[paulg]

chicken, on Dec 29 2009, 12:33 PM, said:

following this thread i just made my own little tries to decide if it is worth switching.
i didnt manage to upload hands from a directory on my harddidk to a teaching table, a function one definately needs if using bbo to teach (i use it for online and reallife tuition) i think.
only possible upload was from my favorite hands a folder which obviously was empty. did i do something wrong?

You did nothing wrong.

The web client cannot access your hard disk at the moment (principally a feature of the Flash technology used), so you cannot upload hands.

The Deal source feature, not available in the Windows client, does make it easier to create your own hands and the Hand Editor can be used to enter specific hands. But it is not DealMaster Pro and not being able to upload old vugraphs remains problematic.

Paul

[onoway]

Quote

Yes, this is missing. Adding this functionality to the web-client is not high on our list of priorities. When we first started BBO, the notion of private and public clubs seemed to be a good idea, but it hasn't worked out that way for a variety of reasons. I am not sure what long term future (if any) there is on our site for these clubs, but given that almost all existing clubs are either not used or misused, this is not something we rate to spend a lot of time on in the near future.

I for one would be extremely disappointed to see the clubs (which are actively being used) go. They are a refuge from the weirdnesses in Main as well as a place to pursue like interests such as the TP or ACOL clubs, and the teaching events which really won't work very well outside. I am told that rubber bridge is not accommodated in the flash version. It seems in some ways BBO is shrinking the variety of options offered and abandoning the less popular aspects. One of the things which I have touted to everyone I know is how BBO accommodates everything bridgey that anyone could possibly want, so there is no need to look elsewhere for anything. It is understandable that the less used areas would not be first in the list of things to work on, but to learn that some may well be dropped entirely is another order of things. It is disappointing that that seems to be what the future holds.

[fred]

onoway, on Dec 30 2009, 05:59 PM, said:

I for one would be extremely disappointed to see the clubs (which are actively being used) go. They are a refuge from the weirdnesses in Main as well as a place to pursue like interests such as the TP or ACOL clubs, and the teaching events which really won't work very well outside. I am told that rubber bridge is not accommodated in the flash version. It seems in some ways BBO is shrinking the variety of options offered and abandoning the less popular aspects. One of the things which I have touted to everyone I know is how BBO accommodates everything bridgey that anyone could possibly want, so there is no need to look elsewhere for anything. It is understandable that the less used areas would not be first in the list of things to work on, but to learn that some may well be dropped entirely is another order of things. It is disappointing that that  seems to be what the future holds.

Of the several dozen private and public clubs there are a small number of public clubs that have value and there are even fewer private clubs that are used properly. The rest are either not used at all or are misused/abused.

Of course we will never get rid of areas of BBO that have value, but something about the whole notion of clubs on BBO is clearly broken. If and when the time comes that we try to address this issue, you might see some major changes. If and when that happens, of course we will only make changes that we think will be good for our members.

The number of programmers we have and the amount of time that each of these programmers spend on work are finite numbers. How exactly we should best allocate these programmer-hours is an extremely difficult problem for a number of reasons. No matter how we prioritize our time there are going to be BBO members who are "disappointed" with our decisions.

Of course we don't like to disappoint anyone, but using your examples, if our choices manage to disappoint the less than 1% or so of BBO members who like to play at rubber tables or the handful of BBO members who will have to continue to use the Windows client if they want to manage (or in most cases mismanage) their private clubs, then that is not so bad. This is especially true if being disappointed means that these people will simply have to wait until we get around to paying attention to the (somewhat obscure) features of the software that happen to be important to them.

I am not in any way suggesting that we always make wise decisions when we prioritize our development resources, but I can promise you that the single most important factor we consider is "how can get the most bang for our buck in terms of improving the overall user experience?".

We remain completely committed to continuing to improve our software and service and to the concept of BBO remaining best possible online bridge site for as many bridge players as possible.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[onoway]

AH I misunderstood as I took "not sure what long term future if any" to mean that BBO was considering dropping the clubs entirely, and that was what I was moaning anxiously about. It is certainly understandable that you would like to put your efforts into areas used by the majority of your clients first, and also that you would drop clubs in which nobody ever plays. If dropping all the clubs is not on the future agenda then I apologise for misunderstanding.
I yell sometimes but I really do appreciate all you and your team have done, It is remarkable and you all have every right to feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. Thank you for everything you offer us and the very best wishes for 2010 and beyond to you and to the others on BBO who have worked so hard ; the result of whose efforts have given us so much pleasure (and pain, but that's bridge) over the last few years.

