[uday]

I'm one of the owners of BBO, along w/Fred G and Sheri W.

The watercooler is a discussion board for non-bridge discussions.

In my opinion ( and your opinion may of course differ ) overly heated discussions about things that have no answer (here) are a bad thing.

I don't think I want to host something that leads to something that is mostly counterproductive.

[luke warm]

what do you consider to be a flame war? in any case, i voted for the one that said something about 'grown ups' (tho the word "usually" might should have been in there )

[Rain]

I don't think discussing somewhat controversial matters, or issues where everyone has different opinions, or raising personal opinions about well known people constitutes a flame war.

Isn't a flame war when you bash someone or other for no good reason?

I voted for the grown up thing too. And anyway, I'd rather BBOers choose to spend time here, rather than anywhere else.

[cherdano]

I am also disappointed by the discussions here. I would prefer if we could just all agree to keep the politics out here, since these threads just don't lead to fruitful discussions.

Arend

[hrothgar]

As I've noted earlier, I'd prefer if the poltical / religious discussions were shut down.
Whats the old saying? "Ignorance is bliss..."

[luis]

Maybe we should redefine the Water Cooler as a place for BBO players to know each other better, not as a discussion forum about anything.

Luis

[cherdano]

luis, on Apr 14 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

Maybe we should redefine the Water Cooler as a place for BBO players to know each other better, not as a discussion forum about anything.

In fact, that's how it worked in the beginning, and I liked it.

[Mr. Dodgy]

As I recall there was always a section of the BridgeBase forums for such 'off-topic' (non-bridge) matters. I think the Water Cooler has backfired, bringing these posts more attention rather than removing them from the bridge-related discussions.

I suspect that some bad blood from the Cooler has unfortunately spilled over into the bridge threads. Recently somewhat snippish comments have appeared in the bridge threads more frequently, imo.

I voted 'no but shut down the flame wars' - although here these actually seem to be relatively uncommon and less warlike (admittedly I usually steer clear of the political debates here) than might be the case elsewhere and I feel the administrators of these forums have always acted very professionally and reasonably in their moderation of all threads - though the Cooler may be testing ground for them to tread.

I do find it quite interesting to read what the people I have came to 'know' through the bridge articles think about other matters. As I have stated elsewhere, there are some very astute persons making such contributions, and it would be a shame to see the utterly fascinating 'universe is a torus' discussions terminated summarily even if I didn't understand a word of it.

I guess I would like to have the Cooler topics eliminated from the results of searches as an option for users. I often use the 'today's active topics' search and the Cooler articles feature rather too prominently for my tastes - I AM here primarily for the cards, after all.

[pbleighton]

"In my opinion ( and your opinion may of course differ ) overly heated discussions about things that have no answer (here) are a bad thing. "

Shut down anything you like, it's your site, but I would prefer to leave things as is.

My only objection to the above is that very few bridge or non-bridge threads ever have an "answer (here)".

Flannery, anyone?

Peter

[csdenmark]

I also voted for grown up persons. I have enjoyed to learn to know people for something of more important than bid-sequences.

I would like to see more contributions from persons outside USA. Too much seems to have a bias regarding blaming/defending USA. Language is a part of that problem I think.

Water Cooler is an important opportunity to be able to understand different cultures voiced by ordinary persons instead of only politicians quoted in newspapers.

[Limey_p]

Non bridge discussion is fine, but the old advice for avoiding fights in bar rooms should apply:

Don't discuss religion, politics or sex.

AP

[Sigi_BC84]

pbleighton, on Apr 14 2006, 06:50 PM, said:

"In my opinion ( and your opinion may of course differ ) overly heated discussions about things that have no answer (here) are a bad thing. "

Shut down anything you like, it's your site, but I would prefer to leave things as is.

I second that. If you feel uncomfortable with the "seriousness" of some of the threads here and fear that it might hurt the forums as a whole or BBO in particular, close the Water Cooler.

To me that would be regrettable as I really enjoyed reading what's going on in the minds of the people here apart from bridge. As Claus already said: discussing bidding sequences for the 101st time can get a bit boring.

If things get ugly, show the yellow card or shut down threads.

But to be honest, I think we've seen quite a lot of opportunities already for things to get out of hand and it hasn't happened so far (apart from a few ugly post in the "worst inventions" thread).

