[hrothgar]

I've been giving some thought to BBO's Full Disclosure program and how its capabilities might be extended. For anyone who is not familiar with the application, “Full Disclosure” allows players to build a scripting file that will automate the alert process. For example, the scripting file for BBO Advanced provides the following description of a 1C opening

Non forcing
3+ Clubs (3 Clubs is only possible with 4423 or (43)33 shape
12+ HCPs
If balanced, 1C promises 12-14 or 18-19 HCPs

Players can access all this information by moving their mouse pointer over the 1C bid.

I believe that the Full Disclosure application represents a substantial improvement over more traditional alert systems. In particular, this type of functionality is particularly important in a multi-ethnic environment like BBO where don't necessarily speak the same language and have very different ideas about what constitutes standard bidding.

Based on many of the comments that have cropped up on the BBO forums, “ease of use” appears to be a significant issue for some people. I'm going to make a dramatic oversimplification, however, the Full Disclosure user based can be dividing into one of three basic camps:

1.The system's geeks: There are quite a few folks out there who like to play highly scientific systems. Luckily, these users a usually quite technical. Most of them seem quite comfortable with the scripting system. Furthermore, they like being able to use Full Disclosure to “show off” their systems. Accordingly, we have a quite a few good custom FD files documenting pet Precision/MOSCITO/2over1 GF variants
2.At the opposite extreme, there are quite a lot of folks who don't really care much what they are playing. They are perfectly happy to play Bridge World Standard or SAYC or Acol or whatever and don't see any need to customize the systems. These people can be accomodated by providing “canned” files that document a complete system. A number of people on BBO are working to document some of the more common systems. In an ideal world, I'd hope that organization like the Bridge World and the EBU would take the initiative to start support their own “pet” systems (Bridge World Standard and Standard English respectively)
3.The problems crops up somewhere in between. There are a lot of folks out there who want to be able to tinker with their systems but don't want to learn the Full Disclosure scripting systems. Equally significant, its really not practical for a pick-up pair to customize an FD file five minutes before the tournament. Accommodating this group of users requires implementing some kind of Graphic User Interface. In an ideal world, the player would be presented with a graphical convention card, potentially modeled after that of the ACBL, and use check boxes to customize the card. The Full Disclosure application would then create a custom script file matching the player's selection.

Unfortunately, designing this type of front end is easier said than done. Writing the GUI itself is pretty easy. (This is a well defined problem). Where life gets complicated is trying to define a series of independent bidding modules that can combined to create a logically consistent bidding system. Ideally, there should not be any significant feedback between different bidding modules. (Here is an example that might help describe my use of the expression “feedback”. Look at the definition for the 1C opening that is defined in the BBO Advanced Scripting file. If I were to switch from the default strong NT opening to a weak NT opening, it would be necessary to chance the definition of a 1C opening. Obviously, one could side step some of these issues by providing less detailed information in the FD file, however, that degrades the utility of the application)

From my perspective, the best way to proceed is to define a series of standard “chassis” that could then be tricked out with different options. (Almost the same as building a custom laptop from Dell). For example, it might be possible to define four different approaches to bidding For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to assume that there is two much variance between different Strong Club and Nebulous/Polish Club treatments to address them this time arround.

1.5 card majors and strong NT
2.5 card majors and weak NT
3.4 card majors and strong NT
4.4 card majors and weak NT

Once folks select one of these options, they can then start grafting on different conventions (Jacoby transfers, Splinters, etc).

Curious whether anyone sees a better approach?