[hrothgar]

Dear Fred and Uday

I am getting increasingly annoyed by the sheer quantity of SPAM that I am getting from paid tournament providers. Its bad enough that that Tournament providers are using(abusing?) the broadcast features with incessant advertisements, however, BBO Italia just started using the mail system to SPAM at log in... What possible reason would I have to care about a BBO Italia event that probably ended hours before I log in...

Please note: I want to very conciously differentiate between messages from private clubs like BIL, Abalucy and Junior Flight and the ads... The private messages don't bother me. They are MUCH less frequent. Furthermore, I (essentially) subscribed to these messages when I joined the club. I can remove myself from these broadcast by quitting the club. The Spam is VERY different.

1. From my perspective, these SPAM messages serve no useful purpose. BBO has a good mechanism by which users can view the tournament schedule. The ads really don't provide any information that isn't readily available.

2. It is HIGHLY annoying to be focusing on a hand and suddenly have a page of text and jam the screen, along with a nice little chirp... Its especially annoying when I am playing in a tournament. I have to page up to see explanations. I get distracted during hands. And I couldn't even play in their events even if I wanted to...

3. Unfortunately, at this point the SPAM issue is starting to become an emotional one. The SPAM became frequent enough that “annoyance factor” is now a simple function of the number of messages...

4. My last point in probably the most important. I have played in a decent number of fee based tournaments. I even pay the entry fee for some of my partners who don't have BBO Bucks. I'm not doing so any more. From now on, I'm now spending money with any of the fee based clubs that are SPAMing the system. Moreover, I hope that others do the same...

[Deanrover]

I receive regular tournament spam from clubs I have no even joined. I thought it would be easy enough to circumvent this by making the spammer an enemy and checking "ignore chat from enemies", but alas that does not block mail messages

[uday]

ACBL is permitted to issue 2 broadcasts a day, one for its 8PM and one for its 10PM games. Broadcast is not used for any other pay tourneys under normal circumstances. I checked the last 3 days, and this has been the case.

Italia has a private club, presumably made up of people who have played in italia. I am sure this is the origin of the mail. I agree that it is pointless or worse to use mail->club to advertise random tourneys. I have forwarded this link to Vincenzo, who manages Italia, and questioned his use of Mail for ads.

Currently

1. It is free for organizers to send advertisements
2. Organizers claim some benefit from the advertisements

result is spam in lobby and (now) spam in mail.

The organizers are adamant that the announcements serve an informational purpose. We used to allow some orgs to issue broadcast messages for every tourney. I turned that off for a week, and we had the lowest attendance (for the week) in months. OTOH, that was a big vugraph week. Organizers also contend that the primary purpose of the lobby is to receive ads, whether for free tourneys or for subs or for team games or for main bridge club (and, for pay tourneys)



Suggestions?

[Walddk]

I have never asked to become a member of BBO Italia. I have not even played in any of their tourneys, and yet I get those messages at least 5-6 times every day. The worst part of it is that they take up all space on my screen (7-8 lines), because the announcements are made in Italian as well as English.

I agree with hrothgar: They are very annoying, not least during vugraph broadcasts when many of us try to focus on bidding and play while commentating. A quick F6 is what's needed, but then you lose the previous comments. And that is also annoying, because you often want to comment on comments from other commentators.

The thing is, however, that you can't see those messages any more.

I don't have a problem with the ACBL broadcasts.

Roland

[hrothgar]

Thanks very much for the quick reply. Thanks even more for the steps that you've already taken to address this issues. I wasn't aware that there were currently limitations regaridng the number of broadcasts that some clubs were permitted to issue.

One quick clarification: Based on your comments it appears that most Clubs are not permitted to send broadcasts. I have recieved a variety of announcements over the past week. Several occured during Vugraph presentations. Others cropped-up while I was playing in other tournaments. I'm not sure if these messages are actua broadcasts directed to everyone at BBO. Its possible that that BBO Italia or Sky Club has harvested my user name and is using some kind of "Bot" to unicast me at random intervals.

With respect to a couple specific comments:

>Organizers also contend that the primary purpose of the lobby is to receive ads,
>whether for free tourneys or for subs or for team games or for main bridge club
>(and, for pay tourneys)

I see some merit to this argument. If I am "physically" located in the main lobby, I find announcements of this type much less intrusive then when I am watching Vugraph/Playing in a tournament/Playing at a private table...

