PokerOffice Thread

[Ryan Beal]

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In this situation it's close. When I made all the decisions, a thread like this with positive responses would be allowed to stay up. if the thread caused people to complain later, I would delete it.

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This sounds fine. I'll treat borderline posts in the software forum the same way.

[StellarWind]

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Or perhaps they can sponsor (or co-sponsor) the Software forum and then they can promote selfishly as much as they want.

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Yuck.

Once upon a time rakeback discussion was forbidden at 2+2 despite the fact that crass or not it's an important subject for online gamblers. So when a sponsored forum appeared I said half a loaf is better than none. The moderation may not be disinterested but there is still a lot of benefit.

[Actually Morgant's crew is doing a good job but that's not my point.]

But we already have an open software forum. For it to be taken over by a commercial sponsor with a product to push and competitors to abuse would be a big step backwards for the readership.

Note that I am making a general statement of my feelings about possible new sponsored forums. They can be good if they create something new, but a lot less appealing if they corrupt what we already enjoy.

[Lloyd]

I'm not suggesting a full on sponsored forum. I'm suggesting that if they kick in some advertising $s then they'd have *some* leeway in making commercial posts.

[Dids]

I use and love of lot of these products and I'd like them to be free, but I can't see how that's really logically consistant with asking affiliates to pay for adds. The biggest difference is that a lot of them started out free, the 2p2 was involved in the beta testing and the development, and then people started to sell them.

The best guess is I have is that if we did ask the product owners to stop making the announcments, you'd just see individual posters make them instead. I would think that's a decent solution if that's something with which we are ok.

[bobbyi]

I think locking/ moving this thread is ridiculous. This reminds of the banning Diablo incident in that people are overextending themselves to blindly apply rules rather than using common sense and considering what is good for the forum. It isn't good for the forum if every joe schmo affiliate starts threads left and right to promote himself. We all agree with this. But how is it bad for the forum to allow a major piece of poker software like this one who is coming out with a major new version to post an announcement on the software forum explaining the new features? If we can't have that, why do we even have a software forum? When I go into that forum, this is exactly the kind of content I am looking for. This is signal. Random rakeback spam on the general holdem forum is noise. In some cases the line may be blurry, but it isn't here.

[Tapirboy]

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I think locking/ moving this thread is ridiculous.

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This was in the Zoo, FWIW. I think deleting this one and leaving the one in Software was the right thing to do. Software's obviously the right forum for it.

As always, I think it's more important that the forum be useful to its members than that we prevent anyone from making money off of it. It's the usefulness of the forum that keeps people coming here, which is what sells ads and books. Poker Office announcements are pretty clearly on the "useful" side of the question, IMO.

[Ryan Beal]

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I think locking/ moving this thread is ridiculous.

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This was in the Zoo, FWIW. I think deleting this one and leaving the one in Software was the right thing to do. Software's obviously the right forum for it.

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Yeah, I agree. If we are going to allow this, let's keep it in the software forum.

BTW bobby, I don't see how this is even remotely similar to Diablo being banned. As Mat said, it's close.

[Dids]

The thing is bobby, that it's just not really logically consistant to not lock this and lock the affl threads. They're offering a service too, and it's like free money and stuff.

Obviously there's a different, but it's more to do with competition and the lack thereof for these products.

I also think locking/moving in order to start this conversation is a good idea. The more input from other people we can get on issues, the better.

[Jim Kuhn]

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I think locking/ moving this thread is ridiculous.

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How would you have handled this situation?

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This reminds of the banning Diablo incident in that people are overextending themselves to blindly apply rules rather than using common sense and considering what is good for the forum.

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What rules were blindly applied? What commen sense approach would have been better? Let's review the options:

1) Lock the thread. Pros - that thread would have fallen off the page. Cons - other threads about over moderation probably would have taken their place.

2) Delete the thread. Pros - that thread would have been gone. Cons - other threads about over moderation probably would have taken their place.

3) Move the thread to the software forum. Pros - none? Cons - thread was already there. Also, the software mods could have complained, and maybe rightfully so, that I was just moving spam to their forum.

4) Move the thread here for discussion and clarification. Pros - We get clarification on sites representing their products via public announcements. The thread could be moved back to the internet forum or combined with the like thread in the software forum if deemed appropriate. Cons - I may get blasted for not utilizing common sense or be called ridiculous.

What actions would you have taken? Should that post have remained cross posted in the internet gambling forum? I still think I utilized common sense very well in moving that thread here for discussion. Thanks for at least having the decency of calling me out here rather than in the public forums.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
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[bobbyi]

There was nothing in your original post that indicated that this was crossposted on multiple forums.