[Rain]

I have 2 words...

Anna Kournikova

(I am immune but most men aren't !)


R. Dog

[the hog]

OK Free, if you wish to pass her on to me, thats fine by me!!
Wif might object though , I guess!

[Free]

Hey!!! My post is gone. Guess I saw that one comming...

[the hog]

Oh come on Ben, that was a totally harmless post which would not have offended anyone.

[Free]

It's sad, but what you gonna do? My "warn level" is now 10%, very unrepresentative if you look at my other 400 posts...

[the hog]

Que?????????????

[Gerben47]

I think it's sad to see no response to Justin's question. Although in most countries the situation is better than in the USA, this is a real problem.

I know for a fact that kids are interested in board and card games. Magic is still extremely popular, and you can't say that isn't complicated... If you come to a Settlers of Catan tournament there are many kids playing that as well.

It's not that bridge is complicated. Somehow they are willing to follow a 10 x 1 hour course on chess but not on bridge. How come? Because in bridge club they play against players who are 50 years older and in chess they don't...

If only more people knew about the junior tournaments and junior camps that would be a good start. For the USA, I can imagine that yearly state-wide junior championships could be played. The level of play would be a very wide range from beginners to those with international experience, and there won't be 20 tables either, but the point is not to have winners but to have a competition where everyone can enter.

On the internet one could do the same. Perhaps we should make a BBO junior club that organizes tournaments for those under 25 only. I know that there are many many juniors playing on BBO, getting them together might help.

[flytoox]

I thnk one reason is that playing bridge you need to find one pd and two opps. But playing chess you just need to find a pd. you can play chess at home, with your dad or mum, but you cant play chess, coz you need dad, mum and another one to play.

second, bridge is a team game, without good pd you will find it very frustrating. But winnining chess is entirely your own business.


What can we do? I think free online playing and perhaps offer bridge lessons in primary and high school will help a lot. One of my plan is to run a bridge lecture in univ campus after I finsish my degree:)

[luis]

Censoring?
That's a bad thing, too bad indeed.

What did you post free?

[inquiry]

Freee posted ithat was deleted was here (the one Ron was obviously responding too). I judged the content a) had nothing to do with bridge, and B ) violated at tje very least several of the rules of this site. The very first rule of thie site is... "1 You will not engage in conduct or post any material that is defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of ANY law as it relates to being potential offensive." followed by "The board should never go above PG-rated for any reason."

While the general topic was funny, Free's post stepped over the bounds. It would at least be offensive and "hateful" to Ms. Kournikova (should she ever read the post here). And it already begun to generate responses on the topic (see Ron's reply to his Free's post, which I did not delete), and one can imagine someone googling Kournikova, finding this post, and joining the "fun" of posting here about here anatomy as Free did, we could have a 100 post on that topic very quickly no doubt. Also, I point out that Freee himself when noting that his post was deleted, said Guess I saw that one comming... " implying that he knew he was skating on thin ice with regard to the rules when he posted it, and indeed he not only was not surprised it was deleted, as he noted, he should not have been surprised.

As a general rule, I would have either asked the poster to edit out the offensive material or edited it out the offensive material myself and sent an explaination of why to the poster...but... if any editing of the post in question to remove the questionable content would have left nothing remaining in the post. Ron is aware of this because I have asked him to change wording once, and then there was a humerous off-color joke in a thread about being forced into a tournment that you didn't sign up for that got administratively changed by uday I believe.

Thus, I deleted the post. Censorship? Well, certainly. Was his comments above the level of PG? No, as far as sexually explicit comments go, this was relatively tame. But they failed my "comfort test"... which is would I read them out loud to my 12 year old niece, the answer is no, I would not. Also, his post had nothing to do with bridge, and was found offensive by at least one member who contacted me, and I agreed that it was at least potentially offensive.

I will gladly give up my moderator status if the community thinks that deleting a post describing the anatomy of female tennis player (or bridge player) which also contained no bridge related material was was too heavy handed... but as long as I have this resposnbility, I will interpret the rules of the site in a similar manner, and treat similar content in the same manner (deleting entire post, or editing out pontially offensive content). Free could have expressed his views in other manners.. he could have said, she isn't that hot, I would prefer..hallay berry or britney spears, or name a person... there was no need to express the view as he did. Also, should anyone start a thread like the hottest 10 "female bridge players" like ran on the rgb, I will delete the entire thread, and to be honest, several of the posters if they followed the content of rgb would find themselves barred from this site at least temporarily.

Now for issued raised in response to the deleting of Freee's post. First, the 10% warn level. Hey, it is a new toy on the improved forum so I got a chance to use it. Each user sees a "warn level" when they look at their own post, but no warn level when looking at someone elses. So if Free hadn't said his was at 10%, only he and the system administrators and I would have known that he has been warned at all. Free and one other person to the best of my knowledge are the only people with warns that are not 0%. I don't like the word "warn", I wish it would have said "REMINDER". By issusing a "warning" I meant it as a reminder to Freee about the rules of the site. If he clicks on the "10%" that is underscored, he can read why his warning level (really, a reminder) was increased. There is no option to increase it in any steps but by 10%, so the number of post is not really relevant.

