irdoz

There's a lot of points in the last few posts - as well as the link to the other thread which I hadnt read before. I'd like to comment on a couple of themes that appeared... 1. Both sides of this debate are prone to exagerration, corruption of the scientific process, distortion, lies etc. Heres' a reference to the role of the oil companies in this debate: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/glo...xxon_report.pdf And heres' the rebuttal: http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/489.pdf It is absolutely true that on both sides of this debate there are people who may have behaved unethically. But characterising this as a debate between two extremes is exactly what those with a vested interest in maintining the status quo want. What this discourse does is hide the fact is that the vast bulk of people involved in this debate are not extremists, not distorting the scientific method and committed to appropriate policy responses based on the best avialable knowledge. There are some 20,000 climate scientists in the world. The bulk of them are not prone to exagerration or lies. Many of them have come to the conclusion based on the current state of knowledge that it is highly probable - but still not ' 100% proved' that human activity is significantly contibuting to the current global warming. There are likewise a number of climate scientists (though based on my reading a smaller number) who feel that there is still insufficient knowledge and data to make an accurate assessment of risk. 2. That it is always useful to be sceptical about scientific orthodoxy. There are a couple of famous incidents in medicine where a rogue phsician has challenged orthodox opinion, been lambasted by his peers and subsequently been shown to be correct. And it is absolutley the case - more so in some fields than others - that research funding decisions are influenced by politics, prevailing peer opinion, government policy, funding ring-fencing etc. and that the 'best science' is not always funded (if you could ever determine what that is). But what this says is that scepticism is useful and in some cases should be carefully listened to. What it doesnt say is that sceptics are correct or likely to be correct - and indeed based on my own experience they are more likely to be incorrect. Here's three examples of 'scepticism' : 1. Person A believes orthodox medicine is suppressing the truth about his herbal cure for cancer. His herbs could be useful but she/he needs proof... and there is little hope of getting funding for such research. But theres a really small chance his herb is useful and a higher chance that it could be harmful. 2. Person B still believes HIV does not cause AIDS - and many sceintists agree. There comes a point where you just have to yawn I think - and even if it was still the case Koch's postulates of disease still remained unsatisfied. 3. Person C is not convinced about prevailing opinions on cholesterol and whether to take the cholesterol medicine recommended by his doctor because of reports about it. There is indeed a lot more to be learnt about cholesterol. What Im trying badly to say by these three examples is that how you feel about scepticism depends on the context - so for scepticism about HIV and AIDS afaiac the door is that way. And the way i read the science about global warming, my guess is that in the next decade the door may soon be accepting travellers. I also saw DrTodd13's comment that most people believed what they believed based on 'TV told me a bunch of scientists agreed'. My gut reaction was that probably most people believed they 'didnt know who to beleive'. So I went to look for polls and found a journal article summarising 20 years of opinion polls. To my surprise, in the most recent poll in that article, some 75% of Americans believe global warming is real and many would support a range of policy responses. This led to a discussion on one blog where a climate scientists opined (and Im paraphrasing because I cant quickly find the blog) that maybe the science debate was a furphy - and the real barriers were not convincing people that something needed to be done - but instead science redirecting its effort into finding and articulating what can actually and achievably be done (which is probably a much harder question)...

Is 2nt another option?

