[Chamaco]

I think it would be clearer if it was explicitly stated which are the sanctions from which organization:

1- ACBL sanctions: e.g. banned from ACBL tourneys or so. These are obviously under the jurisdiction of ACBL as they run their own private tourneys, although we may consider such sanctions legitimate or not;

2- BBO sanctions: e.g. banned from BBO, not only from private clubs/tournaments

Since the 2 are different, this was the main reasons why I thouhgts that BBO sanctions should not be taken by yellow members involved with ACBL (unless the urgency calls for immediate intervention and they are the only yellows available).

[spwdo]

club, on Nov 2 2004, 02:27 PM, said:

ok finally got back in here as I was unsure how to do it while being banned (and i still am) but managed to find my way to this posting site by some fluke - As regards my user name it is clubdias the only reason was that since i was new to posting I had registered under a new name as the whole process of registering for posting was new was alien to me. Anyway someone must have reviewed my case cause now they have banned me till 2006!!!!! If it wasnt so sad it would have been funny...even Martha Stewart got only 6 months for what she did and I got 15!!!!!!! I know that yellow ACBL has got the full confidence of everyone and good luck to her but neither did i cheat nor did i make any 7nt call nor do i leave tourneys in a huff. Let me give you an example of what she took as a sexual remark - In one of my tourneys (yes i was a TD once!!!!!! ) but made to serve hard labour for advertising my tourney by saying Men rule while women drool and madame who has the confidence of everyone said it was a sexual remark and so off i was....Yes I believe the case must have been reviewed but guess who told the reviewer that it was reviewed and even what the findings of the review board were- Not an email or a peep to say what the fault was. All I was doing was taking the side of a player who said he had been unjustly treated and for that I was banned till the year 2006!!!! You can reveiw that case now that you know what my user name is but please dont say that a few daus before that happened and this happened. I served my time for any previous sins and this one if reviewed has to be reviewed in isolation and on its own merits and on the basis of this one individual act....not that 2 weeks ago this was said and 2 months ago u did this. I am willing to take my punishment but not for a cumulative "list" of dones and not dones - Over to you

clubdias

Hi Clubdias,

Hope for your sake that u find your way to abbuse as well and try explain your case there, do not think there will be advantages trying to solve things here and i dont see if any support(if ppl feel this case needs support) from other forumusers woud do you much good neither.

Personnal i feel/think that its normal that problematic users get after couple offenses a longer "think" period.But thats me , im not handling these cases. I always thought bbois very indulgent and give ppl a new chance fast.

[inquiry]

spwdo, on Nov 2 2004, 06:09 AM, said:

Quote

Hope for your sake that u find your way to abbuse as well and try explain your case there, do not think there will be advantages trying to solve things here and i dont see if any support(if ppl feel this case needs support) from other forumusers woud do you much good neither.

This is good advice, only abuse makes rulings on letting people back in. Posting here such issues doesn't help in any case. And, posting here, as this member has done, only presents one slanted side of the issue. So even if it gathers support for someone suspended, it will do absolutely no good, because those reading such post don't have all the information on the current "dispute" or past problems that factor into the bbo sanctions. For instance, what was said back and forth specifically in this case is not given.

Quote

Personnal i feel/think that its normal that problematic users get after couple offenses a longer "think" period.But thats me , im not handling these cases. I always thought bbois  very indulgent and give ppl a new chance fast.

We don't take the "you have done your time and you have a clean slate" attitude. At BBO, we take something closer to three strikes and you are out (it doesn't have to be three, it could be four or five, or two, I don't do this so I don't know). But the fact is, we get VERY TIRED of dealing with the same problem people over and over. If several warnings followed by upto two short bans aren't enough to change someone's behavior, let them go to one of the other gaming sites. No one has a right to play on Bridgebase online... it is truely a privilege... abuse it and lose it.

Ben

[hallway]

CLUB

The bottom line is simple - BBO is a PRIVATE site . It belongs lock, stock and barrel to Fred, Sheri and Uday.

When you enter BBO you do so as their GUEST as we all do - no more, no less !!

If I came knocking on your front door and you let me in you would EXPECT me to behave in whatever manner you find acceptable to you - if I did not , if I abused your hospitality for whatever reason, in whatever way - you would throw me out. And rightly so. Would you welcome me back ??

