[geofspa]

Hello everyone

Assuming anyone is going to read this.

I have just attended a teaching session that lasted 1 hour and in that time there have been 10 broadcast announcements.

Apart form interrupting the flow of the lesson I was attending I find it irritating to say the least that I have to get these messages at regular intervals from tournament directors for tournaments that I have little or NO interest in playing in.

I do know that BBO staff have to be able to contact all online members from time to time and that the broadcast message is a vital part of BBO communication.

As a member of the BIL I know that the BIL management can send club messages that are not seen by everyone online at the time. would it not be possible for a private club or clubs to be set up so that anyone that is interested in receiving said broadcast messages can become members and get their messages without upseting the rest of us. Those of us that have no interest in ACBL tournaments or Bridge Italia tournaments or ACBL college teams games can be left in peace by not joining the clubs.

Well that is all I want to say (Rant over)
thanks for taking time to read this ... if anyone does
Geof

[luke warm]

i usually turn 'lobby chat' off when playing, and sometimes when kibbing... next time, try that

[inquiry]

Actually, the broadcast are too frequent. I agree, and turning off lobby chat doesn't help. On the other hand, the TD's who run fee-based tourneys no doubt think they help drive customers to their events, which in turn increase revenue for fred/uday to help cover cost of this site. Why don't we put our heads together and come up with a useful suggestion. (no more than one broadcast per pay tourney? No broadcast per pay tourney, but rather a single pop up message listing start times for some when you log on?)... get creative.

Ben

[Walddk]

All yellows can make public broadcasts. Only a handful do. I am one of those when a vugraph broadcast is about to begin. Usually I do it twice: about 10 minutes before the start, and when it actually starts (delays are possible as you well know).

I do it to render a service to our members. Let me know what you think. Are the broadcasts uncalled for? Is it up to people to figure it out themselves?

I don't mind if I'm told (by Fred and/or Uday obviously) to stop sending these public messages. After all, it's only extra work as it is now - especially considering how often we have vugraph broadcasts.

Roland

[hotShot]

What about a "broadcast line" between the table view and the chat window. All broadcasts appear there. So they do not interfere with the chat (and chat log). They should only go to users online.

Tourneys about to start in 5 (or any other number) minutes, that are not already filled, should be "silently" (no noise) anounced in that broadcast line.

Announcements of yellows should go there with an alert sound, so they are not overlooked.

[shoeless]

I think turning off lobby chat when kibbing or in lecture does make a difference. I have been doing that the last couple of days and it feels rather peaceful - except for the one director who comes in and spams kibitzers - the log is pretty much just for that table.

[Gerardo]

Vugraphs are kind of fine I guess, tourneys less so (as vugraph interest more people).

A solution (already suggested in these forums) would be to implement channels, so there is a Vugraph channel, and a Paid Tourneys channel (maybe one per organization). People interested would subscribe to them, the rest wouldn't hear about them. However, it is not a simple one.

Anyway, I think those announcements are harmful. Lobby announcements are fine, broadcast announcements are not. Don't see they helping either, to attract customers to a regularly scheduled structure of tourneys. Finding a person who knows about them this way, is playing at the moment (else a lobby announcement would suffice, and if this person has lobby chat turned off, well, is for a reason) AND it would not know about these tourneys if not done this way would be VERY rare IMO.

[cherdano]

Walddk, on Feb 20 2005, 09:52 AM, said:

All yellows can make public broadcasts. Only a handful do. I am one of those when a vugraph broadcast is about to begin. Usually I do it twice: about 10 minutes before the start, and when it actually starts (delays are possible as you well know).

I do it to render a service to our members. Let me know what you think. Are the broadcasts uncalled for? Is it up to people to figure it out themselves?

I think they are appreciated. I certainly would miss them. I also don't want to know, and have my doubts that YOU want to figure out, what would happen to your private chat load if you stopped doing them...

Arend

[luke warm]

i honestly haven't noticed broadcasts (from bbo administrators) often enough to cause me any problems... and roland, please don't stop the vugraph ads (no matter how much work it is heheh)

[jillybean]

Ditto – vugraph announcements must be kept!
I don’t mind the pay/special tournament announcements but please only for tournaments open to all!

What are the criteria for a tournaments advertised by yellows?

[uday]

Lobby chat is only seen by people who are not playing.

The original purpose of broadcast chat -- which cuts thru all "ignore" settings -- was to make sure people heard us when we issued 'system' announcements. The maintenance announcements are system announcements.

But here we have a tool which can reach every user on the system. So over time we began using it for Vugraph announcements. I'm OK with that, since a stray message here and there is the best we can do until we find the means and time to integrate the vugraph schedule better into the client software.

Then we began to see some yellows use it for pay tourney advertisements. I am unconvinced that this is a good use of the facility. Nor yet am I convinced that this a bad thing. The pay tourneys pay the bills. We'll see. if it gets too bad, we'll prohibit or prevent the use of broadcast chat for routine things like pay tourney advertisements.

[mink]

I think payed tourney advertisements would be ok if they were not received by
- anybody who could not participate as there are not enough BBO$ in his account
- anybody currently playing in a tourney or a team game
- anybody at a teaching table

Karl

[geofspa]

Thanks for taking the time to read an add your comments.

Quote

i usually turn 'lobby chat' off when playing, and sometimes when kibbing... next time, try that

Turning off lobby chat does not stop "broadcast" messages, it is the original and probably the easiest way for BBO staff to contact everyone no matter what their chat status is.

Quote

All yellows can make public broadcasts. Only a handful do. I am one of those when a vugraph broadcast is about to begin. Usually I do it twice: about 10 minutes before the start, and when it actually starts (delays are possible as you well know).

I personally have no objection what ever to vugraph messages, infact I think they are 100% necessary as a live game attracts such a huge audience.

If the tournament directors that have broadcast facilities were to start a private club, and I would have little objection to a few broadcast messages while they are being set up, messages can be specifically targeted at those members that have an interest as they would be able to join the club.

Also LMM messages can be sent to all members so that any special announcements can be seen when logging in.

In the same way the club news section of a private club could show a schedual of tournaments, congratulations to winners, types of tournament, etc...

I believe it is possible that "multiple managers" can be set up so the burden of club business does not fall on the shoulders of one person.

This is the way the BIL manages its affairs and as far as I can see it works well.

If the space for private clubs is short would it not be possible to "monitor" presently set up clubs as there are currently 56 private clubs set up, and as a regular visitor to this section of BBO I get the feeling that some of them are very poorly subscribed and rarely if ever have anyone using them.

Well I never expected to get any response from my original post so 11 responses was a surprise to say the least

Good Bridging everyone
Geof

[shoeless]

I am with Lukewarm here - broadcasts are not high frequency and I personally appreciate the heads-up on the vugraph proceedings. Personally I haven't paid a dime for anything yet on this site - but have been enjoying a wonderful bridge experience as a spectator and player - so if broadcasts do something to help the BBO economy it might be in my best interests to accept them as part of the cost for what I am getting. Pretty small fee to my mind.