I actually think it is reasonable for non-experts to have a discussion about making sense of the scientific evidence. Sure, for most of us who are not expert it's not like we are giving expert opinion. But if expert opinion was actually leading the way, then substantial investment in alternative energy sources and serious policy development and the beginning of implementation of appropriate policy responses would have begun. The reason things have by and large not begun in some places is not because of the science - but because of politics. While people perceive that there's two bickering sides and everything is unproven and too political then gridlock is well and truly in place. And it is this political environment that those with a vested interest in the status quo are trying to maintain. If you have some knowledge of the history of 'science versus the tobacco industry' then the tactics they are using are incredibly similar. These include i) focus on uncertainty and lack of 'proof' ii) brand advocates of any effective action as extremists or leftists or some other highly politicised term iii) produce highly selective out of context and out of date 'science' to support your own views Probably their most convincing argument is the lack of certainty and proof. In tobacco there was epidemioligal data showing a clear link between lung disease and cigarette smoking. But a statstical link is not 'proof' that smoking causes lung cancer. But it is really strong circumstantial evidence. I guess thats my (non-expert) impression of the current state of play in climate science. While there may not be 'proof' (and in the tobacco case the industries definition of proof was incredibly rigid) the circumstantial evidence that human activity is significantly contributing to the current global warming is incredibly strong. It's worth remembering that the surgeon-generals report highlighting the link between smoking and lung cancer was produced in 1964 - and that cigarette companies still persisted with their 'no proof' campaign until well into the 1990s. It was only when the numbers of people with lung cancer became so overwhelming that they couldn't politically persist any more. But ultmately in my opinion it was politics that finally changed the picture - not science. (Although the tobacco industry is still doing very well despite law suits and is producing impressive prospectus for investors... and their new 'customers' in the developing world can't sue because they are 'knowingly' taking the risk) If we have to wait for the politics of global warming to change because the effects are actually happening and seriously impacting on our quality of life then it may be a little late - so Im interested in how you have a conversation about global warming that positions it outside of the current gridlock - and I do think it is non-experts who have to have that conversation. On another matter, I understand the 'anger of Han' about the corruption of the scientific process by money. The widely publicised letter by the AEI offering $10,000 to scientists and economists to provide commissioned articles to counter the recent ICCP report on global warming comes to mind. Unfortunately, in those areas of science that have associated with them large commercial interests , perceived 'non-independent' funding is often a major problem. The role of the pharmacuetical industry funding medical research is an ethical minefield and has arguably corrupted not only 'grey' literature but according to former editors of the NEJM, probably some peer-reviewed literature as well.

I was a medical student in the 90s and got placed at a large HIV hospital. At the time a nobel prize winning chemist had challenged orthodox scientific opinion that HIV caused AIDS and promoted an alternate hypothesis. He was correct in that there was not sufficent evidence to say with certainty that HIV caused AIDS. His alternate hpyothesis was, however, scientifically bankrupt. Drugs to treat HIV disease were improving enormously. There had been a long controversy about many of the drugs and the side effects of some of the first drugs were often considered worse than the disease itself. Many people with HIV refused to take the new drugs - a choice that was reinforced by the scenitific debate about the lack of certainty that HIV causes AIDS. Meanwhile, the increasing experience of doctors treating people with new drug combinations was of incredible success. I watched and shared their frustration as they tried to convince dying people to take these drugs and how constrained they were by the language of science and their inability to state things as certain. In private they were certain and could be scathing about the motivation of people promoting alternative hypothesies. They often had a conflict about their obligation to people with HIV they were seeing as doctors and whether or not to overstate their personal 'certainty'. I remember going to the funeral of one person with HIV who refused drug treatment, and his sister looking me in the eye and saying 'you know you doctors failed my brother - you should have made him go on treatment'. Im sure scientists who had the same personal certainty that tobacco caused lung cancer must have faced similar dilemnas about how to state the science, as they saw scientific uncertainty disingenuosly and quite mischievously used by the tobacco industry and their paid 'researchers'. And Im sure climatologists who have the same personal certainty that human activity is contibuting to the current gloabal warming (with of course different degrees of certainty about how much contribution and what future impact) are facing the same dliemna as they watch global warming sceptics misuse and misrepresent scientific uncertainty, produce meaningless out of context data and non peer-reviewed scientific garbage. If in 30 years time the world is badly affected by global warming, the effects are towards the worst end of what's predicted as possible and because we failed to act soon enough those effects are not reversible for a few hundred years did they fail because they were constrained by the lack of certainty and 'science' to say strongly enough what they personally believed? Some URLs For sceptics http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publi...th/skeptics.htm Some evidence http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publi...ic_evidence.htm One of the key studies on historical CO2 levels in ice cores http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/...s/399429a0.html Countering some of the myths abut CO2 (including in this thread) http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%2...al_warming3.htm

Hmmm... given headlines in todays newspapers other events may conspire to take Australia from the No 1 position in test cricket. http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/indian-...s_cid=rss_sport

Inviting people to team games because they have stars seems like a huge and incredible amount of insensitivity but all the time in the lobby I see people advertising for stars. But for fun, here's a local story about a 'star' who I've never seen on BBO, but would qualify for a star if they played here. I'd started playing weekly at a local club and one of the regulars on that night was a champion player who usually beat us up when me and my partner played them. In chatting, she/he discovered i was a medical practitioner and after that every time we played them the conversation turned to various medical problems and the seeking of advice. Now normally this is considered sort of rude but i guess because they were a champion player they thought they could cross that boundary. Anyway one week we were playing the same direction and one hand was a tough major game contract that i was going one off in (with the rest of the field) except I got a misdefense. They had made the hand without misdefense. Afterwards they came up to me and steered the conversation in the usual direction. Somewhat bored by this, I decided to ask about the play on that hand - not something I would otherwise do. Without hesititating - they said - that will cost you $x - 'I spent years learning my craft' they said. I was flabberghasted and just smiled meekly and made a poilte exit after he'd told me I should get some lessons off him. A week later - he was asking about yet another medical thing and I stopped him. That will be $x*10 I said - I spent years learning my craft you know. 'You should make an appointment' I said. Both of us are still waiting payment.

