[Free]

Some gold star insulted me after some discussion at a table. Previously they started complaining about complaining halfway a board was played (8 minutes per board) while we had 12 minutes left.

Can a gold star get away with unsulting people, or should he be punished? The insults in particular were:

1) you want to blame me in munkey play ??????
2) Belgium UNKNOWN Expert pls keep your words OK ????

[paulhar]

Is it acceptable for ANYONE to insult people? You might be able to guess my answer simply because I asked the question.

Quote

2) Belgium UNKNOWN Expert pls keep your words OK ????

On the other hand, maybe he was referring to the fact that unsolicited advice shouldn't be offered in BBO and that he thought you were insulting him.

As a bridge teacher, I know I frequently have to bite my tongue (or my keyboard fingers) for on more boards than not, I want to offer advice. But in most cases I can resist the urge. When the urge gets too strong, I look to partner a particular intermediate player who has requested that I point out his/her mistakes.

The only time I just can't resist the urge is when a player is berating his partner (usually for doing something reasonable) when the player himself committed an atrocity. Yes, I know it's wrong - but he deserves it, and how else can I tell the poor partner that he didn't do anything wrong? (Private messages just aren't as much fun )

[inquiry]

Of course, we don't allow anyone to insult others on BBO, it is written in the rules of the site. But Free, since you are from Belgium, I like paul am reading more into the second quote than a simple insult. He seems to be responding to provokation from you. Just as it is not ok for Gold Stars to insult people, neither is it ok for people to ride them or give them lesson, or insult them... Sounds liek there was a give and take going on here. And posting this in the forum looks like you are over it yet. IF you feel there was abuse, report it to abuse, but I hope your ship is all in order if you do. I suspect there is a second side to this, like all, stories.

ben

[Free]

Well, I'm NOT over it , I got 2 new enemies , and I reported the whole story to abuse . I hope they can understand my point of view... I'm REALLY ANGRY at the moment!!!

[Deanrover]

I'm not sure how useful it is for you to post this. For example, we have abuse@ to deal with this. You state that you have informed us, but you seem willing to go public with your anger before we can try and resolve this ourselves.. Whilst you do not single out the accused, anyone can used Myhands to work out who it was. So either

i) He does not use BBForums in which case he has no right of reply and it is all one sided and unfair or

ii) He exercises his right to reply and this turns into a public slagging match.

I think it would be much more productive to deal with abuse@ and/or try to resolve your differences privately with this individual.

[paulhar]

Darn - I was so close to breaking my old record - 17 hours without ticking anybody off

I sure would like to hear from the three voters that think it's OK to insult people.

BTW, if somebody called me an unknown expert, I would consider it a compliment.

[jtfanclub]

paulhar, on Jul 29 2004, 08:00 PM, said:

I sure would like to hear from the three voters that think it's OK to insult people.

Depends on the situation and the insult.

I mean, does "If you're going to continue to bid like that I'm going to ask for a sub" an insult, or not?

How about "2) Belgium UNKNOWN Expert pls keep your words OK ????"

I don't consider either of those to be particularly insulting.


I don't know what munkey play is, so I don't know if it's an insult or not.

[Dwayne]

Free,

did you really need a poll to determine consensus as to whether it was acceptable for a gold star to insult someone?

As Ben would say...this is a no-brainer.

We all know it's not acceptable for anyone to insult anyone else on BBO. We all know the rules, particularly those among us who read and contribute to the endless posts and threads in this forum.

BBO has the machinations in place to deal with fools like your starred opponent.

You did the right thing by sending the log of your chat to abuse@ but get over it. Or was there another underlying motive behind your original post that I missed?

Introspectively,

Dwayno-Rama.

[the hog]

I can't figure out whether the insulting part was "expert" or "unknown".

[Brandal]

"1) you want to blame me in munkey play ??????
2) Belgium UNKNOWN Expert pls keep your words OK ???? "

I have no idea what the gold star means,but answer to your question is NO

Insults are bad no matter where and who it comes from.

[Trpltrbl]

A lot of gold stars have their stars because of their help to bridge and BBO, not because of their bridgeskills.
And it is never ever good to insult anybody, star or not.
But since stars are the once setting example, I personally would take his/her, but fairly sure he, star away. For Good.

Mike

[Trpltrbl]

The_Hog, on Jul 31 2004, 02:05 AM, said:

I can't figure out whether the insulting part was "expert" or "unknown".

Hehehe

Mike

[sceptic]

If I posted everytime someone left halfway through a hand, or even called me stupid, cos I did something stupid. then this forum would be full of posts.

I think either use abuse or add them to your black list, I see no benifit to air dirty linen in public.

[pclayton]

I get p.o.'d myself occasionally. Since Free is a valued contributor, I don't mind reading a few lines of his ire - big deal. It gets it off his chest, certainly. When Free feel closure, he can delete his post and close the thread if he wants.

I would hope that all Gold Stars have them because they either represent their country or have one national-level events. At least thats what I think are the official reasons. I've never thought about conduct before, but I don't think it weighs too heavy; maybe it should.

Like Free (i'm sure) - there may be an undercurrent here; that many gold stars could not hold a candle in terms of skill to a lot of the contributors to BBF. But thats not the main point I guess.

[luke warm]

i've been lucky so far, i guess... i've played with quite a few really good players on bbo and haven't had anyone berate me (at least publicly )

i can't tell by free's post exactly what happened, but there's no place for insults here or anywhere else... we all have different ideas of what's insulting (to me it's insulting anytime one partner berates another in public, maybe since it's something i religiously try to avoid - it's *especially* insulting for one to talk about his partner to the kibbers)... i try to assume that my pard's bids and plays are in good faith, and he did what he thought best at the time, regardless of the result

[Trpltrbl]

pclayton, on Aug 13 2004, 04:23 PM, said:

I would hope that all Gold Stars have them because they either represent their country or have won national-level events. At least thats what I think are the official reasons.

If that would be true, half the stars would be starless ( probably even more ).

Mike

[TimG]

pclayton, on Aug 13 2004, 04:23 PM, said:

When Free feel closure, he can delete his post and close the thread if he wants.

How do you delete a post?

[inquiry]

TimG, on Aug 13 2004, 11:45 PM, said:

pclayton, on Aug 13 2004, 04:23 PM, said:

When Free feel closure, he can delete his post and close the thread if he wants.

How do you delete a post?

I think the original poster can delete a post up until someone responds to it. After that it can not be deleted. Now, I have to admit that this is my recollection from before I became a moderator, and goes back to the original software used for this forum (before the update). Therefore this may not be true. As a moderator, I have a delete button that works all the time, so I can't test this hypothesis.

Ben

[pclayton]

I suppose - but you can certainly edit a post, deleting all the text, which effectively deletes it.

[TimG]

pclayton, on Aug 14 2004, 03:32 PM, said:

I suppose - but you can certainly edit a post, deleting all the text, which effectively deletes it.

On some message board, deleting a post removes all follow-ups, too. Or, deletes the entire thread if you started it. So, just blanking out the text isn't quite the same.