Bad banning

[Kaapo]

I got this lovely screen this morning... Block

 

It raised many thoughts on me. Of course, most of them are negative. But I hope I can share some constuctive ideas too instead of just critcizing the hosts.

 

1. Ok, so my friend had connection troubles one day, got disconnected many times, always returned and finished the boards he was playing. For some reason, seat wasn't reserved for him when he returned (buggy BBO?). He seems to have gotten a ban for a couple of days. Does the fact his seat wasn't reserved account to his being banned? Or does it happen just because of disconnects?

 

2. Unless similar had happened to someone else last night, what would I make of it? I'd be totally confused. The notice says "you" awfully many times. It claims that I have done something bad. There's only a notion "We understand that some of this may not be your fault --". It says I might not be guilty of all of it, but that I most certainly am guilty of something that you're banning me for!

 

Don't you think it would be a good idea to tell that the person you're addressing to may easily not be guilty of anything at all? That he's totally innocent (but whom you're sentencing anyway)? And maybe add some clearer info why someone else's user name appears on the bottom and what's the relationship.

 

3. I suppose you've banned my PC because he's logged on from my PC some time (around 8 months ago). I didn't do anything wrong. My ISP didn't do anything wrong. You think this is good policy? If he'd been banned for misbehaviour, I might agree with you. He might log on from my PC and continue to misbehave. But here it would be totally the opposite! If he logged on from my PC, he'd do it to be polite to others, to have a decent connection, to stop dropping from table! But you seem to think this is something to be discouraged... I'd think blocking just one IP in case of a disconnection would suffice. How about implementing different banning procedures for different cases?

 

4. The page claims "The blocks will automatically be lifted when they expire." I suppose this isn't really so. My guess is they are lifted after they expire and after I log off and on again. Also, the blocks seem not to take effect untill I log off and on. I was still able to play last night while my friends couldn't. So the barring seems to have taken the effect only after relogin. If I had been online all of this time, I hadn't even noticed the ban! I suggest you do some coding, so that at least the real guilty one got barred while they're on BBO. Just bothering an innocent one doesn't make a lot of sense...

 

5. I guess I could see all members barred from BBO if I edited the number on the URL. I'm not sure if I should be able to do this.

 

6. The message is in English with totally weird time zone and time format. Some may truly have no clue at all as to what's going on. If this page was on the BBO translation page, I could translate it to Finnish to make it more understandable (to a very small number of BBO'ers). Well, since I'm banned, I guess I can't do that...

[uday]

Does the fact his seat wasn't reserved account to his being banned? Or does it happen just because of disconnects?

We can't always tell whether someone logged off on purpose or was disconnected.

 

That he's totally innocent (but whom you're sentencing anyway)?

Lets take a simpler example.

Someone logs in, plays in 100 tournaments, and is subbed out by the TD in each and every tournament. When queried, he says "My ISP has problems".

 

Of course, he is "innocent" in the sense that he did not do anything wrong.

But neither is be being "punished" when BBO software or the TDs decide to exclude him from tournaments because he can't stay connected.

 

How about implementing different banning procedures for different cases?

Someday.

 

 

Its easy enough to lift the ban, and I have done so in this case.

[Kaapo]

Does the fact his seat wasn't reserved account to his being banned? Or does it happen just because of disconnects?

We can't always tell whether someone logged off on purpose or was disconnected.

Doesn't coming back and finishing the board very much suggest it was a connection trouble? But you didn't answer the question you're quoting which was this:

Does it matter whether the player comes back, whether he finishes the board he started and whether a seat was reserved for him or not? (If the answer to first two parts is negative then the 3rd one is obviously irrelevant.)

 

That he's totally innocent (but whom you're sentencing anyway)?

Lets take a simpler example.

Someone logs in, plays in 100 tournaments, and is subbed out by the TD in each and every tournament. When queried, he says "My ISP has problems".

 

Of course, he is "innocent" in the sense that he did not do anything wrong.

exclude him from tournaments because he can't stay connected.

