Version 1.48f - please post feedback and suggestions here

[c3cummins]

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[helene_t]

I would be a bit worried about people who tried to lick everybody's **** in order to boost their f/e ratio (whether such a tactic would backfire or not).

 

But we shall see. Maybe the overall effect will be positive. Some people will hesitate to be rude if they are afraid of being enemy'd.

[gabivh]

I don't think it's working. Nobody get stars, exceept the BBO stars.

I don't seem to be compatible with my steady pard; I hardly play with anybody else .....

So wonder, which criteria are used

[hrothgar]

I don't think it's working. Nobody get stars, exceept the BBO stars.

I don't seem to be compatible with my steady pard; I hardly play with anybody else .....

So wonder, which criteria are used

 

I suspect that large numbers of people friend stars to facilitate spectating.

In turn, this suggests that the stars are compatible partners.

[barmar]

I prefer this feature to be entirely optional and at the control of the individual player. So the category itself is removable. I would like to be able to "edit" it out of the profile.

 

It's not part of the profile. It's a comparison between you and the other player.

[barmar]

Why I can't see my compatibility score?

 

You have different compatibility with each player, since compatibility is based on the number of things the two of you have in common.

[barmar]

Can you make this feature an option, that could then be turned on or off as the player prefers?

 

Just ignore it if you don't want to use it.

 

Or are you asking for a way to prevent everyone else from seeing how compatible they are with you?

[barmar]

I think it is yet another attempt to measure an apple with a micrometer.

 

It's an attempt to turn a totally random crapshoot into a slightly biased crapshoot. It doesn't have to be perfect, or even great, it just needs to be better than the nothing we had before.

 

No one is forcing anyone to partner only with players with high compatibility scores. If you want diversity, go for it. If you don't care whether partner will understand you when you try to discuss system, then play with someone who speaks a different language.

[eleanorsf]

Just ignore it if you don't want to use it.

 

Or are you asking for a way to prevent everyone else from seeing how compatible they are with you?

 

 

I want to disable the feature so i don't have to wonder why my regular partners get 1.5 stars, and people i've never played with get 5 stars. it's impossible to ignore since it's right there.

 

I don't care if others can see my score w/r to themselves, it's their decision how to use this info.

[1eyedjack]

1. Khrystyna made an extremely important comment:

 

While I am quite sure that many folks use the "friends" and "enemies" tags, I doubt that they are using them to describe player compatibility. I think this would inject a lot of noise into the system

 

I don't see Khrystyna's comment as having such importance, As the poster acknowledges, she would rather not partner players flagged as enemies, which is precisely what the parameter measures. The fact that the reasons for her flagging them as enemies might differ from the traditionally expected reasons is not important. Indeed she is if anything likely to get a more accurate compatibility rating for other players from having done so.

 

Perhaps what is required is a user-configurable panel in the options settings that allows the end user the choice to set how much weight should be assigned to each factor that is taken into account (with a reset to recommended defaults button). That seems like a fair amount of programming work resulting in a fair amount of screen clutter for what may not get much use in the end (certainly not by me but I can't speak for others).

 

One interesting (to me) point is that compatibility does not seem to be reciprocal. If I flag Bloggs as a friend, and Bloggs flags me as an enemy, then we shall each see differing compatibility when viewing the other's profile. I think that most users in ignorance of how it is calculated will not realise that. I could be wrong. Perhaps the system takes into account the friend/enemy settings of BOTH players before assigning (common) compatibility scores to either? Maybe I can the predict who has flagged me as enemy, reducing the privacy of that setting.

[Antrax]

Perhaps what is required is a user-configurable panel in the options settings that allows the end user the choice to set how much weight should be assigned to each factor that is taken into account

Why would anyone know which coefficients to use? With BBO they can ultimately see how well a pair meshes together (say, by counting how many boards or sessions they choose to play together) and apply some machine learning based on that. What can a human do?

[govind]

It would be interesting to know how this Compatibility Score is computed. Does it depend on the tournament? Or Enemies? What factors are taken into consideration?

It looks to be behaving in a weird manner as of now. I got 5 stars score in Tasmanian devils, 4 1/2 in Early Bird, No score at all in Yin and Yang on two successive days. How strange? Will this behavior be of any help to people on BBO? Instead of giving a correct representation of Compatibility, it seems to be damaging the credibility of a player!

Please look into this.

[Ms Grizzly]

Hi. I like the idea of showing compatibility, esp with systems used. I do not like matching by country or language, though. One of the best things here is accessibility to many different nationalities, and this enriches our experience.

Thank you,

Ms Grizzly

[1eyedjack]

Why would anyone know which coefficients to use? With BBO they can ultimately see how well a pair meshes together (say, by counting how many boards or sessions they choose to play together) and apply some machine learning based on that. What can a human do?

I may be missing the point. As I understood it, the current system takes account of variety of disparate factors such as country and masterpoints, applies some arbitrary but opaque weighting to those factors and arrives at a "bottom line".

Individual users might, if provided with the default weighting applied to these factors, prefer to apply different weightings of their choice. Some might, for example, place a premium on country correlation. Others may regard that as utterly irrelevant.

 

I envisaged a table of sliders, like you get if you apply for a pay-day loan from Wonga. Each slider would represent a factor that is taken into account, pre-set to the BBO default. But you could drag it over to the left or right if you disagree with the weighting.

 

All this presupposes that we are not going down a blind alley and that the whole exercise is worth doing at all.

[rcarle]

A new version of BBO was released today. Version 1.48f. Partner compatibility score is the main change in this version.

 

For details, see:

http://www.bridgebas...-compatibility/

 

Please post your suggestions/feedback here!