1. Where I come from becoming a TD requires more playing competence than an "easy bridge" course provides. 2. Condolences are hereby offered. 'I'm so sorry for you' :). In reality having directed online with a huge number of tables in timed events that arent that important, its not really directing you are doing, but facilitation - the goal unfortunatley becomes not the fairest ruling but getting people to play on as soon as possible. Some bridge players are as useful as the worst sports parents and the best er.. umm.. defense attorneys at offering unbiased opinions on director quality. There is a problem in many sports (including bridge in some locations) with the availability and quality of referees/umpires/directors. This only increases the whining volume. But the reason why the problem exisits in the first place is often precisely because of the whining - who'd want to referree when you are subject to biased attacks and vexatious complaints without recourse to reply and the best and recommended course of action is to shrug and get people to move on?

One smoker living to 80 proves nothing. Compare 100 randomly picked smokers to 100 randomly picked (but other wise matched for class and age etc.) non-smokers . 100% of the time the life expectancy of the non-smokers will be much higher than the smokers. Those who believe in one anecdote as equivalent evidence to statistical evidence are practising something called denial and self-deceoption. As a medical practitioner I get this 'one story' anecdote form fo denial all the time. A quick tour of the lung cancer ward to see a few other 'anecdotes' seems to work wonders.

I like to watch one hand only (either the declarer or one of the defenders). It's a lot more instructive (and when viewed like this sometimes it is easy to see how the expert commentary is influenced by being able to see all 4 hands). I usually put the movie on and review the bidding for the last hand while they are bidding the next - then set options to view the declarer. Currently the only options are to see all 4 hands or view one hand only. It would probably make for more interesting commentating and viewing if you had an option to view one particualr pair.

There are huge numbers of studies of the economic impacts of smoking and of smoking bans. I did a quick google and the link below shows the typical sort of data presented (this is for Indiana) where huge economic impacts are shown. Critics of these studies say they don't factor in the cost of health care for non-smokers who live long lives in retirement (and of course if we did call 'living' a 'cost' then we'd encourage products that caused death at retirement age because they were cost-effective...(tongue in cheek)). However, when you compare the lifetime health costs of smokers to non-smokers it turns out that the costs are double for msokers despite their reduced life expectancy. That is because smoking realted diseases are expensive to treat and often chronic. So I'm not sure the costs are 'negligible'. (http://www.state.in.us/isdh/programs/tobacco/economic.htm)

So this thread is about the 6 essential steps you go through to seek your peers opinions on a ruling in a totally unbiased way... 1. You introduce the subject by an irrelevant question. 2. You don't possibly intend to influence peoples opinions in the slighest possible way by prejudging tyhe outcome by describing the ruling as the worst ever seen. 3. You then outline why this decision is the worst ever. 4. You indicate your impartiality and lack of emotional involvement by describing the opponents as idiots and elderly boneheads as a further indication that you don;t want to countenance different views. 5. You don't appeal what is the 'worst ever decision' by seeking a ruling from your peers because you might lose the appeal. 6. You present all relevant evidence including all of the hands. And then when comments are given - a number of which seem to be saying that maybe the directors decision was possibly correct - you say thats it unanimous in shock and awe about such a wrong decision. This method seems to have gained an totally accurate and unbiased assessment of peer opinions.

I loved Godel, Escher, Bach. This however left me somewhat bewildered and annoyed - I thought a lot of it repetitive and pompous - and somewhat inaccessible. Some of it I found sort of interesting and sad (Carol) but left with the feeling that there was a much better book there somewhere.