"He" in my sentence was referring to some outsider (like myself in this case) and not the one who got dropped from the table. It wasn't me who got disconnected. It wasn't my ISP that had trouble. Yet the web page stated to me something very much like this: "you did this and you did that - BAD boy."

 

But neither is be being "punished" when BBO software or the TDs decide to exclude him from tournaments because he can't stay connected.

Since I've had no connection troubles, getting a barrage sure feels like a punishment (and one without a reason).

As for the "guilty" one (whose ISP did have trouble), most ISP outrages are short. BBO's view that they take several days to solve seems a bit insulting to other ISP's except the one BBO uses...

 

How about implementing different banning procedures for different cases?

Someday.

In the mean time, I'd hope the BBO software at least gave a clear explanation, why an innocent one gets barred because of something someone else has done. Now all there is is a web site stating false accusations. It doesn't even give any instuctions what you can do to fix it.

[inquiry]

Does the fact his seat wasn't reserved account to his being banned? Or does it happen just because of disconnects?

We can't always tell whether someone logged off on purpose or was disconnected.

Doesn't coming back and finishing the board very much suggest it was a connection trouble? But you didn't answer the question you're quoting which was this:

Does it matter whether the player comes back, whether he finishes the board he started and whether a seat was reserved for him or not? (If the answer to first two parts is negative then the 3rd one is obviously irrelevant.)

 

That he's totally innocent (but whom you're sentencing anyway)?

Lets take a simpler example.

Someone logs in, plays in 100 tournaments, and is subbed out by the TD in each and every tournament. When queried, he says "My ISP has problems".

 

Of course, he is "innocent" in the sense that he did not do anything wrong.

exclude him from tournaments because he can't stay connected.

"He" in my sentence was referring to some outsider (like myself in this case) and not the one who got dropped from the table. It wasn't me who got disconnected. It wasn't my ISP that had trouble. Yet the web page stated to me something very much like this: "you did this and you did that - BAD boy."

 

But neither is be being "punished" when BBO software or the TDs decide to exclude him from tournaments because he can't stay connected.

Since I've had no connection troubles, getting a barrage sure feels like a punishment (and one without a reason).

As for the "guilty" one (whose ISP did have trouble), most ISP outrages are short. BBO's view that they take several days to solve seems a bit insulting to other ISP's except the one BBO uses...

 

How about implementing different banning procedures for different cases?

Someday.

In the mean time, I'd hope the BBO software at least gave a clear explanation, why an innocent one gets barred because of something someone else has done. Now all there is is a web site stating false accusations. It doesn't even give any instuctions what you can do to fix it.

The software figures out if you start the board and if you finish the board. You have started it when YOU MAKE YOUR first bid. You have finished the board when the last trick is played. So if you come back and finish the board, whether or not teh seat was reserved for you, it does not count that you were disconnected.

[Rain]

To add to this:

 

Each time someone gets disconnected, the game is disrupted.

 

Sure, your friend may be playing with friends, who don't mind his disconnections.

But what if he wasn't playing with friends? Should strangers be inconvenienced? (Should everyone waiting for board result comparisons be inconvenienced?)

 

So, the few day ban from main bridge club kicks in.

 

If your friend was playing with friends, and wishes to continue doing so, and his friends (you) don't mind his disconnections, set up a table in a public club. You can play there, no problem. And all of you can continue to play there and ignore his disconnections as you wish.

[Kaapo]

Am I really expressing myself this unclearly?

 

I was making 2 points here:

 

1. I was curious to know why my Friend 1 was banned in the first place. Mainly just curious, not much complaining. He did claim he had come back and finished the boards. If what Inquiry told is true, he shouldn't have been barred at all. But I did not complain about that.

 

What my complaints were about was point two:

 

2. Why did my Friend 2 and myself get barred too? And why weren't we properly explained what was going on? We did not leave in the middle of hands. We weren't even playing in the MBC the whole weekend! This is what I'm complaining about!

 

 

Rain, I don't disagree with what you're saying. But you are talking about a different subject.

[bid_em_up]

Something sounds funny about the initial rant, I'm just not sure what......

 

Your friend is using your PC to log into BBO?

 

Does your "friend" have his own ISP on your PC?

