Note censored?

[qwery_hi]

Having "Homeland security is big brother" is enough to get your note censored in BBO? Where did this come from?

[mtvesuvius]

The department of love.

[qwery_hi]

I love you man

[Winstonm]

Rendition comes next - visit exotic countries - fly CIA.

[kenberg]

The post was deleted because it was not accurate. Actually Homeland Security is Big Brother and the Holding Company.

[Aberlour10]

Rendition comes next - visit exotic countries - fly CIA.

or ....Sleeping is wasting of time, visit CIA Recreation Resort and you learn to do without it. :)

[mtvesuvius]

It's Big Brother Online... :)

[Hanoi5]

That's a good one, BBO.

[uday]

We aren't a government. Almost by definition, we can't censor.

 

What we can do is create rules that try to prevent customers from scrapping with one another.

 

We're here to play cards, not arm-wrestle about each others religion or politics or sexual preferences or whatever. Profiles and public chat aren't the Watercooler.

 

Religious and political statements in particular have the potential to be mildly inflammatory to the unenlightened ( people who don't believe in your particular god, or people who don't believe in your flavour of freedom or tyranny as the case may be ).

 

Thus, we make a practice of preventing customers from using BBO profiles and BBO chat to express political views, religious views, and other troll-ish sentiments.

 

One might think that "Homeland security is big brother" , or "There is but one God, and his name is Blah" is a cute and harmless expression of liberality or what not. Others might view it as an attack on the USA (from the outside), a failure of patriotism, treason, or what not. Trolls are trolls.

 

 

Why get into this stuff? More prudent to take the absurd position that this stuff has nothing to do with playing cards and should be eliminated as something that causes trouble on a bad day and is meaningless on a good day.

 

U

[TimG]

I'm curious: was there a complaint that resulted in the note being removed, or was this a case of bridge base administrators doing some sort of automatic review of notes?

 

I have "I didn't vote for Bush" in my profile note on BBO. Check that, I had that in my profile for a while, it seems to be gone now. I cannot remember removing it, though I did change my flag recently and could have removed the note at the same time. But, now you've got me wondering.

[uday]

We don't automatically review profiles but people sometimes complain, and sometimes our yellows stumble across political profiles.

 

We dont directly zap profiles ourselves except in extreme cases. The usual action is to ask the person to edit the profile, then either thank him or report him to our abuse guys ( or in rare cases give his PC a brief timeout to add an exclamation mark to our request, if the user is obnoxious about it )

 

U

[qwery_hi]

We aren't a government. Almost by definition, we can't censor.

 

What we can do is create rules that try to prevent customers from scrapping with one another.

 

We're here to play cards, not arm-wrestle about each others religion or politics or sexual preferences or whatever. Profiles and public chat aren't the Watercooler.

 

Religious and political statements in particular have the potential to be mildly inflammatory to the unenlightened ( people who don't believe in your particular god, or people who don't believe in your flavour of freedom or tyranny as the case may be ).

 

Thus, we make a practice of preventing customers from using BBO profiles and BBO chat to express political views, religious views, and other troll-ish sentiments.

 

One might think that "Homeland security is big brother" , or "There is but one God, and his name is Blah" is a cute and harmless expression of liberality or what not. Others might view it as an attack on the USA (from the outside), a failure of patriotism, treason, or what not. Trolls are trolls.

 

 

Why get into this stuff? More prudent to take the absurd position that this stuff has nothing to do with playing cards and should be eliminated as something that causes trouble on a bad day and is meaningless on a good day.

 

U

Sure, seeing someone put "+++" on their profile also bothers me. What does that have to do with paying cards when there is already a level provided by BBO?

 

Just because something on a profile bothers me doesn't mean that it should be removed.

[hrothgar]

We aren't a government. Almost by definition, we can't censor.

 

What we can do  is create rules that try to  prevent customers from scrapping with one another. 

 

We're here to play cards, not arm-wrestle about each others religion or politics or sexual preferences or whatever.  Profiles and public chat aren't the Watercooler. 

 

Religious and political statements in particular have the potential to be mildly inflammatory to the unenlightened ( people who don't believe in your particular god, or people who don't believe in your flavour of freedom or tyranny as the case may be ).

 

Thus, we make a practice of preventing customers from using BBO profiles and BBO chat to express political views, religious views, and other troll-ish sentiments.

 

One might think that "Homeland security is big brother" , or "There is but one God, and his name is Blah"  is a cute and harmless expression of liberality or what not.  Others might view it as an attack on the USA (from the outside), a failure of  patriotism, treason, or what not.  Trolls are trolls.

 

 

Why get into this stuff?    More prudent to take the absurd position that this stuff has nothing to do with playing cards and should be eliminated as something that causes trouble on a bad day and is meaningless on a good day.

 

U

Sure, seeing someone put "+++" on their profile also bothers me. What does that have to do with paying cards when there is already a level provided by BBO?

 

Just because something on a profile bothers me doesn't mean that it should be removed.

I seem to recall that +++ is some king of flag related to the Vugraph system

[hanp]

Confusing notation given the level of many commentators.

[Winstonm]

I'm certainly glad I am apolitical.

[qwery_hi]

We aren't a government. Almost by definition, we can't censor.