1. There's a lot of research into the well documented (at least for this and the last century) generational differences in intelligence (younger generations are on average more intelligent). There are probably major two reasons - improvement in nutrition and increased 'stimulation' (as well as a host of other possible factors). However, my understanding is that the impact of improved nutrition is to alter the shape of the curve with most impact on the shifting bottom half of the curve (ie where lower intelligence may have been due to poor nutrition). If you compare the top parts of the intelligence distribution between generations my understanding is that while differences still exist they are not so significant. 2. The growth of anti-bacterial resistance amongst baceteria (great explanations above) is one good example of evolution. Another is antiviral resistance. Probably the most studied and mapped virus is the HIV. It reproduces at an enormously fast rate and errors in its reproduction (the mutation rate) are very high. If you give a person with HIV one anitviral drug you can measure low level resistance within a fortnight (depending on their viral load) and high level resistance within 3 months. You need 3 different drugs to prevent the rapid development of resistance - with 2 the odds of simultaneous mutations at 2 different points are high enough for resistance to develop. It's probable in the future that antibacterial drugs will have to change to combination drugs (if we had the combinations to use) - some of the newer antiviral drugs are 'shape changers' - that is they change their shape to combat resistant targets.

I'm an atheist and a fan of Singer's (Australian bioethicist). This thread makes me anxious. I see two sets of strongly held belief systems speaking but not really having a dialogue - like two non-intersecting circles of flawed logic that will spin separately forever. I get the same reaction to fundamenatlist Islam versus fundamentalist Christians. I fear what humanity is facing this century though global warming and a looming food crisis through destruction of arable land (by increasing population, rise in sea water and climate change). With whats looming youd hope we'd put all our focus on it. But instead we have neoliberals like the Australian prime minister and American president who believe it is all about expanding markets (their solution for everything) and growth - and are prepared to go to war to open up new markets (very moral and ethical). They want to accelerate the very things that are causing the looming global crisis. The gulf between atheists and Christians seems as wide as that between people concerned about global warming and neoliberals. On another point, Im surprised about the bald statements that Hitler was an atheist. Until 1935 he was a self-identified Christian and used quotes from the bible to justify many of his policies. As I undertand it, after 1935 he abandoned 'religion' because he saw it as a threat to his power but he also banned atheism (and they were imprisoned).

You seem to be making a lot of points that do not fit together well into a logical argument. Yes I know what they are in the context you are using them. If you cannot see a joke or sarcasm I give up? You see how easy it is to be insulting and argumentative instead of having a reasoned conversation? Yes millions get sick from drinknig 'water'. Yes I have in the past volunteered to work in countries where large volumes of such deaths occur - so I am very aware of the impact of drinking 'natural' 'water'. This has exactly nothing to do with the use of water as a performance enhancing agent in sport. If you want to say EPO and aspirin are the same go ahead becasue 'they are both chemicals and both enhancing' go ahead. Jumping from a 1 foot cliif and jumping from a 200 meter cliff are both jumping so therefore they are the same and should be treated equally. Oh Realy? If this is your logic perhaps indeed giving up is a good idea. :lol:

I assume you dont mean drowning in water sports. Sure hyperhydration after intense exercise is sadly still too common a cause of death. And yes more people will have died from hyperhydration after intense exercise than from EPO. But the water which is being used that causes death in hyperhydration is generally being used after the 'performance' - and not to enhance performance. And although hyperhydration is often commonly referred to as 'water poisoining' the cause of death is usually attributed to the underlying cause - dehydration after intense exercise. 1. Pain killers are banned by most olympic sports federations 2. Speed is banned by all olympic federations. 3. Greenies - something to do with people who like trees? 4. Reds - an old fashioned term to describe communists? 5. EPO is not some 'exception'...the banned list is quite long. But then while you may have a poiint about the difficulty of determining a dividing line you have missed the point about the necessity of a line - and no i dont want to define the parameters for divining such a line.

No I did not miss your point at all mike777. I just didnt want to get into a long policy discussion about where and how to draw the line because Ive seen attempts and they are all messy. Some of your examples are or have been in the past banned substances - maybe not by american football but by some olympic sport federations. Water and EPO are clearly different. They may both be enhancing agents in some contexts - but only EPO is associated with early death. Breathing is also performance enhancing and as the saying goes 'breathing is fatal'. Indeed I regularly talk to people about their health in my work - and their excuse for not adopting healthier lifestyles is precisely like this - 'well everything is harmful' or 'breathing is fatal'... Their logic seems somewhat similar to yours... but water is ok and performance enhancing so why isnt EPO treated the samw way? Clearly we are not about to ban either breathing or water - if you want to argue that they are logically no different from something like EPO because they are both performance enhancing go right ahead. I don't think it takes us anywhere useful.