 

If not, why does your "friend" have these frequent disconnect problems and yet you claim that you don't? If you're both using the same PC and same ISP, wouldn't you both be prone to frequent disconnects?

 

Banning only your friends IP address is a futile solution. The purpose behind a ban is to make a user aware that certain behaviors (booting people frequently, leaving in middle of hands frequently, being abusive to others which results in their booting a player from their table frequently) is unacceptable on BBO. If your "friend" behaves in a boorish manner on his PC, why would his behavior change on yours? He is more apt to continue the same behavior, therefore his USER ID is also banned, not only his IP address (if I had to guess). It is also possible that any IP address that he has ever logged in from is also banned. The idea is this person needs to take a break from BBO until they correct their behavior.

 

And a 42% disconnect rate is a little high to be blaming an ISP, imo. However, I will conceed that is 42% only over 14 hands or so, which puzzles me.

 

Ben/Uday, over what time period (and frequency) does the software automatically institute a ban? If, the facts are as they are stated, this does not seem unreasonable for a person to have connection problems and not be able to return in time to finish a given hand. I could see a high rate such as this over a period of 12-20 boards, given that the person is trying to get back.

 

42% of 100 boards would be an entirely different matter, though.

[inquiry]

Let me try to explain situation 2 to you.

 

BBO does not require a credit card or cash or any form of positive verifiable identity for you (or anyone else) to create an account on the service. Download the software, create a username, you are on. When someone misbehaves (be it ever so minor such as running from bad results or being the most horrible person saying and doing the most horrible things), they feel invincible because they can create a new ID if the first is banned and be right back on the to repeat their horrible actions.

 

There is two solutions to this situation. One is to require a bank address or credit card to verify ID's for people. Thus, we tie each person logged in to something. The downside of this is not everyone has credit cards or bank accounts for which they want to share information. A lot of people in certain countries would be blocked from this site by such requirements, Ok you say, just make everyone give an email address. How many hotmail addresses do you have? I have two, and I could have 20 if Iwanted. So that doesn't work.

 

The solution, imperfect I agree, is what I think of as guilt by association. Now, if BBO is going to permanantly block player "x" and there were other players who were going to be affected by that action, people with a known history and with good standing, there seems to be ways for the BBO to zap "x" without necessarily zapping all the others. That takes work by someone behind the scene working on code etc, and is a fairly rare event. However, these little computer bans that you were describing are VERY FREQUENT. and fairly innoculous other than making people angry... Why innoculous? Everyone can still log in, can still kibitz, can still play in tournaments, can still play in team games, can still play in public/private clubs, and can still watch vugraph. All they can not do is play in the main bridge room. As rain said, drag your friends voer to any public club and play away.

 

There are also automatic tournment bans. There you can not play in tournaments, but you can ply in main room and all the other places listed above. It is asking too much to expect someone to sitdown and investigate each main room ban individually to be certain that only the guilty party is blocked. If a tlot of people share a few computers and one of them is causing BBO problems, it is in the best interest of the others to discuss the behavior of the one to avoid more serious problems in this area. Sometimes when that situation occurs, the group prevails on the one misbehavor and things work out ok, sometimes not, in which case, sadly, the entire group may suffer some problems using features of the BBO software until the problem can be resolved someother way.

 

Hope that help.

[Kaapo]

Since I'm at it, I try to make things clear:

 

 

Your friend is using your PC to log into BBO?

 

Does your "friend" have his own ISP on your PC?

 

If not, why does your "friend" have these frequent disconnect problems and yet you claim that you don't? If you're both using the same PC and same ISP, wouldn't you both be prone to frequent disconnects?

We live some 300 kilometers apart. I am in an educational network. I guess he's in a commercial ISP's. He has logged on from my PC several times on 13th and 14th of April. Never before or after that.

 

We both have, in general, very reliable connections. He had some troubles one day, and only one day. I assume this caused him to be banned. Even though it was not his fault - maybe it was his ISP's maybe someone else's - I'm not really complaining about banning him. I can see why it "needs" to be done.

 

But several other PCs long distances away and on completely different connections were banned too (only from main bridge club - but that's not really the point).