--Sigi

[Badmonster]

I agree with the Limey about the religion and politics but disagree about the sex.

I voted for shutting down the flame wars. There's nothing that says that people cannot discuss these hot topics in private messages or chat rooms or while playing bridge assuming you set up your table with that goal in mind. I think there is a problem though when the posts make people unhappy. Of course you could argue that if it makes you unhappy you could opt not to read, but you don't always know that what you're going to read is going to be so volitile. Like you'd think favorite conspiracy theories would be pretty light hearted and silly, but it's not really.

[pclayton]

I don't mind lobbing flames back and forth, as long as it stays above board.

Here's what I would suggest:

Personal attacks, attacks on one's ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, or race are totally off limits. Attacks on other countries (I won't mention any names.....CLAUS) their citizens, their policies and their leaders are also off limits.

In other words, I can bag on George Bush (who I used to like but don't now), I can rail against the US stance on the death penalty (which I don't support) or abortion (which I also don't support) but other citizens of the world can't.

OTOH, I can't bitch about Danish cartooning, French employment laws or hate crimes in Bosnia - Herzogovenia. I also can't enter the debate on some meaningless little island that Canada and Denmark are contesting .

Somehow, I really get tired of my (especially Eurpopean) friends around here going off on the US, yet its wrong when an Ugly American criticizes other countries. A clear double standard.

Uday, if BBF posters can't agree on the content, you have my vote for turning off the H2O.

[luke warm]

i'm just not quite sure what a flame war is... if it's personal attacks, yes i'd agree to shut that down

[jillybean]

I voted shut it down. I think trying to prevent flame wars by setting limits on what people can say will not work and only create more dissention.

I’d rather Uday spent his time enhancing BBO (Tournament functions) than moderating a forum.

jb

[luke warm]

but jilly kat, rain moderates this forum not uday... ben moderates some, coyoto, beky, jjsb others, etc

it seems pretty easy not to read something to me, or at least not to respond

[csdenmark]

I see Water Cooler as an attempt to create some sort of local cafe´ in a global village. Not so easy I think and I don't like what I see to restrict this and that.

What do human beings talk about when they meet each other? Children, economy, job, weather, politic. Thats is the same kind of topics I would like to see here and those I try also to discuss at bridgetable.

Most topics in Water Cooler until now reflects in no way the agenda in Europe. What is important here is Maastricht treaty, unemployment for youngsters in France, parliament elections in Italy, flooding in Eastern Europe, mostly River of Elben, immigration and integration, ETA, Turkye in EU. But discussions cannot reflect such as those engaged in such kind of topics don't speak english. Therefore we need, at least for a start, exchange views on topics in which we have some points of mutual interest and knowledge. Cannot be in any other way.

That is not flame wars - that is international understanding - bridgebuilding.

We need more of that, we need tools for translation, we need human beings with knowledge and understanding of a complex world. Water Cooler is one way. Nobody is forced to engage but all have their free choice. Bridgeplayers are assumed to be intellectual persons with potential.

[Mr. Dodgy]

P.S. The assertions that 'we are all adults here' may very well not be true. I know numerous sub-adult BBO users, and hope that they should not be discouraged in any way from availing themselves of the forums.

[helene_t]

If the water cooler is more censoring-dependent than other fora, it's a good reason for shutting it down (censoring costs a lot of work and just replaces nuicance about flame wars by nuicance about censoring).

I'm not so fond of a policy against politics, religion and sex since it will be difficult to define the borders, and many topics will become boring if one has to avoid anything that might smell of P, R or S.

AFAIAC the water cooler should be given a chance to mature for some time, but I don't care too much. I would understand if Uday shuts it down: if some people feel a need to discuss things under different moderation criteria than those of the BBO Forum, they can just create their own discussion group on Usenet or Yahoo or whatever.

Off-topic: As for the reason why the politics discussions are allways about the US it just reflects the fact that American politics is more interesting to the World at large, even to Europeans, than is European politics. Try to ask some random Europeans how much they know about the law and politics of the EU or CoE, and compare to how much they know about the US law and politics. I even know some Danes who know more about US lawsuit procedures than about Danish lawsuit procedures because they watch American lawyer soaps. You hear a lot of Europeans saying that we should be able to vote in the US presidental elections since the US rules the World including Europe. At the same time, few Europeans know, let alone care, how our own governement (the EC) is appointed.