[bluejak]

This is the home of the Changing Laws & Regulations forum, part of the International Bridge Laws set of forums. While we are hosted by BBO, this is not an online bridge facility, but it is a general forum for discussion of rules, primarily in face-to-face play. Of course online problems are welcome as well.

This particular forum is to understand changes that have occurred in both Laws and Regulations. Also to suggest changes that might be made. While we cannot guarantee anyone will listen to our ideas, at least if we discuss them thoroughly and make them sensible and consistent authorities might be more willing to listen.

However, a word of warning. This is not meant to be an alternative to the bridge-laws mailing list, BLML. We are not looking for petty ideas which could be argued from an overly pedantic approach: this forum is still meant [as the other ones here] for people who want to understand in fairly simple fashion why Laws & Regulations have become what they are, to suggest sensible improvements, or to find out why what they think are improvements will not work.

Do not worry too much if you put something in the wrong forum: Ed Reppert or I will move it. Ed Reppert and I would like to see suitable queries from anywhere. We ask people who start threads to say where the query is from, which country, or put online if suitable. It is often helpful to use the "Topic Description" entry for the jurisdiction.

[blackshoe]

It is not the policy of the IBLF to demean posters here, or to attempt to destroy their credibility without justification (if someone makes a post that is clearly not credible, I feel sure that we moderators won't be the only ones to say so). It is the policy of the IBLF to avoid flame wars whenever possible, even if that means locking threads, or deleting posts. Some ire is natural if you feel the moderators have not handled a problem well, or indeed have contributed to it, but escalating the problem is not the way to handle it. Whatever the reason behind them, posts escalating the problem will be dealt with as problem posts; the underlying original problem will be dealt with separately.

I would ask anyone who has a problem with any post here to let the moderators (David and I) know. We will deal with it as quickly and fairly as we can. If someone has a problem with one of the moderators, contact the other one. Hopefully we won't have much of that.

[bluejak]

The BBO forums, so good otherwise, do not have a spellchekka. How can one get a spellchekka which will work with these forums? The solution is to use Google.

ieSpell was the first on the list when googled - and it seems pretty good. The icon goes on the toolbar - very useful - and there is a choice of language: English [US], English [UK], and English [Canada] - sorry, Australia! While it does not know Dhondy, KJxx or 3NT, it learns.

Overall ieSpell seems pretty good, certainly much better than the spellchekka at our previous location. To find it, look at the ieSpell website.

[bluejak]

While we are pleased with BBO for providing a home for IBLF and the three related fora it seems sad if we were to lose all the previous threads. But I have good news: we have not lost them.

If you want to look at our threads from the Bridgetalk days - or even the threads before that - please look here. Thanks to Matthew Johnson for recovering the Bridgetalk threads.

[bluejak]

Normal abbreviations in these forums.

MI: misinformation
CPU: concealed partnership understanding
UI: unauthorised information
LA: logical alternative
BIT: break in tempo
AI: authorised information
IB: insufficient bid
CC: convention card
SC: system card
SEWoG: serious error, wild or gambling action

OP: original poster [or original post]
TD: tournament director
DIC: director in charge
AC: appeals committee
PP: procedural penalty
DP: disciplinary penalty
TO: tournament organiser
RA: regulating authority
CoC: conditions of contest

BBO: Bridge Base Online
OLB: online bridge
F2F: face-to-face bridge

Please specify your country when starting a new thread, or specify "online".

[bluejak]

If you want to quote from more than one post in a thread then you press the MultiQuote button by each post [it changes colour] that you want to quote. Then you press the Add Reply button and it has quoted all the posts you want.

Note that when you quote a post that already contains a quote it does not include that quote. Assuming that the quote in such a post is from another post, the way to include it is to use the MultiQuote feature. Some editing may be necessary.

When you use a hand diagram there is a box under each call. If you put something in there [for example, 'Alerted' or '12 to 14'] before you name the call, the call will appear in the diagram in a Yellow box, and your comment will appear if you click on it.

[bluejak]

It is often unsuitable for players to be named in cases posted to these four forums, unless a poster is naming himself, or has the agreement of the person named. So posts should generally not name players, though giving the perceived level of a player is normal. If a poster considers a post should name a player or players for a particular reason he can seek advice from a moderator first, giving the reason.