Odd personalised chat

[1eyedjack]

Every now and then I get an odd personal chat message from someone I don't know, usually from a different BBO room/club. The wording is consistent with being in the middle of a conversation.

 

For example, I could be happily playing a hand in some public playing area, and then someone of whom I have never heard, who is playing somewhere else entirely, says privately to me:

 

"Yes, I should have finessed".

 

It seems a little unlikely that this is down to user error, accidentally clicking on my name. He would have to go to significant lengths of a series of consecutive errors to achieve that end.

 

On a related topic, but possibly a separate problem, I was just kibitzing the viewgraph and I received a private message inviting me to play in an indy tournament. The invitation was issued by someone in the lobby of whom I have never heard. I had disabled lobby chat, mainly to cut out exactly this clutter. However I received this invitation because it appeared to have been addressed to me personally rather than a public message to all in the lobby. Nevertheless the wording of the message clearly was not personalised:

 

"♥good morning my friend♥start the day with♥Indy TOP ENERGY ♥# 1996♥Sure Awards 6-16 $♥Start in 10 min.♥get BBO MASTERPOINTS♥www.bboland.net♥♥♥BIG...AWARDS!!!♥♥♥big kissssssssssss"

 

What I suspect happens is that TDs harvest a huge number of BBO IDs at random, and have some way of broadcasting private messages to the entire list rather than to the lobby, and so successfully target those who have disabled lobby chat. I think that this is an undesirable development and I wonder if there are any moves afoot to curtail it.

[helene_t]

It seems a little unlikely that this is down to user error, accidentally clicking on my name. He would have to go to significant lengths of a series of consecutive errors to achieve that end.

It can happen. Sometimes I send messages to people that I click in the lobby list. Misclicks can cause messages to be sent to users that I'm not related to.

 

As for the other problem, maybe there should be a limit on the number of users one can address per time unit. TDs have legimite reasons for addressing many users, but the normal way of doing so is to encourage users to become members of a club, and there should be no limit to the number of cluib members to which one can broadcast, of course.

[ack_hh]

Every now and then I get an odd personal chat message from someone I don't know,[..]

It's because of the leading "1" in your nick name. This causes you to be the very first in the list of players (in the chat dialog window) sometimes. The same happens to me because my name starts with an "a", thus being on top of the yellows' list. Unless 7me is online. :(

[sceptic]

that does not explain why I get them also

[1eyedjack]

I certainly considered that as a possibility, but eventually rejected it because of circumstances. The chatterer may be playing in the WP refugees club, and from the narrative clearly talking to someone local, so why on earth would he select the name from a lobby listing when the name is emblazoned on his screen? You may be right, but it feels wrong.

[jillybean]

Im sure we will get the 'official answer' soon but my guess is that the message is sent at the exact moment the intended recipient logs off or has a disconnect and the message is then sent to a random stranger :( Can be fun lol

 

jb

[Echognome]

If you've ever sent a message to someone just as they log off, it sends it to some random user (not sure how that is determined). That may explain some of it.

[sceptic]

I emailed Fred about this about two versions ago when I first noticed it

[uday]

If you get a stray message shortly after logging in, it is one thing. This is something we know about and will fix someday (the message was aimed at someone who logged off just as you logged in and took the same "slot")

 

If you get a stray message later, one of three things is possible

 

1. A new bug

2. A user error

3. Not an error

 

I can't tell which one of these it might be.

 

The tourney spam seems like it is likely just that. A reply of 'Please take me off your list' will help. I can't imagine that a tourney org is randomly spamming but I've been surprised before

[Trinidad]

I certainly considered that as a possibility, but eventually rejected it because of circumstances.  The chatterer may be playing in the WP refugees club, and from the narrative clearly talking to someone local, so why on earth would he select the name from a lobby listing when the name is emblazoned on his screen?  You may be right, but it feels wrong.

Your name may be on top of the list in the listbox with users in the chat window itself. He doesn't need to look at a lobby listing to go wrong.

 

Quite often the scroll wheel on a mouse is capable of changing the value in a list box.

 

So, if I play at a table with my friends West, North and East the list box will say something like:

 

This room

West

East

1eyedjack

2forT

3ofakind

.

.

.

 

One little scroll and you just got yourself a chat message.

 

Rik