 

Worst of all, all information we got regarded us close to criminals. It didn't say it might be caused by someone else. And it didn't name any place we could appeal to.

 

Banning only your friends IP address is a futile solution. The purpose behind a ban is to make a user aware that certain behaviors (booting people frequently, leaving in middle of hands frequently, being abusive to others which results in their booting a player from their table frequently) is unacceptable on BBO. If your "friend" behaves in a boorish manner on his PC, why would his behavior change on yours?

Frequent connects and disconnects that happen all of a sudden would suggest poor connection to me. It makes sense to block (or restrict) access from that particular PC and IP. But to ban someone else in the process doesn't seem at all reasonable.

 

If he were booting people, jumping off the table (not just due to disconnects), making nasty remarks etc, then it might be justified to block (or restrict) access form all PCs and IPs he's logged from.

[mink]

I think I should emphasize the crucial point of this affair: Kaapo let his "Friend1" use his computer to log into BBO 8 months ago. I assume that means Friend1 never used Kaapo's PC during the last 7 months. Now something happens to Friend1 which he is responsible, but not necessarily guilty for. An automatic ban is invoked that not only blocks Friend1 form the Main Bridge Club, but also Kaapo's PC.

 

My conclusion is that I should not let anyone else log in from my PC, because if at any point in future that id causes a ban to be invoked, this ban will extend to my PC.

 

I think this makes it clear that it would be desirable to think about some more detailed criteria for the decision if a PC should be included in a ban or not. Maybe it could be possible to identify the main user for any PC, and bock a PC only if the ID to be blocked is the main user for that PC. Or maybe bock the PC but not the main user even if he uses the blocked PC.

 

Karl

[Kaapo]

Let me try to explain situation 2 to you.

 

<snip>

 

Hope that help.

It didn't help me; I understood all that from the beginning. In fact, I was not concerned so much about myself.

 

But I think it might help some other people. If you added that or similar explanation to the page I gave a link to in my first post, it might make things a lot clearer to those, who get innocently barred.

 

Moreover, I don't like the announcement saying

you BOOT "too many" people while hosting a table, or if you get BOOTed by "too many" hosts while at a table, or if you abandon too many hands in play

to someone who was not guilty of any of that.

 

I hope you can make it look softer and more instructional to those who didn't deserve to see it at all.

 

 

(Of course the mystery remains why my friend got barred in the first place if he really completed the boards. Maybe Inqury is mistaken. Or maybe I am. Or maybe BBO's abuse code dosen't work as it ought to.)

[barmar]

(Of course the mystery remains why my friend got barred in the first place if he really completed the boards. Maybe Inqury is mistaken. Or maybe I am. Or maybe BBO's abuse code dosen't work as it ought to.)

You said that sometimes when he logged back in his seat was no longer reserved for him. I assume his connection problems lasted long enough that the table host gave up waiting for him to come back, and let someone else take the seat. Are you sure he was able to finish the boards he started in these cases?

[barmar]

Worst of all, all information we got regarded us close to criminals. It didn't say it might be caused by someone else. And it didn't name any place we could appeal to.

How is it "regarding [you] close to criminals" when it clearly says "We understand that some of this may not be your fault --". And is it really that much of a leap to assume that the user of your PC is likely to be you, or someone in your household?

 

I think the situation you ran into is an unusual one, and it would be difficult to make a form letter account for it without making it overly confusing in the common cases.

[julie5607]

OK, now I have been autobanned. I was playing on my "old" computer yesterday morning and for some reason my BBO connection was not stable - all other internet functions worked fine but I was booted from BBO several times in a row. I can GUARANTEE that I came back and finished each hand I started, so the "you won't get autobanned if you both start and finish a hand" statement is totally incorrect. I returned immediately after each boot (less than 30 seconds between booting and playing again) and continued with the hand. After the fifth or so boot from BBO I switched computers and played quite a few more hands - I played about 35 hands yesterday, and after the first five was completely stable at the table.

 

My message says that my bail ratio is 50% - finished 5, abandoned 5. And I have been autobanned from playing in the MBC (which is the only place I play) until the 17th.

