[1eyedjack]

Once a player has chatted to you or to the table, you can do all sorts of nice things. You can chat to him privately (if he is not your partner at the time) by left clicking on his name adjacent to his chat message. Or you can right click on the same name and pop up a menu of all sorts of goodies.

And while he is actually sitting at the table you can achieve much of the same by clicking (left or right) on his name at the table seat.

But there is a very minor irritation if the player leaves the table without first having issued any chat at any time while present. If you want to send a chat message to him, or to update your player notes for him in your representation of his profile, then there is nothing clickable to identify him.

The problem is compounded if he was not the person sitting in that seat when the hand was first dealt, because on conclusion of the hand the result is credited to the original sitter. So you cannot even rely on the results table to identify the player. Or the table host may redeal before the hand is completed, having much the same effect.

I have a possible solution to suggest.

When you join a table, the system immediately sends you a series of messages auto-generated by the server, along the following lines:

IamNorth --> is sitting North
Robot ---> is sitting East
IamWest ---> is sitting West
IamKibber ----> is kibitzing

You get the gist

NOW, if "IamNorth" leaves the table without previously sending chat, I would still have that message "IamNorth ---> is sitting North" in my chat window on which I can left-click or right-click or whatever, should I wish to avail myself of the normal features that would otherwise have been available to me had he chatted to the table before leaving.

Not all users might desire this feature. Some may find it positively irritating to clutter the chat window with such server messages. Sooooo - provide a facility to switch these messages on or off according to user preference, much as we can currently switch off announcements that a new viewgraph table has opened up.

Just thought I would run that up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it.

[barmar]

Switch the right sidebar to "Who's Online", type the player's name into the "Find member" field, and their profile will pop up.

If you just want to send them a chat message you can click on the field to the left of the chat input line, and type their username there.

Quote

The problem is compounded if he was not the person sitting in that seat when the hand was first dealt, because on conclusion of the hand the result is credited to the original sitter. So you cannot even rely on the results table to identify the player. Or the table host may redeal before the hand is completed, having much the same effect.

That's only an issue if you played only part of one hand with the player. How often do you need to reconnect with someone you've barely played with in the first place? Other than to argue with him about whatever it was that caused him to run away when the hand was over.

[Antrax]

It's useful to mark him as enemy (or put a note on his profile) when he runs away in the middle of a hand - I've had this happen to me once.
[edit]
Also useful vs. hosts that boot you in the middle of the first hand.

[1eyedjack]

The above suggestions are all very well if you can remember the name of the player, of which the precise spelling may be critical.

And I am not suggesting getting into an argument. I did mention updating player profile notes as an option.

Incidentally, on a related topic, ability to update player profile notes after they have logged off would be nice. Not a new request, I know, but repeated here due to close correlation with the subject.

[1eyedjack]

I suppose an alternative workaround would be habitually to open and "pin" the profiles of everyone to whom you might theoretically wish to chat or update profile notes depending on speculative (and for the most part unlikely) future events. I don't consider that to be a preferable workaround to the original suggestion. Indeed, in general the fact that there may be alternative workarounds available does not make them superior, although I agree it reduces the priority of the problem.

Indeed it is my observation that most times a suggestion is made for an improvement the powers that be consider it an adequate rebuttal to the suggestion that there is an alternative workaround available, however relatively inconvenient that workaround might be. Just an impression received over the ages. I could be wrong.

[1eyedjack]

Here is an additional potential benefit to the OP suggestion that came up recently.

I was playing at a table with a pickup partner, who at no time issued any chat to table. On this occasion we played more than one hand, so I did have a record of the player from this result history, and yet even so if the OP suggestion had been implemented at the time it would have assisted for the reasons given below.

At one point CHO had put himself into a ridiculous contract and bailed at about trick 11. A quick and immediate search showed him playing at another table. I sent him a PM which said nothing other than "welcome to my blacklist". (I don't think that it is unreasonable that such players be educated that such actions have negative impacts on their reputations)

Anyway, CHO responded that he had been disconnected. Although unlikely it was a theoretical possibility. As soon as he had vacated my table his place had been replaced by another player, and however fast I search it takes a finite amount of time to find him playing at another table, during which time he might have been disconnected, reconnected, found his place occupied at my table and sat somewhere else. Unlikely, but possible.

So I have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Had my OP suggestion been implemented, the message
"Bailer ---> is sitting North"
would have turned red when he is disconnected as claimed, and had the message remained the default colour I would know that he had not been disconnected and know that I would be justified in blacklisting him.

If the full implementation of the OP is unpalatable, then a compromise that caters just for this specific scenario might be for the server to send a message to the table in the event of a disconnection:
"Bailer ---> has left BBO"
At the very least this would identify "Bailer"'s name, if not available from other means.
Habitual bailers would I think counter this by ensuring that they disconnect every time that they bail, rather than just leaving the table. But not everyone would think of that, and in any event I am all in favour of putting them to that extra inconvenience.

[barmar]

1eyedjack, on 2013-January-21, 02:36, said:

At one point CHO had put himself into a ridiculous contract and bailed at about trick 11. A quick and immediate search showed him playing at another table. I sent him a PM which said nothing other than "welcome to my blacklist". (I don't think that it is unreasonable that such players be educated that such actions have negative impacts on their reputations)

I meant my comment about arguing with them to include inflammatory and/or insulting comments like this.

I can see the point about wanting to bring up their profile so you can mark them as an enemy. But there's not much construcive that will come from sending them a message like that. You may think of it as instructive, but they'll just view it as you calling them an A-hole.

[1eyedjack]

And that I take it is your argument that the suggestion is on balance a bad idea.

Fair enough, I am content.

In fact I have a somewhat higher opinion of bailers than you seem to think. I believe, granted without any scientific foundation, that most bailers would not do so if they expected to be blacklisted for so doing, and that the fact that they do so indicates (to me) that they lack that expectation. Correcting that misapprehension should be viewed as a positive influence.

[barmar]

1eyedjack, on 2013-January-21, 15:14, said:

And that I take it is your argument that the suggestion is on balance a bad idea.

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, just that one of your reasons for wanting it isn't very persuasive. Basically, you seem to want it so you can "get the last word" with a player who annoyed you. I doubt that the bailers really care that some random partner is going to mark them as an enemy. There are thousands of randoms to play with, what's one less?

And the annoyance factor of always displaying those chat messages may not be worth the other benefits of this feature. We try to keep user preferences to a minimum (Fred is always conscious of the plethora of options that the old version has, and wants to avoid a similar mess in the new version, and even more so in the mobile version), so a preference needs to be pretty important.

Maybe what we should add is a "Recent partners" button.

[1eyedjack]

barmar, on 2013-January-22, 11:22, said:

Maybe what we should add is a "Recent partners" button.

I get equally annoyed when an opponent bails.
But for the time being I can just concentrate on remembering the ID.