Sub forum for real experts?

[Winstonm]

Justin,

 

I know you to be a likeable, pleasant, and engaging fellow who would not meaningfully insult others. I am an old man, now, but I used to be young. One thing I learned over the years is that words are like bullets, that once fired they cannot be stopped and sometimes do more damage than intended.

 

That's all I'm saying.

[HeavyDluxe]

An observation: Scanning through this thread, I've started to notice that it sounds a lot like our rants for/against self-ratings on BBO.

 

If that's an accurate observation, perhaps the solution is not a new forum to lock out 'pretend experts'. Maybe it would be better to simply leave their threads bare, without replies. Let them die the slow death of silence...

 

Anyway, I still have no problem with the forum idea in principle. I think most of the people on here whose opinions matter to me are gracious enough with their time in the other forums on here. As such, affording them a 'big boy' sandbox of their own may be both a respite to them and an education for me. Clearly there are administrative and other 'costs', as others have pointed out. I can't judge which case trumps the other, though.

 

(As an aside, thanks to everyone who posts here... I'm grateful for your time!)

[peachy]

I'm all for some sort of way to monitor forums. Instead of a new forum for 'real' A/E, I was thinking of this idea:

 

Have a team of accepted volunteers who take any post that would start a new thread and allocate that first post to a specific forum, rather than letting any random wannabe expert post in A/E. Although I'm not saying people enjoy being babied, I'm sure they would get over it since all their threads would be posted, and it shouldn't matter to them in which forum.

 

Alternatively, such volunteers could simply be given the power to move threads from one forum to another, which would prevent a participant from having to wait for his initial post in a thread to be posted. I know Inquiry/Rain/Gerardo/Fred and maybe some others already have this power, so I say just spread it to a few more people whose job it is to keep the threads in each forum appropriate for that forum. The more I think about it this is probably the best idea to keep things in order.

 

Justin's idea is fine too, but I like my second one more since it would have the least disruption to the community in general but still accomplish the intended goal. Thoughts?

 

edit: How did I forget Uday lol. Brain fart.

I like Josh's idea of moderators who move a post to an appropriate forum if needed. There are enough forums as it is. I would not be too worried about hurt feelings. There are afterall only a few persistent intermediates or lower who just want to hear their own voice in the Advanced/Expert forum [this is the impression I get] and once they get return to reality, they might enjoy discussions even more at the appropriate level.

[Echognome]

I rather like the idea. I would really enjoy being able to post a question and only get the top expert advice on the hands. We might get some different views on what the "right" answer is on a hand, but more importantly, we would get a great insight into how to think about finding the right answer.

 

Naturally most regular posters filter the advice they see now based on who is posting the response. This subforum would be a place where you can just read expert opinion. I would think the easiest implementation would be:

 

Anyone can post a question. Only a select group of posters can respond. A moderator or committee maintains the selection of posters. That's it.

[awm]

One problem I've noticed is that the number of new threads started per day has grown considerably. Often I've looked at a thread (or started one myself) only to see that less than a day later, it has completely disappeared from the page of "most recent" threads.

 

Now obviously to some degree this is a result of the increasing number of posters, which is good. And if all the threads are interesting then there's not so much we can do. But sometimes the threads are mostly not interesting, and are crowding out the really good questions and contributions. A simple fix for this without creating a new "expert club" (membership in which is likely to be highly subjective and controversial) might be to limit the number of new threads a single poster can start per day (especially in the advanced/expert forum). If people feel it's really important, the limit could be higher for people with a solid reputation as experts (but without completely banning anyone from starting new threads).

[Elianna]

I still think lots of the ideas in this thread go too far. I feel a good start would simply be give about 5 more people the power to move threads from any forum to any other. Then charge those people with keeping the threads in the appropriate forum. No need for membership committees or new forums or exclusive clubs.

I agree.

 

I think that the board could use a bit more organization. A lot of people seem to like using the A/E forum for posts that don't really belong there such as:

 

1) "This hand has a funny story" - this belongs in the interesting bridge hands. (whether or not it's actually interesting is a topic for another time)

 

2) "I want to see what others say about this hand/bid so I can tell them why they're wrong" - Again, interesting bridge hands (or B/I)

 

3) "What is the right 2/1/SAYC/strong club/etc. bid on this hand?" When it's a question of system, it should be in the system thread, I think. But I understand that this is controversial, as it may be a matter of judgement, but why can't we have judgement questions in there?

