[thepossum]

Hi there

I appreciate you can put a description in your table to help players searching for a game with strangers
Not many use it though

Could there be some kind of friendliness scale of emoticons that indicate quickly as you scan tables as to the level of friendliness towards strangers of different competences dropping in

P

[barmar]

Why would anyone use the icon that says that they're not friendly? And who would go to their table?

[pilowsky]

The idea is not completely odd.
Since Bridge is a system based partnership game it might be helpful if players joining a table could know if it was for example:
a 2/1, Acol, Standard, strong club etc.
This is clearly a lot of work to implement BBOside.

Regarding skill level it could be useful for casual tables to have the option of setting rank bands (0-3, 3-5, etc).
This would be IMHO more useful than the current 'no new user' and 'board completion rate' settings.

Unfortunately, this would have a secondary effect of encouraging people to buy/earn masterpoints.
Maybe it's a bad idea then since it might encourage people to enter more paid competitions and spend more money on BBO which is obviously undesirable.

[mycroft]

The issue is that "friendly" means different things to different people.

• Is "following the Laws" friendly? Is "letting some things slide" friendly? What happens when one side thinks *this one* isn't a "some thing"?
  
• what about "wdp" required on every hand (even when the opponents absolute misplay gifted the contract)?
  
• is a "saying hello, and talking about anything and everything not bridge" chatter table friendly? What if one side wants a chatter table and the other wants to push cards?
  
• My favourite example of the "virtual midnight ex-University game" was one of the friendliest in the world. After all, it's a bunch of old friends sitting at the table doing what they'd done for years in the Lounge. Of course, it also would be instabanned if some of the other "friendly" suggestions seen here had been implemented, as it was loud, drunken and with more foul language than many see in a year.
  
• Does "friendly" mean "have to put up with people who can't play?" And by that, I mean both "new players who really don't know what they're doing yet" and "Allan Simon levels of 'can't play' (maybe two or three levels)"? If that's the case, is it really friendly to any of the other players?
  
• Does "friendly" mean "normal bridge"? I guarantee you that my Precision partnership back in the day was one of the nicest, politest, clearest-explaining pairs on BBO. And we couldn't get a game for more than 4 hands.
  
• Does "friendly" mean "the international language of bridge is English" and so the opponents can't talk in Spanish (even though they, and your partner, are from Guadalajara) or Chinese (from Shanghai)?
  
• Given the current givens, does "friendly" mean "if you're from Russia (or Ukraine), you can still play here, with no comment?"
  
• Conversely, does "friendly" mean "I get to say 'normal things', but you criticizing me for my beliefs isn't allowed"? Does it make a difference if it's "coming home from the * rally last night" or "the truckers are being really annoying around my house lately" or "Why are you in the ABA, it's not like there's a problem any more" or even "it's so nice we don't have to wear a mask any more." or "we don't have to wear a mask any more. Why do people still do it"?
  
• And my personal bugbear: does "friendly" mean I have to take lessons from random nobodies who "are just trying to help", or from pickup partners who clearly could do better having seen all 52 cards than I could seeing 26?

I'm sure that the OP knows what "friendly" means. And I know what "friendly" means. And it would not surprise me if the two definitions had little or no overlap. [ETA: I am not saying mine is "right" or OP's is "wrong". Just that they can both be reasonable, and totally different.]

[barmar]

We already have the "Competitive" and "Relaxed" sections of the main bridge clubs. I think that distinction is similar to what the OP is requesting.