[661_Pete]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times before, so I don't think I have anything new to add here. Personally I find the behaviour annoying, to say the least.

Twice in recent days, in the 'Acol club', sitting as dummy, I've had my partner flounce off without completing the hand. One time, it was no doubt on seeing that due to a bidding mix-up we were due to go six down. Each time, I agreed to cross the table to play out the hand from declarer's seat - mainly as a courtesy to my opponents: I've found that BBO permits you to do this. If I'm down for a bad result I ought to accept it.

What I'm saying is, while I accept that it's only a minority of players that flounce like this, I wish the practice could be stopped altogether, somehow. But I don't see how, other than BBO dropping gentle - or not so gentle - persuasive hints....

[1eyedjack]

I agree with you entirely. What is more, switching seats to complete the hand has the added "benefit" of registering the bad score against your former partner's history, so in the end he gains nothing by flouncing other than damaging his hand completion record.

The main control over this at present is simply to chalk them up as black.

[661_Pete]

I agree: I've put the odd note on some players' profiles.

What I don't want, is for BBO to implement a system of public "likes/dislikes" counted against players. That way spells bullying and ostracism! On the other hand, when another player comments via the chat line "yes I've had problems with so-and-so before..." then I do take note!

What a pity that playing bridge brings out a 'bad' side in a few - hopefully very few - people! Why is this so I wonder?

[hrothgar]

One interesting option:

IF someone leaves a table mid hand
AND they haven't been sucked into a tournament or team game
AND the other three players at the table ALL vote yes

THEN the player who level get booted from BBO for some length of time.

(I'd favor an exponential back off with some decay function)

First time you get booted, its for 5 minutes.
Second time, its 15
Third time its an hour
Fourth time its eight hours

[661_Pete]

We must bear in mind, that some players have to quit BBO for genuine reasons - urgent phone call, family crisis, whatever. We've got to make allowance for that.

I would regard as 'evidence', the fact that the player in question immediately joins another table. This is what one of my 'flouncers' did - I checked (click on their profile - you'll see on the top line of the box, what they're currently doing). I asked the flouncer in question, what's the big idea then? The reply was, "one of the opponents was too slow".

That's a pretty dumb reason, in my books. The opponent in question was having some connection problems.

[Vampyr]

hrothgar, on 2016-May-05, 08:50, said:

One interesting option:

IF someone leaves a table mid hand
AND they haven't been sucked into a tournament or team game
AND the other three players at the table ALL vote yes

THEN the player who level get booted from BBO for some length of time.

(I'd favor an exponential back off with some decay function)

First time you get booted, its for 5 minutes.
Second time, its 15
Third time its an hour
Fourth time its eight hours

I like the idea, but I would think that days rather than minutes would be more sensible.

[billw55]

661_Pete, on 2016-May-05, 05:01, said:

I agree: I've put the odd note on some players' profiles.

What I don't want, is for BBO to implement a system of public "likes/dislikes" counted against players. That way spells bullying and ostracism! On the other hand, when another player comments via the chat line "yes I've had problems with so-and-so before..." then I do take note!

What a pity that playing bridge brings out a 'bad' side in a few - hopefully very few - people! Why is this so I wonder?

I agree about the likes and dislikes.

The profiles already show board completion rates, which should suffice for this purpose. I think there is even a table setting for minimum completion rate.

[barmar]

A few years ago BBO was programmed to automatically block a player from going to a new table for a few minutes after they left a table in the middle of a hand, as a deterrent to behavior like this.

But we eventually turned this off, and replaced it with the Completion Rate percentage, and the ability of table hosts to block players with low completion rates.

[661_Pete]

I looked at the profile of the 'offender' in question, but I couldn't see their completion rate anywhere. Can someone point me towards it? They have over 1000+ logins.

[BabsG]

661_Pete, on 2016-May-05, 11:39, said:

I looked at the profile of the 'offender' in question, but I couldn't see their completion rate anywhere. Can someone point me towards it? They have over 1000+ logins.

I am not aware of a way to check player's completion rate (other than my own which show which shows under User Profile), but when you start a table as host you can set a minimum completion rate to help cut down on runners.

