Watcher chat
planned
B
Backgammon Hub Admin
planned
R
Richard McQuillan (bananabar32)
I can't think of anything worse than during a match, watchers freely chatting. All sorts of reasons why it shouldn't be allowed and it would be impossible to implement 'no commenting on match'
P
Paul Corrigan 🇲🇾 (paulc2024)
Myself and some friends who regularly pop into each others' matches for a social catch up would really appreciate the ability to openly chat (without, of course, any inappropriate comments / advice on moves!)
A
Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]
Alan Berlyn 🇬🇧 (66alan66), I enabled it by mistake when I added the emoji picker hence why it has gone again!
I don't think it's appropriate to allow watchers to comment freely when a match is in progress. It could be very distracting to players or worse. Imagine if a watcher said "Double!" during an important tournament match. Watchers can comment after the match has finished.
In the early days there was separate "player chat" and "watcher chat". The watchers could chat with each other and players only saw these comments when the match was over. However, it's one of those features that was a bit confusing and wasn't used very much at all, so I removed it.
A
Alan Berlyn 🇬🇧 (66alan66)
Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]I suppose you could add “Enable watcher chat - no commenting on the game!” button that both players could agree to if it was a social match…
A
Alex Zamanian (z)
Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer] I think there would be some value added if watcher were allowed to chat. Mostly I'm thinking it could be fun if it's between friends, but people could also collaborate (assuming that was ok with all competitors). Might it work OK if watchers were warned to not talk about the plays (unless everyone is on board)? That and an easy way to ban/mute someone who is out of line and be able to specify a private match when it's set up. Overwhelmingly I've found players on the site to be respectful, even the people complaining about the rigged dice aren't rude about it :)
J
Jeremy Pickard 🇬🇧 (jeremyp)
Alex Zamanian (z) in my experience elsewhere watchers are overwhelmingly respectful of restraint in comments about soecific moves. But "well done" or "brave" after a move add to the enjoyment. In addition
A
Alan Berlyn 🇬🇧 (66alan66)
Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]
I'm having another go at requesting this, with a slightly different suggestion of how it could work:
Maybe if two players were in a match, with another player watching, the watcher could request permission to chat, which both players would need to agree to.
Then all three (or potentially more) could happily chat away.