 

4) "Please explain this convention to me./Let me explain this convention to you" - Either B/I or systems, depending on the convention.

 

I also agree with Adam about limiting people to only being able to start one thread a day in A/E. I do think that some of the problem people may be having is fatigue (going through SO many uninteresting threads).

[jdonn]

I have no idea if it's the same people or not, but I hope anyone arguing in favor of limiting the amount of new threads per day is not one of the people who also gets annoyed when people ask about multiple hands in the same thread. :)

[qwery_hi]

A simple fix for this without creating a new "expert club" (membership in which is likely to be highly subjective and controversial) might be to limit the number of new threads a single poster can start per day (especially in the advanced/expert forum). If people feel it's really important, the limit could be higher for people with a solid reputation as experts (but without completely banning anyone from starting new threads).

Good idea - limiting it to one is going to make everyone feel part of the club, while reducing noise. If the limit were zero, my prediction is the forum would reduce to a clique.

[Elianna]

I think threads per day in A/E is different than threads per day in other forums.

[matmat]

i think limiting # of threads per day is a good idea in principle, but I suspect difficult to implement. I wouldn't expect the bulletin board software to have such a feature (ready to be proven wrong tho!)

[Codo]

I am no big fan of the solution.

1. I know most guys which answers are worth reading, so I read them and can skip the others, so to me this is no big problem anyway.

 

2. There are trolls everywhere- even between the experts. So maybe the discussion won't be much better in an expert only forum.

 

I think we should follow Udays advice, because that is really simple: Create a new forum with a moderator. And this or these moderator(s) simply allow or refuse the input.

[helene_t]

JLOL

 

Dear expert colleagues. I was wondering what you would open with ♠AJ10xx ♥KJ10xx ♦Ax ♣x. Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[14 reactions, click here to view]

 

mikeh

 

An excellent question worthy of discussion young jlol. We have enough highcards to open 1S (highest from two 5-card suits) but I am worried about my rebid. What is the vulnerability?

 

[32 reactions, click here to view]

This is the functionality that is found on many other forums - except that the set of replies that go into the "click here to view" list are typically based on the readers individual "ignore" list, in combination with the number of thumb-downs and thump-ups each reply got. I think that would be better since

- you avoid the controversy about who should be on the "expert" list

- some non-expert may occasionally post something of high quality, for example if he finds a the hyperlink everyone is looking for, and an expert may post something non-interesting.

[TimG]

I don't think there are too many A/E topics in A/E, too many topics perhaps, but not too many A/E topics.

 

If someone returns home from weekend event and has 5 interesting A/E questions to post, a post limit is going to discourage him. (Or, encourage him to post all the questions in one topic.)

 

Moving inappropriate topics to the correct forum will reduce the number of topics by quite a bit. The more interesting topics will get more attention and thus stay at the top of the page.

[Rain]

I think this is too hard to implement.

 

Easiest would actually be to give the acknowledged experts' posts an unimitable, obvious way of showing these are recognised expert opinions.

 

If there's a way of giving out a very, very big star next to their forum names for instance. Or their post gets automatically highlighted in some manner, something obvious.

 

Also, the criteria could be that all BBO stars receive this treatment when they post on BBF(?)

[hotShot]

I don't like the idea of an expert only forum, but technically the easiest thing would be to create a group "stars" additional to "members" and "admins". And make a forum writable only for members of the star group and readable for all. It should be easy to identify BBO-Stars when they join the forum an automatically put them to that group.

This is supported by the avaiable forum software and someone will have to add a little database request to the star database.

[Echognome]

I don't like the idea of a thread posting limit. I mean what's the big deal? You don't have to read the thread! Is the worry that your thread gets lost in the "muck"? I mean really. I can understand if people are just posting thread after thread of things non bridge related (and not in the water cooler). That's an issue of the moderators doing their job.

