[Deanrover]

I suspect that the majority of BBO users have lobby chat turned off. This because there is a low "signal to noise ratio" - i.e. most lobby chat is useless information to the vast majority of users. As a result of this BBO has resorted to making Broadcasts about issues such as vugraph - information that the vast majority of users probably find helpful, but that some, I suspect, find deeply irritating.

However, there are some pieces of information I would find useful. For example, I might want to be informed of when tournaments are due to start, when tournaments need substitutes, when vugraph is about to start, when someone needs an extra player for a teams match etc.

It would be sweet to have the option to customize what I receive. Users would have the choice of either sending out a general lobby message, or chat via a particular "stream". E.g. is a host wanted an eighth player to fill his teammatch there would be an "option-send player request" and this could be filtered, so that the message was only sent out to expert players, players from Poland, players currently not playing etc. When all the filters were set, an automated message is sent out.

e.g.

Automated message: Bob Hamman requests Advanced + player to compete in Teams Match wowowowowowow. Info: 8 board IMPs, players: Zia-Reece Bush-Kerry etc.

Messages relating to Vugraph would be hard to automate but this could be circumvented by allowing Yellows a "vugraph" chat function in addition to "broadcast".

This would allow the user to kibitz or wait in the lobby and receive pertinent information without being spammed by Mrx and MrsYs' flirting or MotherJo's recipe for Chicken Soup.

[jtfanclub]

Speaking of which...

What I REALLY want is when I'm in the lobby, and I type in a line, for it *not to go anywhere*, or perhaps to the last person I spoke to. Very annoying when I think i've clicked on somebody's name and I haven't, or I think I'm in email but it turns out that bridge base is in the forefront. Or my three year old niece plays bang the keyboard and happens to hit the enter key in the process.

In order to talk to the lobby, you would have to go to the drop down menu and pick 'lobby'.

Otherwise, I'd suggest channels:
The Yellow channel, where only Yellows can talk but anybody can listen ("Istanbul Vugraph in five minutes!")
The TD channel, where only TD capabless can talk but anybody can listen ("Tourney in five minutes!")
The Newbie channel, which anybody can use and listen ("How do I see the previous trick?")
And a General channel, which anybody can use and listen ("You know, I really like bananas. I know, we're gorillas- we all like bananas. But, for me, I think it's different.").

People could choose what channels they want to join and leave- just as you can turn off lobby chat, you could turn off Yellow, TD, Newbie, and General chat individually. Abuse of the channels (such as a TD talking about bananas on the TD channel) could cause the removal of privileges.

What do you think?

[Deanrover]

jtfanclub, on Nov 2 2004, 09:29 PM, said:

People could choose what channels they want to join and leave- just as you can turn off lobby chat, you could turn off Yellow, TD, Newbie, and General chat individually. Abuse of the channels (such as a TD talking about bananas on the TD channel) could cause the removal of privileges.

What do you think?

You should not be able to turn off Yellow Chat.

[jtfanclub]

Deanrover, on Nov 2 2004, 04:36 PM, said:

You should not be able to turn off Yellow Chat.

I believe all yellows have the Broadcast capability, so they can always use that for system outages and the like.

[Stars]

deanrover have a good idea. I hope it will be OK Soon

[jikl]

Very similar to an idea I posted a few weeks ago.

A change in "chat" interface

Sean

[inquiry]

jtfanclub, on Nov 3 2004, 05:24 AM, said:

Deanrover, on Nov 2 2004, 04:36 PM, said:

You should not be able to turn off Yellow Chat.

I believe all yellows have the Broadcast capability, so they can always use that for system outages and the like.

As a yellow, we have to issue warnings, etc to particular people. If there was an ability to turn "yellow chat" off so you could not hear these warings, or request to stop whatever you might be doing. This could work out badly for you if the yellow gets fed up with your continued activity in direct violation of warnings he sent, but you did not hear.

Ben

[jtfanclub]

inquiry, on Nov 6 2004, 09:02 PM, said:

As a yellow, we have to issue warnings, etc to particular people.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

When I say channels, I mean that when you speak on a channel everybody can hear it. So if you turned off the Yellow channel, you wouldn't hear when somebody spoke on the yellow channel, you would still hear directed comments.

The same goes for turning off the TD channel. It wouldn't mean you'd have an ignore set, you'd just would here messages sent on that channel.

It's just like turning off lobby chat..there'd just be four 'lobby chat' channels, which not everybody could sent on.

[cherdano]

I really think that by default, any chat should be send as a reply to the last private chat (same as Ctrl-R). This would reduce the noise in lobby chat by maybe 30%.

Other than that, a channel to announce team matches or ask for "2 opponents @blablah" would be nice.

[jikl]

As a further one to that... as I said in previous post, might be good to have different colours for these. And, (I assume this is already in place), a channel that only yellows can see, so if they want to talk with all yellows currently on they can.

Sean