So on BBO you accept the Rules for the Site , behave in the approved manner or simply go play your bridge elsewhere.

In spite of having abused the gift you were given, you were granted a chance to return, not once it would seem but several times - why on earth would they want you back in their 'home' - ever ?! - 2006 seems too soon !

[luke warm]

i agree with you, maureen, but i think there are more issues involved here than whether or not bbo has the right to do what they please with what is theirs... obviously they do, and i can't imagine anyone arguing differently

but the other issue, the one henri, eric, and i were addressing, concerns not bbo's right to do a certain thing, but whether or not the action *should* be taken... take a look at uday's post above... he said gweny was on as acbl because of acbl related duties... i think if that was the case, she was on under the correct nick... however, if that is true i don't think she should have that nick as a registered yellow... this is just my opinion, i am *not* saying she doesn't have the right.. she obviously does

if i was a yellow and an acbl td, and if i was to perform acbl related duties during a certain session, i would not 'wear' my acbl nick as a yellow... my thoughts would be, there are always other yellows on, if something related to the site happens they are more than capable of handling it while i'm otherwise engaged... by the same token, i'd not log on with my yellow 'luke warm' nick and attempt to enforce rules in an acbl tourney (unless an emergency arose, or unless the acbl person on duty asked me too)

to me it just doesn't make much sense, unless i actually thought the site isn't in good hands unless i was always in my yellow personna... again, this is just my view and has absolutely nothing to do with the rights bbo personnel have

[inquiry]

Well said maureen.

Jimmy, ACBL is a yellow. The ACBL name tags are to make it easy for participants to identify and communicate with the people associated with ACBL events. All the directors have acbl names. The yellow ACBL does not give up yellowness when being logged on as ACBL. And in fact, club was not EVEN playing in any tournment when he ran afoul of the rules. I saw screen shots, and I would have banned him as well, if I was on line. Since his ban has been extended, abuse has seen this as well, and obviously agrees with the ban. This is not about ACBL, this is about club and his actions, as st least two other yellows would have responded as ACBL did.

Ben

[uday]

Our position is:

Rude players do not belong here on BBO. I cannot emphasize this enough. Most of our rules boil down to one simple rule -- BE NICE.

Someone who is rude in an ACBL tourney is more likely to be banned, because a yellow username is "watching". This is a good thing.


If I knew the other 749 TDs well enough to give them this power, I would do so. It is not a problem that yellow ACBL bans rude players, it is a problem that unmonitored rudeness in other Ts is not always caught.

Anything that gets the rude people away from our community is a good thing, at least until we set up an unmoderated site where these guys can beat up on each other (no, no immediate plans to do so)

[luke warm]

inquiry, on Nov 2 2004, 10:20 PM, said:

Well said maureen.

Jimmy, ACBL is a yellow. The ACBL name tags are to make it easy for participants to identify and communicate with the people associated with ACBL events. All the directors have acbl names. The yellow ACBL does not give up yellowness when being logged on as ACBL. And in fact, club was not EVEN playing in any tournment when he ran afoul of the rules. I saw screen shots, and I would have banned him as well, if I was on line. Since his ban has been extended, abuse has seen this as well, and obviously agrees with the ban. This is not about ACBL, this is about club and his actions, as st least two other yellows would have responded as ACBL did.

Ben

ben, i have no doubt that whatever was done by club deserved banning, and i have no doubt that any yellow who saw what he did would have banned him... this is made even more obvious by the fact that abuse@ agrees with the ban... however, the truth of the matter is no other yellow did ban him, it fell on a yellow acbl to do so... why? were they too busy? remember, his activity took place in the lobby, not in an acbl tourney

can't you even acknowledge the logic henri, eric, and i attempted to show? if you log on under a non-yellow nick, i imagine you'd message a yellow if you saw something that warranted further action... true? if it is, why is it true? is it because that at this particular time you are 'off duty' and will only act in an emergency situation? i can't see why henri's suggestion doesn't make sense... what is harmed by it?

while i agree 100% with uday's post re: rudeness, i don't see how subscribing to henri's suggestion lessens bbo's ability to police that type behavior...

as an outsider looking in, this is appearing to take on a 'company line' perspective... if you read my post above you'll see that i acknowledge bbo's right to do whatever they want... hell they *should* have that right, bbo is a better place because of it... but i honestly don't see how what we wrote is undermined by having different colors for different functions

[mikestar]

club, on Nov 2 2004, 05:27 AM, said:

In one of my tourneys (yes i was a TD once!!!!!! ) but made to serve hard labour for advertising my tourney by saying Men rule while women drool and madame who has the confidence of everyone said it was a sexual remark and so off i was....

