[irdoz]

Quote

"ok . last time i played here . players can cheat by internet i dont mind . but if the td cheat . to favorize a player ..."
"for nothing ... i will not come back ty "
"i saw that you have friends here "

I have directed a few hundred tournaments online at another site...

Directing online is much harder than directing f2f - and often the volunteers doing it have less experience than f2f directors.

Here's some of the reasons why it is difficult...

1. You don't have access to non verbal communication - and 90% of communication is non-verbal - which is why communicating on-line is so difficult.

2. You are often dealing with people whose English skills are not good - as an example there are different meanings of 'negative' doubles based on language and translation. In many places 'negative' just means 'not penalty' and includes takeout doubles.

3. You are dealing with people both whose experience of how laws are interpreted and what is standard in terms of bidding varies according to the country they come from.

4. You are often dealing with very assertive and skilled players.

5. The internet itself produces bad behaviour that people would never indulge in f2f.

6. Self-alerts produce a whole set of challenges to the laws that are inadequately dealt with by the laws as they currently stand.

7. Pauses and possible UI are affected by the technology that is being used.

8. Everyone knows that illegal communication is possible online - often producing a whole lot of difficulties and zero tolerance infractions that the director has to deal with that are not experienced in face to face bridge.

9. There are often insufficient means that directors has to punish appalling behaviour.

10. You are often dealing with technology and software that takes a lot of time to do adjustments and a deal of experience before you are familiar and proficient with using it - this means you can't pay attention to to the niceties of communication - so often you get 'if only you'd said this...' from people whose own communication is appalling, who have been rude and who are simply rationalising their own appalling behaviour.

11. Often you have 5 or 6 calls at once - yet people demand immediate attention... in f2f it is easy to see the director is busy.

There's only a couple of standards I expect when I direct online...

1. No accusations of favoritsim
2. No accusation of the director cheating.

These for me are zero tolerance infractions. but what do we see in this thread...

Excuses, excuses, excuses...like this...

Quote

i don't know.. i do know that when a ruling is *obviously* wrong, it tends to irritate the person involved... it's so blasted hard to understand, y'know?

95% of 'obviously' wrong rulings are correct in my experience - certainly a lot of seemingly obvious ones are in fact correct...but even if they are wrong there is NEVER an excuse for labelling the td a cheat or accusing them of favoritism.

Around the world there is a shortage of volunteers. Behave like this towards tds and there'll be none. That doesn't mean you can't complain or appeal. It means you can't behave like kindergarten children and spolit brats.

I have read a number of threads on this message board about directors decisions. Having been involved in hundreds of decisions and seen some of them complained about I have never once seen the complainant present the full facts correctly - and often seen them present them totally incorrectly. Yet the general standard on this board is to accept what is said as the truth. The court of public opinion where the complainant gets to present their grievances in a totally biased way is not a proper court.

If I was a director on BBO and any participant used the word cheat about me then they would never play in any tournament I directed and would be expelled immediately...

[luke warm]

irdoz, on Aug 8 2004, 07:53 AM, said:

95% of 'obviously' wrong rulings are correct in my experience - certainly a lot of seemingly obvious ones are in fact correct...but even if they are wrong there is NEVER an excuse for labelling the td a cheat or accusing them of favoritism.

Around the world there is a shortage of volunteers. Behave like this towards tds and there'll be none. That doesn't mean you can't complain or appeal. It means you can't behave like kindergarten children and spolit brats.

I have read a number of threads on this message board about directors decisions. Having been involved in hundreds of decisions and seen some of them complained about I have never once seen the complainant present the full facts correctly - and often seen them present them totally incorrectly. Yet the general standard on this board is to accept what is said as the truth. The court of public opinion where the complainant gets to present their grievances in a totally biased way is not a proper court.

