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.

[MumblesBadly]

i genuinely dont think i ever once used the term 'n-word' on any of these forums beyond calling gare a 'pasty white n-word' now and again. ive certainly never used it as any form of derogatory / hate slur.

lol at 'all the old school guys here' btw, heaven forfend the 3 of you should think less of me, its really going to make prom awkward.

This is a blatant lie, if NWP or DD were still up a simple search history would turn up things differently. Keep acting all enlightened when you were just as dirty if not dirtier than the right wing people you claim are racist or evil here. You're almost as bad as SS.

Jesus H Christ! Two of my biggest haters going at each other like entitled toddlers! So, I am compelled to chime in...

To handicapme:

(1) Who gives a crap what Tinemind or anyone else did on this or a related forum over a decade ago? Or even just a few years ago??? The issue is what should a Druff do GOING FORWARD given the CURRENT social climate. If Druff puts in place some new restrictions on posted comments in the Flying Stupidity forum, and inbred Trump balls-massaging social-simpletons like dwai and BiffCo quickly come around to joining the rest of us in simply being more respectful towards others — including with those whom they politically disagree with — all should be good for them to continue to post here.

(2) But I agree with you that He-whom-Brandon-calls-“Thomas” is clearly asking for way too much of Druff regardless of whether he is a bit hypocritical regarding being responsible for hateful speech. (See https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...l=1#post919179

To sonatine:

(1) You HAVE been a bit of a hypocritical prima donna regarding previously posting content intended to derail other people’s activities here, but you’ve (mostly) behaved yourself quite well since you’ve embraced using the “Ignore this user” button. So, handibanksterme is out of line when bringing up what you may-or-may-not-have-done in days long past. So, good job on that.

(2) But your criticism of Druff is, IMO, not fair, and I have probably been one of his most vocal critics on this forum of his politics-and-related beliefs. Because, unlike true crypto-fascists, Druff, again IMO, almost surely means well despite his oftentimes blind-to-himself bigoted sentiments towards people of certain ethnic/religious/racial groups different from him.

Sort of like that your-recipes-need-way-more-butter celebrity-chef-lady who lost her TV sponsors when it came out that she often used racial slurs in her everyday speech even though she had some wonderful Negro-I-mean-Black employees and she didn’t mean to pine for the days when huge parties where staffed by many nappily-dressed dark-skinned servants for the benefit of the all-white attendants to such gay* Antebellum-style festivities.

*(And by “gay” here, I am referring to the socially-acceptable turn-of-the-20th-Century-common-usage meaning of the term. So keep your knickers in a knot, “Thomas”.)



Seriously. Druff is neither a fascist, NOR a crypto-fascist. He just wants the extremely-valuable-to-his-conservative-sensibilities policies that Trump has put in place and promotes to continue regardless of how debase, corrupt, incompetent, and Constitution-and-democracy-shredding Trump is and will continue to be while being President of these United States. Because it’s all about the policies, man. No fascism in that man, sir. Just his policy concerns.

[blake]

i genuinely dont think i ever once used the term 'n-word' on any of these forums beyond calling gare a 'pasty white n-word' now and again. ive certainly never used it as any form of derogatory / hate slur.

lol at 'all the old school guys here' btw, heaven forfend the 3 of you should think less of me, its really going to make prom awkward.

This is a blatant lie, if NWP or DD were still up a simple search history would turn up things differently. Keep acting all enlightened when you were just as dirty if not dirtier than the right wing people you claim are racist or evil here. You're almost as bad as SS.

you're legit wrong here

i've been around these forums for far too long and tine was absolutely never the n-word alarm person

i swear you're thinking of gamblebot

[blake]

and i say this about tine cause since the very beginning i have thought he was the funniest person on the internet (with lol wow), and i just never would have thought it, if he was over the top with racism.

that doesn't mean we all didn't make jokes 20 years ago, him too, i'm guessing. like, i'm sure, whenever a black celebrity or athlete would die, i would probably post a picture of donovan mcnabb and say NEVER FORGET.

i feel that's a little different from what's happening today, but 100% we all made jokes and are all a little hypocritical. i think it's just that we're getting older

[Crowe Diddly]

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.

I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that if you take care of the first part, the trolling/shitposting complaints, you will drastically reduce the 2nd type of complaint, the fighting, n-bomb cesspool part. They are not entirely separate complaints, just different sides of the same coin for the most part.

[BCR]

holy shit that's some fast goal post moving. went from doing these things constantly, to doing them even once.

He implied that he had never done any of those things, everyone who was around back than knows differently. Don't try and defend your buddy, you know just as well as I do what he did back on nwp/dd.

I really think you are wrong. I can't recall tine ever doing that. He posted gross shit that made me cringe worse than a 1000 slurs, but he wasn't a slur guy ever. I am thinking you are confusing him. I have on a few occasions to irritate someone specific iirc, but I don't recall him ever.

[dwai]

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.

I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that if you take care of the first part, the trolling/shitposting complaints, you will drastically reduce the 2nd type of complaint, the fighting, n-bomb cesspool part. They are not entirely separate complaints, just different sides of the same coin for the most part.

God you've really turned into a baby bitch, you know that? cry more you old faggot

[limitles]

and i say this about tine cause since the very beginning i have thought he was the funniest person on the internet (with lol wow), and i just never would have thought it, if he was over the top with racism.

that doesn't mean we all didn't make jokes 20 years ago, him too, i'm guessing. like, i'm sure, whenever a black celebrity or athlete would die, i would probably post a picture of donovan mcnabb and say NEVER FORGET.

i feel that's a little different from what's happening today, but 100% we all made jokes and are all a little hypocritical. i think it's just that we're getting older

I think you're missing the point. Sonatine and SS weighed in heavily about the
narrative this site has taken. Both mentioned that any politically correct speech
adjustments would have no effect on the deep seeded bent of a number of prolific posters.

