[quiddity]

 hrothgar, on 2012-July-18, 14:25, said:

Assume for the moment that I developed a bridge site that will ROT13 board scores
I am suddenly in a position where I know more about a key user metric than BBO

Should BBO care? I doubt it...
Should BBO care about a dubious rating system like BBOSkill? I doubt it...

Does the fact that 50 odd users out of how many hundred's of thousands bothered to complain?
I doubt it...

ROT13 of board scores is not a key user metric.
Skill level is one of the first things I look for in a partner or opponent. You think BBO shouldn't care that it knows nothing about it?

[mike777]

bbo does know something, not nothing, about skill levels. It has said it does not want to know more.

It has said this over and over again for roughly ten years.


With that said if this site provides fun/entertainment value that is great.

Sure it is hard to find pards you get along with and be at the same skill level on BBO, that is an issue.

[inquiry]

For several years, Bridgebrowser had all hands played on BBO (OTHER than with robots or total point games) in it. Bridgebrowser calculated two different ratings for each player --- and you could pull out your ratings with different partners, if you had multiple ones. Both algorithms were based on "science", one was lehman's just like on another site. One was supposedly an "improvement" on Lehmans.

Both had serious flaws, and both were way, way better than bboskill.com Among the flaws, people who log on and just play with a small group of friends. Another was team game events. I am not a big fan of ratings, but bboskill seems to have been nothing more than peoples average imps/mp won.... which if you like, you can look up for anyone on myhands. For what it is worth, your average will depend on who you play with (as a partner) and who you play against. Want a huge score? Go play against basic bots. Then you must be an expert.

[advanced]

 inquiry, on 2012-July-18, 15:44, said:

For several years, Bridgebrowser had all hands played on BBO (OTHER than with robots or total point games) in it. Bridgebrowser calculated two different ratings for each player --- and you could pull out your ratings with different partners, if you had multiple ones. Both algorithms were based on "science", one was lehman's just like on another site. One was supposedly an "improvement" on Lehmans.

Both had serious flaws, and both were way, way better than bboskill.com Among the flaws, people who log on and just play with a small group of friends. Another was team game events. I am not a big fan of ratings, but bboskill seems to have been nothing more than peoples average imps/mp won.... which if you like, you can look up for anyone on myhands. For what it is worth, your average will depend on who you play with (as a partner) and who you play against. Want a huge score? Go play against basic bots. Then you must be an expert.

ANY rating system is better than BBOskill

[hrothgar]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-18, 15:20, said:

ROT13 of board scores is not a key user metric.

nor is bboskill

[jillybean]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-18, 14:17, said:

Should BBO take notice of this? Yes, IMO, they should! It's embarrassing that an unaffiliated site knows more about a key user metric than BBO.

I'd like to nominate this as quote of the year.

[Antrax]

 phil_20686, on 2012-July-18, 14:45, said:

While those of us who practice on BBO for the sole purpose of improving our skills obviously have the moral high ground?
Anything that encourages people to try to play better is a good thing

I'm not sure you understand just what "people playing to manipulate ratings" would entail. What I've seen in other cases are things like people creating dummy accounts to play against (all the more annoying if you happen to accidentally partner one and see 7NTxx-10 for your side), newbie-hunting, sandbagging (playing poorly to artificially decrease your rating, often to qualify in some tournament with a rating criterion), and of course the existing cheating will be increased manifold. In exchange, you get ______ (please fill in the blank).

[isityou]

 diana_eva, on 2012-July-14, 02:32, said:

You do realize that BBOSkill is not a BBO site, right? BBOSkill is not affiliated with BBO in any way.

As for BBO's view - all our officials are in Philly right now. They will give an answer when they get back probably.

Yes, it is obvious that BBSkill is not a BBO site and thank you for letting us know that BBO officials are becoming involved.

[isityou]

 diana_eva, on 2012-July-15, 10:39, said:

If you would bother to check before talking you'd see that, even though they are not forum regulars, they are legit bbo members. They have not created names just to spam the forums.

The reason they all come to post all of a sudden is that the bboskill site links to BBO Forums and prompts people to post here to show their support.