If I was a director on BBO and any participant used the word cheat about me then they would never play in any tournament I directed and would be expelled immediately...

yes indeed, namecalling is wrong no matter who does it... but when you say someone is acting like a spoiled brat, to me this is just another example of namecalling... how in the world can you say "...95% of obviously wrong rulings are correct...?" that's a subjective, meaningless statement, and totally illogical...

the problem is one of recourse... the player has none, especially when the td *refuses* to explain the reasons for his actions (whether he later reversed them or not)

as for 'full facts' being presented correctly, tell me this... what does incessant complaining about a ruling have to do with the correctness of that ruling? in this present case, you can see it did absolutely nothing... it wasn't till much later that the td reversed himself... this could all be handled better, imo, if the tds involved would just say "i'll look at it when i have a chance, in the meantime please continue to play"

there needs to be a forum where each tourney can post rulings made on any particular day or night, with the td involved... this should be voluntary, with everyone *knowing* who refused to be 'rated' as an online director... then people could read the ratings and decide for themselves whether or not to participate

let's say inquiry and i direct 2 different tourneys... i'll post all the decisions i had to make, adjustments, non-adjustments, whatever, and he'd do the same... then these decisions could be adjudicated objectively by someone who actually has the credentials to do so (say 1eyedjack, for example)... the 'scores' could be kept as a 'feedback' rating, like richard opined

this would work, and who knows it might even help some tds become more proficient.. and if, as you say, the tds are right more often than wrong, the whole world would see it (well, the whole bbo world - at least those interested)

[keylime]

Jimmy,

I'd actually come out of semiretirement to co-direct with you and Ben, just to show the RIGHT ways of doing things. No one then can say that we just "harp" and contribute little if anything constructive to the betterment of the community.

Almost forgot <post edited>, must give props to my fellow B.C'er (who better be coming over for the regional here in two weeks!) to trying to fix the problem. That's scarily "progressive" on here.

[luke warm]

i didn't know anyone was saying that all i did was harp lol... if they are, it isn't true... some things are just right, and some just wrong

i honestly don't think i'm qualified to be a td... like dirty harry said, a man's gotta know his limitations... there are many fine tds on bbo, and i'm sure mcbruce is one of them... i wouldn't want his job for anything... my comments weren't about his abilities, they were about the seeming unfairness of blackballing a player for complaining too much about an obviously mistaken ruling

just level the playing field... let the tds voluntarily be subject to review by someone capable of such review, and let everyone see the results... that seems fair to me

[McBruce]

luke warm

my comments weren't about his abilities, they were about the seeming unfairness of blackballing a player for complaining too much about an obviously mistaken ruling

just level the playing field... let the tds voluntarily be subject to review by someone capable of such review, and let everyone see the results... that seems fair to me

I have decided to ban this player not for complaining about the ruling, but for the way in which he did so. You can disagree with a ruling without calling the Director a cheat and accusing him of favoritism. In the ACBL such an action would get you barred from ALL tournaments for some time, not just the ones the TD was directing.

Anyone who doesn't like a ruling is free to post it here. It seems to me that I have taken an inordinate amount of heat for making a mistaken ruling but I agree with you that the facts should be presented. However, let's be sure to present ALL the facts. I played in a tournament after mine ended. Because I was dealing with the complaints about this ruling and did not have the normal opportunity to get the slow tables moving, I had only about a minute to announce the results instead of the usual 10-15. I played rather badly in the tournament that followed, mostly because I was reviewing my decision. Within minutes after it ended I was informed that a forum thread had been started on this issue and I admitted my error and began doing something about changing the scores for the rating system. The original poster continued to make his case (nothing like forcing your opponent to the mat, kicking him once more in the head and then saying let's wrestle again sometime) and continued to deny that his own behavior had been appalling.

the problem is one of recourse... the player has none, especially when the td *refuses* to explain the reasons for his actions (whether he later reversed them or not)

as for 'full facts' being presented correctly, tell me this... what does incessant complaining about a ruling have to do with the correctness of that ruling? in this present case, you can see it did absolutely nothing... it wasn't till much later that the td reversed himself... this could all be handled better, imo, if the tds involved would just say "i'll look at it when i have a chance, in the meantime please continue to play"


For goodness sake. I explained the reasons for the adjustment to the player. They were mistaken, but I was not likely to see my mistake while directing 27 tables and seeing a barrage of complaints, including repeated messages like "what is your decision?" "I want your decision now" "please give me your decision" while the tourney was still going on. It was 90 minutes until I reversed myself, not much later. OF COURSE I said "I'll look at it when I have a chance," I say that to virtually everyone who asks for or doubts a ruling.

I fail to see why you are so intent on taking the players side in this. By doing so you are certainly increasing my frustration level with this situation. I think I've done as much as I could to rectify an error of the type that every TD will make at one time or another. I don't think I want to deal with this player again based on what has happened as a result.