The two most common methods of blood doping are transfusion of red blood cells and erythopoietin. Erythopoietin (EPO) is significantly more dangerous (the FDA recently issued a warning about its use in some cancer patients where a trial was stopped beacuse it seemed to diminish rather than enhance quality of life). EPO is associated in the short term with increased risk of a cardiovascular accident. In the long term it can cause polycythemia which puts increased stress on the cardiovascular system. The number of elite athletes who have died at a young age from heart attacks is in many instances probably associated with EPO use. Transfusion - particularly autologous (self) transfusion - is significantly safer if properly (medically) supervised. However. EPO is usually preferred because it is harder to detect. Frozen blood cells are hard to hide and a simple blood test can easily detect a recent transfusion because of the altered ratio of mature to immature red blood cells. So one outcome of the current system is that less safe harder to detect methods are chosen. That being said I think hrothgars post a few above this one agrees exactly with how I feel. If enhancing agents/methods were legalised, then in order to succeed in their sport, elite athletes would have to use potentially dangerous products. It's one thing to choose to use them knowingly - but quite another to feel like you have to use them in order to be competitive.

Hrothgar said: LOL - so BBO software now allows insufficient bids :lol:

This is outline of the method I use in regular partnership... 2d is either weak hand with hearts (or 5+hearts and 3+spades) or most game invite hands 2h is artificial game force relay 2nt is relay to 3c (weak or to show other hand types) 3d/3h/3s = single suited game invite hands We found in matchpoints having a method to try and wrinkle to 2 in a major in matchpoints was important in many hands. After 2c-2d then 2h = min with h tolerance (Responder bids 2s/2nt/3c with GI hand and 3c with weak h hand) 2s = 4 spades (min or max) (Responder bids 3c or 3h NF with 6 hearts with weak h hand and 2nt/3s with GI hand) 2nt = no 4M max (Responder bids 3c with weak hand, other bids belwo 3nt are stopper show) 3c = no 4M min (Responder may bid 3h with 6h, else passes) 3h = 4h max (Responder passes or bids 3nt/4h; 3s is stopper show - implies d concern) After 2c-2h then 2S - shows 2 suited hand (5+cl/4+ other suit) 2nt relays for second suit Answer = SUIT BELOW etc. 2nt - shows 6322 hand 3c begins stopper ask 3d asks 3 card suit (3nt = d) 3h asks min or max (3s = min) 3C - shows 3 suited hand with short diamonds (6331 or 544) 3d relays for shape 3D - shows 3 suited hand with short hearts (6331 or 544) 3h relays for shape 3H - shows 3 suited hand with short spades (6331 or 544) 3s relays for shape 3S - shows 7+ cl broken suit 3nt - shows 7+ cl semi-solid suit We have found this works well in matchpoints..

Most people seem to be saying yes to the advertising option that causes the least disruption and therefore gets the least attention. I think potential advertisers would opt for the strategy that gets the most attention - the complete reverse of what the potential target for the advertisements want. The 'most attention grabbing' is not necessarily pop-ups because they are easily blocked by lots of free software. Further, I think advertising income is often dependent on how many times the advertisers site is clicked on - as well as how many times and for how long an ad is 'on view'. Given that you want to generate as much advertising income with as least disruption as possible then I would not object to having to click once through one advertisement while logging on. Further you could have some policy / software that encouraged people logged onto BBO to click on sponsors sites while they were dummy. You could perhaps credit people with a small amount of $BBO for say every 100 times they did this.

Definition of 'expert' or 'world-class' is someone who 'knows they are not truly expert or world-class'. (Tongue firmly in cheek...) In a self-rating environment the self-assigned ratings are mostly meaningless. They perform some functions and have an impact on which unknown people many choose to play with or against. They are also barriers to participation in some clubs and in some tournaments which can be (but isn't necessarily) problematic. Given lots of people like to play with better players or players of similar skill then ratings will tend to conform to the perceived standard self-rating practice on BBO and not the 'objective' criteria - and often people know full well they do not meet the stated criteria but do match the observed self-rating practice. When I play in the main club I am usually 'private' or 'advanced' because in my experience people who call themselves advanced are better at both bridge and interpersonal skills than some other categories. When I rarely play in an individual I set it to 'novice' because it tends to prevent lectures from 'experts' and instead of reacting to their (usually wrong) lecture I can just say 'sorry Im a novice'. (In other words I use the self-rating for particular purposes and not as my actual rating according to the stated criteria). I have played in both rated and non-rated environments. They both produce behaviours that are problematic. Most interesting was when one online site moved from non-rated to rated. The computerised ratings produced an outcome so different to the self-declared ratings - ratings became like an 'honesty gauge' but they also produced all sorts of other bad behaviour and a set of behaviours designed to manipulate an individuals rating (in this site incompleted boards didnt contribute to ratings so if you were about to get a bad board many disappeared). Some of the bad behaviours I see in relation to self-rating are actually produced from those sites that have computerised ratings. For example you often see people type 'no hidden statistics' - a common practice on another site. It's pretty fiunny not to play with someone because they choose to be private about a meaningless piece of data (the self-rating). And the practice of leaving very quickly also seems to come from established practice at another online site. Prior to that site having ratings table jumping and leaving in the middle of hands were uncommon practice. Once they introduced ratings whose calculation did not include non-completed boards table jumping and not staying for any large number of hands became the norm. I think some sort of 'good behavior guidelines' in relation to joining and leaving tables in the main bridge club would be a good idea.

