BBO Web-client Comments Thread 4

[uday]

At least pledge that the link as I have recorded it will stop working if it becomes out of date

 

It will either stop working or it will redirect you to the new location.

 

I don't expect that link to change.

[fred]

I've been a slow adopter of the web client for a number of reasons.  Yet it is something that I really do want to see succeed because of the technical superiority of what goes on under the hood.  Whenever there was even a slight hiccup in connectivity, the Windows version (requiring full TCP/IP sync of all state information even at the expense of keeping actual play going) cost a lot in bandwidth and user frustration.

 

Thanks for your feedback. Comments regarding the points you make follow. Your (true) statement regarding the bandwidth-related advantages of the web-client are relevant to some of what follows.

 

- I can no longer see the set of online players of interest to me listed together.  I prefer to select Hosts, Stars, and Friends.  Now I must choose to see one group at a time.

 

I sympathize.

 

The reason we did it this way in the web-client was because one of the biggest and most common complaints we had new users of the Windows client users was that they found the single list of players to be overwhelming, the color scheme confusing, and the filtering method difficult to understand. One of the primary goals of the web-client was to make it easier for new BBO members to get started. It is hard to cater to the needs of both this group and the group of experienced Windows users with strong computer skills (like you appear to be!).

 

Maybe one day we will offer an "advanced" tab in this area that behaves more or less like the Windows player list (minus the auto-updates for all players), but for now we have bigger fish to fry.

 

- The single screen doesn't allow viewing disparate things together that I previously could.  Because you accommodate the smallest screens in use, those of us with abundant screen real estate (like my dual 1680x1050 monitors) can no longer have the Movie view and the Convention card parked elsewhere while we still see who's online or what tourneys are coming, etc.  How about making many if not all of the view panes detachable?

 

IMO this is a good suggestion provided we could find a way to implement it without adding noise to the interface for the people who would never use this feature (most people IMO). I will give this some more thought. I suspect that I can think of something, but I doubt you will see any changes in this area in the near future. Sorry about that, but again I do not see this as a particularly big fish.

 

Hopefully the fact that, unlike the Windows client, the web-client is resizable makes up to some extent for this inconvenience. If it doesn't now then it will when you and your eyes get older!

 

- I value a permanent, automatic record of all hands I have played--including MBTs and Robot Races.  There is always a security concern when remote software gets to write locally, but, perhaps a small optional client to install locally could handle this.  Are you aware, by the way, that this function is now broken in the Windows client when playing a MBT that goes over 16 hands?  The remaining hands are not recorded--or rather perhaps they overlay the hands starting from 1 again.  It's confusing to look at one of these corrupt files.

 

The next version of the web-client will include all sorts of interesting "hand management" functions. I am not sure if it will satisfy all of your wishes in this area (mostly because, as you correctly point out, local file access is far from trivial), but I do expect you will like what we have done. We are just starting the testing phase of this version now so hopefully its release won't be too far away.

 

Yes, I do not know about the bug in the Windows client you describe (but thanks for mentioning it).

 

- Convention cards do not go seamlessly from one environment to another.  The web client allows more space, but the "..." drill-down information that the Windows client shows does not transfer.  I'm sure this has been an issue from time to time in real tournaments as to who had declared what for their agreements.

 

Convention cards remain a major source of aggravation for us. Seemless integration of all 3 types of convention cards between the Windows and web clients will probably never happen, but there are definitely some seems that we could eliminate. The "..." one you mention is a good example.

 

- The web-client profile truncates the name of a tournament someone is playing in or kibitzing.  Learning that a player is "Playing Tourney #1382 (mag" isn't as helpful knowing the full tournament name and table number.  This is even more confusing because the #nnn doesn't always match the number as given by the Tournaments in progress.  Currently someone is "Playing Tourney #326 (BBO" while the actual tournament is listed as "#9 BBOLAND 19 - 28 FEBRUARY WEEK - 100 $ tournament"

 

The truncation irritates me too. If I could think of a good way to change this without making the profile window bigger and without making the font that displays this info tiny, I would do it (suggestions welcome!).

 

About the tournament numbers, these are assigned by the server, but it sounds like some of the people who run tournaments have created their own numbering conventions and include these numbers is the titles of the tournaments they run. Then again, I suppose it could be a bug. If you get more information about what is going on here, please let me now.

 

- Why is there a time-out on the profile information that is raised via a hover-over?  The instant feedback you get in the Windows program never goes away until the mouse is moved away and that is the way I think it ought to be.

