Brandal

needless to say mauro, i couldn't disagree more... and i'm still waiting for a quote showing this attack... you seem to be saying (you can correct me if i'm wrong) that the very fact that someone criticized rain's handling of the situation constitutes an attack on her... there were many errors made on both sides, imo, but pointing that out hardly qualifies as an attack... for the record, the phrase "jimmy drank the beer" is, by definition, an accusation... Justin claims Rain deletes posts as (s)he pleases, he implies Rain doesn't do the job well (like ben and uday). You call it critisize,I call it "attack",so be it,this is not a big deal to me. If you read my first responses,I don't think you can say I accuse Justin of anything,but I think he is wrong(in my opinion)

this isn't the first time someone has accused justin of attacking rain... please show me where this happened or have the decency to retract it Don't accuse me of accusing Justin,show me where I accused him,not this where I stated how I read his post,or have the decency to retract it :rolleyes: sophistry... the phrase "... he attacked rain" is an accusation... If you say so It wasn't meant as an accusation

this isn't the first time someone has accused justin of attacking rain... please show me where this happened or have the decency to retract it Don't accuse me of accusing Justin,show me where I accused him,not this where I stated how I read his post,or have the decency to retract it ;)

Glad you're back,no doubt your contributions in general are much appreciated here Justin :)

I have to disagree again. The problem was Justin's post,not the responses, the way I read it he "attacked" Rain. Then the responses became a "problem".... He received some supportive responses and some "attacked" him,and/or his post. Now,I didn't attack Justin,but clearly my opinion is he is/was wrong on all counts. :)

A bunch of people taking sides,and a few in the middle is getting to the bottom of it? :)

It doesn't matter why he is mad,or what he thinks Rain should or should not do. Rain is a moderator,Justin is not,seems you're saying Justin should have a say here? He is,as far as I could read,still allowed to post here if he wishes. Getting a few posts deleted can't be this big a deal,so I'm guessing the content of this particular post was somewhat controversial. Not respecting the moderator's decision also backs up that notion. Fred is a good sheriff,Rain and the other deputies must be doing one helluva job,because BBO and BBF are fantastic places to be. So.....every once in awhile we should step away from confrontation, to ease their workload. I hope Justin returns,but we all have to respect the moderators decisions.

Yeah....I have no idea whatsoever what this is about, but: If I was ridiculed on some more or less "obscure" blog, I certainly would not like it linked in here,whatever the ridiculing was about. I always ask myself "what if this was me",when facing issues not concerning me directly. I don't want to have an opinion,since I don't know anything about this blog/link. Ultimatums don't work well online Justin,that I do know... There's always two sides,no matter how thin you slice it :)

Hi Fred/Uday It would be helpful if translators could receive an email notification or some other notification when you introduce a substantial new amount of things to be translated before a new version comes to public update. Would be nice to be able to translate before the release. It's not a big deal,just a thought. :o

I didn't know that was an option,will have a look,thx Claus EDIT: Does not work against "flaghoppers"....too bad.

Not sure what the "decent people" comment means, for me people(my friends) changing flags are a practical "problem" for me. In the lobby I have displayed only the countries where I have friends and/or partners I play with. This is a problem,I have a couple of friends who change flags almost every day,and never use their country's flag, so I never see them. :) I do wish some day our friends can be shown regardless of lobby settings.

Hi Todd I've been debating the skill part,or at least think I have,mostly :) I don't play with pickup partners much,but to answer your question, yes that's my efficient system :blink: ----------------- I'm still trying to get my head around the skill system of yours. Will a vote have less weight if the player voting has lower skill level?