Perhaps English is not your first language. No doubt Gwenny said sexist remark, not sexual remark. Sexual refers to sexuality, sex acts, etc. If you thought this was what she meant, I can can see why this bothered you.

Sexist means showing hostility towards/predjudice against members of one sex, in this case women. I beleive your remark was indeed sexist and you deserved some punitive action.

Do you think that "White people rule and black people drool" would have been acceptable? Would you think it would be OK to advertize your tourney as "No [insert your favorite derogatory term for gay people here] allowed"?

[inquiry]

luke warm, on Nov 2 2004, 05:45 PM, said:

can't you even acknowledge the logic henri, eric, and i attempted to show? if you log on under a non-yellow nick, i imagine you'd message a yellow if you saw something that warranted further action... true? if it is, why is it true? is it because that at this particular time you are 'off duty' and will only act in an emergency situation?



you read my post above you'll see that i acknowledge bbo's right to do whatever they want... hell they *should* have that right, bbo is a better place because of it...

Quote

ben, i have no doubt that whatever was done by club deserved banning, and i have no doubt that any yellow who saw what he did would have banned him... this is made even more obvious by the fact that abuse@ agrees with the ban... however, the truth of the matter is no other yellow did ban him, it fell on a yellow acbl to do so... why? were they too busy? remember, his activity took place in the lobby, not in an acbl tourney

I can easily tell you why.. almost all yellows turn off lobby chat FOR THE SAME REASON YOU DO.... all the noise there... A few yellows, ACBL being one, tend to monitor lobby chat, especially before and after tourneys in case any players or potential players have questions and don't know how to contact the ACBL people. So in fact, most of the time when someone is screaming obsenities to the lobby, users have to tell me.....

Quote

can't you even acknowledge the logic henri, eric, and i attempted to show? if you log on under a non-yellow nick, i imagine you'd message a yellow if you saw something that warranted further action... true?

No. If I see a bannable offense, I will go the separte webpage and ban the person... and then file a report with abuse... I don't have to be the BBO to ban someone, and I don't ahve to be yellow (obviously)... If a warnable offense occurse, I will tell a yellow who is on line, or report to abuse to send warning later.

Quote

i can't see why henri's suggestion doesn't make sense... what is harmed by it?

I think there is a small problem (which uday doesn;t agree with me on), in that act up in most peoples tourneys, you are banned from their tourney. Act up in a tourney run by a yellow you risk being banned from the site immediately. But the truth be known, when non-yellow TD turn people in, there is very good chance they will be banned at least a short while if it was bad action. But at least I can see the double jepadoy of playing in a yellow's tourney and accidentially losiiing your temper.. .and sometiems, any TD can become exasperated with "compalints" and might take this out on a relatively simple "why" type of question on a ruling or lack of ruling. If you get tossed out of a tournment for this, that is bad enough, if you get tossed out of site, that is much worse.

But, we need all the "full powered" yellows we can get to help police aweful behavior. I occassionaly fill in directing tournements or running them. I still get questions from users on line, I still get reports of horrible behavior. Think I shouldn't handle them, if possible? I do.

Quote

while i agree 100% with uday's post re: rudeness, i don't see how subscribing to henri's suggestion lessens bbo's ability to police that type behavior...

Of course it does, it removes one person from the list of those who to can sanction someone... and remember, all bans are automatically reviewed by abuse....

Quote

as an outsider looking in, this is appearing to take on a 'company line' perspective... if

I try to be as neutral as I can, but I will never do dirty laundry in public... having said that I offered to go to bat for club.. and I investigated...