 

Here's my biggest problem with a thread limit. I play live bridge a lot more seldom these days. I will play in a tournament and have several hands that were interesting to me. They may not be interesting to everyone. Tough! It's not like I can know which hands will spark interest and which ones will not. So I typically post about 3-6 hands at a time. Then I won't post another hand for weeks. How can it be a good solution that I have to post those hands one a day in a forum?

[Elianna]

Here's my biggest problem with a thread limit. I play live bridge a lot more seldom these days. I will play in a tournament and have several hands that were interesting to me. They may not be interesting to everyone. Tough! It's not like I can know which hands will spark interest and which ones will not. So I typically post about 3-6 hands at a time. Then I won't post another hand for weeks. How can it be a good solution that I have to post those hands one a day in a forum?

Shouldn't these then belong in the interesting hands forum? As the discussion is about A/E, how does this affect you?

[Echognome]

Here's my biggest problem with a thread limit.  I play live bridge a lot more seldom these days.  I will play in a tournament and have several hands that were interesting to me.  They may not be interesting to everyone. Tough!  It's not like I can know which hands will spark interest and which ones will not.  So I typically post about 3-6 hands at a time.  Then I won't post another hand for weeks.  How can it be a good solution that I have to post those hands one a day in a forum?

Shouldn't these then belong in the interesting hands forum? As the discussion is about A/E, how does this affect you?

Not if I desire advanced/expert opinions on them.

 

Of course you are side-stepping the issue entirely. Again, I pose to you that we play bridge where hands come in bunches. I do not get a good hand for an expert forum once a day.

 

However, if we want to totally rethink advanced/expert, then I can understand both limiting the posting ability to the forum and restricting the people whom can discuss the hands. That is a tradeoff I would be happy to make. I can only post one new thread per day, but I would get a higher quality feedback.

 

What doesn't make sense to me is to not restrict the people whom can give me feedback and to restrict my ability to post! Then, all we have gotten out of the change is a subforum where you have limited the ability to start new threads. That will basically make the subforum less popular, without solving any of the other problems raised by the OP.

[Finch]

My thoughts:

 

I think there are various different "problems" and possible solutions being mixed up here, some of which have come up before.

 

1. The forum called "Advanced/Expert" has a load of threads in it that aren't about Expert bridge (I'm not entirely clear what "advanced" bridge exactly is).

 

Some clearly belong elsehwere (e.g. a question about BBO Vugraph). The real problem is the large number of uninteresting and/or very basic questions, usually about bidding.

 

Why is this exactly a problem?

 

- It irritates people like JLOL who want that forum to discuss expert bridge, not sort through a load of threads to which the expert answer is either LOL or wtp

 

- It upsets the people who post these problems, who generally wouldn't post these hands if they didn't think they had a problem, and then get what look like a load of snide remarks. To be honest, I just can't be bothered to reply to these threads any more and that doesn't help the original posters either, who then start to think that the forums are cliquey and they are unwelcome.

 

By contrast, when this type of queston is posted in the B/I forum, I usually try and take time to give a polite and helpful answer.

 

Looking at it rationally, why should it matter where a question is posted? Well, it shouldn't really.... except that some of these posts give the impression that the poster is not looking to learn something, but thinks that they are a great player and/or want to prove they are right, or thinks that they should only be posting in that particular subforum because anything else is beneath them.

 

By the way, there is a complimentary problem: one of the consequences of not being an expert player is that you don't necessarily know how difficult a problem you face is. Some of the threads in the B/I forum are actually very difficult hands. There was a defensive problem recently that I nearly wrote about 3 pages about, but then decided I didn't have the time or energy.

 

2. Thread creep. You post some interesting problem and get frustrated because all anyone wants to argue about is how to bid to a different contract using bizarre methods, or whether 2/1 was created or evolved, or gets into a flame war.

 

I'm afraid that thread creep is a fact of internet life.

 

3. The whole "who is an expert?" thing. There are various suggestions about creating "expert" panels of some form or another, to identify the posters you "really ought to listen to". Personally, I don't think this works very well. Perhaps as someone suggested there might be a "forum expert" indicator (a big star?) but

 

- Some people are not the world's best bridge players, but they contribute cogent and helpful analysis on particular topics. I'm not going to start naming people, but there may e.g. be a poster who never posts on bidding or defensive problems but is a master at working out complex squeeze positions. And there are certainly some posters who are very good at writing excellent and unbiased answers to 'standard' bidding questions (i.e. they come over as good teachers) even if they may not have world class bidding judgement. Against that, some people who have the f2f results to prove that they are expert players can be surprisingly ignorant about what 'standard' bidding or carding actually is, particuarly in other countries.

