[billw55]

Setting aside the issue of whether or not multiple usernames have been created to spam this pro-bboskill message.

The question remains: why should these requests be directed on the BBO forums? Who exactly is being asked to "bring back" bboskill?

[gnasher]

 cutcorner, on 2012-July-17, 13:26, said:

If BBO are not going to support BBOSKILL then they should do it themselves. Can BBO give an explanation?

Not surprisingly, they already have explained it:

http://www.bridgebas...ro.html#ratings

As for the suggestion that BBO "should" do something: BBO is a free service, and they can do whatever they please.

[gnasher]

 billw55, on 2012-July-17, 14:10, said:

The question remains: why should these requests be directed on the BBO forums? Who exactly is being asked to "bring back" bboskill?

Because the people who run bboskill thought that a good way to try to influence BBO was to get people to post pointless messages in this forum.

[quiddity]

 gnasher, on 2012-July-17, 16:20, said:

Because the people who run bboskill thought that a good way to try to influence BBO was to get people to post pointless messages in this forum.

Seems reasonable to me. If nothing else it's an easy way to create a public petition, show interest/support for the idea, and make it visible to an external community of BBO users.

Can you suggest a better way? Obviously email hasn't worked, BBO is just ignoring them and making claims like "Fred gets a lot of e-mail messages on this subject and they are close to evenly divided between those who want a rating system and those who ask that one never be implemented." (lol)

I hope someone at BBO is taking note that a crappy site with a crappy algorithm (bboskill) can generate this much interest. People want some kind of rating system. Personally I think it would be fairly trivial to use GIB to create a self-rater. I suspect it would be fairly trivial to keep historical data and allow users to track their progress. I suspect it would also be fairly trivial to use ratings (perhaps private) to vastly improve the experience for the number of users who come to BBO for a random few hands of bridge. The current "Find me a game" feature is useless and it would be SO easy to make it better.

[diana_eva]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-17, 17:15, said:

Seems reasonable to me. If nothing else it's an easy way to create a public petition, show interest/support for the idea, and make it visible to an external community of BBO users.

Can you suggest a better way? Obviously email hasn't worked, BBO is just ignoring them and making claims like "Fred gets a lot of e-mail messages on this subject and they are close to evenly divided between those who want a rating system and those who ask that one never be implemented." (lol)

I hope someone at BBO is taking note that a crappy site with a crappy algorithm (bboskill) can generate this much interest. People want some kind of rating system. Personally I think it would be fairly trivial to use GIB to create a self-rater. I suspect it would be fairly trivial to keep historical data and allow users to track their progress. I suspect it would also be fairly trivial to use ratings (perhaps private) to vastly improve the experience for the number of users who come to BBO for a random few hands of bridge. The current "Find me a game" feature is useless and it would be SO easy to make it better.

A better way would have been for the site owner himself to open a thread in the Forums, explain his point of view and what exactly he wants from BBO - then link that one thread he created to his site and ask people to support him instead of giving them a generic link to forums and tell them "post here to support my site". That would have avoided some of the attacks against first-time posters.

[Antrax]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-17, 17:15, said:

I hope someone at BBO is taking note that a crappy site with a crappy algorithm (bboskill) can generate this much interest. People want some kind of rating system. Personally I think it would be fairly trivial to use GIB to create a self-rater. I suspect it would be fairly trivial to keep historical data and allow users to track their progress. I suspect it would also be fairly trivial to use ratings (perhaps private) to vastly improve the experience for the number of users who come to BBO for a random few hands of bridge. The current "Find me a game" feature is useless and it would be SO easy to make it better.

I think what we're mostly seeing is that people want an "objective" measure to tell them they're experts. I didn't want to expand on it, but BBOSkill tended to greatly inflate ratings, due to shortcomings explained in the many threads discussing how to rate the skill level of BBO users. I suspect if BBOSkill showed self-professed experts what their real skill level is, it would've been a lot less popular.

[gnasher]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-17, 17:15, said:

Seems reasonable to me. If nothing else it's an easy way to create a public petition, show interest/support for the idea, and make it visible to an external community of BBO users.

Can you suggest a better way? Obviously email hasn't worked, BBO is just ignoring them and making claims like "Fred gets a lot of e-mail messages on this subject and they are close to evenly divided between those who want a rating system and those who ask that one never be implemented." (lol)

I hope someone at BBO is taking note that a crappy site with a crappy algorithm (bboskill) can generate this much interest. People want some kind of rating system. Personally I think it would be fairly trivial to use GIB to create a self-rater. I suspect it would be fairly trivial to keep historical data and allow users to track their progress. I suspect it would also be fairly trivial to use ratings (perhaps private) to vastly improve the experience for the number of users who come to BBO for a random few hands of bridge. The current "Find me a game" feature is useless and it would be SO easy to make it better.

Why should BBO take any notice of this? None of these messages address BBO's repeatedly stated reasons for not having a rating system, which are:

"Our main priority continues to be to make sure that the mostly pleasant social atmosphere on BBO is not destroyed. Fred believes strongly that any kind of rating system would have negative consequences in terms of the friendliness of our site. In particular, using a rating system for these purposes will lead to rampant "social problems" and cheating on our site. This is not just a guess — Fred has seen this happen on every other bridge site that has tried to implement some kind of rating system."

[billw55]

 gnasher, on 2012-July-17, 16:20, said:

Because the people who run bboskill thought that a good way to try to influence BBO was to get people to post pointless messages in this forum.

