[hrothgar]

Few comments here:

Comment 1: A number of people seem to be focusing on the feedback system as a tool that director's can use to improve their performance. I think that this is a useful feature of the proposed feedback system, however, the primary reason to adopt this type of structure is to allow players to make informed decisions regarding which tournament directors that they should frequent.

Comment 2: A number of TD's have expressed concern that players will evaluate their performance based on the rantings over a small number of cranks rather than the the valuable services that they are providing to the community as a whole. As I noted EBay's rating system provides a very good example of the system that I am proposing. The EBay rating system provides a complete listing of all transactions that a buyer/seller has participated in, along with any direct comments that individuals wish to attach. This allows individuals to make informed judgements based on the ratio of incidents (good or bad) relative to the total number of transactions.

Comment 3: Reputation based systems like the one used on EBay punish individuals who don't participate. People without established reputations on EBay have much more difficulty buying/selling large expensive items. Simple put, if individuals are unwilling to participate, the system presumes that they have something to hide.

[luke warm]

this will (hopefully) be my last post on this subject... however, i must clear up something.. you said,

Quote

irdoz:
Not only do you say this proposal should be 'welcomed' because it 'would help me improve' - This advanced logic entirely escapes me

the logic isn't advanced, it's rather elementary... the reason it escapes you migt have something to do with the fact that you misquote me... i didn't say the proposal would help YOU, i said "i know i'd welcome it if it helped me improve"... see? not you, me... straw men are very easy to knock down

Quote

irdoz:
but you label resistance to the idea as 'hard to understand'.

i said it's hard for ME to understand why a td wouldn't want to have his or her rulings rated by an objective authority... that means, if i was a td i'd certainly welcome this (as long as it wasn't open to every player with a gripe, which is one reason i'm against richard's sweeping feedback suggestion... that has merit, but it can lead to too much fluff, too much flaming, imo)

Quote

irdoz:
A method that is obviously inefficient and impractical suddenly becomes something that would improve my knowledge

first of all, i don't believe it is inefficient and impractical... that's simply your bald assertion... from my view, what could be more efficient, more practical, than having bbo's tournament tds undergo the same kind of scrutiny (by a higher authority) that r/l tournament tds do?

Quote

irdoz:
Interesting logic this advanced logic stuff.

it can be, yes.. as for the "i can't" thing you keep referring to, ok fine... you can say anything you want... however, arguing contraditory positions is inherently illogical...

finally for richard's ebay analogy... my wife and i have been ebayites for at least 4 years... i can say without fear of contradiction that there's a great deal of quid pro quo re: feedbacks... this might have no bearing on his proposal, but i do think there's a possibility that most players who would rate tds probably don't have the necessary knowledge of the rules to make their ratings meaningful... for everyone who does, like richard, there are possibly many more who don't

i could be wrong on that, but it is my opinion

[irdoz]

Lukewarm - It was no bald assertion - it was a considered response explained in full to the proposal as you outlined it. The 'me' was correctly in quotes and therefore does not refer to me (not in quotes) - your attempts at semantic games incorrect.

There is a difference between welcoming being rated by a mentor director and agreeing to spend an immense amount of time to achieve this.

And here is the bald assertion...

Quote

from my view, what could be more efficient, more practical, than having bbo's tournament tds undergo the same kind of scrutiny (by a higher authority) that r/l tournament tds do

Your proposal as you have explained it has no similarity to what happens to r/l directors. I happen to be an r/l director. Your statement above is not just a bald assertion - it is verifiably wrong. Yes in r/l there are appeals, rulings advisory contacts from national bridge organisations. formal training, newsletters and director mentoring schemes. None of them involve documenting every ruling for peer review. None of them are in any way similar to what you are suggesting as you have explained it. Parallel sorts of systems for online directors would be a good idea.

[DrTodd13]

A useful metric for rating tourney hosts may be complaints per tables served. A flat number doesn't mean much unless you know how many tables have been served. 10 complaints out of 1,000,000 tables served would be good. We just need a way to keep track of table served and to limit the number of complaints to one person per tourney. You can always leave a comment if you think the director got more than one ruling wrong for you in the tourney.

Tourney hosts need to recognize that some people in their tourneys are in fact experts on the law and they could learn from them.

