Goodness is not measured by how nice you are to your friends and family or how you treat others when you are happy. It is measured by how you treat newcomers and strangers, and how you treat others when you are not happy or irritated, especially when they are not deliberately causing your irritation.
On this basis there are quite a few tichu players that are not actually kind humans and some that are quite hostile to newcomers. Those that witness the bad behaviour and say nothing and/or remain friends with the culprits are nearly as bad as they are by effectively condoning their poor treatment of others. There are some that are hypocrites and live in an echo chamber created by themselves and their friends into thinking that they are nice people because they are friendly with each other, but this is not the true basis of kindness. Sadly for them, some will live long in denial.
After reading what other people say on other sites about their tichu experience on bga, I can say with full confidence that this site is not seen by many as a welcoming and pleasant place to play tichu - and I fully agree with their general experience.
From my first game in arena I was questioned several times with an unwelcoming, suspicious and authoritative tone about my account and what I was doing on this site, as if these people had officially been appointed by bga as gatekeepers of tichu. Since then the unpleasant has continued - mostly in arena games - where I have been outrightly blamed for some losses whilst in one situation the person attempted to hide the reason with a fictitious, flimsy excuse - that if true would have been obvious in previous games played together.
I have been red thumbed even though I made no more mistakes, or fewer, than my partner made and neither of us was really responsible for the loss as we had little chance really of winning the games (this is because most games in arena you either win easily or lose with little 'real' chance of winning - at least this has been my experience so far). I guess their fragile ego and/or sensibilities required them to blame someone, and that had to be their partner.
This all amounts to some rather unpleasant people who are sadly ignorant to their own lack of human kindness. Maybe they think that is okay because it is just in the virtual world and they can't see others face to face and see how it effects them, which is still ignorance. Maybe they are lacking something in the real world and that is why they spend so much time on this site playing a frivolous card game, taking it so seriously, and being unpleasant to others for no justifiable reason.
Justifying your poor human decency towards others (especially newcomers) by the need to win and be successful is just not actually justifiable.
I might understand a player red thumbing someone when their play is so bad and they make many obvious mistakes, but when another player does not actually make mistakes (mistakes are where a player could actually have deduced or calculated from known information the correct decision to make in a given situation) and makes no more mistakes than you yourself, then it is not justifiable.
You might say I can red thumb whoever I want for no reason at all, therefore it is ok, but that in itself is not a justifiable excuse from a moral or human decency point of view. You should really question behaviour in these situations before you start questioning others' behaviour.
Just because you do it in the virtual world does not mean it is acceptable.
However, if you are not actually one of the people (type of person) mentioned above, then good luck to you, I hope you can maintain your sanity and human decency while many others around you frequently show their lack of human decency and potentially drag you down to their level.
Good standards of human decency and consideration for others are harder to encourage, build up and maintain across societies than to look away and allow them to fall away. To stand by, do nothing, and watch them fall is almost as bad as to actively participate in their decline.
Good standards of human decency and consideration for others are the fundamental basis for any and every place for people to pleasantly co-exist or gather to spend their leisure time enjoyably doing something together.
I doubt this will stimulate any real change as most people who display a lack of human kindness to others (not including their friends) will say to themselves 'not me, I don't do that' or become rather defensive and try to justify their behaviour to themselves. But one can only live in hope, at least for newcomers to this site in the future.
On this basis there are quite a few tichu players that are not actually kind humans and some that are quite hostile to newcomers. Those that witness the bad behaviour and say nothing and/or remain friends with the culprits are nearly as bad as they are by effectively condoning their poor treatment of others. There are some that are hypocrites and live in an echo chamber created by themselves and their friends into thinking that they are nice people because they are friendly with each other, but this is not the true basis of kindness. Sadly for them, some will live long in denial.
After reading what other people say on other sites about their tichu experience on bga, I can say with full confidence that this site is not seen by many as a welcoming and pleasant place to play tichu - and I fully agree with their general experience.
From my first game in arena I was questioned several times with an unwelcoming, suspicious and authoritative tone about my account and what I was doing on this site, as if these people had officially been appointed by bga as gatekeepers of tichu. Since then the unpleasant has continued - mostly in arena games - where I have been outrightly blamed for some losses whilst in one situation the person attempted to hide the reason with a fictitious, flimsy excuse - that if true would have been obvious in previous games played together.
I have been red thumbed even though I made no more mistakes, or fewer, than my partner made and neither of us was really responsible for the loss as we had little chance really of winning the games (this is because most games in arena you either win easily or lose with little 'real' chance of winning - at least this has been my experience so far). I guess their fragile ego and/or sensibilities required them to blame someone, and that had to be their partner.
This all amounts to some rather unpleasant people who are sadly ignorant to their own lack of human kindness. Maybe they think that is okay because it is just in the virtual world and they can't see others face to face and see how it effects them, which is still ignorance. Maybe they are lacking something in the real world and that is why they spend so much time on this site playing a frivolous card game, taking it so seriously, and being unpleasant to others for no justifiable reason.
Justifying your poor human decency towards others (especially newcomers) by the need to win and be successful is just not actually justifiable.
I might understand a player red thumbing someone when their play is so bad and they make many obvious mistakes, but when another player does not actually make mistakes (mistakes are where a player could actually have deduced or calculated from known information the correct decision to make in a given situation) and makes no more mistakes than you yourself, then it is not justifiable.
You might say I can red thumb whoever I want for no reason at all, therefore it is ok, but that in itself is not a justifiable excuse from a moral or human decency point of view. You should really question behaviour in these situations before you start questioning others' behaviour.
Just because you do it in the virtual world does not mean it is acceptable.
However, if you are not actually one of the people (type of person) mentioned above, then good luck to you, I hope you can maintain your sanity and human decency while many others around you frequently show their lack of human decency and potentially drag you down to their level.
Good standards of human decency and consideration for others are harder to encourage, build up and maintain across societies than to look away and allow them to fall away. To stand by, do nothing, and watch them fall is almost as bad as to actively participate in their decline.
Good standards of human decency and consideration for others are the fundamental basis for any and every place for people to pleasantly co-exist or gather to spend their leisure time enjoyably doing something together.
I doubt this will stimulate any real change as most people who display a lack of human kindness to others (not including their friends) will say to themselves 'not me, I don't do that' or become rather defensive and try to justify their behaviour to themselves. But one can only live in hope, at least for newcomers to this site in the future.