Er .. ok. So am I to understand that the bboskill service/website has gone down, and that the operators/users are asking for "support" from BBO? What kind of support? In particular, did bboskill go down for lack of finances, and they are now asking BBO for financial support? If so, that is so deeply LOL that I just don't know what to say.

[gnasher]

 billw55, on 2012-July-18, 06:11, said:

What kind of support?

It appears that they want to receive data directly from BBO, as an alternative to hacking the "myhands" page. But you can read it for yourself:

http://bboskill.com

[Cascade]

 JLOGIC, on 2012-July-12, 12:53, said:

Stop spamming us. We are not stupid, when multiple posters with 1 total post come to post about this on different subforums, we know it is the same person (who created bboskill). ***** off.

Amazing change of view.

Last year when your 'friends' at bridgetopics were spamming you were less than sympathetic with those that complained.

[quiddity]

 gnasher, on 2012-July-18, 01:39, said:

Why should BBO take any notice of this? None of these messages address BBO's repeatedly stated reasons for not having a rating system, which are:

"Our main priority continues to be to make sure that the mostly pleasant social atmosphere on BBO is not destroyed. Fred believes strongly that any kind of rating system would have negative consequences in terms of the friendliness of our site. In particular, using a rating system for these purposes will lead to rampant "social problems" and cheating on our site. This is not just a guess — Fred has seen this happen on every other bridge site that has tried to implement some kind of rating system."

BBO should take notice because a random site is attracting a significant number of users by providing a service that BBO could be providing.

[mr1303]

Quote

BBO should not take notice because a random site is attracting a significant number of users by providing a service that BBO have declared that they are not going to provide for good reason.

FYP

[jjbrr]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-17, 17:15, said:

Seems reasonable to me. If nothing else it's an easy way to create a public petition, show interest/support for the idea, and make it visible to an external community of BBO users.

Can you suggest a better way? Obviously email hasn't worked, BBO is just ignoring them and making claims like "Fred gets a lot of e-mail messages on this subject and they are close to evenly divided between those who want a rating system and those who ask that one never be implemented." (lol)

I hope someone at BBO is taking note that a crappy site with a crappy algorithm (bboskill) can generate this much interest. People want some kind of rating system. Personally I think it would be fairly trivial to use GIB to create a self-rater. I suspect it would be fairly trivial to keep historical data and allow users to track their progress. I suspect it would also be fairly trivial to use ratings (perhaps private) to vastly improve the experience for the number of users who come to BBO for a random few hands of bridge. The current "Find me a game" feature is useless and it would be SO easy to make it better.

Just because a lot of people want something does not make it right or good. In this case I think a lot of people want something that would have a very, very negative impact on BBO as a whole.

And anyway it just baffles me that people support such a parasitic site as bboskill. Pretty sick.

[quiddity]

 jjbrr, on 2012-July-18, 09:50, said:

Just because a lot of people want something does not make it right or good. In this case I think a lot of people want something that would have a very, very negative impact on BBO as a whole.

And anyway it just baffles me that people support such a parasitic site as bboskill. Pretty sick.

I agree with that, bboskill is a horrible site and BBO could put it out of business by giving people better tools to evaluate their performance. I really fail to see how a private performance rating can have a very very negative impact on the site.

[billw55]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-18, 11:36, said:

I agree with that, bboskill is a horrible site and BBO could put it out of business by giving people better tools to evaluate their performance. I really fail to see how a private performance rating can have a very very negative impact on the site.

Because many users will start playing for the sole purpose of raising their rating.

There are other sites with ratings. BBO is the alternative with no ratings. I like having alternatives.

[BunnyGo]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-18, 11:36, said:

BBO could put it out of business by giving people better tools to evaluate their performance.

I dispute this statement. I think the core of this issue is that most people agree that there is no good rating system that will work in a free for all environment like BBO.

[jjbrr]

 quiddity, on 2012-July-18, 11:36, said:

I agree with that, bboskill is a horrible site and BBO could put it out of business by giving people better tools to evaluate their performance. I really fail to see how a private performance rating can have a very very negative impact on the site.

People are rude on BBO when the scores are completely meaningless. How do you think people would behave if the scores bore some real meaning?

[quiddity]

 jjbrr, on 2012-July-18, 13:18, said:

People are rude on BBO when the scores are completely meaningless. How do you think people would behave if the scores bore some real meaning?

If people are rude now, there's little to lose by trying something new. Maybe people would be less rude if the site did a better job of helping them find other players with comparable skill, common systems, common language, etc.

I mainly use BBO as a place to watch vugraph and practice with friends. BBO is great for this, and I'm sure it will continue to get better, but as a social bridge site it has a long way to go. It has had thousands of users for ten years, many of whom log on almost every day and play hundreds of hands a month with a wide variety of opponents. Yet it has no idea how well these users play, no measurement of relative skill level?

Anyway, this is getting way off track from the main thread:

Should people who want ratings continue to petition BBO for them? Yes, otherwise nothing will change. Just because BBO has a particular policy today doesn't mean the matter is closed forever!

Should they use the forums to petition BBO? Sure, I think so. At least then it will be a matter of public record that people are interested.

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.

[hrothgar]

 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.

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...

[phil_20686]

 billw55, on 2012-July-18, 12:01, said:

Because many users will start playing for the sole purpose of raising their rating.

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.