 

To answer your question: because I did not think about it when I implemented the mouse-over option and because nobody has mentioned it before.

 

Now that someone has mentioned it, I will get this right (in the next version) :unsure:

 

- I cannot see via a hover-over how many people are registered for a tournament I might be interested in playing in.  This is a pain, because I rarely play the Robot Race, for example, unless I see 10 or more signed up--which doesn't happen often.  Offering expanded status information that would show number signed up as well as minutes to start might be close enough--especially if the list were updated every 10 seconds or so instead of the longer interval that appears to be the case now.

 

Again I sympathize. This is an example of the price you pay for the bandwidth savings (which result in the web client not being aware of total system state). We are thinking about giving the web-client addition information (and updating that information automaticall) in some contexts such as the one you mention.

 

However, we have to be careful here. If we recklessly go down this path we will cause problems both for our users and for ourselves.

 

- Note that in the existing web client, a user is virtually certain to be shut out of Free MBTs.  It appears to me that new tournaments are not added to the list in the refresh the client does.  You must take a positive action to reload the list.  So unless you load the list at exactly the right moment you will find 10 people will have signed up already.

 

See above comment.

 

- I have recorded the following link http://www.bridgebase.com/client/client.php as the way to start the client because I do not like having software open windows unless I want them to.  Because I want to work this way and you have specifically asked that people use the link on http://www.bridgebase.com/ that opens a new window, I must check there periodically to make sure you are invoking the client in the same way.  At least pledge that the link as I have recorded it will stop working if it becomes out of date.

 

I doubt we will change this link, but if we do then we will make sure that the old like either stops working or redirects you to the new link.

 

- EDIT: I'm adding this a few minutes later than the original post to note an oddity.  While composing this note.  I had the web client open.  I never went to anywhere to play.  I just looked at lists of tournaments and players.  Somehow, I appear to have been timed out--even though my previous interaction had been only 3-5 minutes earlier.  Is there an inadequate list of actions taken while using the client that actually cause the timeout logic to reset?  I cannot otherwise explain how I was bounced so soon after interacting.

 

Did the message you received explicitly say you were timed out? There are other ways a connection can be lost (a hiccup somewhere on the Internet is the most common reason). If it was a timeout then it sounds like a bug. If you can confirm this I will investigate.

 

I don't know whether any of this is new to you.  And I'm sure that I will never abandon BBO because it is the greatest Bridge place on earth.  But I want you to know how I'm experiencing your new efforts.

 

Some of it is new and even the stuff that is old is useful for us to hear (because it helps us to know what improvements would be important to our members and this helps us to set priorities for implementing various changes).

 

We definitely still have a bunch of work to do on the web-client, but I am pleased with the rate of progress we are making. Keep in mind that we have been working on this for less than 2 years whereas the Windows client was the result of about 6 years of effort.

 

I have no doubt that it won't be that much longer before the web-client is superior to the Windows client in almost all respects, but Rome wasn't built in a day :)

 

Thanks for you patience and support.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[TrialBid]

The reason we did it this way in the web-client was because one of the biggest and most common complaints we had new users of the Windows client users was that they found the single list of players to be overwhelming, the color scheme confusing, and the filtering method difficult to understand. One of the primary goals of the web-client was to make it easier for new BBO members to get started. It is hard to cater to the needs of both this group and the group of experienced Windows users with strong computer skills (like you appear to be!).

 

Maybe one day we will offer an "advanced" tab in this area that behaves more or less like the Windows player list (minus the auto-updates for all players), but for now we have bigger fish to fry.

 

Would this work?: Use the ctrl-click function that is frequently used for selecting multiple items. The web client comes up with the Friends tab highlighted. Ctrl-click Stars and it is additive. Stars are shown with Friends and both tabs are highlighted. If the tab is already highlighted, ctrl-click is subtractive. That's the sort of hidden trick that doesn't complicate anything for the neophyte.

 

 

This is an example of the price you pay for the bandwidth savings (which result in the web client not being aware of total system state). We are thinking about giving the web-client addition information (and updating that information automaticall) in some contexts such as the one you mention.

 

However, we have to be careful here. If we recklessly go down this path we will cause problems both for our users and for ourselves.

 

I hope that you are being ruthlessly honest here in tracking exactly how much bandwidth each function uses and what that amounts to as a percentage of server loads. The fact that your operation is robust enough to keep going generally when many Windows clients reset and demand enormous loads to log in again tells me you are not starved for bandwidth. In a client server environment, there has been a long history of blaming slow transactions on network latency and/or congestion when, in fact, the underlying cause is that specific server tasks have been given the wrong priority or are resulting in disk accesses when they should be memory resident.

