[diana_eva]

 isityou, on 2012-July-14, 02:10, said:

Is that really the sticking point and
what makes you suggest money from players would be the solution?
There are different ways of financing such a service but
if that's what BBO are after, so be it.
I think it would be more interesting to hear BBO's views on this issue.

You do realize that BBOSkill is not a BBO site, right? BBOSkill is not affiliated with BBO in any way.

As for BBO's view - all our officials are in Philly right now. They will give an answer when they get back probably.

[hrothgar]

 isityou, on 2012-July-14, 02:10, said:

Is that really the sticking point and what makes you suggest money from players would be the solution?
There are different ways of financing such a service but if that's what BBO are after, so be it.
I think it would be more interesting to hear BBO's views on this issue.

I was suggesting paying the BBOSKILL developers so they could put better hardware in place, spend more time trying to deal with these issues, etc...

A successful Kickstarter camapign would serve a couple useful purposes

1. It would provide the BBOSKILL developers with resources to improve their product
2. It allows third parties to evaluate the success fundraising effort and see whether there is widespread interest in this project

[gnasher]

As I understand it, until now bboskill has used an automated process to extract data from BBO's "myhands" page. By doing this, they used "myhands" for a purpose for which it was obviously not designed. This could be expected to subject it to a greater load than it is designed for, probably slowing it down for legitimate users and/or using resources that BBO would prefer to use elsewhere. Bboskill seem to have done this without first obtaining BBO's permission.

They included the name "BBO" in the name of their service, thereby benefiting from BBO's brand and potentially causing confusion about the status of their service.

And now they hope that BBO will cooperate with them?

[Statto]

What gnasher said.

Whilst rarely intended maliciously, 'hotlinking' can throttle bandwidth of the source website and is an issue: http://essentialkeys...tlinked-images/

[trivela]

BBOskill was a useful service. It would be very nice to see it working again.

[vddvdd]

I agree with most opinions, BBOskill is a usefull service. Helps to evaluate skill level, better to continue to exist somehow.

[advanced]

 TDBluff, on 2012-July-13, 17:31, said:

The message from bboskill.com did NOT ask for money. It is asking for a chance to present its case to BBO officials. It appears to desire linking to BBO's hand records to make the process faster, thereby using less bandwidth or resources.

This rating system was, of course, imperfect. I've never seen one that wasn't. For those of us who try to limit tournaments and club membership to certain skill levels, bboskill was helpful.

BBO has certainly partnered with other groups, and many of the players in our club would like to see the site continued with BBO providing data as needed.

IMPERFECT? It is hopeless, showing the reverse of the capability of a player.

[mike777]

 advanced, on 2012-July-14, 19:16, said:

IMPERFECT? It is hopeless, showing the reverse of the capability of a player.

yes it would be nice if posters could come up with real evidence of their claims.

OTOH if the main point is the site is fun and provides entertainment, that may be enough of a reason.

[advanced]

I vote for Antrax idea:

Let's start BBORandomSkill.com and make it not so random, let's just add 0,5 to 1 level to the lowest levels to make them happy (as they are now with BBOskil). Then ask them for money to help us set it up. They all told us they want it in this forum. This is a goldmine!

 Antrax, on 2012-July-13, 21:51, said:

I totally support BBO management talking with you guys. Now can you stop spamming the forum?
The same can be said about BBORandomSkill.com, the site that returns a consistent random result for a queried username. It's not perfect, but it does help.

[TimG]

The message from BBO has consistently been that they don't want a rating system. The topic has been brought up many times and the response has always been the same. I don't imagine that you're going to get anywhere with a request for BBO to help in creating or maintaining a rating system.

[rduran1216]

lol at the troll job from whoever this is thats creating 500 names.

[YorkieShe]

BBOSkill was a really useful system and I am sorry to see it has vanished. It is something BBO should be introducing themselves as self rating means nothing! It was most helpful to know the true grading of partners and opponents.

[diana_eva]

 rduran1216, on 2012-July-15, 00:53, said:

lol at the troll job from whoever this is thats creating 500 names.