[spwdo]

i try on occasion this new version but it is a disappointment each time.
i cant find to set my language to English, somehow it comes up in Dutch. dunno if i done it myself but i cant alter it or cant find where anyway.
What i wonder is: the web client means we all are playing on a server where in the windows version much of the calculations are done on people own pc? does it therefore not make the web-client more expensive for bbo?

i `m completely wrong in my thinking probably but i would hate to see the old bbo disappear. If someone was to explain to me why it is impossible to maintain the windows version side by side to this new thing i would welcome that. If only for numbers its impossible to run the windows version cant you disable new users the windows version?

i would appreciate me being the last of the mohicans and enjoying the windows version till last day of my BBO-appearance

[Old York]

fred, on Dec 30 2009, 07:43 PM, said:

Of the several dozen private and public clubs there are a small number of public clubs that have value and there are even fewer private clubs that are used properly. The rest are either not used at all or are misused/abused.

Of course we will never get rid of areas of BBO that have value, but something about the whole notion of clubs on BBO is clearly broken. If and when the time comes that we try to address this issue, you might see some major changes. If and when that happens, of course we will only make changes that we think will be good for our members.

You will probably hate me for asking this, but what is the problem?

The BiL club is a roaring success, both as a private club and as private tournaments

The Acol Club likewise, but managed as a public club

Private Clubs like Hornets (as an example) are exemplary in their conduct and regular tournaments, but nobody ever plays in the private club areas.
This is the silly part of private clubs... the special club areas are always empty
At the last count there are 48 such private club areas, most of which are always totally deserted and most of which I have never heard of, so why were these private clubs allowed?

I would love to know what you actually mean by "misused/abused"
Obviously, it would be impossible for you to give specific examples, but I am at a loss to understand BBO's attitude on this point

I think Groucho said it best.... I would never join a club that would have me as a member

Tony

[fred]

Old York, on Dec 31 2009, 02:47 PM, said:

fred, on Dec 30 2009, 07:43 PM, said:

Of the several dozen private and public clubs there are a small number of public clubs that have value and there are even fewer private clubs that are used properly. The rest are either not used at all or are misused/abused.

Of course we will never get rid of areas of BBO that have value, but something about the whole notion of clubs on BBO is clearly broken. If and when the time comes that we try to address this issue, you might see some major changes. If and when that happens, of course we will only make changes that we think will be good for our members.

You will probably hate me for asking this, but what is the problem?

No, I will always love you

1. Several private clubs exist purely for the sake of restricting tournament entry to a given list of people - nobody ever plays in these clubs. That is a misuse of a private club because private clubs are meant to be places where people actually play bridge. As you know we have another fucntion, "include custom list", that can be used for the purpose of allowing a specific group of people to play in a tournament. Yes, there are several private clubs that run regular and excellent tournaments, but they don't need a private club to do this.

2. Several private club managers abuse their ability to send chat and mail messages to large numbers of BBO members. Some clubs have been known to add members who never asked to be members in order to increase the reach of their spamming. Also, mass BBO mails put a strain on our system and some club managers, despite our repeated requests not to do this, have been known to send multi-line chat messages that can make a mess of the screen of the Windows client.

3. Some private clubs run authorized pay tournaments in which the players pay "under the table" (ie they do not use BB$ to pay their entry fees) and for which BBO is never offered any compensation.

4. Over the years there have been several clubs that have been run by multiple managers who invariably get into petty squabbles with each other and start to abuse the software for the purposes of hurting each other. The members of such clubs tend to be impacted by these disputes and, in general, the managers of such clubs generally can't work out their own problems unless Uday or I get involved in acting as their babysitters.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

spwdo, on Dec 31 2009, 06:18 AM, said:

i cant find to set my language to English, somehow it comes up in Dutch. dunno if i done it myself but i cant alter it or cant find where anyway.

The language defaults to whatever your PC's system language is. You can force the language to be English by going to:

www.bridgebase.com/?lang=en

and then clicking the yellow "Play bridge now" link.

Quote

What i wonder is: the web client means we all are playing on a server where in the windows version much of the calculations are done on people own pc? does it therefore not make the web-client more expensive for bbo?

Your assumptions are not really valid so your question doesn't really make a lot of sense. What matters is this:

The Windows client requires a lot more information in order to operate (it must be made aware of the entire state of the BBO system).

This creates two problems:

1) The greater the % of people who use Windows clients, the more information our servers have to pump out in order to serve everyone who is online.

2) The more people who are online, the more information the Windows clients have to process per unit time. Eventually they will grind to a halt.