 

I can only guess at some of the tricks that Google uses in its search bar--as you type it offers a list of likely search completions from the cloud and does it with keystroke-level real-time feedback. For that to work, they must have high-priority, memory-resident (and doubtlessly brilliantly and cleverly optimized) code. To be sure, I'm sure it uses a lot of bandwidth, but they are able to provide it for millions more users than you are ever likely to have.

 

To put it more succinctly, don't overvalue small savings that impact the users' experience adversely especially while you are still trying to convert us away from the Windows client that is so very costly in bandwidth for so many reasons.

 

 

- EDIT: I'm adding this a few minutes later than the original post to note an oddity.  While composing this note.  I had the web client open.  I never went to anywhere to play.  I just looked at lists of tournaments and players.  Somehow, I appear to have been timed out--even though my previous interaction had been only 3-5 minutes earlier.  Is there an inadequate list of actions taken while using the client that actually cause the timeout logic to reset?  I cannot otherwise explain how I was bounced so soon after interacting.

 

 

Did the message you received explicitly say you were timed out? There are other ways a connection can be lost (a hiccup somewhere on the Internet is the most common reason). If it was a timeout then it sounds like a bug. If you can confirm this I will investigate.

 

Now that you mention it, I saw no message. When I got back to that window, it simply showed the login pane. Perhaps a good idea is to offer an information box above or below the login pane stating why a session that was opened was terminated. If it showed a timeout screen or error screen that then was replaced by the login, that's not helpful unless I was sitting there watching.

 

EDIT: I just saw what can happen by watching the web screen and logging in the Windows client. There is a box that appears below saying "Connection closed: unknown2" (Cryptic, but it's something.) However, the box is cleared after a few seconds. Why? I'm guessing it was a default action that no one was aware of or didn't see the reason to override.

[TrialBid]

Did the message you received explicitly say you were timed out? There are other ways a connection can be lost (a hiccup somewhere on the Internet is the most common reason). If it was a timeout then it sounds like a bug. If you can confirm this I will investigate.

 

I've studied this a bit more and can offer some additional insight. Whether this is a bug may be a matter of debate, but I do not think it works optimally. This afternoon I watched the following:

 

- I signed on at 1:28

 

- I selected "Show all tables" and then tournaments at 1:29

 

- I selected running tournaments at 1:38

 

- A message box to stay logged on appeared 2:23, disappeared a few seconds later. Shouldn't this prompt stay until I reply? (I didn't reply.)

 

- I changed to pending tournaments at 2:25

 

- I was logged off at 2:33

 

Unfortunately I did not see the message box that appears for a few seconds after the logoff. However, what is very clear is that there are actions I can perform that do NOT reset the timeout function. Why should any actions I perform that interact with BBO be excluded from resetting the timeout?

[TrialBid]

A few more items:

 

- Why must I hover over the entries in a tournament to see their rank? The cost is far greater in user aggravation that the tiny extra data sent to display it in the first place.

 

- when a tournament finishes we are returned to the opening screen. The old environment where there is a completed tournament page with easy access to standings, etc., seemed intuitive and the new way much less so.

 

- the GIB built-in analysis is a great tool for helping to settle arguments and is generally useful and fun. Is that likely to make a reappearance in the Flash version?

 

- It is confusing to have two places to look when I'm chatting to someone. If their profile came up, then it seems to want to chat from the profile box. I'm discovering that just as I started to get used to the chat line to be at the bottom of the window.

 

- My preference would be to get rid of the theater-style fades in-and-out of messages, boxes, etc. Pop something up and get rid of it as close to instantly as possible. Yeah, that's probably something there needs to be a setting for because some love cool effects.

[fred]

Did the message you received explicitly say you were timed out? There are other ways a connection can be lost (a hiccup somewhere on the Internet is the most common reason). If it was a timeout then it sounds like a bug. If you can confirm this I will investigate.

 

I've studied this a bit more and can offer some additional insight. Whether this is a bug may be a matter of debate, but I do not think it works optimally. This afternoon I watched the following:

 

- I signed on at 1:28

 

- I selected "Show all tables" and then tournaments at 1:29

 

- I selected running tournaments at 1:38

 

- A message box to stay logged on appeared 2:23, disappeared a few seconds later. Shouldn't this prompt stay until I reply? (I didn't reply.)