[luke warm]

mcb, believe me i'm not criticizing you for your ruling... everyone makes mistakes, and in the scheme of things i imagine players make far more that tds... and i agree 100% that if this player called you a cheat and/or accused you of playing favorites, i'd feel the same as you about him

i was trying to show that there is a level of frustration for players when they receive erroneous rulings.. now i can tell you how i handled one of my situations, but it's documented in these forums... i never got rude, never called anyone a name... all i wanted (and still want) is an explanation of how the decision was reached... i wanted to know the thought processes, so i could understand...

i never received that, even tho the director apologized and changed the result... without understanding *why* it happened, it has to repeat... it would have been easy for me to get banned from this tourney (hell i might *be* banned, i haven't gone back), but if that had happened it would have been by far the most arbitrary thing i've seen

my frustration is apparent in my postings, and i apologize if they came across as overly critical (of you and others)... i just can't understand why we don't have some objective criteria by which to judge a td's rulings... not judge the *TD*, but the rulings... the rulings of *all* tds who wish to take part in such a feedback system

some woudn't, i know, for whatever reason... but if i was a td, i'd jump to sign up... i figure i could only improve, knowing the results would not be personality based but rather fact based

[mink]

Hi Luke Warm,

I understand that you have been frustrated by decisions of other directors that were not correct in your oppinion. In f2f bridge you can call an appeals committee in such a case. Here in BBO we do not have something like this. So you propose a forum where players can present their case and directors have to answer that otherwise they get a bad rating? Maybe this is not exactly what you had in mind, but I read your posts twice and did not get a better understanding of it.

I can tell you my oppinion about this proposal: Yes I make errors when directing. Sometimes a player involved sends me a private message and ask me to review the decision. Normally I do this, and sometimes I find the error myself and correct it. But there are more cases where I cannot find an error and so I tell the player that the decision stands. If the player likes to have that decision reviewed in a forum ("general brigde discussion" seems to be a good choice as the name sounds like many people read this forum - who cares about the tournament forum), he is free to do so provided he does not metion my name and the name of my tourney. He may even give very limited facts and a lot of private oppinion about the case, like the original poster here did, and maybe he gets an answer though. I can join that discussion or stay outside, no problem.

But if my name was made public and I was going lose reputation by staying outside, I rather would quit directing in order to prevent something like that from happening. I like to be in control about where I spend my time and where not.


About the case that was discussed here, I stongly support what McBruce and Irdoz said!

Karl

[luke warm]

hi karl

Quote

mink
So you propose a forum where players can present their case and directors have to answer that otherwise they get a bad rating? Maybe this is not exactly what you had in mind, but I read your posts twice and did not get a better understanding of it.

no, i think players should say nothing at all about it... i think it should be voluntary, like a clearinghouse, where tds put in their rulings on given tourneys... then the rulings themselves are graded... neither the td nor the player should have to complain about one another

Quote

mink
But there are more cases where I cannot find an error and so I tell the player that the decision stands.... I can join that discussion or stay outside, no problem.

there's a difference between you reviewing and determining you can't find an error (even if one actually exists) and in posting the ruling, under the tourney name, not yours, and having someone knowledgable adjudicate it.. in that way, you learn, players learn, nobody is flamed, everybody benefits... and there is no discussion (unless you or some other td wants to take issue with whomever the authority is), it's simply a clearinghouse for rulings, and for feedback ratings... all would see before very long just which tourneys have the highest percent of correct rulings

Quote

mink
But if my name was made public and I was going lose reputation by staying outside, I rather would quit directing in order to prevent something like that from happening. I like to be in control about where I spend my time and where not.

which is exactly the reason for this... names aren't mentioned, neither td's nor player's (unless the td wants to name himself)... this wouldn't be a forum where players complain about rulings and/or tds... i don't think anyone but tds and moderators should even be allowed to post in it

[irdoz]

Lukewarm, after seing the td had been called a cheat and the tds response you initially said:

Quote

this hardly seems fair (tho i guess since it's your tourney, 'fair' can be defined by you)... maybe the player was out of line, i don't know.. i do know that when a ruling is *obviously* wrong, it tends to irritate the person involved... it's so blasted hard to understand, y'know?

However you want to read this, it unfortunately reads like an excuse for people calling the td a cheat.

Then when a couple of experienced tds gave their opinion on this act you further tried to justify yourself by saying...

