Board Game Arena

Prohibiting spectator interaction has become a real inconvenience. I am trying to find what benefit it is for a site that thrives on interaction to limit interaction. I do understand that some players do not like spectators to speak because it takes away their focus but I feel as though this should be an option to those players specifically.

Also, the best solution to this has already been implemented for this long ago. If we do not want spectators speaking in our game we simply click on the X next to their name in the list of spectators. I personally think this new rule does not create the friendly social interactive feel that we often get from BGA. We make friends on here. We drop by and say hello. We ask if there will be a rematch. We cheer on our mates. Even in pre-game lobby, we are asking things of the host or table members.

"Hey I want to join can you all wait 2 minutes "
"Hey can you add this variant"
"Hi friends, just dropping by to wish you good luck"

These simple idea cannot even be voiced anymore. It seems a bit restrictive given the socially interactive environment of BGA. Kindly asking the admin to please reconsider this implementation.

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=17006

The issue with the 'x' is that it cannot be activated preemptively.

So possibly a better solution would be to put the X on the list instead of next to a specific person's name. That way, anyway at the table can opt out of viewing spectators as soon as the game starts

Hello
I have asked a long time ago for the possibility to mute the chat (for those who do not want) with an icon showing this player is out of the chat.
My2p

I agree that this "update" is quite annoying and doesn't help anyhow. Until now people were able to "mute" the others and I don't see what the issue with that is... 1 simple click. I really hope this is going to be changed so spectators can comment again (if the players don't mind it ofc).

I agree with previous comments, I think allowing spectators to speak is benefitial from the social perspective of the game.

Please note there is another thread with this same topic, maybe they should be merged if possible:
Spectator status
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =3&t=15555

In addition to muting an annoying spectator, another possibility is to send them to the dead chat so they cannot interfere with the game in progresss (I made this suggestions a few days ago in the Werewolves forum section).

Yeah aghagh. I saw that other thread but it seemed more about the game end chat then it was about the whole thing

The subject is also being discussed in an official topic, in the following link, where they talk about the current changes.

I suggest people who commented here to centralize the feedback to try a good solution for the community.

Auto-start + spectators chat + many little things (May 8th update)
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =5&t=15554

Prohibiting spectators is really unconvience these days.......prefer set a option to choice On/Off.Thx

I really liked previously being able to chat with spectators. As sometimes friends will drop in to watch a game.
Prohibiting that interaction is counteractive to the idea of making friends on this site.

As such. this feature should be optional, so those who want to limit chat, can;
but those of us who would like to be able to chat with our spectators, can do that too.