 

- I changed to pending tournaments at 2:25

 

- I was logged off at 2:33

 

Unfortunately I did not see the message box that appears for a few seconds after the logoff. However, what is very clear is that there are actions I can perform that do NOT reset the timeout function. Why should any actions I perform that interact with BBO be excluded from resetting the timeout?

Thanks for the detailed report. It sounds like there really is a timeout problem. We will investigate...

 

Unless there is a bug (and it sounds like there may well be) you can prevent timeouts by doing things like:

 

- chat

- join or leave table

- bid or play

- ask for someone's profile

 

Assuming the bug exists I think it is more likely that the above things will prevent a timeout than things like asking for a list of tables, list of tourneys, past results, etc.

 

I am about to go away from my office for a week and I am not planning on doing any work while I am away. Probably Uday will keep an eye on this thread, but I will get caught up and respond when appropriate after I get home early next week.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

A few more items:

 

- Why must I hover over the entries in a tournament to see their rank?  The cost is far greater in user aggravation that the tiny extra data sent to display it in the first place.

 

This is on our list of things to do.

 

- when a tournament finishes we are returned to the opening screen.  The old environment where there is a completed tournament page with easy access to standings, etc., seemed intuitive and the new way much less so.

 

You should be presented with the tournament results in a popup window. Is this not happening for you? If no and if you want this problem addressed before next week, I suggest you get in touch with Uday.

 

- the GIB built-in analysis is a great tool for helping to settle arguments and is generally useful and fun.  Is that likely to make a reappearance in the Flash version?

 

This is something we would very much like to offer. I am sure it will happen eventually, but it is complicated (especially if it is to be a free service).

 

- It is confusing to have two places to look when I'm chatting to someone.  If their profile came up, then it seems to want to chat from the profile box.  I'm discovering that just as I started to get used to the chat line to be at the bottom of the window.

 

You will get used to this too and I strongly suspect you will like it. If you don't then you don't have to use it - the "normal" chat area can be used exclusively if that's what you prefer. I assume you have discovered that chat-output can also appear within profile windows (not just chat-input as you describe). I think you will like this too once you get the hang of it.

 

- My preference would be to get rid of the theater-style fades in-and-out of messages, boxes, etc.  Pop something up and get rid of it as close to instantly as possible.  Yeah, that's probably something there needs to be a setting for because some love cool effects.

 

I will consider adding an option one day (don't suggest you hold your breath waiting for this one).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[TrialBid]

Fred, I'm hoping you are back safely and ready to have at your projects once more. I trust you won't be annoyed that I quote myself from Feb 20th. Perhaps my ideas seem wrong for some reason but I thought these points were especially important and the first idea seemed like an obvious no-brainer choice. Since you didn't specifically respond to these I'm offering them again.

 

The reason we did it this way in the web-client was because one of the biggest and most common complaints we had new users of the Windows client users was that they found the single list of players to be overwhelming, the color scheme confusing, and the filtering method difficult to understand. One of the primary goals of the web-client was to make it easier for new BBO members to get started. It is hard to cater to the needs of both this group and the group of experienced Windows users with strong computer skills (like you appear to be!).

 

Maybe one day we will offer an "advanced" tab in this area that behaves more or less like the Windows player list (minus the auto-updates for all players), but for now we have bigger fish to fry.

 

Would this work?: Use the ctrl-click function that is frequently used for selecting multiple items. The web client comes up with the Friends tab highlighted. Ctrl-click Stars and it is additive. Stars are shown with Friends and both tabs are highlighted. If the tab is already highlighted, ctrl-click is subtractive. That's the sort of hidden trick that doesn't complicate anything for the neophyte.

 

 

This is an example of the price you pay for the bandwidth savings (which result in the web client not being aware of total system state). We are thinking about giving the web-client addition information (and updating that information automatically) in some contexts such as the one you mention.

 

However, we have to be careful here. If we recklessly go down this path we will cause problems both for our users and for ourselves.

 

I hope that you are being ruthlessly honest here in tracking exactly how much bandwidth each function uses and what that amounts to as a percentage of server loads. The fact that your operation is robust enough to keep going generally when many Windows clients reset and demand enormous loads to log in again tells me you are not starved for bandwidth. In a client server environment, there has been a long history of blaming slow transactions on network latency and/or congestion when, in fact, the underlying cause is that specific server tasks have been given the wrong priority or are resulting in disk accesses when they should be memory resident.