Quote

but i honestly don't see how what we wrote is undermined by having different colors for different functions

A yellow doesn't need different functions... we do what needs to be done, and hopefully not one thing extra...

ben

[slothy]

Rehi all,

I have decided to come out of semi-retirement...writing posts in the 'Crochet and Cross-stitching' and 'Dental-Flossing Techniques For Domesticated Llamas' forums was never as stimulating and as inspiring as writing here

Nice to see that time has not mellowed Ben and he is as voluble as ever He seems not to subscribe to the old Tuareg proverb

Spoiler

----

'There is no need to light a cigarette with a blow-torch'

May he continue to ignore full-stops forever and overlook the virtues of succinctness, amen....

As for being profane and writing sexually im/ex-plicit comments in the lobby as a bannable offence why am I still playing bridge in BBO???

Yet again this thread seems to regurgitate the old chestnut about a fallacious contradiction between what an individual perceives as acceptable and what a collective has instantiated as unacceptable and impeachable behaviour - a set of rules that i am sure have been debated and discussed and have been endorsed to satisfy the the 'policing' of a community which is both diverse and ever-growing. Any society, in whatever context it exists, is going to have rules/laws governing how people are expected to behave and if they dont then there is some punitive redress. TO take this further, those people who seem to go as far as to suggest or insinuate that BBO is some sort of virtual Orwellian 'Big Brother' society either havent read the book or confused it with Animal Farm

I personally do not understand some of the arguments put forward by some people, not only here but in similar threads. I am very sure Gweny was very pragmatic and objective in her decision to ban the person in question, and even if she wasnt* she has been invested with the powers of 'de yellow people' by virtue of her commitment and contribution to this site by those very people who, however dispassionately you view it, have the right to impose whatever they want, assuming they have the majority of the community's interests at heart.

* this person still has an appeals procedure (s/he should try living in a few countries in this world where s/he hasnt even got this privilege!) and THIS is to protect the rights of the individual and to perhaps rectify potential errors in judgement made by an enforcer, IF they were made! May i just add that if this person was banned, after a review by other yellows it seems, as s/he says to 2006, then i am QUITE sure it was not for a singular isolated sexist remark!!

I have been asked on a couple of occasions to 'tone down' some of my lobby comments. After a warning i did so (well i just switched to Italian he hee), mainly because, on reflection, i acknowledged that what i had said MAY be perceived by some to have been OTT and they have just as much right as me not to have to read as i have to write...

There is a fine line between what may be construed as banter by some people and what may be understood as (downright) offensive to others. Further, there is some language, attitude and behaviour that, within the largest part of the social spectrum, is considered to be intolerable. Even more so when one considers that a lot of the BBO community's first language is NOT English and thus the opportunity for misunderstanding increases dramatically.

SOMEONE has to take the responsibility of ensuring that a happy medium is reached. I, for one, am not envious of those who have voluntarily decided to wear that mantle. It is a thankless occupation most of the time.

Another microfibre, as it were, of this thread is whether Gweny had the rights of a yellow and/or whether she abused her rights as a tourney yellow????? Whatever she is/was or is/was not, whether a kosher yellow or a yellow manqué is something that surely is to be determined by the management and not in a forum!! and allow the appropriate people to take the appropriate action. IF, and only IF, she acted outside her realm of influence then i am sure it would be resolved internally and the side-effects of her action reviewed!

Alex

[ecepal]

Hi ben,
would you please answer to this question for me
" a yellow should check the accusers story if it is true or not before take any action" yes or no?
In my opinion and past experience a yellow have to ask the accused person if the accusation/s are right or not.. because sometimes and mostly a little detail might change whole event. Like it happened in my case which i will not go into detail here
I got offline message from a " yellow" that SHE will ban me for two weeks for kibitzing one private club tourney. As a matter of fact if SHE had to bother to ask me i would explain that I was in Istanbul having cocktail drinks between 700 guests ..
do you think this is fair and correct?? Of course i have complained to abuse@bridgebase.com lets see what happens.
In another thread the SAME YELLOW cancelled a tourney ................ will reply this there .Abuse of the power is something has to be dealt with asap in my opinion.
So please tell me what is the procedure of a Yellow before banning a user?I know the answer but perhaps other users not know this so it is usefull if they enlightened.
thanks
ece

[pclayton]

My two cents, although I consider myself a minor player in these discussions.

On BBO we have DIRECTORS and we have YELLOWS.

Say I am a Director, and I am running the FOP (Friends of Phil) tourney. Naturally only players of the highest caliber in both ability and ethics play in the FOP . An invited player does something to cause me to boot them out of the FOP, thus becoming an EOP (Enemy of Phil). Well within my rights as a Director.

