Intentional logouts during tournaments

[guggie]

If you think someone looses connection intentionally what is the recommended line af action? A few times I asked one of the yellows if they could check if if really was, they checked and gave a weeks tournament ban.

last time i was TD, someone became suddenly red after a bad bid from partner and a -1100 AND saying goodbye. I send a mail reporting this to abuse.

Abuse said all logouts are registrated anyhow, and dont bother to tell.

 

So I am confused. (more than usual, that is)

I would like a recommended general line of action for this please.

[inquiry]

Well, i can't speak for abuse nor the other yellows, but here is my take on the situation and what I do as a yellow.

 

First, abuse is absolutely right. Each participant record for finishing tournments is automatically tracked by the software. Anyone who fails to finish a sufficient number of events over a specific time period is automatically banned from a tournment for a week. This means tournment jumpers like you describe have a chance to be handled without intervention.

 

Second, abuse gets A LOT of email complaining about cheaters, people who leave the table, people with rude nicknames, people who are rude, you name it. Since the software handles tournment jumpers automatically, in the long run, it is probably best to allow 1) the software to handle the global bans. In addition, since each TD can blacklist any player who behaves as you describe, 2) the TD can blacklist such players to keep them out of their future events.

 

In general, i think one and two are sufficient for this action without bothering overworked abuse. When I am online, I often get request from TD's about finding out if player X or Y left a tournment intentionally. If I can determine yes/no, i generallly tell TD the answer with the expectation that the TD will choose to blacklist player from future events. As a general rule I do not subsequently ban the player from future tournments globally. However, at times I have made such a week long ban if the jumper did something like bid 7NT then redoubled in obvious attempt to "punish" parnter before leaving, or if jumper committed someohter violation or has a known history of abusive activity.

 

But with a bundle of yellow, I suspect you will get different responses, andthese responses, like my own, might depend upon the yellows particular experience with the jumper in question.

 

I think this isn't something to make a big case out of. Simply blacklist someone you know jumped out of your event, and if he does it too many times, the software will do the rest.

 

Ben

[Dwayne]

Second, abuse gets A LOT of email complaining about cheaters, people who leave the table, people with rude nicknames, people who are rude, you name it.

 

Somewhat off-topic and directed toward Fred and Uday, but have you tracked the level of complaints you receive and is it in decline or increase? Also, what areas of abuse, as described by Ben, are most prevalent and which, if any, are increasing or decreasing?

 

Just interested from an anthropological perspective but if you consider this data sensitive then that's okely dokely.

 

Dwayneroo.

[Rain]

I believe Abuse also said if an experienced TD like you sees a repeated pattern, that will be worth reporting, and not one off incidences. My rationale was this:

 

Our records log disconnects, so if someone plays at least X no. of tourneys and doesn't complete at least 30% of them, he gets banned from tourneys for a week automatically.

 

However, you get some smart alecks, especially those who've read this post of mine who will play maybe X-1 tourneys, and leaves 30% of them--they won't be banned. So if a TD who directs often notes that there is someone who often logs out, but never seems to suffer consequences, then please report.

 

Rain

[xx1943]

Hi all

 

I think we should not bother yellows with these problem.

TDs can do this job alone:

I log all information I can get for my own about people, who leave my tournaments.

1) Often it is clearcut, that someone left intentionally. E.g. if suddenly two players (whole pair) are red or partner and/or opponents tell me, that someone went after a bad board. These are banned from ** Very Quick and Nice ** at once, according to the announcement in my rules. :D

2) Players, who leave (bad connection or ...........) were notified and banned after x-times. :rolleyes:

 

Our records log disconnects,.  Rain

It would be a great help for TDs to get acess to this records. As a question to Ben or UDAY how is this possible?

 

Al

[paulhar]

How is it determined whether a logoff is intentional? I can think of three reasons I have left tournaments in the past few weeks, each of them occurring more than once.

 

1. Windows ME! Occasionally the system hangs, and total time to shut down, get back on, dial up, and connect to BBO can be 15 minutes.

 

2. ISP disconnects. Total time to dial up successfully and connect to BBO can be 7 minutes.

 

3. SW Florida power outages. My UPS doesn't supply enough power to make it through the entire tournament. Total time to dial up successfully and connect to BBO can be several hours :D It's thunderstorm season here which is why you see a lot more posts from me than hands played on BBO :rolleyes: if I get disconnected from the forum, nobody else suffers

 

I'm sure that others have had similar problems and been falsely maligned.

[Rain]

Currently we don't differentiate between incomplete tourney logouts...I think the main rationale is , whatever the reason resulting in your logout, it is still an incomplete tourney and still inconveniences TD/opponents/everyone. So if someone knows his connection is bad, don't play tourneys, or at least, don't play so many/enough tourneys such that you get banned for 7days for incompletion.

 

We can differentiate between some disconnections, though not very well. It just shows up differently in logs when we check...however, if someone experiences connection problems and eventually log out by himself after waiting, there is a possibility that server logs that as intentional disconnects. I'm not a geek, don't know exact reasons. :>

 

Rain

[xx1943]

How is it determined whether a logoff is intentional?

Hi Paul,

 

I repeat: There are unequivocal evidences for intentional leaving :angry: available:

 

1) Partner and/or oppenents tell TD that the leaver announced that he will go now.

2) Both players of one pair are red at the same time, esp. after a bad board. That is never a fortuity (accident).

 

Cheers

 

Al

[inquiry]

How is it determined whether a logoff is intentional?

Hi Paul,

 

I repeat: There are unequivocal evidences for intentional leaving :rolleyes: available:

 

1) Partner and/or oppenents tell TD that the leaver announced that he will go now.