Log on web version, type a username in the "Find member" box on the right and you'll see when they created the username and how many logins they have.

YorkieShe 5000+ logins, username created in 2005
vddvdd 500+ logins, created in 2010
trivela 1000+ logins, created in 2010
Jay Silver 400+ logins, created in 2011
schlaks 2000+ logins, created in 2009
dtol 1000+ logins, created in 2009
absalon2 5000+ logins, created in 2005
ipo123 2000+ logins, created in 2006
jamegumb 1000+ logins, created in 2008
baggottm 1000+ logins, created in 2005
davepen 2000+ logins, created in 2005
phall230 300+ logins, created in 2009
verena 6 3000+ logins, created in 2010
friedeggs 4000+ logins, created in 2007
init2winit 45 logins, created in 2010
sln1941 1000+ logins, created in 2010
12three 400+ logins, created in 2008
isityou 300+ logins, created in 2010
TDBluff 5000+ logins, created in 2005
flipm 200+ logins, created in april 2012

Well played 'diana_eva'! That ought to stop the spammers that accuse BBO players of spamming ...

[diana_eva]

 isityou, on 2012-July-19, 02:52, said:

Well played 'diana_eva'! That ought to stop the spammers that accuse BBO players of spamming ...

This was uncalled for. It is very reasonable to assume that a sudden flood of 1-post users supporting another site are a spam attack. The only reason i checked your IDs was that I also believed at first that at least part of the posts were fake users spamming.

Most of the regulars in these forums are top players and real bridge experts. We are very fortunate to have them here, posting and answering questions from less experienced players. Now that you are here, it would be a lot more constructive to try and improve your skill level by reading through the posts and asking bridge questions.It is what the forums are meant for, in the first place

[isityou]

 diana_eva, on 2012-July-19, 04:10, said:

This was uncalled for. It is very reasonable to assume that a sudden flood of 1-post users supporting another site are a spam attack. The only reason i checked your IDs was that I also believed at first that at least part of the posts were fake users spamming.

Most of the regulars in these forums are top players and real bridge experts. We are very fortunate to have them here, posting and answering questions from less experienced players. Now that you are here, it would be a lot more constructive to try and improve your skill level by reading through the posts and asking bridge questions.It is what the forums are meant for, in the first place

I merely agreed with what you posted! Why are you attacking me?

[jillybean]

If you really don't know what your skill level is then try posting in these forums under expert, intermediate/advanced and novice/beginner.
You will quickly be told which category you fit into

[billw55]

 phil_20686, on 2012-July-18, 14:45, said:

While those of us who practice on BBO for the sole purpose of improving our skills obviously have the moral high ground?

Anything that encourages people to try to play better is a good thing.

I understand why BBO does not use a metric, but there are are plenty of cases where a metric would be useful. In real life bridge clubs tend to be self sorting, certain nights get reputation as stronger than others, and weaker players avoid them. Even if BBO kept the ratings secret, but used them to sort their "find a table" requests approximately into skill groups, that would surely improve everyone's enjoyment. Beginners to not want to be taken to a table with three advanced players, and three advanced players seldom want a beginner.

The difficulty of finding tables of appropriate skill levels is something that BBO could address. I am sure those who use BBO skill are using it as an imperfect stop gap.

Apparently you are under the impression that "play to increase ability" and "play to increase rating" are similar concepts. I assure you this is often not the case. Players will devise all manner of ways to rig the system and inflate their ratings. None of these tactics will be beneficial to the overall BBO environment.

[TimG]

 phil_20686, on 2012-July-18, 14:45, said:

Anything that encourages people to try to play better is a good thing.

A rating system encourages other activities as well.

[Aberlour10]

I suppose even at the 25th BBO anniversary we will have the same skills/rankings-discussion, with the still same pro & contra arguments. It seems to be some kind of the virtual Zombie here.

[jamegumb]

Taking the (very good) reasons into account why BBO has not implemented a rating list to date, perhaps the best splitting-the-baby solution is to have another site have an unofficial rating system. People who think the ratings are garbage would be welcome to ignore them - they don't mean anything, anyway. People who want to look at them would be welcome to do so.