Now to Ron and Luis who find the censorship as a bad thing... Ron because noone could find it offensive, and Luis general censorship is a bad thing. Ron, demonstratably at least one person found it offensive because they contact me about it and I agreed it was at least potentially offensive, and violated the the rules of the site. Note, I did not delete your reply, nor the original "joke" about adding her to bridge. And as I noted above, there would be plenty of ways Freee could have taken exception with using her (instead of someone else) that would not been nearly as potentially offensive. To Luis, I think it is clear that this board was set up with the intent to discuss bridge and to allow the CENSORSHIP of post that are here. For instance, the rules state that "If you should come across inappropriate content for whatever reason please send a message to one of the administrators. We will take care of it as soon as we can." Which is just what happened in this case. IF either of you would like to replace me and handle decisions like is this or that potential offensive to a community made of people of all ages, a hundred nationalities, a wide range of relidions and cultural norms, and both sexes, I think that could be arranged.

Evil Ben

[uday]

Completely appropriate to remove posts that don't belong here.
Thanks Ben

[luis]

First of all some non-bridge 100% joke from time to time is not going to hurt, specially when the thread is more about society and bridge or bridge for youngsters than techincal bridge itself.
Second Anna K is not someone that should be protected by moderators and so since she lives from his image and jokes and comments about her are exactly what she looks for to get more publicity contracts.

I agree with the rules for this phorum and I agree with moderating posts, I just disagree with the deletion of posts that are meant to be funny.

You can just use #### in the "offending" or "non PG" parts of the message, no need to remove the whole post and warn the poster. Post edited by moderator or something is enough... I think.

On the other hand if you Ben decided that the best action was to remove the post I think that you have my vote of confidence and I'm sure your action was the best way to go.

[uday]

We don't necc. need young people; we just need people who are young enough. Wouldnt a healthy infusion of 40-year olds (or, 50 year olds, for that matter) do us good ?

I happen to think that one/all of the "big" bridge organizations owes us more of an effort that we can see now. Online bridge should be treated as a good way to suck people in, not just as a way to try and score some revenue.

[luis]

I have one particular opinion about bridge and young people, I think that the best way to introduce kids to bridge is in the schools.
I found incredible that chess is tought at many schools while bridge is not. A partnership game like bridge is far better and I think it helps developing a lot of useful skills in children like counting, making inferences, etc.

[Free]

To say the last about the deletion of my post:
According to the rules, it was a bit naughty, and the post had nothing to do with bridge. The point was that A.K. isn't extremely pretty imo, but I became too specific, even when using ** to mask some vowels in the word. Anyway, I understand it's deleted, I understand it might have been over the edge, but it was meant funny and not to make A.K. feel like an ugly 'something' when she would read my post. And Ben, you could easily edit my post and put something like "She's not very pretty imo" or something similar. But ok, you didn't. So enough said about it, lets go back to the topic!

About the topic:
I'm a young player myself (23 years old/young) and I play for about 8 years already. I must admit that I know nobody who started to play bridge at a younger age than me. And if I talk about bridge with my friends, the general opinion is "Bridge if for old people", "Bridge is boooooooring",... Ofcourse they never played it so they can't know, but this just is the general opinion. So nobody is interested to learn it when they're young.
On the other hand, we do have some bridgeclubs near university's, and they are very popular. Why? I have no idea, but it works. If you have some people who want to put energy in creating a bridgeclub in a city where there are lots of young people, they'll get results. To learn children of 12-18 years is very difficult imo, but from 18+ it is doable.

[luis]

Free:
18 whaaaat???
Children can start learning bridge at 6. At the age of 11/12 they can play normal tournaments with a good int/adv level and can reach expert level by the age of 14/15 same as in chess but harder because some extra skills are needed.
If you start teaching mini-bridge at schools children interested can then move on to bridge as a sport.

[inquiry]

Free, I am glad you realize the deleted post was naughty, might be over the edge, and why it was deleted. And yes, I could have easily "edited" your post, but I take editing post very seriously. The reason is if I change your words, others will think the words that show up are your words that you wrote. Thus, I tend to edit by DELETING, not by putting new words in your mouth (well at the tips of your fingers).

The only time I have changed words others wrote is when they describe a bridge play or action and list an opponent or director by name that then attack. If the point being made is reasonable, and can be addressed without naming the person involved, I simply delete the name of the person being identified....For instance if someone wrote....

"I was playing against inquiry when he psyched a strong openign 2 bid
with a weak hand. Isn't this illegal, what a jerk"....

I would automatically change that to (for anyplayer named, not just me)....

"I was playing against an opponent when he... "

I have made such changes, and notified the original poster of why, and suggested that a better way to address the action of a person is through abuse@bridgebase.com not in this public forum.

[Free]

luis, on Jan 17 2004, 01:15 AM, said:

Free:
18 whaaaat???
Children can start learning bridge at 6. At the age of 11/12 they can play normal tournaments with a good int/adv level and can reach expert level by the age of 14/15 same as in chess but harder because some extra skills are needed.
If you start teaching mini-bridge at schools children interested can then move on to bridge as a sport.

Maybe I put it wrong, I know you can teach children bridge, but to motivate them will be difficult imo!!!