Say that I am also vested with Yellow authority. Ooh, goody, I see this person acting rudely (in a subjective way) at a table (maybe other FOP's are out there watching this person). Great: stamp BANNED on the EOP's forehead and let them cool for one week.

Amazingly, this causes hard feelings for the EOP. When the cooling off period is over, the EOP comes back on and to no one's surprise, the problem escalates. Rinse and repeat and before we know it we have hard-core lifetime bannees. All because they started as an EOP.

Director's are the popes of their tourneys. Its their domain.

Yellows are the niceness police of BBO. The global community of BBO is their domain. Yellows also trump the authority of Directors by definition.

See the conflict?

[slothy]

DEar Phil,

After a review it was decided that the FOP tourney clashed with the FOA tourney...the person banned from FOP tourney decided to play in the FOA tourney and the director of FOA blamed the director of FOP for banning him from his tourney and thus be free to play in FOA.

you see the conflict?

Quote

Yellows also trump the authority of Directors by definition.

Geez Phil do you HAVE to use a bridge metaphor for everything!!!!!

[EricN]

Everyone in his right mind knows that the FOA tourney is an illusion - it would not even attract enough players for 1 table

Eric

[pclayton]

slothy, on Nov 2 2004, 04:29 PM, said:

DEar Phil,

After a review it was decided that the FOP tourney clashed with the FOA tourney...the person banned from FOP tourney decided to play in the FOA tourney and the director of FOA blamed the director of  FOP for banning him from his tourney and thus be free to play in FOA.

you see the conflict?

Quote

Yellows also trump the authority of Directors by definition.

Geez Phil do you HAVE to use a bridge metaphor for everything!!!!!

The FOP was specifically scheduled not to occur on the following:

1. Wiccan holidays (2/2, 3/21, 4/30, 8/1, 10/31, 12/21)
2. Annual meeting of the International Dental Association (10/6 - 10/9)
3. Sundays
4. Feast Days of St. Fabian (1/20), St. Anselm (4/20), St. Justin (6/1), St. Bonaventure (7/15), St. Josophat (11/12) and St. Sylvester (12/31)
5. National Poetry Day (10/7)
6. Oktoberfest (9/17 - 10/3 (and similarly 10/4 and 10/5))
7. Scheduled total eclipse (4/8)
8. Thursdays

You have been forewarned!

All FOAs may be granted asylum from the FOA. As long as they aren't well... felons, or for that matter, Englishmen.

[inquiry]

ecepal, on Nov 2 2004, 08:04 PM, said:

Hi ben,
would you please answer to this question for me

Quote

" a yellow should check the accusers story if it is true or not before take any action" yes or no? In my opinion and past experience a yellow have to ask the accused person if the accusation/s are right or not.. because sometimes and mostly a little detail might change whole event. Like it happened in my case which i will not go into detail here

In 99% of the cases (well 90%), a yellow will usually not take any action without confirming the facts. This includes checking with both sides in any dispute (he said/she said issues). This is one function of yellows not taking immediate action, but rather reporting to abuse who checks the facts. This yellows only act in emergency situations is a change since your yellow time, ece. There are some cases where I (and presumably other) yellows will take immediate action without spending a lot of time checking (remember, Abuse WILL CHECK).. for instance if a well know and respected player tells me that “player x” was grotesquely profane and insulting, and it is an ongoing problem (say via private chat), I will tell player x he is being banned and to contact abuse and I will ban. If five or six people message me at once that player Y is saying the most fowl things in the lobby, I am likely not to investigate further, but ban as quickly as I can, but once again report this action to ABUSE to check.

Quote

I got offline message from a " yellow" that SHE will ban me for two weeks for kibitzing one private club tourney. As a matter of fact if SHE had to bother to ask me i would explain that I was in Istanbul having cocktail drinks between 700 guests ..
do you think this is fair and correct?? Of course i have complained to abuse@bridgebase.com lets see what happens.

