[Dixie77]

Hi,

I would be grateful for any help and insight on a problem I recently had.

A BBO-er claimed a number of tricks in a game I was playing. It was obvious to me that she/he had made a miscalculation and would not make the tricks claimed. However, instead of playing out the rest of the cards, I was booted out of the game.

I raised this with support asking them to investigate the incident, and advise me what they found, and what message would be sent to the person in question. Obviously this behaviour is not what anyone wants to see when playing on the site. So that I could put this BBO-er on Ignore, I also asked support for their username.

Unfortunately, despite numerous exchanges, I was not able to get the answer to any of my questions: incident investigation, outcome or action taken, or the username of the person concerned.

Has anybody else encountered a similar situation? Is there a policy whereby BBO, for whatever reason, do not share this information?

Best regards

Alan

[pilowsky]

You seem to have encountered one of those creatures that inhabit the dark underworld of online gaming (not restricted to Bridge - or life, for that matter).
There are some people for whom the truth is a moveable feast.
Outcomes that are not what they desire are considered unacceptable.
Only outcomes that comport with their worldview are acceptable.


Avoid such creatures at all costs.
Remember that only the "King" of the table can control who sits at the table.
To avoid this happening in the future, construct an empire (table) with yourself as King.
That way, you can stipulate the unwritten rules of behaviour.


If the outcome is not to your liking you will be able to call for an audit of the results.

[mycroft]

You will not. If you reported to abuse@, good. It will be followed up and some result will happen. It might be nothing except "keep around to see if this is a pattern we don't want to handle". It might be removal, or disabling their login for a period of time. You will not hear about it.

Hundreds - if not thousands - of issues similar to this happen every day, and many of them are reported.

You can look up your previous hands to get their username, and set them on ignore - and put a reason in the comments.

Yes, this is policy.

People get booted from tables for much less than "refusing a claim", even "refusing a valid claim". Some people are just obnoxious. It happens, and it doesn't (necessarily) reflect on you. I strongly suggest you find a few people you are comfortable playing with and keep playing with them, and get out of the Permanent Floating Pickup Party.

Note: I am not a BBO employee, this is just what many (many) threads on this site have said.

[johnu]

mycroft, on 2021-September-27, 08:53, said:

You will not. If you reported to abuse@, good. It will be followed up and some result will happen. It might be nothing except "keep around to see if this is a pattern we don't want to handle". It might be removal, or disabling their login for a period of time. You will not hear about it.

Quote

You will not hear about it.

IMO, this is a major problem in BBO's management "style", such as it is. Miscreants need to be publicly put on notice if they have done something that requires discipline from BBO, and people reporting need to be informed if their complaints have any consequences for the offenders. Otherwise, BBO is just a black hole of no information.

[mycroft]

I disagree. Much behaviour can be cleaned up with a note. More behaviour can be cleaned up by a short ban, or a longer IP ban. Back in the old days, I dealt with a lot of this and worse behaviour quietly and politely, and it stopped. If T***ter and F***book can't stop the online disinhibition effect (I like Penny Arcade's name better, but it's NSFW), BBO can't. Shaming people that won't do it again doesn't help anybody - and the news clearly shows it won't stop the ones who don't care.

I think that statistics (which I have seen occasionally on the forums, in "to the nearest hundred" terms) have been posted before on the forums. I wouldn't mind seeing that kind of statistics again.

I think anybody in the Permanent Floating Pickup Party who is so offended that someone kicked them for disputing a claim that they Expect A Response (and it had better be What They Deserved, I'm guessing) is going to have issues being online for a week. Not that the OP is wrong - this was awful behaviour and I hope was reported, and I hope the report was dealt with.

[Dixie77]

Thanks for the replies.

pilowsky: Agree with all your comments. Normally, I would just join a table, but maybe the way forward is to be the host/king.

mycroft: Reported, yes. However, the exchange with support gave me no confidence whatsoever that any investigation would take place or any note sent. What was made absolutely clear in no uncertain terms was that I would not hear about it. That may be BBO policy, and if that is the case, let people know that.

johnu: I agree, it is a complete black hole as far as getting any response from BBO support on an issue such as this. Whether "miscreants" need to be publicly put on notice, I am not so sure, but I completely agree that "people reporting need to be informed if their complaints have any consequences for the offenders".

mycroft comment to johnu: I agree - a note, a short ban or a longer IP ban can help clean up behaviour, but I still don't see why there is no requirement for incident feedback to a user. I am not sure that the comparison with T***ter and F***book holds water - yes both are online, but very different groups/segments/profiles.

Just for clarity, I was more disappointed than offended that I had been booted off. Sure, I didn't like it, but unless that person gets some feedback, this behaviour repeated and copied by other users is not going to help this online platform attract and keep members. Like you, I do hope the report was dealt with, but my confidence level of this is close to zero based on the exchanges with my contact in support. Most of the questions I raised about this issue were not answered, three messages from support had just copy/pasted the same text completing ignoring what had been posted before, and when this whole response issue was escalated as a complaint, it was responded to by the same person I was complaining about.

I will continue to use the platform in a variety of ways, and I will remain more disappointed than offended by some of the behaviour that goes on, but I think it is everybody's interest to call it out - one way or another.

[mycroft]

I hope for better experiences with BBO in the future. There really are a limited number of these people (other terms may apply); the vast majority aren't this way. Unfortunately, the vast majority of that vast majority find regular partners and set games, concentrating the "people factor" (replace with the same other terms, as appropriate) in the pickup game.

Do realize that BBO is a very small company, with very limited availability for support. Thus their policy of "trust us, we do the right thing a majority of the time, with a majority of the users, but we will not reply about every action". I can also see "we won't tell you the result of any action" for liability concerns - but "action has been taken" (even if it's "add to a file, do nothing else - yet") would be a useful response, I agree.

Again, I am not a BBO employee, so I could be talking out of my hat. However, this response from a month ago does come from a BBO employee; they are in fact looking at better messaging.

[johnu]

mycroft, on 2021-September-28, 14:22, said:

I hope for better experiences with BBO in the future. There really are a limited number of these people (other terms may apply); the vast majority aren't this way. Unfortunately, the vast majority of that vast majority find regular partners and set games, concentrating the "people factor" (replace with the same other terms, as appropriate) in the pickup game.

One recent study of online BBO games came up with an estimate that 3-5% of the tournament players on BBO are cheating. I've never seen a study of bad behavior, but my guess is 5-10% perpetrate ethical and conduct malfeasance that would be enough to get kicked out of a live game. While the percentage of bad actors is relatively small, the numbers aren't. My very ballpark estimate of the number of BBO players is 100,000+, so 5,000 to 10,000 bad actors on BBO. I agree that most of the bad actors don't play well enough to attract a good partner, and are abrasive enough to not be able to keep a regular partner of average to below average skill, so you'll find more of them in pickup games.