World Cup selection

[dorbel]

I see in the rules for the World Cup, that "Every month the HIGHEST SCORER [in the Bagolympic tournaments] form (sic) EACH COUNTRY will be offered selection into their national TEAM!" In July, the highest scorer for the USA was NIHolympic with 7 points. However, the player 'offered selection' by the tournament organisers was boardking.
Now it appears, please correct me if I am wrong, that the organisers have decided to disregard their own published rules for this event. It appears that on grounds of their own choosing, they can actually invite anybody that they like, or more specifically, decline to invite anybody that they don't like.
Would the organisers, unnamed individuals at present, but believed to be EddieVedd and tryout, care to explain their actions? They may have a very good reason for acting as they do, but it would be nice to be told. Open and fair administration is the least that we should expect from an event that aspires to be a World Cup.

[Biggles]

Yes, I too would love to hear the explanation of their actions.  I attempted to have an honest and open discussion with tryout about this situation, without any abuse or negativity.  Tryout appeared to be fed up with NIHI for some reason, and made several statements that I couldn't quite understand.   His first 2 reasons he listed were (in his own words):

"1. His nickname and his misfitted rating.
2. I have no intention at all to offer any service of mine to such a person."

When I pressed tryout on what he meant by this, he stated that (and I'm paraphrasing now) that nobody in the World Cup or Olympics likes playing NIHI because of his behavior.  When I told tryout I thought this was incorrect, and that most people on FIBS love playing one of the best players on the site, he simply scoffed and told me I was wrong.  

I am guessing here, but it would appear that since there are apparent hostilities involved between player and TD, the TD is now seemingly able to 'edit' his list of qualifyers even though he LET THE PERSON PLAY THE QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT to begin with.  Add to that fact that neither tryout nor EddieVedd have personally told NIHI that they threw him out of the tournament, and that he had to learn this information secondhand, and you can see what a shambles the TDs have made to what could have been an extremely fun event.  

I have to ask EddieVedd (knowing that he is usually level-headed and fair) to rethink the actions and overrule tryout and let NIHI back into the World Cup.  If the two TDs cannot guarantee NIHI a place on the final team, then I will have to withdraw from the team as well.  If the Euros are looking to severely handicap the US team because of some personal issues between TD and player, then I have to say I'm extremely disappointed in their choice of action.

Sincerely,

Biggles

[webrunner]

Actually.. i would like to play him. But he only wants to play for money or unlimited matches. Looks like Fibs rating means more to him then money.. and i like keeping the stakes high

[Biggles]

So if you play him under NIHOlympic, aren't you playing HIM?

Looks like rating is more important to YOU, than anything else.  And I would assume money would be a lot more high stakes than anything else, so I'm not sure what you're blabbering about.

Again, can we get a post from tryout or EddieVedd here to get an official position on what the heck is going on?

Waiting...............





Biggles

[dorbel]

Well nothing from tryout or EddieVedd, so let's move on. What should be done to avoid this sort of situation in the future? Let's first ask ourselves the question, "Is it desirable to exclude people who's manners are offensive to other players and the organisers?" Fibsleague in its mission statement enjoins players to be courteous and respectful. We might also assume, although it doesn't say so, that a major purpose of the World Cup is to promote an international spirit of friendship, so the principles of fibsleague should apply there too one feels. Perhaps the organisers should insert a paragraph to this effect and make it clear that unfriendly, discourteous and disrespectful language, whether in tells, fibs shouts or on fibs board will constitute grounds for removal from current tournaments and disbarment from future participation. Players do like to play in these events, so this sanction might lead to a desirable improvement in the general standard of verbal exchanges on fibs. This sanction is of course open to abuse, or the allegation of the same, so I would suggest using the fibs board voting mechanism to assemble an appeal panel of (say) three fibsters to provide an avenue of redress for banned players who felt unfairly treated.
If we had had this in place, the organisers would have been able to rule NIHILIST, under any pseudonick, persona non grata, merely on the prima facie evidence of his astonishing rudeness during the "try_fascism_out" exchanges. I doubt if he would have appealed, but had he done so and lost, he could have had no grounds for complaint.
I personally would welcome the introduction of this sort of mechanism. The removal of the tiny fraction of fibsters who indulge themselves in abuse of others can only be to the benefit of fibs as a whole. Doing this at the whim of individuals, whether justified or not, isn't fair and defeats the object.

[Biggles]

God, now not only are we going to have power hungry TDs that everyone has to treat with kid gloves, but now you're proposing a judging committee?  

Friends, FIBS has lasted this long without all the power/administration games and has been successful with free form anarchy, which will survive long after you're all gone.  Either get a tougher skin, or go to a pay backgammon site.  You'd think some of the people here (you know who you are) are 5 year olds......instead of running to mommy, they run to ban, exclude and judge others.


