Report on the DROPPERS, not the DROPPEES!

[McNabbMpls]

I have been playing backgammon for many years but I am new to the FIBS site.  I have been here only about two weeks and in that time I have played 59 matches.  I almost always play 5 point matches.

My current rating is 1603 and my Exp is 227.  My record is:

Won      33
Lost      19
Unfinished     7
      59

Approximately one out of every eight of my matches has ended "unfinished".  These unfinished or "DROPPED" matches were:

Marcus                 5                4 -  2
DothisSon             5                2 -  1
melgardo              3                2 -  1
MauroCat             3                0 -  0
Pierrouchland      5                2 -  0
doonwal                5                2 -  4
AmorphysE           5                3 -  2
The unfinished matches are particularly frustrating for the following reasons:

1.    In all seven matches, my opponent disconnected and failed to return.  I waited patiently  to no avail.
2.   In all seven matches, I was ahead.  In several cases, I was one roll from victory.
For example, in the match with Marcus, he dropped when I had 2 checkers left in the 1 spot and it was about to be my roll.
In the match with doonwal, the cube was at 2, he had 2 checkers on the bar, and I rolled to close my board.  Immediately after, he dropped his connection and never returned.
3.   The failure to complete these matches significantly affects my rating, inhibiting my pursuit of matches with higher skilled players.
4.   The 7 "drops" has caused some of the best players to decline matches with me because they view me as a dropper and they have no knowledge of the circumstances of those matches.
5.   To add insult to injury, somebody named "MissManors" tells me I am in danger of losing my privileges to play on the site because I have dropped too many matches!
6.   The standard advise in chat is:
•   Do not play with users with phone connections.
•    "Complain" about droppers. 
I do not believe this is good advice.
•   I do not believe these opponents dropped due to faulty connections that they were unable to correct.  I believe they just didn't want to lose.
•   My goal is not to destroy others reputations, it is to protect my own reputation!   I am not a dropper or a cheater and I don't want to be grouped in with those who are.

Here is what I suggest:

1.    Separate the DROPPERS from the DROPPEES.  Put the user who lost his connection in a separate group from the person who was dropped on.
2.   Put the onus on the dropper to resume the match.
3.   Award a "loss" to any dropper who:
•   Caused the disconnection, and
•   Was behind at the time of the disconnection, and
•   Failed to resume in 2 weeks
4.   Repot on the DROPPER (not droppee).
•   Uses an unreliable connection.
•   Drops when losing more often than when winning.
•   Resumes more often when winning than when losing.
•   Fails to resume matches in a timely manor.

Thank you for listening
McNabbMpls

[jackdaddy]

And you are volunteering to administer this policy?

[jackdaddy]

Approximately one out of every eight of my matches has ended "unfinished".  These unfinished or "DROPPED" matches were:

Marcus                 5                4 -  2
DothisSon             5                2 -  1
melgardo              3                2 -  1
MauroCat             3                0 -  0
Pierrouchland      5                2 -  0
doonwal                5                2 -  4
AmorphysE           5                3 -  2

You tell RepBotNG: list McNabbMpls
RepBotNG says: McNabbMpls's complainers: ladybug
RepBotNG says: McNabbMpls's vouchers: BigBadWolf, consoleme, GreenChile, imnc, maleforsale
RepBotNG says: McNabbMpls's complaints: Marcus
RepBotNG says: McNabbMpls's vouches: consoleme, darccard, gallenberger, GreenChile, imnc, inatizz, jerrykharrazi, johnreid, maleforsale, Mousikos, NUNUKA, oneblessedguy, phunctor, PRINCELY, samir
RepBotNG says: McNabbMpls's vouches (cont'd): vincep

Obviously you know how to use repbot. Yet you have only complained on one of your droppers, who happens to have a very good reputation and i can assure you, is not a dropper...

[McNabbMpls]

Sir,
Your friend Marcus lost his connection with only one roll of the dice remaining before he was about to lose the match.  You draw your own conclusions.
I discovered the  RepBotNG command only after a week or so of play and have used the vouch command liberally since then.  I have used the complain command only once in what I felt was the most egregious circumstances.
It is not my desire to complain about others or to destroy their reputations, rather, it is my desire to prevent others from destroying my reputation.  I don't really care if their disconnections are accidental or on purpose.  Either way, they should not be allowed to negatively impact my reputation, or to cause me to get threatening messages from Miss Manners about loosing my playing privileges.  Wow, talk about making a new guy feel welcome!

If you are sincerely seeking someone to help you administer your system, send me the source code for the software and I'll take a look at it.  I am retired now but I have over 40 years of software development experience in a verity of programming languages.  the suggestions I made seem reasonable, feasible, and appropriate based on what I know about how computer systems work.

Thank you for the offer,

McNabbMpls

[diane]

Sir,
Your friend Marcus lost his connection with only one roll of the dice remaining before he was about to lose the match.  You draw your own conclusions.

