cherdano Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 My point was just that for this thread (which basically amounts to "how can i count number of losers if I only know the length of my two longest suits"), it was immediately obvious that it would not lead to any useful discussion. I.e. from post 1 it was clear that the discussion had "run out of useful discussion" etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 My point was just that for this thread (which basically amounts to "how can i count number of losers if I only know the length of my two longest suits"), it was immediately obvious that it would not lead to any useful discussion. I.e. from post 1 it was clear that the discussion had "run out of useful discussion" etc. Yes and the OP is not interested in anything anyone else has to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 FWIW, I think that its ridiculous to lock individual threads without addressing the root problem.There is an active community of individuals who do nothing but troll this site. They do not participate in any bridge related discussions.They do nothing but post inflammatory *****, trying to get a rise out of people. If you banned a half dozen people, you solve 90% of your problems. If you established some decent standards for the moderators, you'd solve 99% of the problems and might even have a decent site where folks could discuss bridge. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Duplicate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 FWIW, I think that its ridiculous to lock individual threads without addressing the root problem.There is an active community of individuals who do nothing but troll this site....If you banned a half dozen people, you solve 90% of your problems.Careful, Richard. I'll bet I could find several others who would nominate you to be among them. :) I'm not a big believer in pre-censoring people. Yes, we have some trolls, that's the nature of Internet discussion boards. We don't have anyone whose full-time job is moderating the forum, we're not that interested in actively monitoring everything that goes on to keep it squeaky clean. We mainly take notice only when something is eggregious enough that someone complains, and even then we're pretty conservative about blocking posters and shutting down threads. Yeah, the trolls mostly post drivel, but it's also mostly harmless. It only gets a rise out of people if they take it too seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Obviously if someone complains the mods should look at the thread and decide whether the complaint is valid, but it seems that often the complaint comes from someone who is not a participant in the thread, is not himself being insulted, and who could simply not read the thread instead of trying to control what others may write and read. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inquiry Posted April 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 A topic in the Non-natural system forum began something like "Playing SAYC with a random partner the bidding went..." was moved to the natural bidding forum. In addition, a bunch of random duplicate post were deleted due to whatever is going wrong with the posting the two days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrAce Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 A topic in the Non-natural system forum began something like "Playing SAYC with a random partner the bidding went..." was moved to the natural bidding forum. In addition, a bunch of random duplicate post were deleted due to whatever is going wrong with the posting the two days. What is happening is, when we reply and then hit the submit button, it seems like it did not register. I guess people are hitting the "submit" button while the page is being slow. I got my lesson the hard way for this in the past so I simply click on the title of the post again which then I see the post I was trying to submit is already submitted. For some reason the forums have been slow in submitting the posts lately. EDIT: See this happened again when I hit the submit button as I was replying to you. Seems like it is happening once every 2-3 replies I make. Not sure this is only me or it does to everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mycroft Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I would like to thank the moderators for their work. I may not agree with all of it, but I don't have to do it!In particular, their effort de-duping is an unblemished plus, except for them - Bravi! In particular particular, for my part in the needing de-duped, my sincere thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherdano Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I probably should also add that what I wrote above is not such a big deal. In fact, I wouldn't have a problem with just banning religion and global warming threads from the watercooler.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nige1 Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 FWIW, I think that its ridiculous to lock individual threads without addressing the root problem. There is an active community of individuals who do nothing but troll this site.They do not participate in any bridge related discussions.They do nothing but post inflammatory *****, trying to get a rise out of people.If you banned a half dozen people, you solve 90% of your problems.If you established some decent standards for the moderators, you'd solve 99% of the problems and might even have a decent site where folks could discuss bridge. Be careful what you wish for :) I would like to thank the moderators for their work. I may not agree with all of it, but I don't have to do it!In particular, their effort de-duping is an unblemished plus, except for them - Bravi! In particular particular, for my part in the needing de-duped, my sincere thanks. Sometimes, when I posted a reply ... 