[kjpod]

I'll start with the good. The new suggested alert process of entering an explanation AND clicking the alert button, rather than relying on the entered explanation to generate the alert, has pretty much halted the problem of opponents not seeing my alerts and then calling the director on me for failing to alert. So step forward for progress there.

The new process, however, still seems to have a few needling issues. Now, whenever I alert a bid by the new process, and especially when it's my Precision 1C opener or the 1D response, there is at least a 50/50 chance I will promptly get an alert box asking me for an explanation of the bid I just entered an explanation for.

Yes, I can just click OK and re-send the explanation, twice if (as is often the case) necessary, but it gets annoying since the bids are at the bottom of the screen and I have to go all the way to the top of the screen to click off the request.

I have to conclude from this that hovering over the bid for the explanation (as opposed to clicking) is just not natural behavior for a large proportion of BBO players. So, unless players can be taught otherwise, my suggestion is this: if a bid is properly alerted, with an explanation and the alert button clicked, the first click by a player on the bid will just display the bid and not prompt the alerter for another explanation. And instead, two clicks would send the prompt, to cover the case where the explanation is considered insufficient.

[barmar]

This is not a "new process", it's the way the application has worked for as long as I remember.

Whether or not you click the Alert button, the explanation is shown to the opponents, and the bid is highlighted in yellow. The only difference the button makes is whether the bid gets a red border around it. This is intended to mirror the difference between Alerts and Announcements in f2f bridge.

I'm not sure why your opponents are asking for an explanation when you already gave one, but I doubt it has much to do with whether you clicked the Alert button. Sometimes my opponents ask for an explanation, and I assume it's simply because they didn't understand the brief description I originally entered, so I replace it with something more verbose.

[ahydra]

barmar, on 2017-August-06, 15:52, said:

I'm not sure why your opponents are asking for an explanation when you already gave one, but I doubt it has much to do with whether you clicked the Alert button. Sometimes my opponents ask for an explanation, and I assume it's simply because they didn't understand the brief description I originally entered, so I replace it with something more verbose.

Hmm, I don't know. At times I've been playing and have had an opponent repeatedly click a bid because they were just trying to view the alert. I ended up writing "sorry, not sure what more I can add" and they said "oh, sorry, didn't realise it was asking you to write something". Perhaps it would be more intuitive if there wasn't a delay before the "tooltip" with the alert text popped up when you hover over a bid?

FWIW do we need two different ways of alerting things? If we wanted to mirror "announcements" (I guess just 1C length and 1NT range) we could do it in table chat? There's some argument for simplifying the UI by removing the Alert button and marking a bid as alerted iff there is text in the box.

ahydra

[steve2005]

Yes, people probably click on alert by mistake.
But often it is not a mistake. example
opps didn't alert 3♣ raise. Their convention card indicated 2/1 but their minor suit raises were not on card.
so I clicked on alert.
opp describes bid as "clubs" I click again, no response
I call director and chat to opponent, the info I need.
opp gives me another balony explanation
more chat better explanation but still balony
more chat finally correct explanation
director shows up says why is he called description is correct.
This was the worst but a lot of peoples descriptions are bad and you need the ability to ask. clicking on alert gives a popup, chat can be missed.

[barmar]

Steve, the question is about opponents asking for explanations of bids that are alerted, so I don't think your example applies.

As for your situation, I think you need to ask a specific question with chat, because the opponent won't necessarily realize what specific bit of information you're looking for when you just click on the bid. Ask "is it game forcing?". But be prepared for a smart answer like "Ofc, we're playing 2/1".

[steve2005]

barmar, on 2017-August-07, 09:15, said:

Steve, the question is about opponents asking for explanations of bids that are alerted, so I don't think your example applies.

As for your situation, I think you need to ask a specific question with chat, because the opponent won't necessarily realize what specific bit of information you're looking for when you just click on the bid. Ask "is it game forcing?". But be prepared for a smart answer like "Ofc, we're playing 2/1".

I asked very specifically for the right information when the description was inadaquate. I didn't want to boar forum nor could remember exact question.
Also, in many cases opps have alerted with no or horrible description.

[msjennifer]

Playing Super Precision I enjoy alerting all time.There are many artificial bids and so a lot of time is wasted and hence it is better not to play too many artificial bids in a pairs event .The procedure in play which is compulsory at present is good enough in my opinion.A player making an artificial bid is required to alert and then explain in full the information implied by the bid which he is passing on to his partner.It should be a detailed explanation when asked for by one of the opponents.An incomplete explanation might result in opponents accusing unfair play or sometimes even cheating.Director when called for will take the appropriate action as per the severity of any infringement.

[trumpfirst]

I have no idea how you got this post highlighted on the News Feed page...but....

I have a long standing complaint about the Tournament Substitution process. I regularly click on "willing to substitute in any tournament" button. All too often, AFTER I accept an invitation, I see it is to play the last Board in a multi board tournament, and worse, often after the hand has been bid. When I am invited, I am told the name of the tournament, who my partner will be, and what skill level that partner self proclaims. Why can't the system also tell me what Board, out of how many Boards, the tournament is currently on? Simple computer fix...yet, BBO refuses to do this...HELP!!!

[barmar]

trumpfirst, on 2017-August-08, 12:10, said:

I have no idea how you got this post highlighted on the News Feed page...but....

It's done automatically, by looking for the thread started the previous that has the most activity.

Quote

I have a long standing complaint about the Tournament Substitution process. I regularly click on "willing to substitute in any tournament" button. All too often, AFTER I accept an invitation, I see it is to play the last Board in a multi board tournament, and worse, often after the hand has been bid. When I am invited, I am told the name of the tournament, who my partner will be, and what skill level that partner self proclaims. Why can't the system also tell me what Board, out of how many Boards, the tournament is currently on? Simple computer fix...yet, BBO refuses to do this...HELP!!!

You already started another thread about this.

http://www.bridgebas...348#entry928348

Don't hijack someone else's thread for your unrelated issue.

[steve2005]

Ok today I had someone alert 1D as could be short.
Asked for clarification.Got balony answer.
Asked for pt count and number of min D. Got 11-15
Asked again for number of D. Finally got 0-10
This is unusual and should have been volunteered.
Director shows up and all they can do is say it's been explained and to hurry up.
Also none of this info was on opps cc.
Opps then opened 1D again with full explanation this time but it was slightly different!