(Asking this as a serious question, not as flippant rhetoric) Would BBO be harmed by this? I suppose to allow it to work best they'd probably offer better access to their database. Would this be an affiliation? I'd expect BBO to disclaim any attachment to the system and to stress that they don't endorse the ratings in any way/shape/form/etc.

[Bbradley62]

The major purpose of having ratings would be to allow a player to quickly find a table of peers in MBC. If you have to go to another site to individually look up the three players sitting at a table waiting for a fourth, that seat will be gone by the time you can make a decision.

Also, the fact that maybe 1% of players might find a way to manipulate their ratings is irrelevant; if no money (or other prizes) are being awarded based on ratings, then the other 99% would have a useful tool.

[TimG]

 jamegumb, on 2012-July-19, 14:00, said:

Taking the (very good) reasons into account why BBO has not implemented a rating list to date, perhaps the best splitting-the-baby solution is to have another site have an unofficial rating system. People who think the ratings are garbage would be welcome to ignore them - they don't mean anything, anyway. People who want to look at them would be welcome to do so.

(Asking this as a serious question, not as flippant rhetoric) Would BBO be harmed by this? I suppose to allow it to work best they'd probably offer better access to their database. Would this be an affiliation? I'd expect BBO to disclaim any attachment to the system and to stress that they don't endorse the ratings in any way/shape/form/etc.

When there is a rating system, there will be some number of people who either try to manipulate the system or will outright cheat in order to inflate their ratings.

When it is perceived that a rating system can be manipulated (maybe the system does not take into account weak or strong opponents or weak or strong partner as well as it should), people will start to use those criteria when selecting a game. That means some people will be rejected as partners and opponents based not only upon the actual ratings, but on how it is perceived the results will unfairly affect ratings. "Normally I'd play with you even though you are a weaker player, but I must consider my rating, so I can't play with you." That sort of thing.

Most consider outright cheating a bad thing. There probably wouldn't be a whole lot of actual cheating, but there would be a lot of suspected cheating. As it is, you can brush off a certain amount of suspicious play because there is little or no incentive to cheat and if you are cheated, it doesn't really matter (unless your enjoyment of the game is affected). When there are ratings, people now think that the cheating does matter and become more suspicious of unusual play (or just plain good play). Rumors will abound. BBO support will be bombarded with complaints. Etc.

[jamegumb]

 TimG, on 2012-July-19, 14:35, said:

When there is a rating system, there will be some number of people who either try to manipulate the system or will outright cheat in order to inflate their ratings.

When it is perceived that a rating system can be manipulated (maybe the system does not take into account weak or strong opponents or weak or strong partner as well as it should), people will start to use those criteria when selecting a game. That means some people will be rejected as partners and opponents based not only upon the actual ratings, but on how it is perceived the results will unfairly affect ratings. "Normally I'd play with you even though you are a weaker player, but I must consider my rating, so I can't play with you." That sort of thing.

Most consider outright cheating a bad thing. There probably wouldn't be a whole lot of actual cheating, but there would be a lot of suspected cheating. As it is, you can brush off a certain amount of suspicious play because there is little or no incentive to cheat and if you are cheated, it doesn't really matter (unless your enjoyment of the game is affected). When there are ratings, people now think that the cheating does matter and become more suspicious of unusual play (or just plain good play). Rumors will abound. BBO support will be bombarded with complaints. Etc.

I'd think most of this argument could be used against what rating system BBO does have - BBO masterpoints and player designations from 1-10/J/Q/K/A/etc.

But the point is noted; yes, there's no doubt some number of players will take this seriously and change their bridge playing accordingly. It also may inspire players to play different amounts of bridge than they do now. (Some may start playing lots just to attempt to improve their rating.)

[the hog]

I cannot understand this thread. BBO belongs to Fred and others. The fact that we can play on it, particularly for free, is a privilege. No one has a right to tell Fred what to do on his site. If someone wants to have a private rating scheme, then fine as long as it does not interfere with BBO. However wht BBO should be prepared in helping this is beyond my ken.