Wake up and smell the coffee.......run the freekin World Cup with the right players and get on with it, and stop all yer whining.



Bigg

P.S. - You know how all the TDs always say, if you don't like the TD, don't play their tournament?  Well, the same should be true for FIBS....if you don't like the shouts, go elsewhere, gag the person, or ignore them.  Pretty simple really, if you think about it.  

[dorbel]

No Biggles, I proposed an appeals committee, designed to control the power hungry TDs who you feel might abuse their powers. After all, we are not talking about someone calling somebody else a silly fat tart, we are talking about somebody, in the case of NIHI, who asked tryout in a post if he intended to ban "jews, gypsies and other non-aryans" from his next tournament. If this doesn't constitute grave offence and sufficient cause to remove somebody from an international tournament, particularly one run by the offending party, I don't know what does. Perhaps you disagree. I think that most people would feel that to be gravely out of order.
NIHI's remarks(s) to and about tryout were not remarks made in the heat of the moment in shouts. They occurred in a letter that he composed and edited himself. He has not seen fit to withdraw them or express any regret. My purpose in starting this thread was not to defend him or his views, but to set up a proper way of dealing with them. What is wrong with that?

[Biggles]

I haven't seen the letter, so can't comment really on the context of an individual phrase....

However, knowing NIHI as well as I do, what I'm guessing he's trying to do it force the issue of banning one person, and not being able to ban others who make the same kinds of statements.  This is exactly why your idea will never work, nor any other mechanism.  What offends one person, might not offend another and so it goes.   No committee, TD, or any other person is going to change the behavior or statements of certain individuals, and I say, why would you ever want to?  People have called me more ridiculous, insane, dirty, homosexual, and foul-mouthed things than I'd ever want to repeat here.   So what?  They simply make a joke of themselves, and I choose to either play their game or ignore them.  Would I want some batch of FIBS guards or police to protect me?  Come on, man........I can do that by myself........Would I want them kept out of tournaments because of it?  No, I'll do all my talking on the backgammon board.

NIHI has always stated what the improve-FIBS crowd would do, if they ever got full access to hack away at the FIBS application code.  I think tryout and other TDs are fully demonstrating what would happen in a nutshell.  Chaos, power struggles, pride, censorship, confusion and not being able to universally carry out the same rules for different factions or groups of individuals.

Thank god Patti has never taken this approach.  You'd all be wise to follow her model.


Bigg

[diane]

I choose to either play their game or ignore them

Yup thats what I do - ignore - which includes not devoting 2-3 hours of my time on a regular basis running a tourney, and then some reporting their acheivements, for their benefit.

Thank god Patti has never taken this approach. You'd all be wise to follow her model.

Yup - agreed - wise lady - you annoy her  directly, she will ban you without a backward look - and a whole country if that is what it takes to get the individual concerned.

And by 'letter' dorbel refers to this post I think

[Biggles]

I've annoyed Patti plenty in the years I've been on FIBS and I'll have to say it takes quite a bit of 'annoyance' to make Patti flip the switch on someone.  It took her the better part of 3 years to do something about don, and the country situation you are referring to had nothing to do with being annoyed with things someone was saying on shouts.

For the most part, you can say that Patti has had an extremely laissez faire attitude towards administering bans on people for things they've shouted.  Droppers, cheaters, and people who do nothing but harrass others over long periods of time, yes.  Again, the model is sound.......and again, tryout and EddieVedd would do themselves a favor by following it.  

Funny that neither of them has chimed in yet.


Bigg  

[dorbel]

I am not arguing in favour of censoring shouts or banning individuals from fibs. What I do think is that those individuals who devote part of the time to create something of benefit to us all, such as fibsleague, World Cup or mini tournaments, should have some say as to who plays in them. If they exercised their powers frivolously, the appeals committee would be there to correct them. As the most popular fibster, Biggles would of course be a shoo-in to be on the board anyway. Perhaps new improved fibs would be an environment uncongenial to Biggles and he would have to take his own advice and play elsewhere! Would be fibs be the poorer without NIHI, Bigs, zyx, Zorba, to name four players at random? Actually yes it probably would, but should people running voluntary tournaments, such as Tomawaky, tryout, EddieVedd be obliged to include people who offer them deeply personal abuse? Clearly not. However I do agree with Biggles on one point. NIHI should not be singled out and arbitrarily banned from a tournament for which he has qualified, without notice or form of redress. You will see that these are precisely the things that I am arguing for.

[Tomawaky]

Personnaly what I always asked to a player entering my league or a tourney I ran, is to be fair, have fun, respect his opponent and the spirit of the backgammon game .
I don't care about shout :furios: to accept or not somenone in my tournaments.
Some players prefer only to play, others only use Fibs to shout and some others like to use both. But when you enter a tourney, the better thing to do is playing   .