Either way, they should not be allowed to negatively impact my reputation, or to cause me to get threatening messages from Miss Manners about loosing my playing privileges.  Wow, talk about making a new guy feel welcome!

If you are sincerely seeking someone to help you administer your system, send me the source code for the software and I'll take a look at it.  I am retired now but I have over 40 years of software development experience in a verity of programming languages.  the suggestions I made seem reasonable, feasible, and appropriate based on what I know about how computer systems work.

Thank you for the offer,

McNabbMpls

It is simply not possible to draw ANY conclusions about an unfinished match, until you have invited the player to resume play with you and they have refused. It must be on a different occasion to the first drop, because if the person had their internet connection disrupted, they will appear to still be logged into fibs and ignoring you...but they are not there, fibs just doesn't know it because the correct logging out protocols were not followed. 
My one and only absolute conclusion I can draw from 8 years of playing on fibs, is that the internet does not stop to check if you are one roll away from losing, one roll away from winning, in the middle of a match or simply sitting there shouting rubbish when it goes off. You think it is hard to get a player who dropped you on the last roll to resume - you try it with a player YOU dropped as you were one roll away from winning - they will think...serves you right pal and you wont be seeing me for a few weeks! 
It really is as well to know these things before deciding on a suitable 'policy' to deal with disconnections.

Another classic thing that happens is that the player who has lost and is on the last move will send a move, or a resign and assume the match has finished...but it wont until both players complete the protocols for match finishing [done by the interfaces], if he simply logs off, the match is considered saved. Again, asking them to resume often surprises them, as they had no idea the game wasn't finished.

The prevention of new players racking up 100's of saved games is a good one - you are only allowed 7 or so right now, because you have low experience, but fibs will get more tolerant of you as you build up experience.
Of course, by then, you will know how to avoid and deal with droppers...and wont be getting so many 

As to your offer of help, fibs is not open source, and is not randomly tinkered with - only essential updates are made.

Useful things you could do to show intent would be to help us resolve the 'interface' issue...go to sourceforge and pick up a half finished project, or write an interface from scratch, that tells the newbies all they need to know to stop them racking up saved games and guides them painlessly through the process....

Javafibs is the closest we have to the perfect interface - but there are hundreds of things can be done with it to make it a lot easier for newbies...but the original coder isn't prepared to make it open source.  So take a look at that, and all the improvement suggestions in the javafibs thread [from users with lots of experience of what would really be useful] and get cracking.

Helping put together the perfect interface would improve things dramatically right now - and who knows, may give people the confidence in you to do more useful things back at the base 


If all of that does not suit - try here...http://www.melbg.net/server.htm these people are trying to do all you suggest from scratch - and could really use some help.

I hope that can be considered at least a little helpful 

If you need more to cope with the problems which exist on fibs, that we have all had to learn to live with...ask when you see me there..

[socksey]

As a long time user on Fibs, I usually don't play anyone with less than 400 experience because of the impact you might have on my own rating.  That seems to be the point where impact from rating stops mattering.     That may be one of the reasons more experienced Fibs players won't play you.     You can find the calculation of which I refer at fibs.com. 

If you click on "forum" on the home page here and go down the list, you will find a whole world of posts found under the heading of "droppers".  You will find many headings under this category.  I suggest you read some or all of that.  There is vast information that might be enlightening to you as a newbie.   

Welcome to Fibs and hopefully your experience will improve with time!   

socksey



Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. - Carl Jung

[ah_clem]

Hello, McNabbMpls

I understand every one of your frustrations as I was a newbie on fibs not that long ago.  The unfortunate situation you find yourself in is becaues many experienced fibsters won't accept matches from players with only ~250 experience points, so at this point you are limited to playing other newbies, many of whom are droppers. 

When I was new, someone pointed out to me that FIBS becomes a much nicer place once you get to 1000 experience points, and it's definitely true.  So hang in there - it gets better.

Try to be careful in choosing your opponents in the future to avoid droppers - yes, it's unfair that both dropper and droppee get dinged with a saved game, but that's the way it works and is not likely to change anytime soon.  Since you run the risk of getting dinged when you play a dropper that's even more reason to avoid droppers. Saved games age out after a month or two, so your six saved matches will be gone soon.

Use repbot, use show savedcount, and avoid phone users and you should encounter fewer droppers.  Rack up some experience points playing the bots, keep your repbot rep clean, and wait for your saved games to age out and you'll find a different class of players who are willing to accept your invites.   Once you're playing the "mainstream" fibsters many of your frustrations will go away.

[ah_clem]

As a long time user on Fibs, I usually don't play anyone with less than 400 experience because of the impact you might have on my own rating.  That seems to be the point where impact from rating stops mattering. 

Socksey,

I think you misunderstand the way fibs adjusts point allocation based on experience.  While it is true that the newbie with 100 experience points will win/lose four times the usual amount, the amount you win or lose is only based on the rating difference. 