 

- Some very strong players only post here very occasionally. I don't want to miss contributions from dburn or Jallerton (to give a couple of English players who are more expert than many regular posters including e.g. me) just because they don't write sufficiently regularly to get on the official "experts" list. I don't want to put off other good players if they feel they'd like to contribute but aren't welcome.

 

4. What to the forum names mean?

This thread seems to suggest in places that you need to post in the A/E forum if you want A/E opinions. That's not how I've always thought of them. I've always thought that the sub-fora should relate to what the thread is about. If it's about a basic bidding or play problem, it's in the B/I forum. If it's about a very difficult hand, it's in the A/E forum. If it's just interesting, it's in the Interesting Bridge hands (like virtually all the "they've pre-empted now what do we do" questions). I pick my subforum carefully when posting. Others don't...

 

Overall thoughts? If some strong bridge players are no longer posting because they are fed up with the problems described above, that's a pity and I am in favour of changes that would get them back, if they wouldn't make other people upset. BUT the great thing about the internet is that just because you are a good player, you have no bigger right to have the forums run the way you want than anyone else does. If anything, 'forum organisation rights' go first to BBO & the moderators, and secondly to the most frequent posters, whatever their standard.

 

If there are changes we could make to encourage more people to post, I'm also for them. I don't care what country they are from, we're all talking bridge.... it would indeed be nice to have a wider spread of nationalities, but as hrothgar points out, it's an English language forum, what exactly do you expect?

 

Conclusion

----------------

 

Over the last few years I've learnt quite a lot from the BBO forums. I like being able to ask people outside my immediate 'clique' what they think, because - particuarly on bidding problems - you tend to end up with a common Groupthink within your own teammates and other input is a good thing.

 

I also would love to have sensible discussions about interesting hands. But it ain't easy to manage. And like I said, I don't have the god-given (evolved?) right to have my desire for how the forums should be run overwhelm anyone elses. The best suggestion I can think of is to try out a highly-moderated sub-forums where all posts are screened by (one of) a panel of moderators and only replies that are on-topic and value-adding (as the corporate jargon has it) are passed. There may be an additional *confidential* list of posters whose replies don't need screening. I don't know if the software is up to having a group of moderators defined who can see all pending posts and approve/reject them.

 

I'm not confident this will work. I think it would die due to lack of contributions and/or the delay in contributions appearing. But it might be interesting to try it.

[Echognome]

Perhaps one suggestion to address some of the concerns raised by Frances would be to have better guidance as to where to post a problem. The guidelines right now are pretty vague. I don't really have a problem with it, but obviously some people do.

 

Another alternative is to have different classifications of subfora:

 

Basic Bridge Questions

Bidding Problems

Lead Problems

Defensive Problems after the Lead

Assign the Blame Problems

Bridge Experts/Professional Discussion

SAYC and 2/1 Discussion

Strong Club/Diamond Systems Discussion

Other Base Systems Discussion (such as Polish Club, Ambra, etc.)

Existing Conventions Discussion (e.g. what continuations do people play after Stayman?)

New Conventions Discussion (e.g. a new form of Jacoby raises that people can add to their existing system)

 

I am not set on this list, but I think it's at least clearer where to post a problem. Perhaps there can be a voluntary tag that one can set on any message that says "This is from a BIL" so that respondents can be a bit more polite in their responses? I mean if I make a dumb play or a clear error and get lambasted for it, I think it's fair game. However, I agree with others' sentiments that bridge experts should try to be encouraging and constructive to BILs.

[Elianna]

Here's my biggest problem with a thread limit.  I play live bridge a lot more seldom these days.  I will play in a tournament and have several hands that were interesting to me.  They may not be interesting to everyone. Tough!  It's not like I can know which hands will spark interest and which ones will not.  So I typically post about 3-6 hands at a time.  Then I won't post another hand for weeks.  How can it be a good solution that I have to post those hands one a day in a forum?