Well a couple of issues here. The fact that you were drinking with 700 people instead of kibitzing seems immaterial. I mean so what if you where kibitzing? I know of no rule that bans anyone from kibitzing any tournament in the main tournament rule. Even enemies of the TD who can’t play in tournaments are not banned from kibitzing tables at that tournament. At one time, there was a rule that certain players could not kibitz each OTHER when they were playing. But I think for the most par this is in the past, where it should be, and I never knew it to apply to entire tournaments. So, there is maybe a bigger issue here (assuming this is

Quote

In another thread the SAME YELLOW cancelled a tourney ................ will reply this there .Abuse of the power is something has to be dealt with asap in my opinion.

Canceling someones tournament is something a yellow should do only in dire emergency, and if your tournament was cancelled when you didn’t want it cancelled, this could be a very serious problem. I assume you reported this to abuse.

Quote

So please tell me what is the procedure of a Yellow before banning a user?I know the answer but perhaps other users not know this so it is usefull if they enlightened.
thanks

In all non-emergency situations, report potential bans to abuse to review and make a decision. In an emergency situation, make the ban, report the reason and facts to abuse for review.

Ben

[inquiry]

pclayton, on Nov 2 2004, 08:25 PM, said:

My two cents, although I consider myself a minor player in these discussions.

On BBO we have DIRECTORS and we have YELLOWS.

SNIP....

Director's are the popes of their tourneys. Its their domain.

Yellows are the niceness police of BBO. The global community of BBO is their domain. Yellows also trump the authority of Directors by definition.

See the conflict?

See the conflict? In my last post I discussed the possible double jeopardy of playing in a yellow tourney's and misbehaving. This shows that I reconginize the problem you point out. Look, the policy is if it isn't an EMERGENCY, no normal yellow should ban anyone... it should be reported to ABUSE to deal with. This is exactly the SAME THING any TD can do on their own and get the same support and consideration from ABUSE.

But that said, yellows still have to uphold the "niceness" standard. But we should not be fast to ban. I follow the rules stated earlier in this thread, as all yellows should. Any yellow banning people for non-emergency reasons, should probably have their bans checked closely to see if they are being too harsh.

I think it is disingenuous to suggest that forcing an individual to log in as a non-yellow in certain circumstances that this will limit their power or ability to issue sanctions. We use web tools that are not directly associated with our yellow name for most, but not all, our powers. What this would do, in fact, would make stealth yellows, players with yellow power but without the easy to see yellow jacket. I don’t think that would be any help at all. Best is if the run of the mill yellows follow the rules and only use bans as emergencies only.

Ben

[luke warm]

inquiry, on Nov 3 2004, 04:30 AM, said:

~snip~
We use web tools that are not directly associated with our yellow name for most, but not all, our powers. What this would do, in fact, would make stealth yellows, players with yellow power but without the easy to see yellow jacket. I don’t think that would be any help at all. Best is if the run of the mill yellows follow the rules and only use bans as emergencies only.

Ben

you're right, it wouldn't be any help *unless* something like henri's suggestion was taken.. different hats for different functions

[bglover]

I don't think you and Henri are right. I think what color someone happens to be wearing at that particular moment is relatively unimportant.

A yellow has his responsibilities whether wearing that color at that moment or not. If I were a yellow and I saw someone breaking a rule I would ban him even if I was logged in under a normal color. I don't see why this is such an issue.

Having said that, however, I think the real issue isn't what color someone is logged in under, but whether that yellow (or any yellow) acted RESPONSIBLY in barring club. (Or any other person, for that matter.)

Clearly, in this particular matter, given the facts as stated, there is reason to suspect ACBL acted responsibly and in accordance with her status as a yellow. She just happened to be signed in as ACBL rather than Gweny. I have no problem with that. I'd have done the same.

However, that scrutiny is applied to this one specific case only. Ecepal's post indicates she received a ban threat from some yellow for kibitzing a tourney when, in fact, she wasn't even logged into BBO at the time she was supposedly kibitzing. APPLYING THAT SAME SCRUTINY I would say the actions now were way past the point of appropriate-- even bordering on bullying. And, if there is a pattern of this sort of bullying by any specific yellows-- and let's be honest, that is the real concern here-- then, perhaps the entire situation regarding that yellow needs reviewing.

It is not hard to imagine some yellows abuse their privilege. We have to rely on Fred and Uday to ensure that any yellow who does so is kept under control. It seems, these days, to me, that more of these posts are hitting the forum for a reason. That reason is apparent-- some people think that control isn't being properly exercised.