 

Will my rating change depending on who reads it?

[c3cummins]

Regarding the compatibility "star", I have a friend who had 3.5 stars (told to her by a friend). The next day she had NONE! Naturally she was upset! So, are you (BBO) giving out and removing stars arbitrarily? This would certainly seem so.

[fred]

Regarding the compatibility "star", I have a friend who had 3.5 stars (told to her by a friend). The next day she had NONE! Naturally she was upset! So, are you (BBO) giving out and removing stars arbitrarily? This would certainly seem so.

A given user's compatibility is largely a function of who is asking the question. So your friend might hear about different numbers of stars depending on who is looking at her profile.

 

Also, if your friend is not online and someone asks to see her profile, the compatibility stars will not appear at all - that could explain the zero stars.

 

Whatever the explanation, we have a formula that is used to determine the compatibility between any two BBO members. There are necessarily some arbitrary elements to this formula (since it essentially combines various types of apples and oranges), but it would not be accurate to say that BBO (or any of our staff) is "giving out and removing stars".

 

As we learn more, fix bugs, etc, the formula may change (presumably for the better). But once the formula stabilizes I expect it will be unusual for a given user's compatibility rating as seen from some other given user's point of view to change much (if at all) from day to day.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[kenberg]

A lot has already been said.

 

Friends and enemies: I mark JEC as a friend. I have never met him, I have no expectation whatsoever of playing with him or against him. If he is online I quickly see that he is playing, and I often go kibitz him. fred is a "friend", as is kit (Woolsey), Bob Hamman, Zia and several others, all for the same reason. I have marked no one as an ememy, and enemies list is not my style. There are a few who, in player notes, I write "kia" for "know it all" or perhaps "expert?" to indicate my view of his self-rating. This is for my use and I would not want it to be part of a data base.

 

Perhaps players could voluntarily fill out a short questionnaire. I often end up agreeing something such as "your profile" pard. There is not much room on that profile. I think more could be done in that regard.

 

As to personal compatibility, I'l cope with that myself. Half way through I may well decide that it will be a cold day in hell before we play together again, but that's llfe, I finish the boards. Which reminds me: I am very incompatible with people who leave in the middle of a hand. As far as I am concerned, you could make that a deal breaker. I accept that on rare occasions an emergence may arise.

[hrothgar]

Wow...

 

This is starting to remind me of the good ole days on OKB, trying to explain how Lehman's were calculated to Carl Hudachek.

 

I think that you might want to choose something other than "stars" to indicate degree of compatibility.

Stars are already overloaded and folks associate this with skill levels and the like.

 

I think that you're better off following a clustering based approach.

 

Sort people into different clusters

Give the clusters very innocuous names (I'd go with mythological creatures: Griffins, Dragons, Unicorns, ...)

 

Tell people that they are most compatible with their own cluster

Identify 2-3 other clusters that they match well with.

 

I think it will work well, however, "Better off Ted" suggests otherwise.

[Antrax]

I applaud both hrothgar's suggestion and his taste in television.

[barmar]

Being friends or enemies with someone is not currently used in computing your compatibility score with them. We already provide color coding for friends and enemies, so this would be redundant. The goal of the compatibility score is to help you judge people you don't already know.

 

The way we use friend/enemy lists is by looking at the number of friends and enemies each of you have, and the number of people who have you each listed as friends and enemies. If you both have similar ratios, we consider you more compatible.

[barmar]

A given user's compatibility is largely a function of who is asking the question. So your friend might hear about different numbers of stars depending on who is looking at her profile.

Not just largely, it's totally dependent on who is looking.

High compatibility doesn't mean "So-and-so is a nice partner", it means "You and So-and-so have more things in common."

This isn't Match.com, we can't depend on everyone filling in a questionnaire. So we're trying to make do with what little objective information we have.

[barmar]

One interesting (to me) point is that compatibility does not seem to be reciprocal. If I flag Bloggs as a friend, and Bloggs flags me as an enemy, then we shall each see differing compatibility when viewing the other's profile.

 

The ratings are supposed to be symmetric, but I noticed a bug in this last night, regarding how we calculate masterpoint similarity. I'll be fixing that today.

 

Since marking someone as a friend or enemy doesn't change your compatibility with them (see my previous post for how we use friend/enemy lists), the problem you describe doesn't occur.

[hrothgar]

This isn't Match.com, we can't depend on everyone filling in a questionnaire. So we're trying to make do with what little objective information we have.

 

You're right. You can't depend on everyone filling out a questionnaire.

 

At the same time, you can make a decision to prioritize a good solution for the individuals who will fill out a questionnaire rather than developing a highly biased implementation for everyone which risks discrediting the entire concept.

[hrothgar]

Being friends or enemies with someone is not currently used in computing your compatibility score with them. We already provide color coding for friends and enemies, so this would be redundant. The goal of the compatibility score is to help you judge people you don't already know.

 

The way we use friend/enemy lists is by looking at the number of friends and enemies each of you have, and the number of people who have you each listed as friends and enemies. If you both have similar ratios, we consider you more compatible.

 

Garbage In, Garbage Out

 

I'd like everyone to conduct a simple experimenting.

 

Start by checking your compatibility with some of your favorite partners

Next, check your compatibility with various stars.

 

In my case, my compatibility with a partner who I play with every week is one star.

My compatibility with a randomly selected set of stars averages 2.5 stars and with many its listed as 5.

I'm guessing that most people will experience the same.

 

Next, consider how people are going to set their expectations about this new system.

(Hint, first thing that they're going to do is to see how compatible they are with the stars.)