504 Gateway Time-out The server didn't respond in time.... I thought the reply had been aborted and re-clicked submit. IMO, that is what causes duplicate replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antrax Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 So where would I move the hand evaluation thread if I was unhappy with it in the Expert forum? Certainly not to novice, intermediate or advanced threads. Plays have enough trouble counting to 13. . Certainly not to "general bridge discussion" because it wasn't general.So a new method to evaluate the strength of any given Bridge hand is not generally about Bridge? Re: trolls, only three and a half names come to mind, and of those one and a half do post Bridge content. So, unless we expand it to all posters who have a tendency to be offensive when disagreeing with someone, I really don't think it's such a huge problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diana_eva Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 .... But the question is, let's say for some reason, despite all the apparent effort the author put into building an idea and taking the time to share it with the world, I thought that thread was unsuited for the Expert thread where experts share ideas and delve into deep advanced or better situations, where should I move such a thread? That is, where should it go, is an essential part of moving a topic, and is even more important than it is in the wrong place. To move it, there must clearly be an APPROPRIATE place to put it. So where would I move the hand evaluation thread if I was unhappy with it in the Expert forum? Certainly not to novice, intermediate or advanced threads. Plays have enough trouble counting to 13. . Certainly not to "general bridge discussion" because it wasn't general. And of course, it has nothing to do with the general off line bridge, natural or unnatural bidding, youth bridge, etc categories..... I think it could have been safely moved to General Bridge Discussion. Also, the thread started off as a spammish-looking post. It was one link that wouldn't work posted in several Forums. One of the admins deleted the duplicate posts and left only one in Expert Forums. Then OP came back and edited post #1 to explain what she meant, after being told that the link isn't working. Now it looks like forum regulars were all over OP despite all the effort she put into sharing her idea with the world - but it's only because she edited OP :) There was zero effort originally. Which is why - if the forum software allows - it would be a good idea to make it mandatory to show the "edited" mark after the thread got several replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgoetze Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 So where would I move the hand evaluation thread if I was unhappy with it in the Expert forum? Certainly not to novice, intermediate or advanced threads. Plays have enough trouble counting to 13. . Certainly not to "general bridge discussion" because it wasn't general. And of course, it has nothing to do with the general off line bridge, natural or unnatural bidding, youth bridge, etc categories.Oh wow, so experts are those who are so good who have transcended all sorts of point count and can visualise everything whereas advanced players can barely count to 13? What is that huge mass of bridge players whose skills lie in between those two reference points called then? Also I would love it if "General Bridge Discussion" was limited to truly general things, and threads starting with I'm in a youth bridge tournament and I pick up this hand. West could not answer for the 1NT opening range and partner and I did not play balancing. What would you bid? were all moved to another forum such as I/A or Interesting Bridge Hands. But that would be a huge change in moderation policy. By your actions so far you have been allowing "General Bridge Discussion" to be "the huge bin where everything else goes", so the thread mentioned by you would certainly fit. I happen to think it is pretty clear where almost any post should go (though I can't for the life of me figure out why there is a "Youth Bridge" and a "BBO Juniors" forum). If you think otherwise, well, you are one of the few people in a position to change the structure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inquiry Posted April 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 Oh wow, so experts are those who are so good who have transcended all sorts of point count and can visualise everything whereas advanced players can barely count to 13? What is that huge mass of bridge players whose skills lie in between those two reference points called then? Also I would love it if "General Bridge Discussion" was limited to truly general things, and threads starting with I'm in a youth bridge tournament and I pick up this hand. West could not answer for the 1NT opening range and partner and I did not play balancing. What would you bid? were all moved to another forum such as I/A or Interesting Bridge Hands. But that would be a huge change in moderation policy. By your actions so far you have been allowing "General Bridge Discussion" to be "the huge bin where everything else goes", so the thread mentioned by you would certainly fit. I happen to think it is pretty clear where almost any post should go (though I can't for the life of me figure out why there is a "Youth Bridge" and a "BBO Juniors" forum). If you think otherwise, well, you are one of the few people in a position to change the structure. The problem of keeping count was of course meant to refer to the novice/beginner section, sorry if somehow that offended you. I am no expert, so if counting applies to advanced or intermediate group, it would include me... but I do think I count the cards and manage to visualize the unseen hands reasonably well. The reason the post doesn't belong in GENERAL BRIDGE DISCUSSION is that the mathematical approach (be it right or be it wrong) certainly wouldn't fall into a general type discussion. The fact is, there is no place the topic is a great fit for. If the original poster had posted it in the general bridge discussion I would have left it there. If he had posted it in the advanced/intermediate, I would have left it there. If he had posted it in natural or non-natural bidding system, or in novice/beginner I would have had to move it. From novice I would have moved it to intermediate/advanced. From either of the bidding methods, I guess I would have moved it to General bridge discussion. Not sure if the decision for those moves make sense to you, but I don't particularly care if they would or would not. Such moves makes sense to me. For what it is worth here would be my personal logic. 