 

I totally understand your desire to have an easy way to impose penalties on people who misbehave at BBO, but something is very wrong with this system and it really should be examined and addressed.

 

Julie

[Kaapo]

And is it really that much of a leap to assume that the user of your PC is likely to be you, or someone in your household?

If that's all the info you have, that's truly an easy step. But consider you have this information (which BBO should be able to gather):

A username x logged on from my PC a few times during a period of two days for 7 months ago, never before or since. 99% of the logins from my PC are with my id. Say, 75% of the logins with username x come from a different PC (and less than .1% from mine).

Would you still jump to the same conclusion?

 

I think the situation you ran into is an unusual one

From how many PCs have you logged on to BBO ever? If you get banned, all those people whose computers you used get banned too. How many people have logged on from your PC ever? If any of them gets banned, you get banned. The situation may not be that uncommon at all.

 

and it would be difficult to make a form letter account for it without making it overly confusing in the common cases.

Ok, I suppose nothing like this would do the job then:

"Main Bridge Club blocks are automatically imposed. They might occur when you do one or more of these things:

BOOT "too many" people while hosting a table

get BOOTed by "too many" hosts while at a table

abandon too many hands in play.

It is possible that this wasn't your fault. The block may have been caused by someone who has used your computer in the past, or someone whose computer you have used in the past. In this case, we deeply apologize for the trouble. You may check the username given at the end of the page to make sure of this."

And of course there's no reason to translate the page. Let alone give dates and times in forms that are comprehensible (right time zone and right format for day/month).

[Codo]

Hi Kaapo

 

you adressed several points Not in this particular order, but well:

 

1. YOur friend was banned and you don´t know why.

 

2. Your friend was banned aud so was you, because he used your computer some month ago for a few times.

 

3. The statement on the "ban-site" is much too harsh. You felt like a criminal, or more precise, like an innocent who had been treated like a criminal.

 

4. The Ban-site should be translated or at least be in an area, where the site can be translated easily.

 

5. To have bad connections is not fault of the user.

 

I hope I got it right?

I cannot comment Nr. 1, I have no clue whatso ever.

 

There is a problem to be solved with Nr. 2. I don´t know how to handle this topic. I don´t know, if it is possible to track recodrs of who used which ID. And to decide then, which IP should be banned and which should not.

But I agree, that an adress, which was used more then 6 month ago should not be banned anyway.

 

To nr 3: English is not my native language either and it is surely less fluent then yours. But I see nothing rude on that site. I would prefer the suggestion you gave today, because that is a nicer text but as clear as the one they used.

But you certanly overreact. Their is nothing, which treats you like a criminal.

 

Nr. 4: 95 % of all users will understand enough english to understand was is written there. And the others need a tool like altavista or a friend who may help them. I really see no reason to put any effort into the translation of this site.

 

Nr.5 : My regular partner disappears frequently from the boards. This is frustrating. I had happen often enough, so that I know he will be back. But it is still frustrating. So, if he gets banned for some days because of his connection problems, it is to make the other three players less frustrtated, it is to save us from him. And with a pick-up pd, this is even worse. In that case, you just sit and wait and don`t know, if he will come back or not.

 

If the problem is his bad isp-connection, he should search a better provider or accept, that he will be banned from time to time.

 

And one more point: The tone in your posts sounds harsher then the one on the site you are quarreling about. But maybe this is just my poor possibility to understand your words.

[Flame]

Well i think banning policy has to change somehow, i was banned twice for doing nothing bad, my sean is letting a guy log into his account from my computer once more then a year ago. (i thought by letting him use his use i cant get any problem) since that day im resposible for his actions. Wheever he decide to be rude and make problems i get banned.

This guy isnt my friend, has nothing to do with my computer, i never kick people off my table of log off in a middle of a hand. I hate what he does and i told him this many times, i think he need to get punished seriously not a few days out of main bridge club. I love BBO and do my best to help in any way i can, getting banned make me feel like my own family hate me.

I didnt post last time i was banned becuase i dont want you to think im posting this only because im banned, im posting because i think this policy is problematic and unfair and need to be changed.