> Suggestions:

1. Multiple chat channels. All of the Massively Multiplayer Online Games that I participate in have mutiple chat channels. Players have the option to subscribe/unsubscribe to individual channels. (Typically, players have the ability to create/customize individual channels). Allow the fee based torunaments to create broadcast channels to hawk their wares. Players who want to make use of the feature will subscribe.

2. Even with multiple channels, you're going to need to come up with a long term policy surrounding advertizing. If these ads are really valuable to clubs like "BBO Italia", then the clubs should be willing to pay for right. Charging directly for ads is much more efficient (less intrusive) than permitting SPAM and taking a slice on the backend

[uday]

I was refering to the BROADCAST messages that yellow users are allowed to send. These are sent to every user, regardless of preferences. They were originally intended for system announcements.


Clubs are permitted to use lobby chat, as long as they dont abuse the privilege. Italia has a large private club ( I dont know where they got the original list). As owners of a private club, they can send chat or mail messages to all members of the club. Chat messages are received and displayed even if the target is playing at a table (as opposed to lobby messages, which are not). These are the messages in question.

I will clear this up w/Italia. If the club is just a mailing list, I will shut it down.

I have erased the undelivered mail messages from the last 2 batches of mail->club that were the cause of some of this ire.

[hrothgar]

uday, on Apr 18 2005, 08:47 PM, said:

I was refering to the BROADCAST messages that yellow users are allowed to send. These are sent to every user, regardless of preferences. They were originally intended for system announcements.


Clubs are permitted to use lobby chat, as long as they dont abuse the privilege. Italia has a large private club ( I dont know where they got the original list). As owners of a private club, they can send chat or mail messages to all members of the club. Chat messages are received and displayed even if the target is playing at a table (as opposed to lobby messages, which are not). These are the messages in question.

I will clear this up w/Italia. If the club is just a mailing list, I will shut it down.

I have erased the undelivered mail messages from the last 2 batches of mail->club that were the cause of some of this ire.

thanks for the clarification...

[Fluffy]

I have also some kind of that problem, maybe they made a list of good players and stars to be messaged for their tourneys.


Still my main problem is not these, everytime I spend 3-5 days not logging in, I get mail SPAM, 100% of this messages are for tourneys that have alreayd been held, and I ahve to spend 15-30 seconds just clicking ok, ok, ok, ok, ok..... and if I ever got a real mail from someone wich wasn't spam, I will lose it, since I will click ok, before noticing.


Only solution I can see to these is mails getting assigned an expiring time or date, mails that have been expired are auto-deleted, only club tournaments messages need to expire, other can remain forever untill read.

[MickyB]

Fluffy, on Apr 19 2005, 12:15 AM, said:

I have also some kind of that problem, maybe they made a list of good players and stars to be messaged for their tourneys.

Don't think so...I haven't heard a thing from them!

[vincenzo]

Dear Rothgar,
BBO ITALIA doesn't use the mail system to spam, I will explain you the use we do.

1) BBO ITALIA has a private bridge club since BBO has borned and we have used the msg features just for particular events until last month. BBOITALIA is also a multiuser nick used by all bboitalia tds that are using on last month the mail feature to adv bbo italia tourneys.

2) I have told to BBO ITALIA tds when we decided to use this feature to adv our tourneys not to send bbo msgs but only a chat that is sent only to online members. I know that a bbo msg can disturb (when I connect to bbo I get at least 5-10 bbo msgs and many of them are adv from private clubs I have not registerd to). Unfortunatly I have noticed that some time the bboitalia td has clicked on wrong button and has sent a msg instead of a chat.

3) These are the type of members inserted on our private club (you are asking how we have this great list of members) (I remember you that bboitalia is present on bbo since almost 3 years)

a - All members that have registered to our web site or that during these last 2 years have written me an email to register to our club;
All members that have asked us to register sending bbo msgs
b- Many members that have got bbo italia master points on our tourneys
c- "real friends" of bbo italia tds

4) After the message we sent (that is a "soft nessage" that asks sorry if we are disturbing the member), but I repeat I HAVE TOLD TO BBO ITALIA TDS ONLY TO SEND CHAT msgs and not mail msgs, we usually receive everytime many thx from our members and just in some cases a msg that replies he prefers to be removed from the list. When we get this message we cancel the member from the club and we mark a note like "don't add this nick to club" to remember to all tds that this member doesn't like to receive msgs even if he has registered to our web site or even if he is a usual player of our tourneys;

5) I don't think that what we are doing is "spamming". It is a private message that we sent to members that enjoy to play our tourneys and many of them are happy that we remember them the tourney that is starting

6) I ask you sorry for these 2 reasons:

a) to have you (and other memebrs) sent a msg instead of a private chat; (it has been a mistake made by the td)
to have inserted your nick in our mailing list. (I have seen that you are not registered on bboitalia web site, I will ask to all bboitalia tds the reason because you have been inserted)
In any case I have cancelled you so you will not be affect in future from our friendly messages (not spam).