One of the implications of problem 1) is that the Windows client is actually more expensive for us (because a server machine can service a lot more web-clients than Windows clients).

But these expenses are relatively minor in any case. Our decision to stop working on the Windows client really had nothing to do with the cost of servers.

Quote

i `m completely wrong in my thinking probably but i would hate to see the old bbo disappear.

I don't know how many times I have to say this until people get the message so I will yell this time:

WE HAVE NO PLANS TO MAKE THE WINDOWS CLIENT DISAPPEAR.

Quote

If someone was to explain to me why it is impossible to maintain the windows version side by side to this new thing i would welcome that.

It is not impossible, but as I explained in a previous post, programmer-hours are limited and costly resources. We choose to allocate them where we think they make the most sense.

Quote

If  only for numbers its impossible to run the windows version cant you disable new users the windows version?

We could but since the number of people using the Windows client is slowly decreasing and the number of people using the web-client is steadily increasing, this wouldn't do much (and meanwhile it would piss off the many 1000s of Windows client users who delight in constantly creating new aliases).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
ww.bridgebase.com

[fred]

onoway, on Dec 30 2009, 11:57 PM, said:

AH  I misunderstood  as I took "not sure what long term future  if any" to mean that BBO was considering dropping the clubs entirely, and that was what I was moaning anxiously about.  It is certainly understandable that you would like to put your efforts into areas used by the majority of your clients first, and also that you would drop clubs  in which nobody ever plays. If dropping all the clubs is not on the future agenda  then I apologise for misunderstanding.
I yell sometimes but I really do appreciate all you and your team have done, It is remarkable and you all have every right to feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. Thank you for everything you offer us and the very best wishes for 2010 and beyond to you and to the others on BBO who have worked so hard ; the result of whose efforts have  given us so much pleasure (and pain, but that's bridge)  over the last few years.

Thanks - appreciate you saying this. Sorry about the misunderstanding as I can now see how my original wording was unclear.

Happy 2010 to you too

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[spwdo]

fred, on Dec 31 2009, 05:31 PM, said:

We could but since the number of people using the Windows client is slowly decreasing and the number of people using the web-client is steadily increasing, this wouldn't do much (and meanwhile it would piss off the many 1000s of Windows client users who delight in constantly creating new aliases).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
ww.bridgebase.com

maybe i`m wrong but people "needing" a new name everyday makes no sense unless the old name been used for bad things such as run during play, rude, use this site as a datingsite and received a "bad name" amoungst certain of their subjects . i can think of a 100 reasons to change my name but none of these reasons have an ethical background.

[fred]

spwdo, on Dec 31 2009, 07:14 PM, said:

fred, on Dec 31 2009, 05:31 PM, said:

We could but since the number of people using the Windows client is slowly decreasing and the number of people using the web-client is steadily increasing, this wouldn't do much (and meanwhile it would piss off the many 1000s of Windows client users who delight in constantly creating new aliases).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
ww.bridgebase.com

maybe i`m wrong but people "needing" a new name everyday makes no sense unless the old name been used for bad things such as run during play, rude, use this site as a datingsite and received a "bad name" amoungst certain of their subjects . i can think of a 100 reasons to change my name but none of these reasons have an ethical background.

If you want an ethical reason for creating a new user ID, consider the case of two people who share a single PC.

But the ethics of the situation do not really matter because:

1) Many 1000s of people do this. Even if we could somehow stop them from doing this (we can't), there would surely be many complainers who would not likely be satisfied if we told them "sorry but our resident philosophers claim there is no possible ethical justification for your actions".

2) We couldn't reliably stop this even if we wanted to. I am not really in the mood for answering another "I don't see why not..." type post on this subject so please take me word for it just this once.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

fred, on Dec 31 2009, 11:31 AM, said:

spwdo, on Dec 31 2009, 06:18 AM, said:

What i wonder is: the web client means we all are playing on a server where in the windows version much of the calculations are done on people own pc? does it therefore not make the web-client more expensive for bbo?

Your assumptions are not really valid so your question doesn't really make a lot of sense.

The one instance where his assumption is valid is when playing with Robots in the MBC. With the Windows client GIB runs on your PC, with the web client it runs on the server.

[hotShot]

Perhaps this is already there.
The interface that I would like to have to download the boards I played, would be a button inside the flash application saying "download myHands".
This should get me a single lin-file of a zip-file with lin-files of all hands I played since the last download I made.

If I'm lazy I might download my files only once a month, perhaps I do it every time before I leave.