Who banned Clarkmeister?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Mike:

I am 100 percent sure that Clark is well aware of Hal's disability.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Gildwulf:

[ QUOTE ]
If Mason banned someone every time they called Dids fat we would lose about 80% of our user base.


[/ QUOTE ]

There's a big difference here. Dids is very capable of defending himself. Hal can't drive a car. He can't walk through a casino without someone helping him. Once in the poker room he can't find his seat without help. He can't see the people on either side of him so he needs to be told when it's his turn to act. And of course, he can't see the cards or the board without being told what they are.

As an experiment, go to a restaurant and order a meal. But when it comes, close your eyes while you're eating and you'll get some idea what Hal goes through.

So this is the real problem here. Someone like Dids is completely capable of defending himself. Hal is not.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Evan]

Mason, I don't really see what eating with your eyes closed has to do with being able to defend yourself in text.

[NT!]

Hi Mason,

I wasn't really trying to imply causation between Hal being your friend and Clark getting banned, just summing the situation up in a concise way. My point was basically that I don't really care why you banned him, it's your website and you can do what you want.

[Mason Malmuth]

[ QUOTE ]
it's your website and you can do what you want.

[/ QUOTE ]

We don't run the website this way. If we did, www.twoplustwo.com probably wouldn't be much of a website. We set standards, and we try to follow those standards with reasonable flexibility.

Best wishes,
Mason

[private joker]

Hi Mason,

I realize that after private discussion between you and Dave, he'll be unbanned soon enough and this will blow over. I too would think a 2-day suspension is reasonable.

However, stephenNUTS later in the thread told Dave to "rot in HELL" and was not disciplined. Furthermore, several posters have taken to instructing others to "die in a grease fire," "I hope you get AIDS" and "please kill yourself."

Dave only expressed schadenfreuede at Hal busting out of the main event, and criticized Hal's nittiness and slow pace of play. Granted, the fact that Hal is blind makes the comment rather tasteless, but I don't think Dave's comment is even remotely close to the low point in the website's history.

[Ryan Beal]

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Furthermore, several posters have taken to instructing others to "die in a grease fire," "I hope you get AIDS" and "please kill yourself."

[/ QUOTE ]

This shouldn't be allowed. I believe Mat made a post about stuff like that a while back, and these days there are a fair number of bans for it. So I assume that is still being enforced.

[citanul]

While I can understand the dismissal of comparisons of say, calling Dids fat, to the current situation on grounds of both outright level of poor taste and ability of the victim to defend himself, I cannot then understand what the rational for allowing people to insult in various ways anonymous women, or even poker pros, who do not post on this forum.

While those people might have the ability to defend themselves, technically, where Hal does not, their simple choice to not read every post on twoplustwo means they are equally oblivious to the trash talked about them on these forums. While it is true that it is possibly more likely that someone reading about Hal here might then go and meet Hal and do something rude, that's not really a great excuse. Random girl who makes the mistake of dating a B4L poster should be equally protected from insult.

Anyway, just wanted, while we have Mason around, to mention that perhaps if the general tone is going to be looked at, it could be a bit more consistent. Perhaps I'm missing something that makes making fun of a disabled guy who plays poker and is a nice guy because he slows down the game less acceptable than making fun of a girl because she has a big nose and then photoshopping an elephant trunk and a bunch of supermarios humping her or some nonsense just because some moron decided to post her picture in this space.

[Mat Sklansky]

Just because some things have been allowed because we haven't seen them, doesn't mean they are definitely ok.

I'm going to continue to judge on an individual basis those things which come to my attention.


The scenario you describe regarding elephant girl is probably not ok.

[tuq]

Mason,

Thanks for the response.

For your reference, it's hard for most people to get away from the fact that 1) this is a personal friend of yours, thus the ban, 2) far worse transgressions happen on this site hourly (which I am generally fine with, we are all adults), and 3) Clarkmeister - who is so ingrained with these forums that I figured you knew him personally - is among the most highly respected posters ever. All those things thrown together lead to long threads in ATF and even mods here and in the ATF thread wondering what this is all about.

As an aside, I wonder what Clarkmeister/Dave's exact beef is with Hal. I guess it's the slow play but it's not Clark's style to lash out at someone without a legitimate reason(s). A troll he is not.