 

I can only guess at some of the tricks that Google uses in its search bar--as you type it offers a list of likely search completions from the cloud and does it with keystroke-level real-time feedback. For that to work, they must have high-priority, memory-resident (and doubtlessly brilliantly and cleverly optimized) code. To be sure, I'm sure it uses a lot of bandwidth, but they are able to provide it for millions more users than you are ever likely to have.

 

To put it more succinctly, don't overvalue small savings that impact the users' experience adversely especially while you are still trying to convert us away from the Windows client that is so very costly in bandwidth for so many reasons.

 

 

A particular application of the principle here that seems important to me is the presentation of pending tournaments. Currently you present "Interesting tables" as Join(19). That means you have the code in one place that could help users who want to know the participation level of MBTs, Individuals, etc., if you just show the number of entrants so far in the same way.

[fred]

Fred, I'm hoping you are back safely and ready to have at your projects once more.  I trust you won't be annoyed that I quote myself from Feb 20th.  Perhaps my ideas seem wrong for some reason but I thought these points were especially important and the first idea seemed like an obvious no-brainer choice.  Since you didn't specifically respond to these I'm offering them again.

 

The reason we did it this way in the web-client was because one of the biggest and most common complaints we had new users of the Windows client users was that they found the single list of players to be overwhelming, the color scheme confusing, and the filtering method difficult to understand. One of the primary goals of the web-client was to make it easier for new BBO members to get started. It is hard to cater to the needs of both this group and the group of experienced Windows users with strong computer skills (like you appear to be!).

 

Maybe one day we will offer an "advanced" tab in this area that behaves more or less like the Windows player list (minus the auto-updates for all players), but for now we have bigger fish to fry.

 

Would this work?: Use the ctrl-click function that is frequently used for selecting multiple items. The web client comes up with the Friends tab highlighted. Ctrl-click Stars and it is additive. Stars are shown with Friends and both tabs are highlighted. If the tab is already highlighted, ctrl-click is subtractive. That's the sort of hidden trick that doesn't complicate anything for the neophyte.

 

 

This is an example of the price you pay for the bandwidth savings (which result in the web client not being aware of total system state). We are thinking about giving the web-client addition information (and updating that information automatically) in some contexts such as the one you mention.

 

However, we have to be careful here. If we recklessly go down this path we will cause problems both for our users and for ourselves.

 

I hope that you are being ruthlessly honest here in tracking exactly how much bandwidth each function uses and what that amounts to as a percentage of server loads. The fact that your operation is robust enough to keep going generally when many Windows clients reset and demand enormous loads to log in again tells me you are not starved for bandwidth. In a client server environment, there has been a long history of blaming slow transactions on network latency and/or congestion when, in fact, the underlying cause is that specific server tasks have been given the wrong priority or are resulting in disk accesses when they should be memory resident.

 

I can only guess at some of the tricks that Google uses in its search bar--as you type it offers a list of likely search completions from the cloud and does it with keystroke-level real-time feedback. For that to work, they must have high-priority, memory-resident (and doubtlessly brilliantly and cleverly optimized) code. To be sure, I'm sure it uses a lot of bandwidth, but they are able to provide it for millions more users than you are ever likely to have.

 

To put it more succinctly, don't overvalue small savings that impact the users' experience adversely especially while you are still trying to convert us away from the Windows client that is so very costly in bandwidth for so many reasons.

 

 

A particular application of the principle here that seems important to me is the presentation of pending tournaments. Currently you present "Interesting tables" as Join(19). That means you have the code in one place that could help users who want to know the participation level of MBTs, Individuals, etc., if you just show the number of entrants so far in the same way.

Sorry I did not respond previously to all the points you made.

 

About your Control-click idea, I don't like it. Control-click is the standard way (at least in the world of Windows - I have no idea if it is used elsewhere) for selecting multiple items in a list. But the user interface component in question is not a "list". It is something that, at least in the world of Flash, is called a "tab navigator". The whole idea behind this component is that it is only possible to select one tab at a time so I am quite sure that using Control-click as a way to merge the information contained in two or more tabs together is not only a poor idea, but something that would never occur to almost any of our members (including me) to even try.

 

I would prefer to find a solution to this problem that average but ambitious users could figure out intuitively. Control-click may be standard in some circles, but it is hardly intuitive for the (many I think) people who have never heard of this before (to say nothing of the people who know about Control-click but would not think to use it in a tab navigator).