For the World Cup, I have nothing to say and would always accept the rules which will have been laid down, cause if I did not do it I do not see why I would interest myself there.
We all must respect the decisions made by the tourney manager :ohmaster: or just leave it if not agree .
No need to go further :stupid3:

So I hope that Eddie and Tryout, who are the persons in charge of this event, will add some precisions if needed to make things clearer.    

[EddieVedd]

Hello All

MMMMM... You've been busy ! I literally still have sand in my toes, returning from a spur of the moment surf trip, with my Brother ! We had clear warm water and 6ft barrels for 3 days solid !!    I was happy to have made it back before the end of August let alone before Friday 3's !!!!
 So I'll go and play that now, read all this properly, and give my 2 bits  tomorrow.

All is well for the Tourney and i'm looking forward to it beginning

Take Care !

Eddie.

[Biggles]

Doesn't matter Eddie.  Tryout (in a long discourse on shouts) has stated he's not changing his mind.

So......

From this point on, I'm also dropping out of World Cup.  I'm sure boardking will be along to take the same action.

Thanks for your (mock) concern.

See ya - -


Biggles

[tryout]

Hi dorbel,

For starters some general information. BagOlympics and FIBS World Cup are 2 completely independent tournament events. They are even run by different people. Their _only_ connection is that BagOlympics serves as the qualification round for World Cup.

I see in the rules for the World Cup,
that "Every month the HIGHEST SCORER [in the Bagolympic tournaments] form
(sic) EACH COUNTRY will be offered selection into their national TEAM!"

Thank you for proof-reading. The other FLG pages could certainly use some as
well. Please feel free to send in the corrected and preferably polished
versions of the HTML pages.

In July, the highest scorer for the USA
was NIHolympic with 7 points.

Incorrect, the 2nd highest. But enough for qualifying.

However, the player 'offered selection'
by the tournament organisers was boardking.

Correct.

Now it appears, please correct me if I
am wrong, that the organisers have decided to disregard their own published
rules for this event.

OK, wrong, see below.

It appears that on grounds of their own
choosing, they can actually invite anybody that they like,

Absolutely incorrect.

or more specifically, decline to invite
anybody that they don't like.

Oops, this doesn't fit much to the first part of the sentence. However, in
theory correct. We could.

Would the organisers, unnamed
individuals at present,

What's this empty rhetoric for? Calling for a sarcastic reply and setting
the tone?

but believed to be EddieVedd and
tryout,

Oh, you got it already. Was it so hard to read the names under the contact
section?

care to explain their actions? They may
have a very good reason for acting as they do, but it would be nice to be
told.

Firstly, the rating of NIHolympic is still miles away from the other nick of the same person. Since tournament matches are forced in the sense that you can't choose your opponent, and they are played on FIBS, which has a rating system, this is unfair to all opponents.

And secondly, after his insults and derogatory remarks about the value of me and the FIBS tournaments I don't see any reason why I should allow him to take advantage of my work.

For reference and further explanation please read the following:
http://www.fibsboard.com/index.php?showtop...findpost&p=3957
http://www.fibsboard.com/index.php?showtop...findpost&p=4004

In order to get back at disregarding own rules or not: The published rules are the necessary requirements that need at least be fulfilled by any player for playing in World Cup. They do not constitute any right to be allowed to play. Please check a lawyer or a dictionary for the difference.

Open and fair administration is the
least that we should expect from an event that aspires to be a World
Cup.

The very least a voluntary tournament organizer should expect is the same respect that everybody else expects to get. This definitely does not include insults or other very disparaging statements. (Btw, this is of course not directed at you.)

It's also incredibly easy to demand what not. There's absolutely nothing to demand! We all do this entirely for free, voluntarily. There's no single benefit for us other than the occasional thank you and the thought to have done a good deed.

But naturally, we are open to well meant, constructive suggestions. However, we still reserve to have our own opinion.

[tryout]

Hi again dorbel,

Perhaps the organisers should insert a paragraph to this effect and make it clear that unfriendly, discourteous and disrespectful language, whether in tells, fibs shouts or on fibs board will constitute grounds for removal from current tournaments and disbarment from future participation.

Yes, worth thinking about. However, I really thought and still hope that respectful behaviour goes without saying and doesn't require special mention. On the Team league page I have the sentence "Have fun and be fair and courteous!". We just missed to add it to the World Cup page.

This sanction is of course open to abuse, or the allegation of the same, so I would suggest using the fibs board voting mechanism to assemble an appeal panel of (say) three fibsters to provide an avenue of redress for banned players who felt unfairly treated.

I appreciate your motivation, but completely disagree. The only viable solution is to leave the responsibility to the respective organizer(s). If you or somebody else doesn't like a decision of a TD, just avoid her/him then if you think it's appropriate.