1) no appropriate forum exist, so tend to go with authors choice2) when authors choice is clearly wrong, try to match his idea for where to post a thread3) If posted in a skill level, try to match the skill level (yes, I do move some post from Expert to advanced, and some advanced to beginner)4) If posted in a system forum and not a system, move to general discussion5) if posted in a general and it relates to off line bridge move to often line bridge6) if posted in BBO forum and not bbo specific, move to general bridge forum7) if posted in offline bridge but relates to both bbo and offline bridge, move to general bridge forum. Obviously, however, I rarely move topics. Barmar seems to move more than I do, but probably because he finds them quicker than I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 What is happening is, when we reply and then hit the submit button, it seems like it did not register. I guess people are hitting the "submit" button while the page is being slow. I got my lesson the hard way for this in the past so I simply click on the title of the post again which then I see the post I was trying to submit is already submitted. For some reason the forums have been slow in submitting the posts lately. EDIT: See this happened again when I hit the submit button as I was replying to you. Seems like it is happening once every 2-3 replies I make. Not sure this is only me or it does to everyone.For the past 4-5 days there's been some kind of problem with the forum that causes these frequent "Gateway timeout" errors, only when posting. We haven't been able to figure out what's causing it, so we can't fix it. But when it happens, the post has always gone through. So if the poster refreshes and chooses the option to re-submit, it ends up creating a duplicate. If this one also gets an error and they re-submit again, we get 3. So far, the worst one I've cleaned up had 6 copies. So if you get this error, please DO NOT resubmit. Just re-open the forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted April 29, 2014 Report Share Posted April 29, 2014 A question about "autoplay of non-singletons" was posted twice in BBO Support (I assume the duplicate was due to the gateway timeout problem) and also in Suggestions for the Software. I removed the duplicate and the one in Suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerardo Posted April 29, 2014 Report Share Posted April 29, 2014 Removed a number of duplicate posts and a post about the duplicate posting in the thread Takeout opposite takeout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zelandakh Posted April 29, 2014 Report Share Posted April 29, 2014 So where would I move the hand evaluation thread if I was unhappy with it in the Expert forum? Certainly not to novice, intermediate or advanced threads. Plays have enough trouble counting to 13. . Certainly not to "general bridge discussion" because it wasn't general. And of course, it has nothing to do with the general off line bridge, natural or unnatural bidding, youth bridge, etc categories.It seems to me that such evaluation tools are ideally suited to the I/A forum. Beginners are probably better off improving their basics while experts do not need them. It is the I/A players that tend to look around for short-suts on improving their judgement and evaluation. If you banned a half dozen people, you solve 90% of your problems. If you established some decent standards for the moderators, you'd solve 99% of the problems and might even have a decent site where folks could discuss bridge.I am not a great fan of banning posters unless they are actively and openly trying to cause trouble. Most of our trolls at least pretend to be talking about bridge (outside of the WC) and sometimes a real discussion comes from their input, at least for a little while. Obviously if someone complains the mods should look at the thread and decide whether the complaint is valid, but it seems that often the complaint comes from someone who is not a participant in the thread, is not himself being insulted, and who could simply not read the thread instead of trying to control what others may write and read.I often report posts that are personal attacks even when they are not directed at me. It is not about trying to control what people are writing but rather about keeping the forums as a generally friendly place to be. In addition to the full-blown attacks we also have a couple of minor disputes between pairs of posters. Hopefully these will run their course in time - sometimes moderation can actually help to facilitate that but that is very much a judgement call for Barry, Ben and co to make. EDIT: See this happened again when I hit the submit button as I was replying to you. Seems like it is happening once every 2-3 replies I make. Not sure this is only me or it does to everyone.For me it happened when I got an error after submitting a replay and then pressed the refresh button. Having seen the issue it is easy enough to avoid - go back to the forums using your Favourite link rather than pressing refresh. Hopefully the technical gurus will be able to track down the problem soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted May 1, 2014 Report Share Posted May 1, 2014 Deleted a duplicate question about transfering BM2000 purchases from the download version to the online version. I've asked someone to answer the original question (as well as when someone asked the same question last fall after we introduced the online version). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diana_eva Posted May 2, 2014 Report Share Posted May 2, 2014 Moved the "Big cards" topic from General BBO Discussions to BBO Support. Because I can :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted May 4, 2014 Report Share Posted May 4, 2014 Because I can :D Diana just became a forum admin a few days ago. It appears she's gone mad with power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted May 4, 2014 Report Share Posted May 4, 2014 I removed a post in the thread about Partnership Desks -- it was a joke in very poor taste. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the hog Posted May 6, 2014 Report Share Posted May 6, 2014 Diana just became a forum admin a few days ago. It appears she's gone mad with power. Well here is another suggestion for you. I suggest you delete the above post and get the moderator to post an apology. Moderation is a prickly subject with some posters anyway. Do you really want a moderator who posts the nonsense above? I find it offensive; others may well do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diana_eva Posted May 6, 2014 Report Share Posted May 6, 2014 No idea which post you find offensive and who's supposed to apologize. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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