 

No offense intended for calling your idea a poor idea. I realize and appreciate that you are trying to help and I have liked most of your suggestions. I also hope you won't be offended when I tell you that, even if you disagree with my reasons above, I am not interested in any further discussion of this particular issue at this point in time. Of course feel free to post what you are thinking - I will certainly read it, but I can't afford to get into long discussions about UI design with you or anyone else (other than Uday who happens to have the appropriate initials for discussing this subject).

 

I agree with some of your thoughts re bandwidth and performance, but you are wrong when you say that BBO continues to run smoothly when a lot of Windows clients disconnect and reconnect. If you recall some of the terrible days we had January (before Uday found yet another effective bandaid) you may have guessed that we are already relatively close to hitting some brick walls. Please keep that in mind while you consider that we are trying to build a system that performs well when there are a LOT more people online than the 18K or so we have now at peak times.

 

That being said, of course we will try to give our members the information that is important to them if it is at all feasible. This is typically easy to do if the nature of the information is that it is not important for it to update itself in real time. For information that is much more useful when it does update itself in real time (the number of entries in a tournament fits into this category IMO), all I can say is this:

 

If a lot of our members want it, we will (eventually) try to find a way to provide it.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[matmat]

hi

just powered up the flash version on my machine for a little bit.

 

first I got a baron barclay ad in the left vertical bar. this was fine. not too atrocious, seemed friendly enough.

 

then, when I joined a table I got a gawdy, flashing, very distracting ad. I am not even sure what it is for, since most of the bar is black... it has a frame as if it were a windows xp window, the only things visible in the frame are [OK] and [Cancel] buttons, that obviously redirect somewhre (btw, i think that is very low-ball, in terms of ads) and a BLATANTLY FLASHING triangular warning-like sign with a big black "!"

Very annoying.

[barmar]

When at a Vugraph table, can we get a tab in the "Who's online" section for the commentators?

 

The only problem with this is that this section of the screen is pretty narrow, so there's not much room for tab headings unless you switch to a smaller font. Maybe you can do multi-row tabs, like the preferences dialogue in the Windows client, although that will consume precious vertical real estate (it's OK in preferences windows, since they don't usually have lots of content).

 

Maybe they could just be moved to the top of the Kibitzers list and color-coded.

[fred]

When at a Vugraph table, can we get a tab in the "Who's online" section for the commentators?

 

The only problem with this is that this section of the screen is pretty narrow, so there's not much room for tab headings unless you switch to a smaller font. Maybe you can do multi-row tabs, like the preferences dialogue in the Windows client, although that will consume precious vertical real estate (it's OK in preferences windows, since they don't usually have lots of content).

 

Maybe they could just be moved to the top of the Kibitzers list and color-coded.

Agree that it would be nice if commentators could somehow be identified.

 

The next version of the web-client will be the first that can be used by vugraph commentators, but unfortunately your suggestion came a little too late for us to include a feature along the lines of what you suggest.

 

I will make a note of this and try to arrange to do something about it for a future version.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

hi

just powered up the flash version on my machine for a little bit.

 

first I got a baron barclay ad in the left vertical bar. this was fine. not too atrocious, seemed friendly enough.

 

then, when I joined a table I got a gawdy, flashing, very distracting ad. I am not even sure what it is for,  since most of the bar is black... it has a frame as if it were a windows xp window,  the only things visible in the frame are  [OK] and [Cancel] buttons, that obviously redirect somewhre (btw, i think that is very low-ball, in terms of ads) and a BLATANTLY FLASHING triangular warning-like sign with a big black "!"

Very annoying.

We are expermenting with some new ad providers for both the Windows and web clients. In general we have considerable control over which ads our members see. If you find a particular ad to be annoying, your best course of action is to send an e-mail to support@bridgebase.com and describe the ad that bothered you.

 

I will make sure the appropriate person sees your comment, but in general if you want results in this area you have a better chance of getting them if you send us an e-mail.

 

It should be noted that if you occasionally spend a BB$ you will not see any ads in the web-client at all. I don't know the exact details of how this works and I can't promise this policy will last forever.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

There's one ad on the login screen that I find perversely amusing. I think it's for a vacation resort (don't remember which, so I guess it's not that effective) and it's some ropes in a knot that is supposed to resemble a woman's figure. But to me it looks a bit like her private parts. :)

 

I was wondering why I don't see ads once I'm logged in, and Fred's response cleared that up. I play Robot Rewards (too) frequently.

[fred]

I am closing this thread. There is a new one that replaces it here:

 

Link to newer BBO web-client comment thread

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com