Don't you think many players would "worry" about who they partner with,if their rating is at stake? And seriously,are "we" in a position to rate opps after 1 or 2 boards in a tourney? How accurate will that be? Should we be able to rate the same player more than once? If yes,why? Are we wrong the first time? Or if we voted "better than me" the first time,will the other options be greyed out? I don't think BBO is so friendly because of self rating,but because of the absence of other ratingschemes. And I don't think for 1 minute that BBO will become more friendly with peer rating,I really don't. :) I agree with Fred,writing in player notes if this is a player you don't mind playing with or against,or writing that this player is not welcome at your table,is much more efficient,and much more accurate too :D

*Cough*. What exactly did you mean by "for the most part" and "fair indication"? What is that online service called where you are playing? --Sigi I meant that someone who rates himself i.e. advanced, is usually in the neighborhood between advanced/intermediate and advanced/expert....ofcourse your experience in the matter can be something else. Do you think a "poll system" will pinpoint exact levels? The online service I play,is called BBO,and perhaps due to the self rating system,the friendliest I have ever played on. And I like friendly :unsure: alot

I like the way you think,I'm not against a better ratingsystem in principle. I ask questions because that is how I can understand better. And examples are also a nice car,so here is one: You're talking about a weighted system. Player A plays 12 boards tournament with a new partner, new partner gives Player A his rating. Player A then plays a 12 board indy,1 board with 12 different new partners. Question is,will 1 board with 12 partners have same weight as 12 boards with 1 partner? I'm not concerned with bad ratings,I'm concerned with how accurate will this system be? I think Fred landed on self ratings because for the most part,it is a fair indication to level,and because little bad can come from it, except the usual "you???????expert??????????LOL" kinda thing, and that will not go away in any scheme.

I guess we agree that the current method (self-rating) is useless. Many people (those with regular BBO partners and friends for example) do not need any ranking scheme. So know we can remove ranking entirely from BBO and assume that it would not bother that many people at all if we did. Alternately we can assume that there are a few players who actually care for some kind of ranking method that is more accurate than the current one. Todd has proposed one and I guess we should give it (or a similarly promising approach) a go. BTW a part of Todd's algorithm takes care of disabling the vote button until enough boards have been played with a partner. In the end, everybody is free to ignore any rating figures that appear on a players profile - I for my part would like to have something a bit more valuable than the current self-tagging. --Sigi Yep,we agree that selfrating is "useless" as accurate measure. I've seen enough to say,alot of players rate themselves 1 level too high on avarage....but then again,this is by MY understanding of the levels :P I "judge" how others play,by how I would play,to draw that inference. Won't it be the same when rating others directly? Obviously a player gets many different people's votes,but all is still based on subjective meanings of how an "equal" player would play?

Imagine how they would feel if everyone else rated them as such......and not themselves. I mean,it does open up a whole new set of "feelings".... most players have some bridge-pride in what they do, at any level The nice part of the prisoner's dillemma approach is that you would not be rating your peers on an absolute scale, but compare them to your own skills instead (better, equal, worse). Your pick would not be displayed to the other person, it would only be used to recalculate the new rating for both players. This will provide a global peer rating of some sort without the problem that you could blame anyone of your former partners for giving you a bad rating. Maybe it would merely turn out to be a major failure, but I'd really like to try it out. Todd has put a bit more thought into his own ideas, and maybe one could combine it with the above (NB it wasn't my idea but somebody else's in this thread). --Sigi We agree that this scheme,or any other scheme, has a purpose? The purpose only,to be able to pick a partner with better accuracy without playing with him first? Or a pickup game with reasonable chance of finding one just by looking at the player level? Hope the "vote-button" doesn't enable until we have played at least 20 boards with/against other players. And I'm still against it :P

Imagine how they would feel if everyone else rated them as such......and not themselves. I mean,it does open up a whole new set of "feelings".... most players have some bridge-pride in what they do, at any level

Hi This isn't aimed at anyone in particular,just a couple of questions in a general manner.... First,let me say I use the "Private" skill rating,because I don't feel very "comfortable" in any of the other levels. My "regular" partners know what to expect from me,so in that sense there is no problem. I readily admit I'm kind of a minority here,because I fail to see how others can benefit from what someone else again rated me as,skillwise. I asked this before in this thread: Won't you have to play with "me" and judge for yourself in any rating system? What is the purpose of it,just to have a different scheme,let's try it out? Wouldn't the average imp score over the last 30 played tournaments or so give the same indication of accuracy,and the same dilemmas whether how to "trust" that kind of measurement? Do we rate opps? I don't think I want to do that,I just want to play against them. :) Again,I really don't object to the fact there might be better ways to set skill level,or to implement them,but I do worry about the effects it might have....