Shouldn't these then belong in the interesting hands forum? As the discussion is about A/E, how does this affect you?

Not if I desire advanced/expert opinions on them.

 

Of course you are side-stepping the issue entirely. Again, I pose to you that we play bridge where hands come in bunches. I do not get a good hand for an expert forum once a day.

4. What to the forum names mean?

This thread seems to suggest in places that you need to post in the A/E forum if you want A/E opinions. That's not how I've always thought of them. I've always thought that the sub-fora should relate to what the thread is about. If it's about a basic bidding or play problem, it's in the B/I forum. If it's about a very difficult hand, it's in the A/E forum. If it's just interesting, it's in the Interesting Bridge hands (like virtually all the "they've pre-empted now what do we do" questions). I pick my subforum carefully when posting. Others don't...

 

I was not "side-stepping" the issue. I was merely pointing out that if you basically just keep posting hands you had a problem on, maybe they do not all belong in Advanced/Expert, and maybe limiting you on the number of threads you can post there might make you rethink what you post there.

 

It's rather funny that you seem so offended by the limit of one per day, where others are suggesting zero per day. Or do you think that you should be one of the ten (or so) "star" posters that others are suggesting?

 

Honestly, the best place for expert feedback seems to be posting in the beginner/intermediate thread as that is where people seem to give thought-out answers, instead of posting "xx, wtp" or "LOL".

[awm]

I basically agree with what Frances said.

 

However, I'd like to add that there are some ways to combat thread creep. As a community, I think we should try to discourage posts which:

 

(1) Simply say "I agree" with some other poster without adding any new reasons or ideas.

(2) Repeat an argument already made by the same poster in the same thread.

(3) Are extremely long and include a large amount of off-topic material.

(4) Are personal attacks on other posters and not particularly related to the thread topic.

 

This is not to say that we should censor such posts entirely, or that we should ban people who make such posts. However, I think most of the community is mature enough to see that these sorts of posts do not add much to the discussion, and should try to restrain ourselves from making them to the degree this is possible. There is also the option to "report" posts and perhaps we could use this when people are violating the above guidelines (and if it's a persistent problem, they could get mail from a moderator or some sort of ban).

[TimG]

As a community, I think we should try to discourage posts which:

 

(1) Simply say "I agree" with some other poster without adding any new reasons or ideas.

Sometimes an "I agree" post is a good thing. If the first response basically says it all, but is from someone that I don't recognize (or someone whose opinion I do not always respect), it's nice to have a known expert come by and say "I agree" as a sort of validation.

 

I think that only a very few should have the "I agree" power, though. You are right that the vast majority of "I agree" posts are a waste of most everybody's time.

[Echognome]

I was not "side-stepping" the issue. I was merely pointing out that if you basically just keep posting hands you had a problem on, maybe they do not all belong in Advanced/Expert, and maybe limiting you on the number of threads you can post there might make you rethink what you post there.

 

It's rather funny that you seem so offended by the limit of one per day, where others are suggesting zero per day. Or do you think that you should be one of the ten (or so) "star" posters that others are suggesting?

 

Honestly, the best place for expert feedback seems to be posting in the beginner/intermediate thread as that is where people seem to give thought-out answers, instead of posting "xx, wtp" or "LOL".

I don't post them all in adv/exp. I don't think it would be too difficult to figure that part out.

 

I wouldn't say "offended" is the right word for my feelings about the limit being one per day. I just think it's a bad idea. You aren't solving any of the problems before of bad responses and you are limiting people that are coming up with good topics to discuss.

[jdonn]

However, I'd like to add that there are some ways to combat thread creep. As a community, I think we should try to discourage posts which:

 

(1) Simply say "I agree" with some other poster without adding any new reasons or ideas.

(2) Repeat an argument already made by the same poster in the same thread.

(3) Are extremely long and include a large amount of off-topic material.

(4) Are personal attacks on other posters and not particularly related to the thread topic.

I disagree with your 1 2 and 3. It's often not just the point made or opinion expressed that interests people, it's who it came from.

 

Sure 4 is bad, and I'm not so oblivious to fail to realize that I'm one of the worst offenders. It may be hard to believe, but I try to hold back. :) Sometimes I look back at very old posts I made, and I was sure a lot worse a few years ago!