In an individual it is unlikely that you have agreement on anything except system and maybe carding. When you make a bid there is a reasonable expectation that your partner will understand it - so there is an implied agreement. "No agreement" can be overused. So I would differentiate like this... 1. Where the bid is a standard part of the agreed system and there are not two commonly agreed ways to play the bid - such as the example given of a splinter - 1s-4c! (splinter) then I would alert and explain. I would do this even if your experience of individual events on BBO was that 30% of partners will not understand the bid. Here you think there is only one possible meaning of the bid, you expect partner to understand it and there is an implied agreement. In this situation I alert and explain my bid - even if there is no actual agreement and I know sometimes my partner will not understand it. I see no difference between this and being asked about a 2d bid in the sequence 1nt-2d(transfer) that you expect 99% of partners (and opponents) to understand. 2. Where you know there are two common ways to play a bid - for example 1s-3s in sayc is often played (incorrectly) as a 3 card limit rise and 1s-3s as a 4(+) card limit rise (the latter being standard) then what I do is tell what I play rather than state 'no agreement' simply because I feel that response is closer to the intent and spirit of the laws - if asked I would say what I play - '4+ spades game invite' - but I would not quibble with a 'no agreement response' - but best may be 'limit rise in spades' and if asked further about number of trumps say 'not sure if partner expects 3+ or 4+'. 3. A situation more akin to 'no agreement' might be a sequence like... 1nt-2d-2h-4nt-5h. Here in standard bidding 4nt is quantitatve and 5h shows at least 3h and minimum for nt range - yet 90% of people - in my experience - would play this sequence as blackwood and 5h as showing 2 keycards. Yet you play 5h as minumum with 3h knowing full well that most people will expect it to show 2 keycards. When you are asked about the 5h bid here it feels more legitimate to state 'no agreement' because here you have a reasonable expectation that your partner will not understand the bid. If I am asked by a knowledgeable opponent who is aware that there are 2 different ways to play this sequence, with the common way being the non-standard way, then the opponent seems to be asking 'how do you play this bid?' not 'what is your partnership agreeement?'. Under these circumstances you are closer to being asked to disclose your hand rather than your agreement. And here the information can make a material difference - you are the declarer - and knowledge of your number of keycards could make a significant difference to the defense. This is territory where self-alert and self-disclosure seems like it is not adequately covered by the current laws.

Lukewarm - It was no bald assertion - it was a considered response explained in full to the proposal as you outlined it. The 'me' was correctly in quotes and therefore does not refer to me (not in quotes) - your attempts at semantic games incorrect. There is a difference between welcoming being rated by a mentor director and agreeing to spend an immense amount of time to achieve this. And here is the bald assertion... Your proposal as you have explained it has no similarity to what happens to r/l directors. I happen to be an r/l director. Your statement above is not just a bald assertion - it is verifiably wrong. Yes in r/l there are appeals, rulings advisory contacts from national bridge organisations. formal training, newsletters and director mentoring schemes. None of them involve documenting every ruling for peer review. None of them are in any way similar to what you are suggesting as you have explained it. Parallel sorts of systems for online directors would be a good idea.

Lukewarm - I already actively participate in processes, fora and messageboards that efficiently increase my directing knowledge and don't take 40 hours a week of effort. Not only do you say this proposal should be 'welcomed' because it 'would help me improve' - but you label resistance to the idea as 'hard to understand'. This advanced logic entirely escapes me. A method that is obviously inefficient and impractical suddenly becomes something that would improve my knowledge. And that someone might resist participating in something they don't think would work and would involve a huge amount of effort becomes 'hard to understand'. Next you'll say I can't say that. Interesting logic this advanced logic stuff.