[UdcaDenny]

I was a very popular TD for may years but 3 years ago I made one mistake and my TD-rights were taken away. So many times I have asked for forgiveness and wanting to know how long time my punishement will last but I never get any answers. There are other TD:s who done similar or even worse things than me that after a period got a second chance. So please give me a try.

udcadenny

[inquiry]

Initial TD powers are give by TD at bridgebase dot com. Once a player is given this power, then ABUSE at bridgebase dot com becomes responsible for deciding the status of the directors. It is abuse that decides to remove TD power, and it is only abuse that can decide if and or when they are restored. It is very much easier to get initial TD power (simply ask for it) than it is to get TD power restored once Abuse has taken it away.

From this, you can tell that obviously, some TD's lose their rights for a short period of time (repeated minor violations), some for intermediate amount of time (for more serious violations), while many others who lose their rights lose them forever (where forever is from the time they were taken away and into the foreseeable future).

The person with the power of abuse has changed since your TD rights were removed, and if the new abuse is still not letting you back in, that means two different people with the power to re-instate your TD power decided against it.

I can not imagine a public posting in this forum is going to help your case (get TD power back), but just so you can rest assured you are not along, there are a several other TDs who have lost their TD rights, and like you have not have them reinstated.

IN CONCLUSION: The only way for anyone who has had their TD power returned to them once it has been taken away is to negotiate/convince abuse that whatever was the problem that caused them to have their TD ability removed will never happen again. Ex-TD’s who post here about their disputes or have some of their ex-tournament players write abuse on their behalf are probably not doing themselves any favors. A better approach is to review why they had their rights removed and make efforts to show (promise?) that such violations will not occur again.

[hrothgar]

Wow...

Banned for 3+ years for one mistake
I'd LOVE to know what you did.

I know that we shouldn't dish about others, but surely you can provide a explanation of your own past sins. Indeed, as I understand matters, criminals are sometimes require to eloqute (anyone have a clue how to spell this)

[goodwintr]

allocute

[hrothgar]

goodwintr, on Jan 17 2009, 08:20 PM, said:

allocute

trust the lawyer to know this

(Thanks for the help)

[JoAnneM]

I don't get it. Inquiry made a very nice point (twice) that this person's case should not be presented on this forum - that it could only hurt him - and then in the very next post you ask him to do that very thing.

[hrothgar]

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 07:23 PM, said:

I don't get it.  Inquiry made a very nice point (twice) that this person's case should not be presented on this forum - that it could only hurt him - and then in the very next post you ask him to do that very thing.

I think that we are reading Ben's posting very differently:

Ben most certainly explained that public posts in this forum aren't an effective way to get TD privledges restored. However, he didn't disallow (or even dissuade) conversation.

As an outsider, I have little / no interest in what the most effective way for UDCA Denny to get to host tournaments once again.

However, as a consumer who might play in a tournament that he hosts, I have strong interest understand what kind of sillyness he pulled in the past.

I'm even more interested in understanding whether he is capable of honestly discussing said transgression...

[JoAnneM]

I wonder why this forum is even open to non-bbo directors. Surely there is a private forum where they can all discuss things like this. If not, there should be. Even on JBridge the director forums are private.

[jillybean]

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 10:32 AM, said:

I wonder why this forum is even open to non-bbo directors.  Surely there is a private forum where they can all discuss things like this.  If not, there should be.  Even on JBridge the director forums are private.

I doubt this was an issue worthy of discussion in a Director Forum, you don’t have your TD privileges removed for making terrible TD decisions.

I dont understand why TD forums should be private and much prefer open discussion of problems, everyone learns in that scenario. (For issues on laws of course, not on conduct issues)

[hrothgar]

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 08:32 PM, said:

I wonder why this forum is even open to non-bbo directors. Surely there is a private forum where they can all discuss things like this. If not, there should be. Even on JBridge the director forums are private.

This might horrify you, but I am a BBO director (for all that is worth)

More significantly, this isn't an issue that effects other directors in any way shape or form. There are two classes of stakeholders that have a direct interest in Denny's actions:

BBO - the authority that grants Denny the right to run tournaments.

Players at large - the poor saps who might sit down at an event being run by said director

I've sen all sorts of attempts for groups of directors to shield themselves from any kind of accountability. Never been impressed by the individuals involved or the basic motivation.

[JoAnneM]

BBO is a privately owned site, is it not? I don't think that the decisions made by management are very much our business.

Discussing Bridge Law is one thing, expecting to make judgments, or even hear about, their management decisions is something far different. Maybe this is part of my history of spending a career in a privately held company, but I tend to not believe that everyone is entitled to know everything.

[matmat]

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

BBO is a privately owned site, is it not? I don't think that the decisions made by management are very much our business.

interesting. so suppose a company that specializes in serving submarine sandwiches fires someone for putting glass shards in with the lettuce, and then, after the person promises to stop doing so, rehires them. Do you think the customers should be oblivious of this employee's previous transgression?

this is not quite the same as this situation, as here the OP is not in any way an employee of BBO, but the spirit is similar.

[qwery_hi]

matmat, on Jan 18 2009, 05:41 PM, said:

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

BBO is a privately owned site, is it not?  I don't think that the decisions made by management are very much our business.

interesting. so suppose a company that specializes in serving submarine sandwiches fires someone for putting glass shards in with the lettuce, and then, after the person promises to stop doing so, rehires them. Do you think the customers should be oblivious of this employee's previous transgression?

this is not quite the same as this situation, as here the OP is not in any way an employee of BBO, but the spirit is similar.

I didn't know what a submarine sandwich was before reading this!

from (http://en.wikipedia....rine_sandwiches)

A submarine sandwich, also known as a hero, hoagie, grinder, sub, Italian sandwich, po' boy, wedge, zep, or torpedo....