2) Both players of one pair are red at the same time, esp. after a bad board. That is never a fortuity (accident).

 

Cheers

 

Al

Well, item 2 is most clearly not always intentional... I ahve played where all the bulgarians or all the polsih players leave at the same time. It is clear that people who share an ISP or connect though the same server, might get the ax at the same time if there service is disrupted.

[EdmundB]

I run survivor-style events.

 

In this context, I am fine with players (and pairs) withdrawing at the end of a round.

[Gweny]

:) ok FYI time...

 

Consider this...

 

(and this is what happen PRIOR to uday giving us this wonderful autoban program)

 

Player xyz is annoy with his/her partner and logs out. Player knows TD is going to sub him/her. So he goes for smoke, logs back in and goes to next tournament where again his/her partner annoy him.

 

While marking this person for enemy prevent them from doing it again in your tournametn it do not prevent them from doing it to someone else.

 

We all need to keep notes in player profiles of naughty people. If they show propensity to do this over time then send your notes and lets see about vacation time for this type of rude time consuming player.

[1eyedjack]

Even without a system of sharing naughty names across TDs, such individuals would soon run out of tourneys that would accept their entry if they did it regularly and each TD kept their own lists. The benefit of the sharing then seems marginal.

 

A downside of the proposal is that an individual TD might (just might) make an error in personally blacklisting an individual. Heck they have been known, occasionally, to make a bad decision. If I were an individual on the receiving end of such a decision I could live with being blacklisted by an individual TD. I would be annoyed but I could live with it. If as a consequence I were to be blacklisted by all the other TDs (and hence tourneys) as a result I would be livid. I would rather trust the other TDs to make up their own minds on the first hand evidence that they encounter.

 

Given the marginal benefit of the proposal, in my opinion the downside is the more critical factor.

[inquiry]

Even without a system of sharing naughty names across TDs, such individuals would soon run out of tourneys that would accept their entry if they did it regularly and each TD kept their own lists. The benefit of the sharing then seems marginal.

 

A downside of the proposal is that an individual TD might (just might) make an error in personally blacklisting an individual. Heck they have been known, occasionally, to make a bad decision. If I were an individual on the receiving end of such a decision I could live with being blacklisted by an individual TD. I would be annoyed but I could live with it. If as a consequence I were to be blacklisted by all the other TDs (and hence tourneys) as a result I would be livid. I would rather trust the other TDs to make up their own minds on the first hand evidence that they encounter.

 

Given the marginal benefit of the proposal, in my opinion the downside is the more critical factor.

More times than I care to remember I have advocated against TD's sharing the names of people they ban from their tourments, for just the reason you mention here jack. We have all seen post in this forum where people have been banned for what seems like minor, at best, trnasgression, or no transgressions at all (at least imho). And to have such a silly action in trounment A affect all or most other tourments would be outrageous.

 

This use to be a re-occuring theme, but I thought it had died with this poll by uday...

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...indpost&p=19179

 

As you can see in the thread to that poll, I repeated my ealier objections to such actions on the same grounds you express here

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...indpost&p=19193

 

But to be fair, I think Gweny was saying something else. What she seems to want is for the TD to report such repeated abuse to BBO abuse, where BBO abuse, in their official role can make a judgement. Here, I see nothing wrong wtith that suggestion. If a fair number of TD's report the same user for frequent abuse of the rules, and abuse judges this is in fact is an ongoing and repeated problem, abuse has the power and the authority to do something about it. This seems entirely appropriate to me.

 

Ben

[Gerardo]

If such sharing is done somehow, I would make it weighted, you would need a fair number of individual bans (30%? 50%?) to make it global.

 

And then, each tourney should have an exception list (friend of TD is banned, TD wants to share but want his friend play his tourney.

[Gweny]

Ben is correct. I to do not advocate sharing of lists for it is proven fact that person who is naughty with one td is not necessarily naughty with another td.

 

What I mean by sharing notes is sharing them with abuse. I am sure if abuse gets email who say

 

One Jun 6, jun 12, and jun 21 user xyz leave my tournametn after bad result.

 

then we will consider vacation time for naughty person.

[tenbrvc]

Hi!

 

The other day I had a person who because I refused to make a score adjustment (that was in my tourney description, btw), he consistently harassed me by pressing the call director button. Eventually, I guess because I ignored his calls, I felt he deliberately slowed his bidding down in a clocked event. I eventually had to sub him.

 

I have added this person to my enemy list. And even though this is not an intentional disconnect, I see Gweny's point in reporting such persons so they will not cause problems in tournaments hosted by other T.D's.

[luke warm]

i agree with gwenny and ben, sharing lists can cause one error in judgment to snowball... and if it only happens to one person, that's one too many

 

i'm pretty sure yellows know the ip's of all who log on, so for a td to just blacklist a nick from their tourney might not do much good... they need to blacklist the ip... but do it individually, don't share some list

[peefco]

i agree with gwenny and ben, sharing lists can cause one error in judgment to snowball... and if it only happens to one person, that's one too many

 

i'm pretty sure yellows know the ip's of all who log on, so for a td to just blacklist a nick from their tourney might not do much good... they need to blacklist the ip... but do it individually, don't share some list

As I know its done already. When I blacklisted someone and he log in with other nickname he is still not able to play in my tourneys.

He is able to play in my tourneys as sub and in my opinion its ok - lets give him another chanse. What I do when I see that someone whom I blacklisted playing in my tourney is just watching him. When he plays as sub in my 2 tourneys and I have no complaint about him I remove him from my black list. Anyway from time to time I clear my black list (when is my twin girls birthday for example :)