Quote

they were about the seeming unfairness of blackballing a player for complaining too much about an obviously mistaken ruling

completely and totally missing the point... the blackballing was about calling the td a cheat - an act which is never acceptable and in all jurisdictions I am aware of leads to an immediate suspension and immediate expulsion from a tournament. Online I tend to allow some latitude - but not to being called a cheat. And if in your lack of fairness you can't see that this behaviour deserves to be labelled as 'spoilt brat' well I'll just say instead 'jolly ho, it is not very nice. have a cup of tea. milk or sugar?'

As for my other subjective figures about 95% - of course they were subjective duh. However they are made on the basis of hundreds of hours of experience tournament directing. Very often the person ruled against feels the decision is 'obviously' wrong. Most often those who feel that are, in my experience, incorrect. I have had a decision appealed (through a formal process) both online and in f2f some 75 times... 4 of them have been upheld, in 4 others the quantum of adjustment was changed - yet every appellant thought the decision obviously wrong sufficient enough to go to appeal. That's about 95%.

That doesn't mean there are not obviously wrong decisions. The questions here are what to do when you feel there is an obviously wrong deciison. Of course an appeals process and the ability of the director to communicate are important here... but you assume those things in relation to communication were not done when in fact the director says they did communicate along the lines you suggest. In other words your default assumption is always that the director did not behave appropriately.

Here's an example of why going public in this territory makes me nervous. One of my online rulings was challenged publically by an experienced and expert player.

They claimed I had:
1. Called then ignorant
2. Refused to discuss the ruling with them
3. Presented a number of facts in relation to the case.

Fortunately I had all communication logged. In actual fact they showed..

1. The player called my ruling 'stupid and unfair' and called me 'hopeless'.
2. I did not respond to this provocation and gave him information about how to make an appeal - but told him I would refer his other comments to the management of the club
3. Was able to show that every fact he claimed was incorrect - and further had the acbl rules person comment on the ruling as correct.

In the process I had my reputation trashed in public. The end result was this player was banned permanently. This sort of event is why I am nervous about an unfettered right to complain about tds decisions in public.

On the other hand discussions of rules and about the reasons for decisions can be very good educational material for both directors and players. In my experience these work best when they are removed from the actual decision, and are not being used as some sort of finger waving recourse by the person who has been ruled against.

When I have rulings I am not certain about I often send the details of those rulings to both the acbl and to an experienced national director here... I also publish my emails and the responses for educational purposes - even when I am wrong. I don't have a problem per se with my rulings being subject to public discussion provided it is done within an appropriate framework.

For instance 'Here is a ruling where the td ruled against me. I think he is incorrect but I am not certain. I have discussed it with the td and we thought we'd put it here for discussion' versus' 'The td got this ruling wrong. It was outrageous. He did not respond to my appeals. I want help'... One seems useful. The other deserves the can of worms they opened. But if you allow discussion of the second type to occur unfettered then do not expect to keep any tournament directors for very long.

[luke warm]

for the umpteenth time, let me say that i agree with most everything you said... which is why in the forum i suggest, players can't even post... there is no need, if tds simply post their rulings for ratings... everybody benefits, it seems, at the very least thru the cessation of flame wars

my default position is *not* that the player is usually correct... just the opposite, in fact... however, i do think that the player suffers more when he's right than the td does when he's wrong... nobody can always get it right first time, every time, and it's true that impoliteness should not be tolerated (whether it's a player or td)

would *you* be willing to post your rulings in a td/moderator only forum, for the purpose of a rating system? if not, why not?

the ratings would be there for all to see, and the tourneys to avoid also (by implication)... no personality conflicts, no war of words, just the fax, ma'm

i don't condone calling the td a cheat... people need to know that words have meanings (tho there is a problem sometimes with those whose english is not so good - in their native tongue the remark might not be so inflammatory)...and i wasn't 'justifying' myself... what recourse does the player have but to not play in a tourney? tds can't be blackballed, they can't be held accountable for their poor rulings... maybe in your experience you're right 95% of the time... but in *my* experience, tds have been wrong *every* time... granted, that's only twice but there it is... and when a td is wrong 5% of the time, usually the player involved isn't going to be placated by being told "well i'm right 95% of the time"

the "lack of fairness" you accuse me of concerned your saying that namecalling should not be allowed and then calling that person a name... it's like me coming in late for work and berating you for being late to work... whether or not the player involved is a spoiled brat, it is inherently wrong to call him that while bemoaning namecalling in general

back a ratings forum, irdoz... nobody loses, everybody gains

[irdoz]

Well lukewarm it appears we sort of agree in most things...

