What Is The General Texas Hold Em Forum For?

[PokrLikeItsProse]

Talk about cutting forums in borodog's "I want to be a mod" thread made me want to post about something I have been contemplating.

The General Texas Hold Em is one of the few forums which lacks a sticky FAQ defining what is appropriate for that forum. (Poker Theory also suffers from this flaw.) Looking at the thread titles of just the first page, a case could probably be made for all of them being moved to other forums. I can't think of any topic that I might post on that would be most appropriate for "General Texas Hold Em" rather than another forum.

The forum seems mainly to suck in stupid people who want to post something (even if it is just stuff about players who have been seen on TV playing HE that should go in NVG) and pick the first forum that seems at least tangentially related. (Poker Theory picks off a few of these hold em players, as well.) If it didn't have these (in my opinion) misplaced posts, how much "there" would be there?

Is there a need for a separate General Texas Hold Em Forum? If so, what kinds of posts should go there? Give me a real or hypothetical example of a post that is best suited to this forum.

Would it be better to split the general HE forum into general LHE and general PL/NL forums for those posts that don't specifically pertain to certain stakes?

[edfurlong]

I'm not sure if I've brought it up or not, but I think the beginners forum should take its place.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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I'm not sure if I've brought it up or not, but I think the beginners forum should take its place.

[/ QUOTE ]

The beginners forum would probably be more useful if it was placed above Poker Theory on the sidebar and the main forum menu so that it is prominently placed when beginners first come to the site. But that's probably another topic.

[Leader]

It used to be a great forum were people would write about challenges kind of like a community blog. Not so much anymore though. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[AntonHeat]

Ya I was wondering this aswell.

[bobbyi]

The forum is supposed to be for topics that aren't particular to one limit or form of holdem, so that people who play different games can discuss together. A few examples of the types of threads that historically have fit there:<ul type="square">[*]Autobiographical blog-type stuff ("my life") from players who have played for a while.[*]Comparing different forms of hold em (limit, no limit, tourney, etc.)[*]Non-strategy stuff about playing professionally, like how to decide if you should, how to make sure you get in enough hours, how to avoid burnout and keep focused while playing[*]Challenges and contests (ADHOC, Open Challenges, etc.)[/list]It used to get more traffic because it filled the need for a place where people who play different games and stakes can discuss poker together. Nowadays, that role is largely filled by BBV.

It would be nice if General Holdem could be a place for more serious (non-BBV) discussion about topics are of interest to all kinds of poker players, but I agree that that doesn't seem to be happening much right now. I delete spam threads as soon as I see them, but I haven't really been moving threads that could go in a more specific forum because the exact role of General Holdem is so poorly defined.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

Out of all of those, I thought that autobiographical stuff would go in NVG and the examples of non-strategy stuff you cite would go in Psychology. I'm not sure where contests and challenges would go. Comparison of different forms of hold em makes sense though.

I agree that the General Hold Em forum suffers from having a poorly-defined role. Who should have the power to define the role of a given forum? Is it the actual moderators of the forum? Is it a consensus of all mods, not necessary just those for the given forum? Does it require input from a higher-level authority such as Mat Sklansky? At the very least, some coordination with the other hold em forum moderators would be good. The posting guidelines in high stakes limit suggest that the mods there have a clear idea of what they would move to general.

I don't read that particular forum. Is there a core user base there and do they have opinions on what the forum should be like?

One thing that I think could be useful for the general forum as a place to bring together players from different stakes and games is to ask other hold em to crosspost any daily digests (like in small stakes) to the general forum. I don't play as much hold em as other people and I am uninterested in tracking all of the hold em forums, but it would be nice to have "best of" threads get posted to one central forum.

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

i'm pretty sure that HSNL and BBV have taken over all the 10K HU YO? and ADHOC threads.

[benza13]

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[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure if I've brought it up or not, but I think the beginners forum should take its place.

[/ QUOTE ]

The beginners forum would probably be more useful if it was placed above Poker Theory on the sidebar and the main forum menu so that it is prominently placed when beginners first come to the site. But that's probably another topic.

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I just don't see beginners going to the beginners forum unless they are truly new to poker. I would imagine the thought process would be something like: "I want advice, but not from beginners..."