[tryout]

Of course exactly the expected stuff from B2, neverending BS.  

His first 2 reasons he listed were (in his own words):

"1. His nickname and his misfitted rating.
2. I have no intention at all to offer any service of mine to such a person."

Is it actually legal in the US to make a private conversation, like a phone call or a FIBS chat, public without asking for consent?

When I pressed tryout on what he meant by this, he stated that (and I'm paraphrasing now) that nobody in the World Cup or Olympics likes playing NIHI because of his behavior.

You should NEVER paraphrase when you are incapable of understanding what was said or expressing it the same way!

NOTHING of this sentence is correct or was said by me! B2 actually suggested that a lot of people would like to play NX under whatever nick, to which I responded that they should just go ahead. But I keep wondering why I've heard several times that he's "ready" but not accepting invites.

I guess this constitutes lying, doesn't it? Or is it an extreme case of confusion or bad memory?

...he simply scoffed and told me I was wrong.

B*llsh*t! The next lie. I didn't care to comment that. (Provable, I do have the log.)

the TD is now seemingly able to 'edit' his list of qualifyers even though he LET THE PERSON PLAY THE QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT to begin with.

Sorry to see you so confused. I'm repeating: BagOlympics and World Cup are seperate and independent events. Only the latter is run by EddieVedd and me.

I have to ask EddieVedd (knowing that he is usually level-headed and fair) to rethink the actions and overrule tryout and let NIHI back into the World Cup.

:LOOOL:

Your only hopes in life are that your daddy comes running to scold the children who don't want to play your way?! How pathetic!

If the two TDs cannot guarantee NIHI a place on the final team, then I will have to withdraw from the team as well.

Your choice. You're welcome to do as you wish.

If the Euros are looking to severely handicap the US team

Aaaahhhh, now we're getting to the REAL reason!  ROFL

[dorbel]

Tryout does not do himself any credit by the cheap sarcastic tone of his replies. It isn't called for by anything that I have written.
It says here:  Welcome to the FIBS World Cup !
Format
How does it work ?

It is an extension of the current BagOlympic tourneys that are run several times a month on Fibs via Tourneybot.
Every month the HIGHEST SCORER form EACH COUNTRY will be offered selection into their National TEAM !

So we can see that there is a connection between the two events, The World Cup is an extension of the Bagolympics, it says so. It also says, with unambiguous clarity that the highest scorer will be offered selection. This rule has been disregarded and the reason for setting it aside is not relevant to the argument. Tryout has refused to select somebody that he didn't like and selected somebody that he did like. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's clear fact.
Everybody is entitled to equal and fair treatment, that's a basic principle in any area of life. It is a fair question to ask tryout why he thinks that it shouldn't apply to fibs tournaments.

[NIHILIST]

I've chosen to sit back and let it take its course, but at this point think I, and the others who have raised the issue, are entitled to some simple answers to simple questions.

First, I entered the BAGO under a nick that was accepted by the TD without even the slightest comment.

Second, in every one of my matches I behaved with complete courtesy to my opponent. Truth is, and you can probably verify this with anyone who has ever played me, I rarely, if ever, chat during play.

Third, I got involved in a trade of insults with Diane COMPLETELY OUTSIDE of any tourney environment.

Fourth, no one has EVER directly told me I'm banned from BAGO and for what reason.

So, at this point, I think I'm within my rights to ask, and fair play requires, that a BAGO official answer the following questions:

ONE...Am I , in fact, banned from further play in BAGO ?

TWO...If so, what infraction of BAGO rules led to my banning ?

THREE...Why has no one had the common courtesy to tell me DIRECTLY of my banning ?

FOUR...Is it the current policy of TDs to allow any ad hominem action or conversation occurring OUTSIDE OF AN ACTUAL TOURNEY to impact a player's current or future tourney eligibility ?

I think that the TDs have done a fine job in creating something that energizes the FIBS environment. At the same time I am seeing arbitrary and capricious behavior detract from that accomplishment.

I than you in advance for responding to my questions.



NIHI

[diane]

BagOlympics, as directed by Tomawaky, is a tourney in which players from each country play each other  - and score points.  The average points for the country are calculated - and the best scoring country wins. That is bago - as organised by Tomawaky. Nihi - you played - as do many others, in that - and did your country proud   (but no longer in the sessions I run, in case we arent clear on that ) The world cup is an extension of, but separate from the above. That you will not play in - because - as we all know, along the line you have tried very hard to annoy the organisers. You were successful in your quest - and lo - they dont want to arrange an event for you - or report your results - or do anything else for your benefit - you surprised?  Thought not.

So you play for america and raise the average for your country in Bago - but not in the 'invite only' world cup tournament.

You getting it yet??

And i have worked long and hard to be capricious - glad it is finally paying off