NWP existed from 2004-2009 -- also known as the poker boom.Originally Posted by sonatine
i do not agree;
NWP tarred and feathered the lames fucking up the flow there. do you consider this a more entertaining community than NWP was?
i dont.
so if you agree (perhaps you dont of course) then you must admit that sanctioning users who degrade the quality of discourse is clearly for the greater good of the community.
in fact i cant really find a down side to re-implementing a short bus at all.
but again ive said this shit before. and this thread isnt about me hitting the benches. however, what this thread IS about is exactly what led me to take an extended time out; unchecked idioticry.
Do I wish this site had the traffic of NWP? Sure.
I also wish I could fire up Pokerstars and play 200-400 limit holdem against megafish.
I also wish I could get 5 figures for wearing a hat and stick-on logo at every televised WSOP table, of which there were many.
I also wish I could deposit anywhere easily with no fees, and withdraw large sums of money within days (or sometimes even hours).
Get the picture yet? It's not the 2000s anymore, and this isn't NWP.
Here is the reality:
We have a small-but-active core of regular posters, a fair number of lurk-and-post-occasionally people, and a good number of lurkers who read for entertainment but have never wanted to enter the fray (and likely never will).
If I start banhammering the uncool kids, we will be left with a circle jerk of a small number of guys posting the same things to each other over and over.
There's already a site where you can do that. It's known as Skatz. Anyone who wants to pahticipate in that highly insulated circle jerk of inside jokes and pseudo-intellectual one upmanship is welcome to register an account there at any time, but that's not the type of community I'm going for here.
I like the fact that there is a flow of new and unknown blood around here. Sometimes the new posters are good, sometimes they're ok, and sometimes they're terrible, but at least they're new. At least they bring something different to the table.
I don't want to get rid of the stupid people.
I don't want to get rid of the weird people.
I don't want to get rid of the offensive or annoying people.
I want this forum to be a place for open and free expression.
Now, there are some things I don't want to see here.
I don't want people who are threatening.
I don't want people who are mentally ill, and use this forum as a projection of their mental illness.
I don't want people who are here primarily for the purpose of getting me angry, repeatedly insulting me, or making my own site unenjoyable for me. I'll tolerate this to some degree, but if that becomes someone's primary routine here, they're gone. I stated that way back in early 2012, before this site even went up.
I don't want people here who show a blatant disregard for the very simple rules here, such as ones who purposely ruin good threads with attacks and trolling.
Bottom line is that this is a place for free form expression, and the only people I want to ban or censor are the ones who are either really disruptive or are only here to cause me grief.
garrett is banned. He is done here. I should have sent him away a long time ago, because I don't think this community is a healthy place for him to be. It's not surprising we got to this point. I should have shut it all down earlier, and told him that he'd be better off elsewhere.
That decision was easy, and I think almost all of us can agree upon it.
However, from there it gets much tougher.
Many have clamored to ban thesparten, but he has very much toned down his prolific posting in recent months (at my request), and his 20+ page restaurant thread has actually become interesting.
Mumbles may say some foolish things (his low point was giving "advice" to Brandon and cmoney after they lost that huge Aldo bet), but he also writes coherently and isn't attempting to troll anyone. Even if you hate his posts, he is usually on topic, not trolling, and lays out his thoughts clearly, so I'm definitely not banning him.
ThisGuyIsWhat is clearly hungry for attention, but unless his presence becomes really disruptive, I'm not removing him, either.
I see that michael returned recently. That's great, but recall that the masses of NWP demanded michael's ban for the first few months of his presence on the site. A quick ban of unpopular posters is not necessarily a good thing.
So what should I be doing? Putting "bags" on people? What purpose does that serve? So we can make the lesser-liked posters wear virtual dunce caps, while we snicker in superiority? I don't see how that makes the forum any better. People can be "shamed" into posting better without stupid titles and forced avatars. Most of us are over 35 here. Time to grow up.
Look, if you really want an environment where everyone is intelligent, well-written, and logical, there are other places on the web to go with a more authoritarian moderation style, and you can have your fun talking to the same people every day for years. That's not what this site will ever be.
Willie said it best. If you want this place to be more readable, contribute good content of your own. If the idiots here ruin good threads, then you will have more ammunition to have me remove them.
Good, intelligent discussions can still be had here. Look at the designated hitter thread I started today. 19 posts so far, and all of them are on-topic and intelligent, with no trolling or awfulness.
Create good discussion topics, and the good content will follow.
Dedicate your time here to trolling those with whom you disagree, and you will just contribute to the unreadability.
Bottom line is that I am going to start being a bit tougher on serial site disrupters. I will be quicker to ask (or force) posters of frequent crap tone it down. At the same time, I am going to stay the course with my general moderation style of PFA, with little tweaks here and there to make things better.
If that's not good enough, you know where the Log Out button is.
Reply With Quote
