FIBS Board backgammon forum

I posted this to the Ruby Forge forum, but realized it is more appropriate
to post it here.  Hopefully I have not double post it.

Problem: Players who are unware of tourneybot and have shouts
turned off, do not get notices of tourneys.

One solution: I have simply copied a message saying something like
A 3/5 tourney will be starting in a few minutes. To join do a
"TELL TOURNEYBOT REGISTER 704" and sent it as a tell to players
who were ready or lurking and sometime even to those who were playing.

A more efficient solution would be to subscribe everyone to tourneybot
and then with each notice of a tourney starting registration, include
a comment that if you do not want to receive further notices, just do
a TELL TOURNEYBOT UNSUBSCRIBE.

This would maximize awareness of one of the significant benefits of
playing on FIBS.

An alternative would be to broadcast a message at various hours every
day explaining Tourneybot and requesting people to subscribe. I know
this was done once. I believe this is a suboptimal choice since
someone who is not interested will continually receive messages they
do not want and can not stop.

I was oblivious to the amount of work a TD has to work to create and
run a tourney until I did my first one. I'm just looking for ways to
streamline the work and optimize participation.

Dick    

Dick, I've been distracted by other projects lately, but have a TB GUI in the works. Every few months I like to proclaim that I am just a week or two away from being "finished". Therefore, I have zero credibility left, but I will tell you this: it's in java, and everything up to my latest changes are in an open source project page.

It's built using something else I created, which is more or less 'done and ready to be used': http://fibscompanion.sourceforge.net/

If you search on the forums, you can probably find the, now ancient, demo gui of TB. It's changed somewhat, and is half-implemented and tested. My other projects are easing off a bit, so I should be done with it in a week or so. It will make creating a tourney, for example from a pre-defined template, a couple of mouse-clicks. Displaying and tracking the tourney is also included, with graphical bracket display, point-and-click watch/award/ban/remind functions and even a programmable button thingie for unanticipated things that TD's might want to do.

Know how to code?

I strongly prefer the current opt-in system to any kind of opt-out as far as TourneyBot notifications go. Whoever wants to receive tells from TourneyBot can subscribe to them, no reason for anyone else to receive them, we're not running a spam operation here.

The system is advertised and explained in several community places, most notably this board and the TourneyBot home page. It works - we have more than 100 subscribers. If you want to increase awareness of this feature, explain it in shouts along with your tourney notifications. Or use the simpler method - tell your friends about it.

Cheers,

Mat

MadMatt is right. This issue has been explored a bit before, not only with TB.

Your motivations are on target though. Perhaps with a bit more brainstorming something clever can be worked out, but most probably, word of mouth will be our strongest agent. Unless someone can convince Patti to mention TB in the motd?

QuoteMadMatt is right. This issue has been explored a bit before, not only with TB.

Your motivations are on target though. Perhaps with a bit more brainstorming something clever can be worked out, but most probably, word of mouth will be our strongest agent. Unless someone can convince Patti to mention TB in the motd?

I think Kari tried this back when TourneyBot was first introduced. I believe Patti said okay, but didn't follow up on her word.

Carolina -

I liek the way you think, but there are some people who would not appreciate being opted in.

I shout about the tourneys and send tells to people who I have had pleasant match experiences with.  Sometimes I look at my vouch list and start to send each of them tells.  The most important part about this is that I have gotten a whole bunch of people to participate in their first tourney.  That being said, I should tell them to turn tourneybot on, which I have not been doing.  I will do so form now on!

PortWine

Yes - we composed a lovely MOTD for patti - but it never saw the light of fibs.  Also - i feel that harrasing people who havent asked to be harrassed isnt the way to go.  I have always taken the time out to explain to new/returning memebers of fibs what TB is - and how to get involved.  I think this is the better way to go.

And Burper - i still believe in TB GUI    

The TB GUI is currently vaporware version 3.1.