[Pixiewood]

I am playing in the casual area, find a table. I cannot believe the abuse, am I an 'idiot', am I drunk and there is worse still. What is wrong with everyone. These words would not be said face to face. This is the last place we should be receiving abuse or indeed witnessing. Its a disgrace.

[hrothgar]

Welcome to the Internet

[johnu]

Dozens, maybe hundreds, of topics like yours over the years.

e.g. Another abuse topic

The recommendation is to take a screenshot of the abusive text and send to abuse@bridgebase.com

Instead of keeping discipline secret, IMO BBO should prominently advertise usernames that have been kicked off BBO and the reasons.

[pilowsky]

The simplest way to stop yourself from being abused on the casual table is to start your own table.
That way, when you don't like the cut of someone's gib, you can boot them yourself.

[patcanuck]

If you want an overall experience with how much abuse there is: turn on Lobby Chat. I've done it a couple times and was horrified at how many times I saw abuse being hurled at another player (but the person behind the vilifying was too stupid to know it was going to the lobby). Even contacted BBO but all I got was a standard explanation of how it was possible to report a person.
Might just be me but there seems to be a growing number of 'keyboard warriors' venting on other players

[darheron]

I am appalled by the level of vitriol spat out by certain individuals.
I shall never ever visit your demonic site again.As for the so called game of bridge,you can keep it!

[thesidster]

Pixiewood, on 2021-September-21, 12:46, said:

I am playing in the casual area, find a table. I cannot believe the abuse, am I an 'idiot', am I drunk and there is worse still. What is wrong with everyone. These words would not be said face to face. This is the last place we should be receiving abuse or indeed witnessing. Its a disgrace.

You have hit the reason yourself in your statement above - "it would not be said face to face".

Over the last 3 decades, as the internet and virtual interaction came to dominate the lives of
millions of individuals, the concept of a face - a live, feeling person - disappeared from the
thoughts of many who lived their lives on the keyboard. Needless to say, this wasnt so bad
in the earlier days, the 90s and early noughties, when I used to play online on the fledgling
internet. People were a lot more courteous in general, and we often discussed sports, art,
many other things while playing a few rounds. The card play was almost secondary to the social
nature which used to be such a dominant ethos of the game. After all, most of us were no
champions, and we all knew that.

People born after the internet became a dominant thing, many of them have probably not played
a game of bridge ( or chess, or whatever ) "face-to-face".

[decosier]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-21, 19:29, said:

The simplest way to stop yourself from being abused on the casual table is to start your own table.
That way, when you don't like the cut of someone's gib, you can boot them yourself.

If only that worked. Booting a player just creates an empty spot that can't be filled by either a person or a robot. Everything comes to a stop and you have to leave the table if you want to continue.

[barmar]

decosier, on 2025-December-31, 19:24, said:

If only that worked. Booting a player just creates an empty spot that can't be filled by either a person or a robot. Everything comes to a stop and you have to leave the table if you want to continue.

Why can't it be filled?

Whenever I've played at a casual table, and one of the players gets disconnected, we immediately start getting requests by randoms to fill the seat.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2026-January-01, 17:26, said:

Why can't it be filled?

Whenever I've played at a casual table, and one of the players gets disconnected, we immediately start getting requests by randoms to fill the seat.

I would much rather fill it with a robot than a random.
Is that possible, paying or not?