Quote

maybe in your experience you're right 95% of the time.

No - that's not what I'm saying nor my belief. Further to suggest I am so stupid or arrogant as to try and say to someone 'Im right 95% of the time' misses the boat completely. What I don't believe - as you implied - is that if someone believes a ruling is 'obviously wrong' that therefore ipso facto it must be wrong...and that my experience strongly suggests otherwise.

Quote

the "lack of fairness" you accuse me of concerned your saying that namecalling should not be allowed and then calling that person a name... it's like me coming in late for work and berating you for being late to work... whether or not the player involved is a spoiled brat, it is inherently wrong to call him that while bemoaning namecalling in general

If I go to the football in my country and sit in the crowd I will hear the umpire abused and called all sorts of names. It's part of the fun of going to the football. On the other hand if I am a player, or coach or official of one of the participating football teams and say the same things then I am subject to fines and other disciplinary action - including a potential life ban. The two acts of name calling are not the same - and your analogy about work not useful in elucidating the difference. Nor is it considered contradictory or hypocritcial that one act of namecalling in one context is seen as fun, but in another context highly regulated. There are very good reasons why abuse of officials by participants should not be tolerated. Those reasons double when the officals are volunteers. Around the world abuse of volunteer officials in sport is a huge problem - as is recruiting officials.

If I was the td concerned and referred to the player complaining in abusive terms then you would rightly accuse me of hypocrisy - and I wouldn't do it. This is not whats happening here.

As for the 'ratings forum' the way you propose it I must admit to a large degree of uncertainty that it would be effective the way you explain it

[luke warm]

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There are very good reasons why abuse of officials by participants should not be tolerated. Those reasons double when the officals are volunteers.

i agree, the reasons are good... and it makes no difference whether one is a volunteer or not, one shouldn't have to put up with verbal abuse

Quote

The two acts of name calling are not the same - and your analogy about work not useful in elucidating the difference.

however, i disagree with this.. logically, you can't defend this position... but that's ok, in your mind one act of namecalling is different, hence allowable, while another isn't... that's fine

Quote

As for the 'ratings forum' the way you propose it I must admit to a large degree of uncertainty that it would be effective the way you explain it

why? offer specific objections, that's the only way to know what your concerns are

[paulhar]

luke warm, on Aug 8 2004, 08:29 AM, said:

let's say inquiry and i direct 2 different tourneys... i'll post all the decisions i had to make, adjustments, non-adjustments, whatever, and he'd do the same... then these decisions could be adjudicated objectively by someone who actually has the credentials to do so (say 1eyedjack, for example)... the 'scores' could be kept as a 'feedback' rating, like richard opined

this would work, and who knows it might even help some tds become more proficient.. and if, as you say, the tds are right more often than wrong, the whole world would see it (well, the whole bbo world - at least those interested)

Wow - a TD for a large tournament makes lots of rulings. That's a lot of extra work to post them all - perhaps more work than running the tourney itself!

I think all TD's want to improve. If they were unsure of a ruling they made, they could ask other TD's if they handled the situation right. They probably should be unsure of any ruling that gets a lot of complaint. But most rulings that the director is comfortable with do not need to be reviewed. Alternatively they could post these on a TD's forum - perhaps one that TD's could monitor but the general public couldn't. This would spare the new TD embarrassment during his learning process.

[McBruce]

I have on several occasions in the past posted rulings I have made on this forum. The result is usually that I end up defending the SAYC-only tournaments that I run, and the rules I add to make sure that nobody gains an advantage by straying from SAYC. The original question is usually completely forgotten before the forum software starts a second page.

There is a lot more to being a good Director (online and offline) than gettting every difficult ruling, or even every easy ruling, right. Let me give an offline example. If Director A gets the tough rulings right all the time and Director B misses a few here and there, but Director B has an easily-understood spiel for opening leads out of turn and Director A handles these events by reading the Laws, which bump you from L54 to L56 and L50D and are so confusing that nobody will know what's going on--well, I know who I want as a Director.

luke warm suggests a forum that omits names yet somehow rates TDs or rates specific tournaments. It sounds to me like names will be part of it at some time. In luke warm's experience, TDs have been "wrong *every* time... granted, that's only twice but there it is." Only twice? It must be that you are counting only the rulings you remember: we all tend to forget the obvious ones, or the ones where we got the favourable ruling we expected. Would my rating as a TD go down because of this ruling? Probably. Would the rating system care that I had changed it as soon as I could? Probably not.

