[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I got involved in a senseless discussion in another thread, partly my own fault.
But trying to get something good out of this, I would like to start discussion on
two points that got raised, which may be worthwhile to discuss separatly, while
the forum is still fairly new.

As far as I understood, the idea for the forum is, that it is intended to be a
place for levels below intermediate.
Some of the topics in th former B/I section did aproache A/E level, some of the
answers given in the former B/I section were not suitable for Novices / Beginner,
too short.

If one is serious about this, than the posts needs to be actively monitored /
moderated by what ever mechanism.
And if the post is not approbriate, move the post to the I/A section, delete
inapprobriate posts, or we edit certain posts wiki style to have something like
the thread about reverses.

A possible option to implement this, would be

#1 have a set of regular posters, however you determine the set, that monitor the
threads
#2 use the voting buttons

If done, the content of the section will be less, but with an higher quality,
otherwise the name of the forum will be just be used to claim a certain post / poster
behaves approbriate or not, some of the claimns will be justified, some not.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[diana_eva]

Agree with some of Marlowe's observations there, except that, IMO, policing B/N is a thing mods should do and not posters - at least not directly. It's difficult to choose who should do this, and inevitably leads to some hurt feelings.

I feel that all the visible replies saying "wrong forum" or "did you really say this here" etc. are bothersome and cluttering the threads. We could try to establish a "procedure":

- When we see a post that we feel does not belong here, use the report button to signal to mods. Depending on the content, mods may decide to remove it or hide it in spoilers.
- PM the poster who writes too advanced or inappropriate stuff. Don't post publicly. Sometimes they don't realize something is wrong and they can simply edit the post or hide it in spoilers.

I think it's OK to let some more advanced stuff slip in. There's a limit of course, but really, difficult to keep everything at equal level. What goes beyond Novice and approaches advancing beginner can be hidden in spoilers.

[phil_20686]

I think that part of the problem is that we are not yet very sure who the audience in the N/B forum is. My own feeling is that we are trying to create a "safe space" for people who are new to the forums, and reasonably new to bridge, but are not true beginners.

I think we are being over optimistic if we think that people still in the lesson stage will have the courage or interest to join an internet forum about bridge! I think the novice forum is aimed at people who have probably been playing socially for a while, or have been playing about a year in club no fears pairs, but now wish to improve but don't know how.

At any rate. This is mostly a problem that will go away in time. Feedback from N/B population will be helpful.

[phil_20686]

For example, I thought Antrax's problem was a perfectly suitable for the N/B forum. There was a novice line of looking for hearts 4-4, and a slightly more advanced line of reasising you had an extra chance of QJT, or HHx with a ruffing finesse.

However I think for explanations we should try to get in the habit of creating hands with play. When we say things like "find hearts 4-4" it will be very difficult for players to visualise the position. We have a great tool in BBO in making the play visible with a diagram thingy, we should use it.

[JustaDummy]

I love this discussion. It focuses on the needs of newbs. And there are some gems:

Quote

the posts needs to be actively monitored / moderated by what ever mechanism.

Which is what I was hoping for, and suggested, way back, when I thought that a forum like this might be good. I understood that there may be issues about who does the moderation:

Quote

#1 have a set of regular posters, however you determine the set, that monitor the
threads
#2 use the voting buttons

Voting buttons! I did not know that these were available! I wasn't at all keen on just one Mod making these decisions, but I'm also not too keen on a group of self-appointed posters doing it either! Sorry. Determining the set would be a key issue.

Then,

Quote

policing B/N is a thing mods should do and not posters

sounds great - except that my experience of these forums is that the Mods just don't seem to pay any attention at all. Hence all the flame wars which are allowed to become really well developed. Custard pies do not come in to it.

So I have no faith in our Mods' ability to actually do a decent job of filtering out the nuances. They can't even filter out crap.

So we're left with poster comments. But:

Quote

I feel that all the visible replies saying "wrong forum" or "did you really say this here" etc. are bothersome

Totally.

I don't know what your definition of "broken" is, but I do recognise it when I see it.

[P_Marlowe]

phil_20686, on 2012-March-29, 17:27, said:

I think that part of the problem is that we are not yet very sure who the audience in the N/B forum is. My own feeling is that we are trying to create a "safe space" for people who are new to the forums, and reasonably new to bridge, but are not true beginners.

I think we are being over optimistic if we think that people still in the lesson stage will have the courage or interest to join an internet forum about bridge! I think the novice forum is aimed at people who have probably been playing socially for a while, or have been playing about a year in club no fears pairs, but now wish to improve but don't know how.

At any rate. This is mostly a problem that will go away in time. Feedback from N/B population will be helpful.

Yes - I agree.

#1 We need to find a definition for the target audience, otherwise N/B will transform itself into just another
I/A - the experts will be happy, they got there forum, but the idea for N/B was also to have a section below
the former B/I.
#2 We need feedback from the N/B population, however hard to get, maybe the BIL can help here.

With kind regards
Marlowe