[uday]

I'm happy to discuss stuff in the abstract. My experience has been that it is unprofitable to use public forums to discuss specific cases.

We're pretty relaxed about who gets TD rights. Generally it takes no more than some experience on BBO and being unknown to the abuse group. Having fewer than 5,000 aliases is a plus.

TD rights give the TD the ability to affect the BBO experience of multiple players. The vast majority of TDs run their tourneys however they please, with no interference from us, and by all indications do a fine job while having fun.

We bend over backwards to avoid interfering.

Some TDs misuse TD rights. They might use chat->Tourney for some non-bridge agenda ("Free the whales") or the T for some personal but objectionable agenda ("No one from Antarctica allowed"). They might stalk another TD, creating Ts just as another T is scheduled to run (identical settings) to "steal" players. They might be abusive to the players. They might be abusive to the staff. They might adjust boards they played. They might start tourneys and not be there to run them. They might start tourneys and not manage them. They might......

Etc. etc. etc.

When this happens we usually warn, then revoke TD rights. Sometimes we simply revoke TD rights. Doesn't happen a lot, but I might have seen a dozen or so TDs lose TD rights over the years. Sometimes we restore them later. Sometimes we don't.


U

[orlam]

JoAnneM, on Jan 18 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

BBO is a privately owned site, is it not? I don't think that the decisions made by management are very much our business.

Discussing Bridge Law is one thing, expecting to make judgments, or even hear about, their management decisions is something far different. Maybe this is part of my history of spending a career in a privately held company, but I tend to not believe that everyone is entitled to know everything.

I think a business that accepts the contributions of many hundreds of volunteers to their platform has some responsibility towards these volunteers. (*) I find it very surprising that you find the company you worked for comparable to BBO, did you also have many volunteers contributing to a platform your company was running? Good for you, such a company is usually very exciting!

(T*= his does not mean discussing specific cases on a public forum, but it can't hurt to announce some general guidelines.)

[shintaro]

Surely the withdrawal of TD rights is down to those running the site, I assume that if any ban is put in place the Banned person is notified as to Why?

Thus they should really take it up with the management not air it in public

[Old York]

Hi

If the OP no longer has the right to create Tournaments, does this also mean that he cannot work as a director in any other tournament? (perhaps on probation??)

I had assumed that any bbo player could be added as a director into any tournament, this practice is flawed, but necessary for learner TDs.

There is a major difference between tournament directors and tournament hosts, ultimately the buck stops with the host

Tony (Duke of York)

[1eyedjack]

Out of interest, is there anything to stop a banned TD from simply creating a new "clean" account and from that account requesting TD privileges?

As to the discussion point, on this and on many other issues re BBO management I find openness a refreshing and attractive feature. Doubtless BBO management would be within its rights to keep close to its chest many operational matters that it chooses to leave in the public domain, but having the right to keep something private and whether it is in their best interests to exercise that right are not necessarily one and the same.

As regards whether it is inadvisable for the OP to raise the point here, he does say that his requests for feedback through official channels have been stonewalled, so I am unpersuaded by advice that he rely on official channels

[inquiry]

I will try to correctly answer the questions in the last two post as well as I can. My answers are from what I have observed and are not necessarily the official view of the BBO.

A person who is banned as a TD is usually warned a few times before a ban occurs. And in any event is told why they lost their TD power if and when that occurs.

Can a banned TD host be added as a director of someone else's tournament? The answer is yes. Since there is no way for the approved host to officially know another person has been banned, this can and does happen. The action of the banned TD in the approved host tournament is the responsibility of the approved host. Generally, if and when the BBO discovers this is happening, the approved host will get either a warning that they risk losing their rights if the banned host misbehaves, or they are ordered to stop using the banned person as a TD. In all honestly, until someone complains about the banned host acting as a director (misbehaving), the BBO doesn't know he is directing again.

Creating a "clean" account is possible, but might not be as easy as you assume. New members, are not generally given tournament powers, but I am not sure of that. Certainly an new account created this week would never be given TD powers.

Let me give a few examples of why someone might lose their TD powers. Creating clockless tournaments and then logging off when they start (repeatedly). If you are in one of these, you are pretty much stuck unless you have a second log in name. If you exit the program, and come back, you are sucked back into the event. These players have been stuck sometimes for hours (contact a yellow who will cancel the tournament if this happens to you). Other examples are repeatedly scheduling tournaments and not being here there when they start (not quite the same as the first example, but close), never replacing any sitouts in their tournaments, posting to the entire tournament accusations that a named player is cheating (this is something they need to handle privately or by messaging abuse), calling named players in the event idiots, posting to the tournament sexually explicit messages, posting long rambling political messages to the tournament, etc. The list is fairly endless, there are more. Even some of these only results in a warning the first time, or a short "time-out" from directing. Some of these events might not only lose the ability to direct, they can get the person banned from the entire site as a player as well.

As for stonewalling. If someone has had their rights removed, the reason why was explained. Writing once a year to request it be re-instated I guess is ok, but I seriously don't think continued refusal to restore "permanently" removed rights can be considered stonewalling. Perhaps you meant a different term, but the appeal process does go through the presiding judge in these cases (well, in this specific case, the person who handles abuse has changed, but the decision to leave it permanent has not).

[1eyedjack]

Thanks for the update.

I think that it is not unreasonable for an individual to be informed of the duration of the ban (assuming subsequent good behaviour). Perhaps he was, but but the original post suggests otherwise. The original post also suggests that requests for clarification on this point were ignored. If true, I do not think that it is appropriate. That is all that I meant by "stonewalled".