[the hog]

Ratings system won't work. The only people who rate will be those with gripes, the rest won't bother and so that proves nothing.

So does anything work? Well maybe word of mouth from your friends. Maybe some sort of licencing level from BBO; however that is a lot of extra work for BBO for probably very little, if any, gain.

[irdoz]

Quote

however, i disagree with this.. logically, you can't defend this position...

Lukewarm I can and did. We can agree to disagree. Saying 'I can't' is not an argument.

If it helps I don't mind withdrawing the spoilt brat comment as it's a red herring. The issue is calling a td a cheat. This is a major offense - and not the same as 'no one should abuse anybody' which, while correct, is an argument that seems to be designed to trivialise the importance of the major offense.

Saying 'directors should communicate well' while obviously true, is not a characterisation of the communication problem I see and experience online.

A very common way in which players communicate their disagreement with a ruling is the one documented here by McBruce.

I respond well to comments like:
"I disagree with your ruling and would like to discuss it' or
'I want to dispute your decision. Can we discuss?'
'I want to appeal your decision. can you tell me how?'

This sort of communication is common and generally the end result of any ensuing discussion is good when started on this basis. However just as usual are initial comments like:

'I can't believe any competent director would make that decision' or
'You are so biased in favor of your friends. I am never going to play in your event again' or
'That ruling is so bad - do you have any qualifications as a director?' or
"I never get a favorable ruling from you. You are so biased'.

This sort of communication never happens f2f - but it is fairly common online.

What has been expressed in this thread is that this sort of communication should be seen as 'understandable' given the existing level of 'frustration' and that directors should 'communicate better' - yet there is no reciprocal responsiblity of participants to pass basic communication skills 101 and basic manners skills 101.

If your starting point is the frustration is understandable and the conseqeunt actions excusable then its hard to see how a constructive dialogue about improving communication can occur. It might be better to work out how to avoid letting any frustration and annoyance affect how you communicate...

When someone initially responds to a ruling with a statement like :

'You are so biased towards your friends. I am never going to play in your event again' then how does a director respond..

with
a. 'thank you for sharing that?'
b. 'have a nice day'
c. 'I hope you find better places to play'
d. 'You will find other directors agree'
e. 'My name is Cliff. Drop over sometime' or
f. 'Are you the author of the book 'how to win friends and influence people?''
g. 'Would you like to discuss the ruling?'

When I first started directing online my response was closer to 'a' above. - or 'e' and 'f' if I wasn't having a good day. However as I've got used to online behaviour I have found it better to say 'g' above in terms of both an educational process and a better outcome. I've also counselled new online directors at the site i play to allow a bit of latitude and not to expect good behaviour - in other words to 'understand' that bad behaviour happens and to an extent excuse it - but then talk about it when the person has calmed down. All of this of course takes time. However, I do have some things I am not prepared to tolerate under any circumstances - and one of those is being called a cheat.

The problem I had was with the focus of this discussion... that the problem is about how directors communicate when a major issue is how participants communicate with the director and the lack of educational processes to change this.

Which brings me to your 'please explain' in relation to the 'ratings system' that I am more than 'luke cold' about - 'Antarctica' would represent my opinion of its chances of success.

One of the major reasons that disputes occur is lack of knowledge about the laws. This proposal does nothing to address one of the major problems and instead implies director incompetence is the defining issue.

But this is not the problem with the proposal. It is totally impractical in terms of the time commitment it would require.

In any event of say 20 boards with an average number of virtual tables there are about 40 director calls in my experience on line. About 35 of these are fairly routine - although the 35 complainants may not necessarily agree with that assessment. 2 or 3 require some degree of judgement and careful consideration. And 1 or 2 may be difficult where your judgement can only be to some extent 'best guess' - for example such as hesitations and UI decisions where you are making a guess based about the probability of different logical alternatives and what 'most players would do'.

I already send the more complex decisions I have for review and often publish them for comment. To do this properly takes about 20-30 minutes for each decision by the time you get agreement from the person who disagrees with the ruling that your representation of the facts in dispute is accurate.

You are asking for some equivalent documentation for 40 rulings - the documentation would need to be equivalent if it was to be subject to peer review. That represents 20 hours work. or you are asking directors to self-select some of their rulings only. That would involve accusations of selection bias.