7) I only would like to ask you why instead of writing this post in the forum you didn't answer to:

a) either bbo italia nick
sending a msg to the td involved in the tourney (the message always contains the name of the td that is running next tourney (he is online because he sent this message 10 minutes before the tourney starts)

I ask you again sorry if for any reason you have asked to be cancelled from bbo italia club and the td that got this request has forgotten to do this.

I answer now to Walldk (he well knows me because our cooperation in all bbo italia vugraph events):
Roland: if the messages you are receiving are annoying you why you didnt contact me to ask to be cancelled from the mailing list ?
I don't think you didn't know that I am the manager of BBO ITALIA ...

Your name has been inserted in the mailing list for other reasons (before we used this list to adv tourneys) and probabily for some mistake your name has not been removed.
I will try to clean from this list some names but this may be an hard work. But really I think that a msg like "please remove me from the mailing list" is really easier than write on the forum !!

My intention is to review the list of bbo italia members so that just our closest friends remain. More than 1.000 of members have registered to bbo italia web site giving us not only the nick, but also their email address (validate from the server), their name, address and often also the tel. number, many others have sent us an email asking us to register (our web site page is in italian language so probabily is difficult fotr them to register on the web site) and many others are in any case happy to receive our msgs (we inform them about our vugraph and other initiative).

Concerning broadcast messages, as bboitalia we have stopped to adv our tourneys in this way. The broadcast msgs is sent to all members while a private club msg is sent only to memebers that we hope like to receive it and members that don't like to gett hese msgs can stop to receive them in a very simple way.


For the moment - thinking to best way to direct our messages only to our closest friends - I will tell to BBO ITALIA tds not to use this chat feature.


Answer to Uday:

BBO ITALIA is not just a mailing list private club and you should know this at least knowing the way I have promoved BBO not only in Italy, through FIGB but also with EBL.

Vincenzo

[hrothgar]

Thanks very much for removing me from your broadcasts

> 7) I only would like to ask you why instead of writing this post in the forum you didn't > answer to: a) either bbo italia nick cool.gif sending a msg to the td involved in the
> tourney (the message always contains the name of the td that is running next tourney > (he is online because he sent this message 10 minutes before the tourney starts)

I sent multiple messages in reply to the broadcasts asking to be removed from the distribution. None of these requests were honored or even acknowledged.

[Rebound]

vincenzo, on Apr 18 2005, 08:26 PM, said:

<snip>
4) After the message we sent (that is a "soft nessage" that asks sorry if we are disturbing the member), but I repeat I HAVE TOLD TO BBO ITALIA TDS ONLY TO SEND CHAT msgs and not mail msgs, we usually receive everytime many thx from our members and just in some cases a msg that replies he prefers to be removed from the list. When we get this message we cancel the member from the club and we mark a note like "don't add this nick to club" to remember to all tds that this member doesn't like to receive msgs even if he has registered to our web site or even if he is a usual player of our tourneys;

5) I don't think that what we are doing is "spamming". It is a private message that we sent to members that enjoy to play our tourneys and many of them are happy that we remember them the tourney that is starting

6) I ask you sorry for these 2 reasons:

a) to have you (and other memebrs) sent a msg instead of a private chat; (it has been a mistake made by the td)
to have inserted your nick in our mailing list. (I have seen that you are not registered on bboitalia web site, I will ask to all bboitalia tds the reason because you have been inserted)
In any case I have cancelled you so you will not be affect in future from our friendly messages (not spam).

7) I only would like to ask you why instead of writing this post in the forum you didn't answer to:

a) either bbo italia nick
sending a msg to the td involved in the tourney (the message always contains the name of the td that is running next tourney (he is online because he sent this message 10 minutes before the tourney starts)
<snip>

With all due respect, that is horse hockey. I have been getting these messages and I have never visited the site, played in no BBOItalia events that I am aware of.

I did not write to anyone regarding it since I have no idea how I came to be receiving them in the first place, and no clue who to talk to since I presumed they were sanctioned by BBO. Not to mention that the messages themselves are nearly indecipherable to me.

[Brandal]

Fluffy, on Apr 18 2005, 06:15 PM, said:

I have also some kind of that problem, maybe they made a list of good players and stars to be messaged for their tourneys.