[661_Pete]

barmar, on 2016-May-05, 09:39, said:

But we eventually turned this off, and replaced it with the Completion Rate percentage, and the ability of table hosts to block players with low completion rates.

BabsG, on 2016-May-05, 17:13, said:

I am not aware of a way to check player's completion rate

So - it seems this feature isn't really helpful after all. Yes, I can set a minimum completion rate if I host a table, but set to what? 100%? 95%? 5%?

[PhilG007]

If I were you,I would put this individual on 'ignore' on your profile.
That way you can be assured you wont meet up with him/her ever again
and you can say 'good riddance' in finality. If this person did that
in a real life tournament,it would result in a permanent exclusion from
that area's future events.

[661_Pete]

PhilG007, on 2016-May-06, 06:10, said:

If I were you,I would put this individual on 'ignore' on your profile.

To be honest, I'd rather not. I'm not out to conduct personal vendettas, but there are plenty of other decent players on BBO to consider - who might also fall foul of this individual's behaviour.

I'd prefer it if the person in question got a friendly warning from the admins. But it's probably too minor an 'offence' to report to abuse@.....

[billw55]

The completion rate shows in the dialog box when the player applies to join a locked table.

I don't know if it displays in the player profile under other circumstances. It sounds like not.

[PhilG007]

661_Pete, on 2016-May-05, 08:59, said:

We must bear in mind, that some players have to quit BBO for genuine reasons - urgent phone call, family crisis, whatever. We've got to make allowance for that.

I would regard as 'evidence', the fact that the player in question immediately joins another table. This is what one of my 'flouncers' did - I checked (click on their profile - you'll see on the top line of the box, what they're currently doing). I asked the flouncer in question, what's the big idea then? The reply was, "one of the opponents was too slow".

That's a pretty dumb reason, in my books. The opponent in question was having some connection problems.

I totally agree with that. I have had to abandon a tourney here for various reasons. But I had the good sense to inform the
table I was at and send a message to the TD so I could be subbed. This person didn't do that. And abandoning a table for opponents tardiness is totally unaccecptable. The way to deal with this is to summon the TD and let him/her deal with it.

[661_Pete]

PhilG007, on 2016-May-06, 06:18, said:

The way to deal with this is to summon the TD and let him/her deal with it.

This was a casual play table, so no TDs to summon. The outcome doesn't really matter, it's just an annoyance.
But in a tourney - agreed.

[DougC43]

It seems to me that displaying the player's completion rate (provided it's adjusted for being taken away to a tournament) on their profile would be a good idea. This is not the same as showing friend/enemy counts (as someone alluded to earlier), since a player's completion rate is within their own control; knowing that your completion rate is getting embarrassingly low might deter you from bailing.

[barmar]

DougC43, on 2016-May-06, 12:40, said:

It seems to me that displaying the player's completion rate (provided it's adjusted for being taken away to a tournament) on their profile would be a good idea. This is not the same as showing friend/enemy counts (as someone alluded to earlier), since a player's completion rate is within their own control; knowing that your completion rate is getting embarrassingly low might deter you from bailing.

It's not always voluntary, it could be because of a poor Internet connection, and they're not deserving of embarassment. But since their departures impact other players, regardless of the reason, we consider them equal for purposes of blocking them by completion rate.

[661_Pete]

barmar, on 2016-May-07, 15:26, said:

It's not always voluntary, it could be because of a poor Internet connection, and they're not deserving of embarassment. But since their departures impact other players, regardless of the reason, we consider them equal for purposes of blocking them by completion rate.

The BBO software must 'know' if someone has quit a table because of lost internet connection, or going offline for some other reason, as opposed to merely quitting a table in order to join another table - or to kibitz. After all, when I click on someone's profile, I can see at once whether the person is 'online' or 'offline'. If I can see it, the site should be able to keep records of the fact.

I think this matter ought to be passed on to the software guys to see what they can come up with. Certainly, some means of identifying the 'flouncers' would make one's experience of the already very good BBO site, even better. An enhancement I'd really like to see come about.

[barmar]

Yes, the server can tell the difference. But for the purposes we're using the statistics for, we decided that it wasn't important, so we don't currently record them differently. We don't want to embarass players, just give table and tourney hosts an option to block people who are likely to disappear, for whatever reason.