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BGonline.org Forums
One of my dealings with a USBGF director and match recording
Posted By: Rich Munitz In Response To: One of my dealings with a USBGF director and match recording (Henrik Bukkjaer)
Date: Thursday, 3 February 2011, at 11:04 p.m.
Also the discussion on USBGF claiming rights to match files are somewhat fun. I thought their business were to promote competitive backgammon? How better than circulating as many games as possible, played at their sanctioned events by their members? If they care too much on holding on to membership values, they should think of ways to differentiate their product, improving the standard good, not monopoly. Provide proper analysis (not just ERs), then you have a product worth paying for.
Just to beat this dead horse some more, since numerous other posts have already answered this, but misconceptions obviously remain.
The USBGF is in no way denying anyone the right to freely post and distribute any match file they have obtained by virtue of their own recording of a match. If you record a match in person or online, do whatever you want with it. Currently, the main unique value currently provided by the USBGF's match archives is match records obtained from live play at ABT events resulting from manually intensive human recording and transcription that would not otherwise exist in the public eye. A great deal of human effort is being expended to provide a service here.
These current unannotated matches may be a product that some view as not worth paying a dime for, but it happens to be the single most accessed area of the USBGF website. Apparently, there are many that do see value there.
The USBGF has heard the many good suggestions, and does agree that providing some or all of these matches along with expert commentary would be even better, and will create even more value for members. That will happen. Efforts are underway.
It takes time, volunteers and money to do good things. We have limited amounts of all of these and so progress will be slow at times and improvement will be incremental. Please be patient, or even better, offer to help in any way you can.
In my software career, I've at times faced exasperation with customers who would receive a new release of the product and spot a new product enhancement that they never asked for and never paid extra for. And the first thing we'd hear from the customer is when they'd call the support desk and complain about this new feature: "It is a real problem for us that it doesn't also do this other thing we would like. It is of no value to us right now.". I have more than once responded "We're sorry that you did not find this new and unexpected feature to offer added value to your organization. We will therefore be removing the feature in the next release.". Every time without fail, the response from the customer came back "well we didn't really mean that, let's talk about how we can make things better.".
Lets keep commentary and suggestions coming, but in a constructive manner.
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