Option to not play against players from certain countries

[sanlty]

Your idea doesn't work for tournaments. I mean, if you meet a player from a country you don't want in a tournament, you have to either play them or get eliminated.

Ultimately, fair competition means battling against anyone who might be on your road. I'm not sure why being against a country should mean you would want them to be filtered out of a competition where you want to prove you are the best.

I have almost zero interest in tournaments or proving I'm the best, but I feel that the type of filtering suggested is still an option people should have. I disagree that forcing international play constitutes "fair competition". There are many legitimate reasons to filter by country.

I'm not saying everyone has to or even should do it, but people should be able to choose for themselves what they're comfortable with, including what countries they interact with.

[nik592]

I'm not saying everyone has to or even should do it, but people should be able to choose for themselves what they're comfortable with, including what countries they interact with.

I mean, you can, you just don't play on BGA, and you can completely avoid any country you're not comfortable with. That's how you choose.

I often wonder if the people who insist that such a feature should exist would also be the ones to complain about how unfair it is, not being able to get games started if it turned out their country was among the ones blocked by a majority of other players.

[sanlty]

I'm not saying everyone has to or even should do it, but people should be able to choose for themselves what they're comfortable with, including what countries they interact with.

I mean, you can, you just don't play on BGA, and you can completely avoid any country you're not comfortable with. That's how you choose.

I often wonder if the people who insist that such a feature should exist would also be the ones to complain about how unfair it is, not being able to get games started if it turned out their country was among the ones blocked by a majority of other players.

I'm supporting a request for a feature on BGA and your response is to say I should leave the site. Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

I think it would make more sense to let people choose what they would like for themselves rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. But what do I know

[FrankJones]

I think it's reasonable for people to have some discomfort with the idea of BGA members banning entire countries from their games.

I can understand why people might dislike my home country. I tried to change my flag to antarctica. But I would be frustrated if players just auto-blocked me just because of my flag.

[FrankJones]

I wish no flags were displayed at all. What purpose does this serve?

[nik592]

I'm not saying everyone has to or even should do it, but people should be able to choose for themselves what they're comfortable with, including what countries they interact with.

I mean, you can, you just don't play on BGA, and you can completely avoid any country you're not comfortable with. That's how you choose.

I often wonder if the people who insist that such a feature should exist would also be the ones to complain about how unfair it is, not being able to get games started if it turned out their country was among the ones blocked by a majority of other players.

I'm supporting a request for a feature on BGA and your response is to say I should leave the site. Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

I think it would make more sense to let people choose what they would like for themselves rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. But what do I know

No, I said, if you want to avoid people from certain countries, you can choose not to play on BGA, and then you will avoid those countries (and all the others as well). Or you can accept that good people (and jerks) exist in all nationalities and avoid people based on behaviour, rather than sweeping generalisations.

I have no issue with you playing here. You're the one who doesn't seem to like the rules. And it's not a feature request, it's been made abundantly clear by BGA staff multiple times that such a feature won't be considered and it's against their terms of use:

By accessing the BGA Sites, the Internet User declares, guarantees and undertakes:...
* not to disseminate Content on the Player Site and/or the Applications and/or using the Services that incites hatred or violence..., xenophobic...;

I wish no flags were displayed at all. What purpose does this serve?

I don't mind knowing where my opponents are from. I suspect there's a level of, "oh, hey, we're both Aussies", or "cool, I've always wanted to visit Norway" or something. But I wouldn't care that much if they weren't displayed (or were optional). But then you'd probably just have people assume that anyone not disclosing their country was clearly trying to hide it because they're from one of the "bad" countries.

[FrankJones]

This list of "bad countries" would be a lengthy one, if I were writing the list.

[BarnardsStar]

I can understand being distracted or upset or triggered by the appearance of certain flags. The following code will hide all flags site-wide, so you don’t have to see those flags AND the absence of a flag doesn’t mean they’re from a country you’re upset with.

Code: Select all

.bga-flag { visibility: hidden; } 

You can put this in the “advanced” section of your preferences here on the site; OR if you are using Tof63’s extension (which I do recommend) there’s a section in there for custom CSS.

Each method has advantages and disadvantages. If you do it in the extension, you will have to do it on each separate machine you may use. If you do it here on the site, you will not be able to view bug reports with any custom CSS enabled.

[The-True-KingofTokyo]

Don't forget that a lot of people use a VPN, so often times the flag is not their actual country.

Edit** I forgot it was a personal selection when you create the account and not based on IP address.

[OriProf]

Honestly, I find something sinister in such requests. On one hand it's low-key virtue signalling about politics, on the other it's xenophobic through it's categorising an entire country (millions of citizens) with one brush, and finally on the (third!) hand it's irrational given country choice is a manual input by BGA users (witness the rather large outpost of BGA in Antarctica!). To each his own I suppose, but I for one am very happy this is a wide open multi-country melting pot gaming site for all.

p.s. I'm still upset about Belgians in the Congo...can I have a button for that?