dmsJack

Right now, my partner and I would like to practice a particular type of hand (for example): one where opener has at least 4 clubs and a minimum amount of high cards. And we'd like to have the hands which contain 4 clubs, 5 clubs, 6 clubs, and 7-or-more clubs be equally likely to be generated. This is impossible using the current hand generator. Where you currently have only a checkbox to "use" a given configuration (out of 5(?) total), it would be so much better if a person could specify a numeric value for each configuration, all totalling 100, that specifies what percentage of the time each of the specified configurations would be generated. For us, we'd create 4 configurations, one each for 4 clubs, 5 clubs, 6 clubs, and 7-or-more clubs, giving each a chance of occurring of 25% so they'd all be equally likely. As the software is now, if you specify multiple configurations, and if any of them are WAY more likely to be naturally dealt than some unlikely configuration, you might as well not even enter the unlikely configuration, cuz nearly all of the time, one of the more common ones will be dealt first and will match, and be "delivered". The deal generator would be so much more useful if it had a feature like this.

Ok, well, there is definitely something wrong when I try to send a message, cuz I sent another one to test it and see if I'd get the automated response, and I didn't get it this time either. Jacki is working with me to try to figure out why the messages don't get through. I am willing to take their word for it that abuse complaints are taken seriously and are dealt with, albeit in a covert way. But first I gotta figure out why my complaint didn't get through to them in the first place.

Nope. I use a gmail address. If the replies were considered spam, they would have gone into the spam folder and I would have seen them. That didn't happen.

I sent two very different messages to the abuse address, one with a screenshot attachment (as the director advised me to do) and one without. I got nothing back from either one, either automated or otherwise. :)

Well, Jacki, if what you say is true, wouldn't it be appropriate to AT LEAST send a reply to the complainant that acknowledges receipt of the complaint and says something akin to "we got your complaint, and will take whatever action we deem appropriate"? Because after the comment suggesting that emails sent to abuse will receive the same automated spam-defeating instant reply (which didn't happen for either message I sent) that a person gets after sending an email to support, I'm STILL not sure you guys even received my complaints. As far as I can tell, there WAS some problem with you receiving them, so perhaps you never did! I can live with not knowing exactly what you did to the person in question (though it seems very odd that such a person is still around actively playing in BBO after hearing she is, apparently, notorious for bad behavior), but not even being sure you even RECEIVED my complaint is another thing altogether.

I am familiar with the instant automatic spam-defeating message sent back if you send mail to support@bridgebase.com. I DO receive those every time I send a message there. You are implying that each message sent to the abuse address is somehow determined to be spam or not even before they send the immediate spam-defeating automated response to which a person must reply so that the message can be determined to be spam or real. That doesn't seem to make much sense. Even if that is truly the case, then the hypothesis presumably is that each of the two very different messages I sent to the abuse address were both independently somehow determined to be spam immediately, even before sending the automated response. That could only mean their spam filter is severely flawed, if it categorically threw out two different messages, both of which were legitimate, and not spam at all.

I was pleased to see a thread that began with a question from a person who had been banned and had repeatedly sent email to the address he thought was appropriate to inquire about it, but was totally ignored, which was why he started the thread, and then to see that the thread was terminated (I guess by a moderator) with a statement that the reasons (presumably for an individual case of banning) are not disclosed or discussed publicly, and that the proper way to deal with it was to send an email to abuse@bridgebase.com. I recently sent an email to the same address about an instance of abuse, and was likewise ignored. What good does it do stifle any discussion and direct people to send all such reports to that address if the BBO staff will simply ignore those messages? Is the abuse policy enforced at all? My complaint, which was ignored, involved having been labeled with a vulgar appellation by a BBO user who, I found out from friends later, is apparently notorious for repeated offenses of frivolous director calls, badgering opponents to speed up play or bidding when there is plenty of time, and also vulgar namecalling of the type I had to endure. I thought there was some kind of "zero tolerance policy" for that stuff. If so, how can the person in question still be allowed to play on BBO, given a history of repeated offenses?