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Wow, been home for the weekend and stumbled across this thread on the train. Just got back in so going to reply to some this hypothetical situation as well as a couple of actual situations which have been thrown about in this thread. This post might be quite long, sorry.
It's pretty obvious that this hypothetical situation has come from a real situation. I want to say that I've made a few mistakes in my time here and I've apologized a number of times to anyone I've pissed off unintentionally. I hope these apologies can be accepted and that I can work with everyone on this forum, both the moderation team and regulars, to continue to improve the forum and the community.
Onto the thread. It's definitely the most one sided opening post and poll I've ever seen, and it makes the situation seem like something it is not. It would probably have been easier to just make a post saying "DO YOU WANT FTR TO DIE?". To briefly cover the background story which lead to this thread, I posted a comment in the mod forum saying that I'd been told by potential members that they found FTR unwelcoming and hostile sometimes. I also deleted a couple of posts I felt were inappropriate (I'll have to talk more about this later by the looks of things anyway). At no point did I ever ask anyone to leave or even say that advice should be given in a welcoming and friendly way. My main point was that I've seen evidence over the last couple of months of crossing the line of "harsh learning" and becoming inappropriate. Given this is all hypothetical I'll make up a couple of examples. For example, there's no problem with "what the fuck were you thinking? why did you make your 3bet that size?" or even "why would you ever do this?". I do have a problem with posting something like "you're so bad at poker lol" or "haha how can you be so stupid to do this?" with no attempt made to further the discussion or let them learn. I think there's also been some evidence of posters being insulted regularly despite not ever really reacting and continuing to try and participate despite this, which makes the forum look really bad from a neutral perspective.
The poll gives two options - agree with d0zer or watch FTR burn. Why can't there be a 3rd option? Tone it down a tiny bit in the 1% of occasions where it crosses the line, and the rest of the time carry on as normal? To me, that doesn't sound unreasonable, and especially not as unreasonable as this thread makes it out to be. This is what I was suggested, and I guess it's been misunderstood.
But that's the point, they are choosing not to do so because of how they feel they are being treated. How does that affect you, me and all the other BC and strat posting regs on this site?
I've apologized and will apologize again to anyone who feels they have been mistreated. I don't want anyone to stop posting because of something I've said or done. And if anyone thinks "hey bro, stop doing that I don't like it" then I'd happily listen to a PM or have a Skype conversation and change my viewpoint. That hasn't happened yet though, although I hope it will. I also hope you'll look over everything I've done and see there's been some overreacting. I'd like to work with everyone on this forum to improve the community and I hope you'll all decide to support me.
This is so far from what's happening it's not even close. The "quality posters" are being told how they should be posting towards others and have had posts deleted by the administration. They are basically being told what they can or can't do when it comes to their "advice"
I think I should probably approach this one directly. "Administration" = me. Posts deleted makes it sound like its far more than the 2 situations in the last 2 months. The post which kicked all this off was just an inappropriate post on a poster in a thread outside the strategy/community forums with no other content which was highly out of character. GMML told me that I should have talked to the mod or posted something in the mod forum which I didn't know/realize until that point so I sent him a PM stating the reason why I deleted the post saying I hope he understood and saying I was available by PM if he wanted to discuss it. The deletion isn't relevant to the OP because it wasn't anything about giving advice nor was it in the strategy forums.
Going back to the actual content of the thread following the poll, I'll pull out a couple of quotes which I agree with. Honestly, I think the thread - if anything - has probably surprised other people a lot more than it surprised me. Given the wording in the OP and the poll of it being one extreme or the other with no possibility for a reasonable middle ground, and some of the posts about the results in here, I'm impressed that "Civility" got 18 votes and the fact a lot of votes for "quality" were qualified with posts. It might just be people like clicking the top result though.
But if I think that somebody's wrong and they came at me like a dick then I'm gonna tell them like a dick. If that's not ok then bring on the banhammer. I don't really want to be a part of an FTR where I can't speak the truth.
I'm always for quality, but are these two really mutually exclusive?
But if FTR is keen to increase membership/traffic to this site, there is a valid concern about how the noobie is likely to react to the perceived hostility here.
Couple of last things.
Apparently it's not that. Like jyms said, they are being told how to post and posts are being deleted if they don't fall into our new managements lovey, fluffy idea of what is appropriate.
This is wrong, and I have no idea where this has come from. This thread seems to have promoted the idea that I (or someone else) is going around mass deleting posts which don't end in "kisses and hugs". It's just wrong.
So that got me to thinking, what's better for the forum: A more friendly, heavily moderated environment that will attract more people, but alienate the people giving the best advice?
My comment on the forum sometimes coming across to potential members as unwelcoming was made on Friday night, and it isn't something I've been chasing around the forum for the last two months - it was just a comment. There has been no heavy moderating by me in this forum, and I strongly disagree with any post that suggests there has.
What I've said is being blown out of proportion and if I didn't have all the information I'd probably agree with you guys given what's written in the thread given how it's being portrayed. It's interesting to read this thread starting at the top and see how it's developed.
I'll end my post here, it's long enough, with two last points. 1 - if anyone wants to talk to me about this, I'm reachable by PM or Skype. I'm happy to talk, apart from private mod stuff (what posts were deleted, what exactly was said, etc, it's not my place to discuss that). I'd also like to talk about this hypothetical situation - in confidence - and especially with regulars and long time posters about what they think is acceptable or if anything should go full stop. 2 - I hope some of you can see where I'm coming from, and see that this hypothetical situation, and what I've actually suggested/done, have just been taken in the wrong way and confirmation bias used to make me seem like I'm trying to fuck with FTR. I think FTR is great the way it is, and I'm not suggesting any mass changes, just some small improvements to make the forum a better community.
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