Right. That will never happen. But the alternative according to them is to rid the site
these offenders. If that's the goal, then close it down, it is no longer an open forum.

BTW they were pretty heavy on the idea that Druff being a right winger
had a soft spot for the ones they deemed as offenders.

[OSA]

I feel like this is the NWP/DD/PFA Civil War, 15 years in the making.


I want to go back to a time where I got paid to cock bomb a certain poker site with close to 100 accounts.


A time where I could crowd fund a way to get my dick sucked in a LV stairwell.


A time where I would get staked to play a WSOP event.


Those were good times, and I hope you people come to your senses, relax, and donate to my future vacations.

[sonatine]

I feel like this is the NWP/DD/PFA Civil War, 15 years in the making.


I want to go back to a time where I got paid to cock bomb a certain poker site with close to 100 accounts.


A time where I could crowd fund a way to get my dick sucked in a LV stairwell.


A time where I would get staked to play a WSOP event.


Those were good times, and I hope you people come to your senses, relax, and donate to my future vacations.

but we literally do this every few months.

[Crowe Diddly]

I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that if you take care of the first part, the trolling/shitposting complaints, you will drastically reduce the 2nd type of complaint, the fighting, n-bomb cesspool part. They are not entirely separate complaints, just different sides of the same coin for the most part.

God you've really turned into a baby bitch, you know that? cry more you old faggot

can't be both, I'm either a baby bitch or an old faggot, pick a side. you also have hysterical woman as a choice, pretty sure you've lobbed that one at me a few times.

[dwai]

God you've really turned into a baby bitch, you know that? cry more you old faggot

can't be both, I'm either a baby bitch or an old faggot, pick a side. you also have hysterical woman as a choice, pretty sure you've lobbed that one at me a few times.

eh, you're alright, just a bit soft

[Dan Druff]

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.

I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that if you take care of the first part, the trolling/shitposting complaints, you will drastically reduce the 2nd type of complaint, the fighting, n-bomb cesspool part. They are not entirely separate complaints, just different sides of the same coin for the most part.

The problem is that "taking care" of trolling/shitposting isn't easy, unless I want to remake the forum to being much more restrictive.

That's not to say I can't clamp down somewhat on the worst offenders, but I'm really more of a believer in setting realistic rules and expectations for everyone, rather than subjectively defining trolling/shitposting on the fly.

When people ask me at the 2021 WSOP, "Why are you allowing the n-bomb to be freely posted on your site?", the answer of, "Well, I banned dwai for trolling and shitposting, so that's progress, right?" won't exactly cut it.

[dwai]

lol @ Druff folding to SJW's sonatine, SrslySirius and Crowe Diddly

[Dan Druff]

I haven't folded to anyone. I haven't even made any decisions yet.

BTW, if I were to fold to them, you would be banned, which I'm not planning to do.

[nightmarefish]

Thread delivers IMO.

It’s like a huge dysfunctional family of 40 somethings in a pointless therapy session.

There’s a handful of reasonable people dominated by a bunch of old assholes that will never admit they’re wrong about anything. Very few are capable of getting pussy.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

if everybody was just betting the 1st period unders in the NHL playoffs everybody would be a lot less stressed and could donate more easily to OSA's gay vacation...

[Crowe Diddly]

The problem is that "taking care" of trolling/shitposting isn't easy, unless I want to remake the forum to being much more restrictive.

That's not to say I can't clamp down somewhat on the worst offenders, but I'm really more of a believer in setting realistic rules and expectations for everyone, rather than subjectively defining trolling/shitposting on the fly.

When people ask me at the 2021 WSOP, "Why are you allowing the n-bomb to be freely posted on your site?", the answer of, "Well, I banned dwai for trolling and shitposting, so that's progress, right?" won't exactly cut it.

Do a search for the n-word by post, and skip the first bunch of results from this thread. In recent times, the guy throwing the n-word out there is dwai, followed by people quoting dwai, people responding to dwai, and people quoting rep that dwai gave.

The rule is easy. It's your forum. Make it simple. You've already made it clear all decisions here are yours, so make that the literal rule. If you deem a poster to be a shitposter who only disrupts things or throws around racist terms to be extra shocking, you will get rid of them, or restrict them in some way.

You;re already the entire judge/jury of this place. You can do whatever you want. Err on the lenient side, even, but start with the clear-cut racist shitposting.

[thesidedish]

UNBAN TYDE

[dwai]

The problem is that "taking care" of trolling/shitposting isn't easy, unless I want to remake the forum to being much more restrictive.

That's not to say I can't clamp down somewhat on the worst offenders, but I'm really more of a believer in setting realistic rules and expectations for everyone, rather than subjectively defining trolling/shitposting on the fly.

When people ask me at the 2021 WSOP, "Why are you allowing the n-bomb to be freely posted on your site?", the answer of, "Well, I banned dwai for trolling and shitposting, so that's progress, right?" won't exactly cut it.

Do a search for the n-word by post, and skip the first bunch of results from this thread. In recent times, the guy throwing the n-word out there is dwai, followed by people quoting dwai, people responding to dwai, and people quoting rep that dwai gave.

The rule is easy. It's your forum. Make it simple. You've already made it clear all decisions here are yours, so make that the literal rule. If you deem a poster to be a shitposter who only disrupts things or throws around racist terms to be extra shocking, you will get rid of them.

You;re already the entire judge/jury of this place. You can do whatever you want. Err on the lenient side, even, but start with the clear-cut racist shitposting.

lol, tilting your face off that I'm not getting banned, I already agreed to stop using the n-word for you pussies, try to convince Druff to ban me more fag