen, on 2011-August-07, 09:31, said:

I was just about to post multiple hands to highlight the "man with no name" trilogy using a long stream of font symbols, when somebody changed the terms of service.

I suspect this might be your sense of humor, but if you were going to do so, feel free to go ahead Glen, or anyone else, as long as "long" is not long is not too long. The problem is that people are having trouble with some browsers that really long stream of those things break up the display. A simple "short" long stream is not going to be a problem. At worse, a string of hearts will be shortened automatically shortened by the software.

[matmat]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-07, 10:07, said:

I suspect this might be your sense of humor, but if you were going to do so, feel free to go ahead Glen, or anyone else, as long as "long" is not long is not too long. The problem is that people are having trouble with some browsers that really long stream of those things break up the display. A simple "short" long stream is not going to be a problem. At worse, a string of hearts will be shortened automatically shortened by the software.

If we really care about forum viewability by everyone who may wander in to the forums, I *REALLY* wish there was either a text-based or image-based way to show hands. The current flash hand movies take a VERY long time to load on older machines, and make threads that have either several of them or the same ones cut-and-pasted in replies really slow to load, not to mention they stall the computer.

[inquiry]

 matmat, on 2011-August-07, 14:43, said:

If we really care about forum viewability by everyone who may wander in to the forums, I *REALLY* wish there was either a text-based or image-based way to show hands. The current flash hand movies take a VERY long time to load on older machines, and make threads that have either several of them or the same ones cut-and-pasted in replies really slow to load, not to mention they stall the computer.

Find a free website to post a screen capture (or part of screen capture) showing what you want to show. Then paste the "hand" from the screen capture in to the forum. This works well, and is fast, one hopes. Sorry for the crappy look, need to find a better free site. For the test i posted to blogger to see how it worked.

[matmat]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-07, 16:09, said:

Find a free website to post a screen capture (or part of screen capture) showing what you want to show. Then paste the "hand" from the screen capture in to the forum. This works well, and is fast, one hopes. Sorry for the crappy look, need to find a better free site. For the test i posted to blogger to see how it worked.

That's, of course, a decent workaround. It would work much better to alleviate the problem I described if everyone did it (and that, obviously, is nearly impossible).

[inquiry]

Two "empty" post have been deleted. A rude reply in the Gib misses an easy endplay and a hostile reply to that rude comment were both deleted. Neither was in anyway bridge related, or even related to the topic at hand (GIB play), and added nothing to the discussion plus had the chance to develop into a flame war. Basically, one was "get a life," the other was "welcome to my ignore list".

[aguahombre]

Thank you. I hate it when someone is rude to a robot or tells it to get a life.

[mgoetze]

Are you calling me a robot, aqua?

Anyway, that person is still on my ignore list, post deleted or not...

[aguahombre]

actually, I had no idea who was involved...just being silly

[inquiry]

Two post in "solution for abuse" in this subforum were edited, both by jonottawa, to remove names of people he "quoted" since those posting were a violation of the term of service. In one, he complained about a yellow. This yellow has a particular opinion of jonottawa (or his partner) it seems, which he shared privately with them. If this is a problem for jon, he should take it up with BBO management not post about it here.

[jonottawa]

I cut and pasted the quotes (in full, no editing, hence the off-topic '>tournament' bits) directly from my chatlog. I did it in part so that the head director would see what had happened when I asked to be returned to the tournament. (I linked the thread to her, simply telling her that I was banned for being called an idiot in private chat by an opponent doesn't seem sufficient somehow.)

As for protecting the identity of the yellow, I don't see the reason for it but I'm sure that anonymity and unaccountability certainly doesn't encourage this sort of behavior. If a yellow wants to be rude to me privately, that's not a problem, but when we're playing bridge, it is. Maybe others see that differently.

Anyway, I didn't know that was a ToS violation and won't post chatlogs with names other than my own again. Thanks for taking the time to edit my posts.

(As an aside, are verifiable chatlogs kept by the server or is this always going to be a case of he said/he said?)

[inquiry]

 jonottawa, on 2011-August-25, 22:17, said:

(As an aside, are verifiable chatlogs kept by the server or is this always going to be a case of he said/he said?)

Chat logs are kept by the server, I think forever, but surely for a long time. There are plenty of yellows who do not get along with plenty of specific players. It is human nature to take a dislike to someone for some reason (often random). I assure you every yellow has at least one or two people they would rather not deal with at any level. Some yellows have even marked people as enemies and put on an ignore list. I don't have any ignore list, as I think that I am here to help, but I am usually invisible when online, so maybe I am not as helpful online as I should be, so I can't cast stones.

If a lyellow is doing somthing like what jon reported, and that is the extent of the problem, I doubt complaining will do much good. At best, he or she might be advised to just "ignore" you (by that I mean, not speak to you at all). This is just my opinion, but everyone can report to abuse any activity that they find bothersome. It is abuse's job to sort it all out. Trying to report bad behvavior in the forum is never going to work, as it violates the TOS and will be edited or entire post deleted without consideration of the merits of what is being posted.