Nah,can't be......I never get these messages

[guggie]

nah cant be, I get them

Although I have 3 times now asked to be removed from the mailing list

The TD than adked: from the BBOItalia list or from my private list (?). I said from both. Stil keep receiving them.

[hrothgar]

So, there I was happily sitting in the main bridge club watching 2/1 and Reisig playing again CSimon and partner.

There were about 70 of us wathcing the action. Of course, this was too good an opportunity for BBO Italia to pass up. One of their directors felt obliged to dump a page of SPAM informing us about an exciting tournament being held this weekend...

I noticed that the poster was an Italian and thoughtfully went to the trouble of sending him a New York Times article about the problems with US / Italian relations arising from the recent death of an Italian Secret Service agent in Iraq...

In a shocking developing, the BBO Italia director GOT UPSET about having extraneous information sent to him and reported me to a yellow for harassment. And all that I was trying to do was send him information that I thought he might find helpful.

Now, I readily admit that I dumped pages worth of information onto his screen, but I figure that he blasted a pages worth to 80 of us...

[scoob]

[cphastrup]

hrothgar, on Apr 26 2005, 05:18 PM, said:

So, there I was happily sitting in the main bridge club watching 2/1 and Reisig playing again CSimon and partner.

There were about 70 of us wathcing the action.  Of course, this was too good an opportunity for BBO Italia to pass up.  One of their directors felt obliged to dump a page of SPAM informing us about an exciting tournament being held this weekend...

I noticed that the poster was an Italian and thoughtfully went to the trouble of sending him a New York Times article about the problems with US / Italian relations arising from the recent death of an Italian Secret Service agent in Iraq... 

In a shocking developing, the BBO Italia director GOT UPSET about having extraneous information sent to him and reported me to a yellow for harassment.  And all that I was trying to do was send him information that I thought he might find helpful.

Now, I readily admit that I dumped pages worth of information onto his screen, but I figure that he blasted a pages worth to 80 of us...

Apparently he still has loads of information left. Kibbing Stewball's table this evening:

BBOITALIA->Kibitzers: ♠♠SATURDAY APRIL 30th **SFIDA AI CAMPIONI** (CHALLENGE THE CHAMPIONS) is back at 21.30 cet (14.30 nyt). Immersion in the WORLD CHAMPIONS' play: play their boards, seeing photoes ...
BBOITALIA->Kibitzers: and listening to curiosities about them. Besides we have the partecipation of MASSIMO LANZAROTTI♠♠
BBOITALIA->Kibitzers: www.bboitalia.it/td/sfidaaicampioni.htm

After which he logged off.

Any suggestions as to which counter-information I should send other than my feeble "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop spamming"?

[uday]

Right click, mark as 'enemy'. This will squelch his chat.

[Gweny]

For first time you and me agree Hroth

I am sick of tournament spam.
I am sick of seeing same message over and over every 20-30 seconds for 15-20 mins while some tds promises us they are "starting soon" and then proceeds to extend start times again, and again, and yet again.

I am sick of trying to help some new user only to get bombard by this senseless spamming while i scroll up madly trying to stay with new person and wondering if they even SEE my reply due to ad spam or from trying to hold conversation with someone and then constantly needing to scroll up again and again to find last message.

Our ACBL Tds are following the following rules - If you see ANY ACBL TD violate this policy please feel free to leave me message so we can correct this error.

I openly invite other pay tournament groups to stop this spam and join ACBL Tds in this policy - (defining an ad as not more than 3 lines)
From 60-30 min prior to start - 1 ad every 10 minues MAXIMUM
From 25-5 min prior to start - 1 ad every 5 mins MAXIMUM
1 ad at 3, 2,1 minutes prior to start MAXIMUM.

Moreover ACBL TDs are suppose to include time to start.

[vincenzo]

I agree with Gweny.

Gweny's rule is ok, but it is also ok any type uf rule. The most important thing is to define a rule !!

It is ok for me even if we decide to not to make adv for tourneys, or just 1 adv for each tourney, BUT WE MUST DECIDE A RULE that is different from:

"Don't exagerate" that is too generic rule !!!

I invite Uday to send all organization either "Gweny's suggestion" or any other type of clear rule concerning adv.

Every td can take "don't exagerate" in different way and it is too hard to check them.

Regard hrothgar I prefer not to follow with this polemic. Queequeg is a very nice young girl that probabily thought that an event with Lanzarotti's presence was a "particular event". In any case I have told them not to repeat this even if new Pope will decide to come to play on her tourney !!

Vincenzo