Not sure if you replied to me but.... 1. I wasn't complaining about anything,merely expressing my opinion. If Fred & Co decides some rating scheme,that will also be ok with me,I just happen to like the friendly approach he has chosen up to now,once skill level based on what others think,or based on scores or placements are implemented,BBO will become a less friendly place for many players. This is ofcourse,only my opinion. 2. How does any rating scheme tell you "this is the partner i've been looking for" without playing with him and judge for yourself? I also have a "small set of people" I play with,most of the time. 3. I never said I don't care what people think of me,I said it's not important to me regarding having a committee deciding my skill. Again,I was not complaining,unless having a different opinion is complaining. I have no doubt this Lehmann system is more accurate than selfratings, it's not the accuracy I am concerned about,it is the "side effects". I wouldn't want players who look at ratings to find me :) Now,that could mean I have no ambitions,could mean I'm a terrible player too,could mean that bridge isn't all that important to me, we all have different levels of what bridge is to us. So....bottom line is I wouldn't have a problem with others rating me, or some other type of rating,it just isn't important to me,and I try to stay away from players who think it is. :) Having said that,maybe players could choose how to be rated,or not being rated. I have played 1-one-ACBL tourney on BBO,and got a 2 next to my name,I wish it would go away soon. :P embarrassing.

In my opinion most players don't put a lot of thought into being accurate with skill level. I've seen players change it after a bad tourneyresult, and the next day back up after a better tourney. I still think selfrating is the least bad way here,even though I agree it is meaningless as a measure. Having a committee deciding how good I am,is really of no interest to me,if my partners like to play with me I'm happy,what others think of me is not important. My only ambition is to play to the best of my ability, and I always try to do that.

I don't play in MBC unless all 3 other players at the table are "known" to me or friends. Why? Because it's virtually impossible to get the game going steady with random opps or partner. And being sucked away to tourney isn't the worst culprit,people just leave after a bad bid by pd or a wrong lead or defense by pd,or strange declaring. Very few give the player more than one chance, one board and they're gone. Then the hassle begins,looking for a new player, then the one who's left by pd,leaves too,and the same thing almost always repeats itself with the next pair of players. It's not uncommon having to replace 5-6 players in 10-12 boards,very annoying. A much bigger problem than tournament suction in my opinion.

Sounds like the tourney was cancelled.

In order to make use of this freedom, don't you have to know which tourneys and which directors apply these rules? Unless these details are mentioned in the tourney descriptions (they rarely are, as far as I can tell) it's a crapshoot. I don't know what a crapshoot is,but this "epidemic forum-attitude" that all strange/bad/silly/wrong/stupid tournament regulations that some clubs/TD's enforce ruin the enjoyment is somewhat over the top... This is ofcourse,my opinion,not a truth. When I enter a tournament I respect the rules to the best of my ability,I don't bother if all the rules are not posted. Yes,I think it's silly with a 1 trick automatic penalty for failure to say "We play sayc--udca" and the likes at the beginning of each round,and alert accordingly,but it would not stop me from enjoying the tournament. I'm just happy there are tournaments I can play,I am thankful to all organizers,it wouldn't even be the end of the world for me with a "You have to psyche" tournament.... :D Just my thoughts......it's ok with variety.

If by aggregate you mean adding all the + scores and subtracting the - scores,that is not a good way to score. Where I play (usually Howell) we score a board like this: NS EW Contract/Tricks NS EW NS Score EW score 1 2 6S N 12 1430 10 0 3 4 4S N 12 680 8 2 5 6 4S N 11 650 4 4 7 8 4S N 11 650 4 4 9 10 6S N 11 100 1 9 11 12 6S N 11 100 1 9 Edit: This came out real bad....sorry [i put your table inside "code" box which uses both fixed space font and allows spaces.. outside of code and quotes, two or more spaces show up as just one.. so use code boxes for tables (quotes do not use the fixed space font) - inquiry]