free Nate

[Montalvo]

meh.

Whether I or anybody else other than Mason thinks Nate went too far doesn't really matter much, this is Mason's site and he can do whatever he wants.

I am a grammar/spelling nit in real life, not so much on the forums. I own many 2p2 books. I happen to agree that they often contain awkward phrasing and unclear language, and often have room for improvement from an editorial standpoint. However, this is true of many books, magazine articles, newspaper articles, etc. currently on the market. Would I like my 2p2 books more if they were more clearly written? Of course. Would it change my ability to learn from them? Probably not, because I can usually figure out what the author is trying to say. The writing/editing would have to get pretty bad for me to not purchase a 2p2 book.

HOWEVER - I probably spend at least two hours every day reading the forums on this site. This is because I enjoy reading the OT forums, as well as learning from excellent posters like Nate in the strategy forums.

When you ban solid posters, you reduce the quality of the site. This makes me not want to visit ==> you lose page views ==> you lose revenue. In addition, if I stop visiting the site, I don't learn about new 2p2 books ==> you lose book sale revenue.

This is Mason's site, and he can do what he wants. If he wants to lose revenue, that's his business.

My vote - Free Nate.

[UpstateMatt]

[ QUOTE ]
Matt,

"I fail to see how the quality of one's argument is relevant to the issue at hand. Are you arguing that people who are wrong on the forum should be banned? Or that one factor in banning people should be whether or not they were wrong?"


I was simply pointing out the delicious irony in Nate's attempt at executing a sweet grammar burn on someone including a snarky FYP and comment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I thought your comment was part of the banning debate. You had made a debate-relevant comment just prior, and i thought you were continuing.

My snark-meter --- and i mean this as a knock against me, not you --- is very poor.

[ QUOTE ]
Huh? WTF are you going on about?

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, chill. I just misinterpretted what you said.


matt

[El Diablo]

steam,

"WOW,I seem to be the only one that thinks Nate went to far, other than Mason obviously.

I must live in my own little world or maybe if Nate had been saying those things about YOUR life's work, the opinions might differ."

Nate repeatedly stated how good he thought 2+2 books were and how much he liked them. He simply had issues with one element of the writing and suggested some ways to make the books even better.

Could Nate have been a bit more sensitive to Mason's emotions on this issue? Sure. But to say that he is being offensive to the point that merits a ban seems pretty ridiculous to me.

FWIW, I would expect many of my peers who excel in professional fields to embrace criticisms of that nature and do their best to find a way to address the issues raised. I feel like Mason reacted (perhaps understandbly) to some hot button comments like "2+2 must not care much about the quality of writing" (paraphrased) and was so offended by the statements that he did not fully appreciate the spirit of the whole post/thread, which I felt was largely of a positive and constructive nature.

[El Diablo]

Matt,

"Dude, chill. I just misinterpretted what you said."

Cool, no worries. Seriously, though, Nate's FYP post is pretty hilarious, right?

[UpstateMatt]

[ QUOTE ]
Matt,

I didn't say I thought he owed an apology or should have been banned. I was simply answering your question regarding what I thought an apology from Nate might look like.

As you say, I don't think something like what I wrote there would really say much of anything different from the thread itself. But it would probably get Nate reinstated faster (based on Mason's post, it appears that he's likely to be reinstated by Mat in a couple of days anyway).

The fact of the matter is, if you piss Mason off in certain ways on this forum, you may get banned, regardless of who you are or what you have contributed here. Most longtime users are aware of this. At that point, you can choose to either play by Mason's rules or stick to your guns and go somewhere else. That's everyone's individual decision to make.

[/ QUOTE ]

El D:

This is a good point, and i agree.

However, I don't think it reflects very well at all on Mason, of whom I have quite a bit of respect. It is beyond juvenille, and i don't think that's particularly debatable. It reeks of insecurity.

Life certainly goes on. Nate will be back soon enough. And he'll still be one of the most respected and courteous posters. But I will, personally, have a new view of Mason.

matt

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
I would expect many of my peers who excel in professional fields to embrace criticisms of that nature and do their best to find a way to address the issues raised.

[/ QUOTE ]


Exactly.

This also seems to be a trait of good poker-players when evaluating their own play. Open-mindedly accepting ideas that may run contrary to their own.

Bad players will continually insist that their way of always limping with AK is obviously correct because it's a drawing-hand and will refuse to listen to any other player who tries to argue otherwise.

[UpstateMatt]

[ QUOTE ]
Matt,

"Dude, chill. I just misinterpretted what you said."

Cool, no worries. Seriously, though, Nate's FYP post is pretty hilarious, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, in a vacuum, if true, i guess it's funny. I can't really laugh, however, because it annoyed the heck out of me that the debate Nate originally wanted to start --- about the quality of writing in 2+2 books --- quickly devolved into a debate over Nate's forum-post editing skills. Nate was equally to blame for that, but i found it obnoxious that people somehow saw it as relevant to the question of whether 2+2 books are well edited. It was a classic derailment of an internet discussion, and it contributed to the animosity that grew in the original thread.

But yeah, it's not bad as far as gotcha snark humor goes.

matt

[steamboatin]

[ QUOTE ]


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WOW,I seem to be the only one that thinks Nate went to far, other than Mason obviously.

I must live in my own little world or maybe if Nate had been saying those things about YOUR life's work, the opinions might differ.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Serious question here - do you think that Nate deserved to be perma-banned for the thread? Or do you agree that, regardless of his having gone too far, the banning is out of line?

My feeling is that Mason took away any legitimacy in the argument that Nate went too far by his serious over-reaction to it.

Here's my analogy - if somebody comes up and starts pushing me, and I pull out a gun and shoot them, while they may have been completely in the wrong to begin with, my over-reaction trumps the 'bad' that started the altercation.

OT

ps - my analogy is a bad one in that it assumes that Nate "sucker punched" Mason. In fact, I believe what happened is that Nate was passionate in his debating an issue - in a forum designed for debate.


[/ QUOTE ]

El D also, I run my own little real estae brokerage and if anyone called me up on the phone and talked about me/my company like Nate talked about 2+2 and WTHG (Winning in Tough Holdem Games? is my anagram right?) I would save their phone number on my phone and never answer their telephone call again. If it was an email, instant junk mail filter, they could kiss my ass.

I would definetely ban them from speaking to me again.

Businessis tough enough and life is too short to have to accept that type of crap from people.

The part of this that I don't understand is why you all think Nate was so nice. That is the part that makes me think I live in a different world from most of you. Are you so surrounded by [censored] that Nate's continual jabs at Mason seem to be normal conversation?

I looked through the thread again because sometimes my reading comprehension isn't the greatest and I am beginning to believe that I am not as smart as I once thought, but I just can't find all that warm fuzzy helpfullness that most of you seem to see.

[Triumph36]

warm fuzzy helpfulness? it's the internet. people are naturally much more direct and sarcastic than they would be if they were working together.

if mason wanted to ban nate from speaking to him again, there's a nice ignore filter on the forums - he wouldn't have to see another one of his posts.

Running 2p2 is not easy and there's a million critics out there, but banning someone for disagreeing just doesn't make any sense.

[El Diablo]

steam,

It appears that you and I approach the way we run our businesses in a completely different manner.