Coaching Warning Discussion Thread

[Mike Haven]

Just to clarify - it's not to be moved back now as dude reposted?

[4_2_it]

[ QUOTE ]
Just to clarify - it's not to be moved back now as dude reposted?

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct.

[ajmargarine]

Mat,

You just locked up this thread in SSNL. What did we miss? The mods were watching it pretty closely.

--aj

[Mat Sklansky]

Somebody convinced me that the coaches are getting too much free advertising here. I decided that should stop. I can be persuaded otherwise, if you like.

[4_2_it]

Mat,

So are we to lock or edit any thread that has a mention of coaching? I just want to understand exactly what 2+2's policy is. Many SSNL and uNL players use coaches so it's not unusual to see someone mention coaching every so often.

Was there one particular person/post that triggered this? I really do not care if the thread stays locked. There isn't really any more that needs to be discussed in it.

I just want to understand where my moderation failed so it does not happen again.

[EMc]

I actually think the point of that thread was not to advertise for coaches but rather complain about one. However, the point got across so I see no problems.

[Mat Sklansky]

your moderation didn't fail at all.

Scorer brought this to my attention. Is there any reason to believe he has ulterior motives?

As far as future policy, that's up for debate. I just wanted to come into that thread and show some displeasure to see which direction we should go.

It sort of reminds me of when we got overwhelmed with affiliate conversation. All of a sudden everyone is a coach. We might be better off banning the topic altogether?

[4_2_it]

Mat,

I posted this in another thread and would like some input. From your post I know you probably do not agree with it 100%, but at least we can use it to begin the discussion. Once we get a policy, I will add it to the uNL and SSNL stickies.

[ QUOTE ]
Allow me to clarify:

Okay
<ul type="square">[*] TWP has coached and my experience was.........
[*] I heard KRANTZ is a good coach......
[*]4_2_it sucks as a coach and took my monies.....[/list]
Not okay

<ul type="square">[*] I'm a coach, PM me.
[*]I have coached XY&amp;Z and am taking more students.[/list]
Gray, but okay as long as common sense is used

<ul type="square">[*] I have coached and this is my opinion type posts that do not sound like advertisements.[/list]
I trust everyone can understand the differences. If 6 gimmick accounts come on and tout one particular coach I will ban them all.

Put another way, it's okay to post your movie review, but not okay to pimp your screenplay.

[/ QUOTE ]

[StellarWind]

[ QUOTE ]
As far as future policy, that's up for debate. I just wanted to come into that thread and show some displeasure to see which direction we should go.

It sort of reminds me of when we got overwhelmed with affiliate conversation. All of a sudden everyone is a coach. We might be better off banning the topic altogether?

[/ QUOTE ]
Your business benefits enormously from being the preeminent poker discussion forum. Reasonable discussion of coaching is something some of your readers want and need. Forcing them to go elsewhere for it is not in your best interest.

My policy is to let the player-students discuss coaching when they want to. I'll even tolerate a little subtle self-promotion ("this is a hand my student played, what do you think about the turn?") from a regular poster who provides a lot of good content. Many of the most popular strategy posters are coaches and I want them to continue contributing.

If someone steps over the line then I delete and warn. That's rarely necessary and overall it's not a significant problem.

I don't think we need new rules here. Let the mods use their judgment to deal with the occasional problem.

[citanul]

Mat,

I think we need to sit down and come up with a good way of having either forum specific or not (I'd prefer yes) coaching directories. Something like a coaching sticky in each forum would be fine, and paid entries in to the Sticky. How coaching reviews would go with this, I don't know, that's what the discussion is for. The coaching business is not going away any time soon, nor is the desire of people to use it. I also don't know what an ad costs here, but it's probably not within reasonable amounts for the majority of coaches. There are however, plenty of coaching sites that are probably making a killing off of free word of mouth or semi spam stuff. I think a new thread in this forum, open for discussions of how to properly handle the subject, would be good.

c