Direction of the forum -- how should I handle free speech in the 2020s?

[limitles]

Well, it's not surprising that this thread degenerated into what you see here.

I feel there's a lot of confusion regarding a number of things:

1) While I expressed concern last month about SrslySirius, sonatine, and stockamets, I no longer have such concern. While our Zoom call probably went on a bit too long, I felt it accomplished a lot. Everyone got to air their concerns, and by the end of the call, I trusted the sincerity of everyone involved. I do not believe sonatine or Srsly are taking their current position in this thread as a secret plot to destroy PFA.

2) I think there is some misunderstanding about complaints regarding PFA. There are two separate types of PFA forum complaints. The first type comes from active users/lurkers who read this place several times per week. These people sometimes hate the trolling, shitposting, etc. When I get complaints about people like dwai, limitles, etc, it comes from people who regularly read PFA. The second type comes from outsiders who occasionally visit or have come here once or twice. Their complaints are about the racist/homophobic language and general hostility of the place. These people don't read enough to become annoyed about any particular political ideology or thread derailing shitposts. They just see people fighting and the n-bomb being thrown around, and they conclude this is a cespool. Now, I will admit that I care more about what regular readers/posters think than outsiders, but I also don't want to be known throughout poker as the guy who runs "that racist poker forum". Again, it's important to understand that it's my name attached to this thing.

3) I realize that we are 8.5 years in here, and I'm not going to change much about PFA's rep, no matter what I do. I've seen this mistake time and time again regarding online communities. The owner says, "My forum/BBS/chat room attracts X group of people, but Y group of people hate it. So I'll make a bunch of changes to attract group Y." Then it turns out group Y has already made up their mind about the place, and they still don't come. At the same time, group X hates the changes, and the place becomes a ghost town. So I don't want that happening here, and I realize that is a distinct possibility if I dramatically remake PFA. So I'm definitely not making dramatic changes here, no matter what.

4) As you guys have probably seen during my 20 years in poker, I've never kissed anyone's ass, and I don't attempt to make myself liked by the cool kids in poker. I just do my own thing, express my opinions, say what I want, and let the chips fall. The opinions of me from this community are more important to me than the opinions of the general poker community. At the same time, I also hate when people have the wrong impression of me, and I've long been concerned that many in poker have mistook my support of free speech as support of bigotry. In 2020, that's an especially bad look.

I still have not made a decision yet as to what I should do.

Carry on.

I read a lot of kiss ass in this post.

These "friends" of yours are using you. It's not just me, shit poster, who has expressed this opinion. It also comes from a few serious devoted PFA'ers.
I don't care what your bottom line is but the optics are not good

Seriously can post here as can Drexel but they should expect all that they deserve
from the members who have stood by this site.

Do yourself a favour a cut all thoughts in third.
You do not need a page and a half for each decision.