[jonottawa]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-26, 10:14, said:

Chat logs are kept by the server, I think forever, but surely for a long time. There are plenty of yellows who do not get along with plenty of specific players. It is human nature to take a dislike to someone for some reason (often random). I assure you every yellow has at least one or two people they would rather not deal with at any level. Some yellows have even marked people as enemies and put on an ignore list. I don't have any ignore list, as I think that I am here to help, but I am usually invisible when online, so maybe I am not as helpful online as I should be, so I can't cast stones.

If a yellow is doing something like what jon reported, and that is the extent of the problem, I doubt complaining will do much good. At best, he or she might be advised to just "ignore" you (by that I mean, not speak to you at all). This is just my opinion, but everyone can report to abuse any activity that they find bothersome. It is abuse's job to sort it all out. Trying to report bad behavior in the forum is never going to work, as it violates the TOS and will be edited or entire post deleted without consideration of the merits of what is being posted.

Thank-you for the refreshingly candid response. Since you 'doubt complaining will do much good' I'm glad I brought it up here rather than wasting my time complaining privately. I'm sure at least one other forum regular will no doubt be surprised to hear that yellows being rude/childish repeatedly at the table (in a 'Zero Tolerance' tournament, no less) without any provocation whatsoever is behavior that is likely to be tolerated or 'at best' mildly discouraged.

[inquiry]

A post in Advanced/Expert forum about what partners signal meant was moved to general bridge discussion. I think I will be more active moving non-advanced/expert topics out of Advanced/Expert forum to try to raise the average content of that forum to a level consistent with the forums original purpose. This means I will move anything I think is inappropriately placed there. To avoid possible negative views of posters whose post were moved, I will not announce the movement of current or future threads in that forum, I will simple move them. The decision to move them will be my own, and will reflect my own opinion on the merits of the post moved. No doubt I will make mistakes and move stuff that should be, and leave stuff tha should be moved, but I hope the overall average post there becomes more appropriate. I will not be deleting silly responses by people to a topic correctly posted in that forum.

[mgoetze]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-26, 13:41, said:

A post in Advanced/Expert forum about what partners signal meant was moved to general bridge discussion. I think I will be more active moving non-advanced/expert topics out of Advanced/Expert forum to try to raise the average content of that forum to a level consistent with the forums original purpose.

That's nice. BUT do they really all have to go to general bridge discussion? Personally I am very happy with the fact that GBD is not swamped with "what do you do with this hand" kind of threads, but really does have more general discussion, in general.

Consider this one more plea for Beginner, Intermediate/Advanced and Expert.

[JLOGIC]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-26, 13:41, said:

A post in Advanced/Expert forum about what partners signal meant was moved to general bridge discussion. I think I will be more active moving non-advanced/expert topics out of Advanced/Expert forum to try to raise the average content of that forum to a level consistent with the forums original purpose. This means I will move anything I think is inappropriately placed there. To avoid possible negative views of posters whose post were moved, I will not announce the movement of current or future threads in that forum, I will simple move them. The decision to move them will be my own, and will reflect my own opinion on the merits of the post moved. No doubt I will make mistakes and move stuff that should be, and leave stuff tha should be moved, but I hope the overall average post there becomes more appropriate. I will not be deleting silly responses by people to a topic correctly posted in that forum.

Finally! I'm sure this will add to your already large workload but thanks a lot Ben.

[peachy]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-26, 13:41, said:

A post in Advanced/Expert forum about what partners signal meant was moved to general bridge discussion. I think I will be more active moving non-advanced/expert topics out of Advanced/Expert forum to try to raise the average content of that forum to a level consistent with the forums original purpose. This means I will move anything I think is inappropriately placed there. To avoid possible negative views of posters whose post were moved, I will not announce the movement of current or future threads in that forum, I will simple move them. The decision to move them will be my own, and will reflect my own opinion on the merits of the post moved. No doubt I will make mistakes and move stuff that should be, and leave stuff tha should be moved, but I hope the overall average post there becomes more appropriate. I will not be deleting silly responses by people to a topic correctly posted in that forum.

Wish I could upvote this. Improvement indeed.

[aguahombre]

 inquiry, on 2011-August-26, 13:41, said:

A post in Advanced/Expert forum about what partners signal meant was moved to general bridge discussion..... The decision to move them will be my own, and will reflect my own opinion on the merits of the post moved. No doubt I will make mistakes and move stuff that should be, and leave stuff tha should be moved, but I hope the overall average post there becomes more appropriate.

I applaud the concept and wish you luck with this. The post you chose to move as a start was unfortunate, IMO. Partner of opening leader gave seemingly conflicting signals on the continuation of the suit led; and the answer to this oddity might not be found in a simple lesson on the general application of suit preference ---thus possibly requiring some A/E thinking.