 

What we can do  is create rules that try to  prevent customers from scrapping with one another. 

 

We're here to play cards, not arm-wrestle about each others religion or politics or sexual preferences or whatever.   Profiles and public chat aren't the Watercooler.  

 

Religious and political statements in particular have the potential to be mildly inflammatory to the unenlightened ( people who don't believe in your particular god, or people who don't believe in your flavour of freedom or tyranny as the case may be ).

 

Thus, we make a practice of preventing customers from using BBO profiles and BBO chat to express political views, religious views, and other troll-ish sentiments.

 

One might think that "Homeland security is big brother" , or "There is but one God, and his name is Blah"  is a cute and harmless expression of liberality or what not.  Others might view it as an attack on the USA (from the outside), a failure of  patriotism, treason, or what not.   Trolls are trolls.

 

 

Why get into this stuff?    More prudent to take the absurd position that this stuff has nothing to do with playing cards and should be eliminated as something that causes trouble on a bad day and is meaningless on a good day.

 

U

Sure, seeing someone put "+++" on their profile also bothers me. What does that have to do with paying cards when there is already a level provided by BBO?

 

Just because something on a profile bothers me doesn't mean that it should be removed.

I seem to recall that +++ is some king of flag related to the Vugraph system

The point remains. Just because I don't like that someone has "Homeland Security is big brother" shouldn't be the reason that it is censored by BBO.

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

 

When I see +++ on a profile I think the person is too full of themselves.

[cherdanno]

When I see +++ on a profile I think the person is too full of themselves.

LOL

[Lobowolf]

The point remains. Just because I don't like that someone has "Homeland Security is big brother" shouldn't be the reason that it is censored by BBO.

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

I think you misunderstood...it's "censored by BBO" not because you don't like it, but because it doesn't comport with the way that BBO wishes to present its site or the atmosphere it wishes to provide for its members.

 

Fred seems like a reasonable guy, though; my guess would be if you wanted to provide a free bridge server for everyone, and set different standards for content, I don't think he'd go to court to seek an injunction or anything.

[fred]

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[mtvesuvius]

LOL at this thread. Edited May 12, 2009 by mtvesuvius

[qwery_hi]

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Understanding - Yes, sympathy - a little, disappointment - a bit more.

[fred]

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Understanding - Yes, sympathy - a little, disappointment - a bit more.

OK so if you were in charge, how would you prevent yourself from becoming disappointed? I can think of a few alternatives:

 

1) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and pay an army of people to respond to the flood of e-mail complaints that you would receive (not that these e-mails would do any good in most cases since the only appropriate response would be "sorry but here on BBO we allow everyone to act like an xxxxx") edit:ui

 

2) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and ignore the flood of e-mail complaints you would receive

 

3) Only allow political/religious/sexual comments in profiles or through chat if you personally happen to agree with them

 

Regardless of which of these options you choose, good luck staying in business especially when those who belong to the small % of BBO members who give you a $1 on occasion decide to stop playing on your site.

 

Or maybe you have a better idea?

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[inquiry]

I'm certainly glad I am apolitical.

LMAO.... Really.

 

:P

[uday]

When I see +++ on a profile I think the person is too full of themselves.

 

A long time ago, we allowed public chat in vugraph rooms.

 

Then, as the noise level increased, we restricted public chat to invited players (commentators).

 

Then, as they started to complain about too many private chats from specs, we disabled the ability to send private chat to comentators.

 

Then, as other commentators complained about being cut off from specs, we told commentators who wanted specs to be able to chat to them to add a +++ ( as an unlikely set of characters ) to their profile to let BBO ( the code, not the management ) know that private chat to this commentator should be allowed.

 

That is all it means. It is a signal to the software to override the default block on spec->commentator chat.

[qwery_hi]

I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Understanding - Yes, sympathy - a little, disappointment - a bit more.

OK so if you were in charge, how would you prevent yourself from becoming disappointed? I can think of a few alternatives:

 

1) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and pay an army of people to respond to the flood of e-mail complaints that you would receive (not that these e-mails would do any good in most cases since the only appropriate response would be "sorry but here on BBO we allow everyone to act like an asshole")

 

2) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and ignore the flood of e-mail complaints you would receive

 

3) Only allow political/religious/sexual comments in profiles or through chat if you personally happen to agree with them

 

Regardless of which of these options you choose, good luck staying in business especially when those who belong to the small % of BBO members who give you a $1 on occasion decide to stop playing on your site.

 

Or maybe you have a better idea?

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Fred, I'm not going to be presumptuous and tell you how best to run the business of BBO. I don't know. I don't envy the position you are in re: the political, sexual, religious profiles.

 

Its a zero sum game. Lets say I'm gay and have on my profile - "Only here to play with my wonderful husband FooBar". Is this bridge related? Kinda. Would some be offended by it? I guess. If I was asked to remove this from my profile, would I be offended? Yes.

 

Facebook, reddit, digg, twitter, all media sites are grappling with this issue. They can't satisfy all the people all the time. I realize its not possible.

 

There's nothing you can do about the disappointment, and there's nothing I can do about the state of affairs. But thanks for hearing my side of they story, and thank you for telling me your side.