I already donate 6 hrs a week to directing to give something back to the game I love. I have also attended and paid for 3 director courses, bought a number of books on directing, regularly read appeals decisions, participate in and read a couple of online director messageboards and news groups . You're now asking me to commit 5 times as many hours to a peer review process so that I can be judged. It is just a "tiny" bit impractical - for an outcome that would be extremely questionable - and a process that by definition cannot be anonymous to achieve the outcome of your stated intent of rating directors. In my experience knowledge about director competence already happens through discussion via friendship networks.

This doesn't mean that there aren't worthwhile educational mechanisms that could be proposed to improve both participant knowledge of the laws and director competence - it's just not this proposal as currently outlined.

[mikestar]

Gweny, on Aug 7 2004, 03:59 PM, said:

Well mike then step up and offer to co-direct with mcbruce and you will see why constant harping at td after ruling is nether welcome or acceptable.

I would love to direct or codirect a game, but God has seen fit to grace me with not one but two special needs children. I virtaully never even get to play anymore. I treasure this forum because it lets me keep up with developements in the game for the time when I get more chances as the boys get older.

[mikestar]

The anonymity of the interrnet does let more rude behaivour come out, but it also happens in f2f (IMHO, Zero Tolerance is something the ACBL has done right.)

In one case, I made a ruling having observed the play athe the table (they were slow) with my own eyes, and when the ruling was disputed, I showed the last few tricks and carefully explained my ruling. The player kept on questioning me, I game him a warning and when he swore at me after the game (but while the scores were being calculated--this was a senior center where I matchpointed by hand!) I deducted a full board from his score as a disciplinary penatly [per the Laws the game isn't over until the scores are posted.]

At this point he launched into a very profane description of what he imagined were my intelligence, my integrity, my ancestry, my destination in the afterlife and my sexual proclivites with persons of varying genders, near relatives, and livestock.

At this point I called Security and had him removed from the premises. He appealed to the Club's governing board and they decided that he was to make a full written apology within 24 hours or be banned from the club for the remainder of his natural life. (I would have suggested "for time and eternity", but natural life was OK with me.)

[luke warm]

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paulhar:
think all TD's want to improve. If they were unsure of a ruling they made, they could ask other TD's if they handled the situation right

this can be a part of the problem, tho... often they aren't unsure of a ruling unless someone complains.. i'm not talking about players harping on decision, i'm talking about voluntarily letting some 'chief td' grade the rulings... but if it's too much work, it's too much work... it was just a thought, based on what others want

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ron:
Ratings system won't work. The only people who rate will be those with gripes, the rest won't bother and so that proves nothing.

that's why players have no vote, they can't even post in this 'feedback' forum... only directors and moderators

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me:
however, i disagree with this.. logically, you can't defend this position...

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irdoz:
Lukewarm I can and did. We can agree to disagree. Saying 'I can't' is not an argument.

sure it is.. you're trying to argue a position in a contradictory manner... all you did was make attempted justification for why namecalling is wrong, in general, but ok when you do it.. you said,

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Nor is it considered contradictory or hypocritcial that one act of namecalling in one context is seen as fun, but in another context highly regulated

but that has nothing to do with the discussion.. your particular namecalling certainly wasn't done in 'fun', even if such a thing could be logically defended

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mcbruce:
have on several occasions in the past posted rulings I have made on this forum. The result is usually that I end up defending the SAYC-only tournaments that I run, and the rules I add to make sure that nobody gains an advantage by straying from SAYC

again, i'm not suggesting posting in an open fourm...

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mcbruce:
In luke warm's experience, TDs have been "wrong *every* time... granted, that's only twice but there it is." Only twice? It must be that you are counting only the rulings you remember

no, i'm counting only the rulings i've been a part of, the only two.. ok, i take it you'd be against having td feedback ratings, for reasons of your own... i imagine most directors would, tho i find it hard to understand... i know i'd welcome it if it helped me improve

[irdoz]

Lukewarm - I already actively participate in processes, fora and messageboards that efficiently increase my directing knowledge and don't take 40 hours a week of effort. Not only do you say this proposal should be 'welcomed' because it 'would help me improve' - but you label resistance to the idea as 'hard to understand'. This advanced logic entirely escapes me.

A method that is obviously inefficient and impractical suddenly becomes something that would improve my knowledge. And that someone might resist participating in something they don't think would work and would involve a huge amount of effort becomes 'hard to understand'. Next you'll say I can't say that. Interesting logic this advanced logic stuff.