For example, suppose you play a one-pointer against someone with a rating equal to yours but with only 100 experinece points. Your rating will go up one point if you win and down one point if you lose.  Your opponent's rating will go up 4 points if he wins and down 4 points if he loses.  The multiplier only applies to the newbie, not to you.

See http://www.bkgm.com/articles/McCool/ratings.html

There are other good reasons not to play low experience players, but this is not one of them.

[RickrInSF]

For example, suppose you play a one-pointer against someone with a rating equal to yours but with only 100 experinece points. Your rating will go up one point if you win and down one point if you lose.  Your opponent's rating will go up 4 points if he wins and down 4 points if he loses.

actually, it's 1.4 points you will loose or gain, and it's 5.6 for your opponent, but the idea is correct - only the inexperienced player's gain/loss is modified

[diane]

Socksey,

I think you misunderstand the way fibs adjusts point allocation based on experience.  While it is true that the newbie with 100 experience points will win/lose four times the usual amount, the amount you win or lose is only based on the rating difference. 

There are other good reasons not to play low experience players, but this is not one of them.

This is a common misunderstanding, and it would be good to dispel it once and for all...spread the word folks 

[boomslang]

actually, it's 1.4 points you will loose or gain, and it's 5.6 for your opponent, but the idea is correct - only the inexperienced player's gain/loss is modified

Actually, it's 2 points you will loose or gain, and it's 3.5 for your opponent.

[jackdaddy]

Actually, it's 2 points you will loose or gain, and it's 3.5 for your opponent.

actually, it's 1.4 points you will loose or gain, and it's 5.6 for your opponent, but the idea is correct - only the inexperienced player's gain/loss is modified

Actually, it's lose...

[socksey]

Socksey,

I think you misunderstand the way fibs adjusts point allocation based on experience.  While it is true that the newbie with 100 experience points will win/lose four times the usual amount, the amount you win or lose is only based on the rating difference. 

For example, suppose you play a one-pointer against someone with a rating equal to yours but with only 100 experinece points. Your rating will go up one point if you win and down one point if you lose.  Your opponent's rating will go up 4 points if he wins and down 4 points if he loses.  The multiplier only applies to the newbie, not to you.

See http://www.bkgm.com/articles/McCool/ratings.html

There are other good reasons not to play low experience players, but this is not one of them.

Thanks for the link!     It's always nice to clear up a misunderstood.    

However, note that 400 experience is the magic number a newbie graduates to an experienced player according to that link.  Not always, but usually by that time, one knows the workings of ones client, has been educated in repbot, etc.  This is also a consideration of mine that I use as my minimum experience requirement for playing in my tourneys. 

To me, by that time, a rating indication can be understood more clearly also.  I prefer playing players who are rated slightly higher than myself generally speaking.  With players who have less than 400 experience, it's hard to know what kind of player they actually are.   

Anyway, I plan to stick to my general rule of not playing anyone with less experience than 400, except of course, in tourneys where the tourney director has allowed a low experienced player into the tourney and I am scheduled to play that player (which, btw, happened to me Sunday in Bloody Mary's, a 127 experienced player who kicked my behind).    

I do make other exceptions, too.  It's not a hard and fast rule with me.  For instance, for one Fibber, who made his case here, I added to my friends list before playing him.   

socksey



The past has flown away.  The coming month and year do not exist.  Our's only is the present's tiny point. - Mahmud Shabistari

[Patti]

FIBS reports neither droppers nor dropees.  Rather, it reports the total number of unfinished matches that a player has.  This number includes matches where the player left the game, matches where the player's opponent left the game, matches where both players agreed to resume the game later, unlimited matches, and matches that are currently being played.

To the original author, MissManners did not tell you that you had too many dropped games.  Rather, she (and she happens to be one of my administrative bots) told you that you had too many unfinished matches.  To be precise, the message is:

"You will soon lose your right to play on FIBS.  You must finish all matches that you start.  You have $savedcount unfinished games."

(And I just decided that I don't like that message.  I've changed "will" to "may".)  If you go over the limit, she says:

"You may not invite players to new games until you resume your $savedcount unfinished ones."

Note that there is a clear distinction between unfinished and dropped.  Admittedly, there is an underlying assumption that if a player has accumulated too many unfinished matches they are probably doing something wrong.  I think this is a valid assumption, although the thresholds may currently be wrong.

Finally, if you want to talk to me about the way FIBS is run, the best thing to do is send me email.  I rarely look at FIBSBoard.

[McNabbMpls]

Patti

OK, tried your profile but your email is hidden - what is your email address?

[diane]

pattib@fibs.com, it is stated at FIBS.com and on fibs itself [I think]

[Patti]

Right.  www.fibs.com has my contact information, as do "whois Patti" and "about" on FIBS.