They are not trolling. These are people who were using the bboskill.com site regularly and now post here to show they liked that site and want it back. I think it's a good thing they found the forums, even in this tortuous way, because now they have access to some better advice and references to guide them in their effort to improve.

[rduran1216]

 diana_eva, on 2012-July-15, 05:17, said:

They are not trolling. These are people who were using the bboskill.com site regularly and now post here to show they liked that site and want it back. I think it's a good thing they found the forums, even in this tortuous way, because now they have access to some better advice and references to guide them in their effort to improve.

if you really think these are different people who are creating 20 user names to say the same thing, well thats....ok.

[diana_eva]

 rduran1216, on 2012-July-15, 09:49, said:

if you really think these are different people who are creating 20 user names to say the same thing, well thats....ok.

If you would bother to check before talking you'd see that, even though they are not forum regulars, they are legit bbo members. They have not created names just to spam the forums.

The reason they all come to post all of a sudden is that the bboskill site links to BBO Forums and prompts people to post here to show their support.

Log on web version, type a username in the "Find member" box on the right and you'll see when they created the username and how many logins they have.

YorkieShe 5000+ logins, username created in 2005
vddvdd 500+ logins, created in 2010
trivela 1000+ logins, created in 2010
Jay Silver 400+ logins, created in 2011
schlaks 2000+ logins, created in 2009
dtol 1000+ logins, created in 2009
absalon2 5000+ logins, created in 2005
ipo123 2000+ logins, created in 2006
jamegumb 1000+ logins, created in 2008
baggottm 1000+ logins, created in 2005
davepen 2000+ logins, created in 2005
phall230 300+ logins, created in 2009
verena 6 3000+ logins, created in 2010
friedeggs 4000+ logins, created in 2007
init2winit 45 logins, created in 2010
sln1941 1000+ logins, created in 2010
12three 400+ logins, created in 2008
isityou 300+ logins, created in 2010
TDBluff 5000+ logins, created in 2005
flipm 200+ logins, created in april 2012

This post has been edited by diana_eva: 2012-July-15, 10:44

[gigime]

There's no harm in following your progress with bboskill and knowing the skill level of your partner too. Please bring it back.

[Zelandakh]

 gigime, on 2012-July-16, 01:33, said:

Please bring it back.

I think it is probably important to point out at this stage that BBO has nothing whatsoever to do with "BBO Skill" going away. This was a private website and they made the decision to both open the site and close it knowing full well the position of BBO towards such a service. In truth BBO has been more than generous in this matter, both allowing the site to use the BBO brand, something that now has considerable value in itself, as well as being a drain on BBO bandwidth and thus adding additional costs. BBO would have been well within its rights to block BBO Skill and/or to threaten legal action.

It is quite clear, and has been for many years, that BBO has no desire for a calculated rating system for players. Other sites, which have implemented such systems, are generally much less successful than BBO and all of these rating systems have had difficulties which have had negative impacts on the sites as a whole. Again, BBO Skill here is running directly contrary to a management decision taken by BBO. It is a bit like a bank making a strategic decision not to offer mortgage products below 3% and then having a third party offering 2.5% in their name.

The simple truth here is that a proper business model for BBO Skill would be to negotiate a payment with BBO for the use of their brand (if BBO were even willing) and then to further negotiate access to the BBO hand record database, again for a fee. This would bypass the bandwidth costs for both parties. In return, BBO Skill would be able to calculate more accurate player ratings offline at low cost. The payments to BBO could then be covered by advertising, assuming that enough BBO players visited the site. Naturally I have no idea if this business model would be financially viable, nor even whether BBO would be amenable to the idea. Nonetheless it is the sort of model that a "company" like BBO Skill should be looking for if they wish to provide services such as this in the future.

[moni296]

BBO skill should continue

[cutcorner]

BBO is the great bridge site. But there are many players not worth their rating. If BBO are not going to support BBOSKILL then they should do it themselves. Can BBO give an explanation?

[Kartman_MF]

 schlaks, on 2012-July-12, 05:34, said:

I agree.

I agree too Kartman_MF, good job guys