[McBruce]

If we're going to keep a "batting average", we need to distinguish between complaints with merit and complaints which prove to be without merit. In this case the Director (me) admitted fault as soon as possible, changed the score on his website (not possible to change the BBO score) and did so despite considerable abuse. Still, I got it wrong initially. Does this count against my record? (If not, why did I bother?)

"Tourney hosts need to recognize that some people in their tourneys are in fact experts on the law and they could learn from them."

Everyone is an expert on the law when they feel they have been ruled against unfairly. I think more players should understand that their competitive instinct gets in the way of their judgment when a decision will affect their score. Let the TD deal with it. If you disagree, ask the TD-once, and calmly-to review it later, or appeal the ruling. There really is no sense getting worked up about a decision for which you, as a contestant, are never going to be able to see as a neutral party. That is why we have TDs and appeal committees.

[mink]

Quote

luke warm:
first of all, i don't believe it is inefficient and impractical... that's simply your bald assertion...

In my oppinion irdoz made that point clear in some post before, and I am very astonished that you still believe your idea is a good one. I shall explain again why it is inefficient and impractical, maybe this will help.

You are proposing that a tournament director should post his decisions to a forum where they are reviewed by some authority that gives feedback if deemed necessary. This implies that all decisions should be posted, because if the director selects among the decisions he has made, he probably omits one that is clear to himself but still wrong. Now imagine a 12-board tourney with 40 tables/director, and asume that a director makes 10 decisions there, which sounds rather few. Each should be documented with a hand diagram, the bidding, the relevant chat log, all with names changed. And of couse there should be given some reason for the decision. This can be even non-trivial for an adjustment of an unfinished board, if you adjust to a non-artificial score though there are more than one possible results, but you think the one you adjusted to is the most likely one. My rough estimation is that this takes 15 minutes per decision, so that you are busy for total 2.5 hours after a tourney that lasted 1.5 hours if all went well. I call this inefficient! And because it is inefficient, you will hardly find a director who would be willing to do it, therefore it is impractical.

Karl

[DrTodd13]

mink, on Aug 10 2004, 07:49 AM, said:

Quote

luke warm:
first of all, i don't believe it is inefficient and impractical... that's simply your bald assertion...

In my oppinion irdoz made that point clear in some post before, and I am very astonished that you still believe your idea is a good one. I shall explain again why it is inefficient and impractical, maybe this will help.

You are proposing that a tournament director should post his decisions to a forum where they are reviewed by some authority that gives feedback if deemed necessary. This implies that all decisions should be posted, because if the director selects among the decisions he has made, he probably omits one that is clear to himself but still wrong. Now imagine a 12-board tourney with 40 tables/director, and asume that a director makes 10 decisions there, which sounds rather few. Each should be documented with a hand diagram, the bidding, the relevant chat log, all with names changed. And of couse there should be given some reason for the decision. This can be even non-trivial for an adjustment of an unfinished board, if you adjust to a non-artificial score though there are more than one possible results, but you think the one you adjusted to is the most likely one. My rough estimation is that this takes 15 minutes per decision, so that you are busy for total 2.5 hours after a tourney that lasted 1.5 hours if all went well. I call this inefficient! And because it is inefficient, you will hardly find a director who would be willing to do it, therefore it is impractical.

Karl

Couldn't most of this information be collected automatically by the software with only the explanation left to be typed by the director? The software could help quite a bit here. It could keep track of bidding delays for use in UI decisions. The software could also reject claims that are bad (such as claiming all the tricks when no possible line of play would yield that result or claiming 0 tricks when some greater number of tricks must be won).

[chicoine]

The last comment .


Since i played bridge (20 years), it is the FIRST TIME that I saw bad behavior from a TD.

[1eyedjack]

chicoine, on Aug 10 2004, 11:18 PM, said:

The last comment .


Since i played bridge (20 years), it is the FIRST TIME that I saw bad behavior from a TD.

Hmm

I cannot see any evidence of bad behaviour by TD, even from the evidence of your own previous postings. All I see is an incorrect ruling, subsequently corrected.

[Mirjam_3]

I wouldnot mind to post all my rulings but i have 3 reasons not to do so:
a. it means i have to write down all my arguments for my decisions and YOU need to read them...
b. the majority of my decisions are never discussed
c. if any doubt or discussion i always go to this forum (i think i did this in the past)