[jchiu]

fred, on Oct 23 2007, 01:35 AM, said:

I agree with just about all of this.

Sure we are all in the "some" camp in the sense that, if the question had been "what behavior is appropriate?" almost everyone would have said "some".

My actual (poor) choice of question was more specific: "which signs are appropriate?". As a result, a lot of people left the "some" camp.

Making it even more specific "which overt acts of public political expression are appropriate at the World Bridge Championships?" (or whatever) would have left us with even fewer "somes".

The more specific you get, the less slippery the slope, but the more rules/guidelines/statements you need to try to cover the same ground.

I have no idea what wording or level of specificity is ideal in this case or whether such wording should be presented as a rule, a statement, as part of some larger general guideline or as something else. But I do think it would be very smart for the WBF to try to establish some boundaries (or publicize existing boundaries), even if the edges are necessarily slippery.

They have to come up with the best way they can to deliver the message "please don't do that again".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Agree with this. I wouldn't say the question was poor though as it sparked what, in my opinion, was some pretty interesting debate.

edit: didn't realize my computer was logged in under jason's name. That'll teach him to not clear his cache when using my computer.

-echognome

This post has been edited by jchiu: 2007-October-22, 20:28

[helene_t]

fred, on Oct 23 2007, 03:35 AM, said:

They have to come up with the best way they can to deliver the message "please don't do that again".

That was how I thought when I decided to vote "No signs". So maybe I did understand the question after all

[Al_U_Card]

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

L. Armstrong

[jonottawa]

fred, on Oct 22 2007, 09:55 PM, said:

Consider the rule we have on BBO: players cannot put political statements in the profiles.

Those who break this rule are warned. Those who are warned and who do not change their profiles are barred.

It is necessary for us to make stupid rules like this because .01% of our members have demonstrated that they are not responsible enough to babysit themselves.

I suppose you think we are harming people with this rule. I disagree but I believe you that you think that.

Even so, consider the harm we would do to ourselves (and all of our other members) if our policy were any different. If you can't see this, I will be happy to spell it out for you, but try to use your imagination first.

What would you do if you were running an online bridge site?

The WBF is in exactly the same situation.

This is not about values. It is about existence.

Aaaaaahhh, I see said the blind man.

Fred, who is a very nice guy, on some level doesn't like it that he has been forced to adopt an "almost no signs" rule on his online bridge site and experiences cognitive dissonance with the idea expressed by others that the WBF ought to not legislate in this area in spite of the recent behavior of the USA 1 ladies at the closing ceremonies in Shanghai.

"If a nice tolerant congenial guy like me has been forced to lay down the law, certainly a bunch of stuffy old suits running an international bridge organization will reason similarly."

To me, the 2 situations aren't remotely analogous.

Fred's running a FREE site, filled with ANONYMOUS people and hands out a Sharpie and some posterboard to everyone who walks in the door. Setting limits to what the anonymous mob will do with the Sharpie and posterboard is eminently reasonable, and indeed, necessary.

I agree with the sentiments expressed by mycroft. Banning all signs, for fear that once in a great long while someone will show up with an offensive sign, or requiring that all participants wear a blindfold, for fear that one of the teams will use the opportunity to recreate the Aristocrats joke for the audience's enjoyment, is overkill.

[TimG]

fred, on Oct 22 2007, 08:35 PM, said:

They have to come up with the best way they can to deliver the message "please don't do that again".

Maybe they could put signs up at the site of the next trials.

[fred]

jonottawa, on Oct 23 2007, 03:34 PM, said:

"If a nice tolerant congenial guy like me has been forced to lay down the law, certainly a bunch of stuffy old suits running an international bridge organization will reason similarly."

To me, the 2 situations aren't remotely analogous.

Here is the part that is analogous:

Both BBO and the WBF could be hurt very badly by visitors to their site/events making overt public political statements.

It therefore makes sense (to me at least) for both BBO and the WBF to take whatever steps they think are necessary to prevent that from happening.

Of course things will only get worse if such steps have side effects that are worse than the problems they are trying to prevent. I don't think that is even close to being the case here, but that is admittedly a subjective opinion.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[glen]

On BBO one will have to ban more than just "political statements" - there is a whole range of non-bridge statements that would get lots of other members upset. So if the BBO rule is just Fred's "players cannot put political statements in the profiles" it will have to expanded at some point. Likewise the WBF needs to consider not only "political signs", but all types of signs that might appear at future events.

[helene_t]

To me the most important difference between the two problems is that I suppose that on BBO, abuse@ gets flooded with complaints about sociopatic behaviour, as well as complaints from hysterics who feel offended by anything. I have no opinion about the specific "no politics" rules, but it's clear to me that abuse@ needs some rules that enables as many complaints as possible to be dealt with in a semi-automatic way.