An idea (ATTN: Bison)

[luckydog]

Daveymck,

Pointing the beginners to micro for these types of things is, at this time, the right thing to do and if my first post seemed tho indicate otherwise I apologize.
My point is that while correct it may be causing an undesirable ripple effect on SS.
As you pointed out, beginners is under general. I guess I forgot because most of the posts seem limit holdem related.
Others in this thread have suggested breaking up the limits into sub groups. Perhaps a new beginners forum under the Limit Holdem section would be helpful. This way the general beginners section would be there for all to use and perhaps some of the posts that now show up in Micro and SS could be handled in the limit beginners forum.
Just my .02.

Luckydog

[Talex]

While moderating rights from the 2+2 folks would be useful for stuff, there's moderating we could do on our own that might help. I'd say we should probably nominate a few folks on our own who we agree as a community to be both knowledgable and prolific. In addition any member is a moderator of their own threads. If a thread is banal, or uninteresting, or off topic, one of the moderators steps in and let's the person know that and declares the thread closed, hopefully with a link to some other thread that provides similar info.

As a group we just agree to then not post to those threads once they've been moderated. It's sort of what happens now, but the additional codifying would probably help in adoption. In addition the original thread owner could pop in a response that says, "Hey guys, I got what I needed from this so unless someone has something substantive to add I think this is closed." None of this slows the proliferation, but hopefully it would keep the less interesting threads from getting several replies. You'd still lose some interesting threads just on volume, but I think it'd help some and it's something we could do without any additional rights.

-Tim

[PokerNoob]

One of the problems is the plethora of really simple decision hands that can be answered by "Read page blah in WLLHE for the W/T answer and page blah in SSH for the TAG answer". I don't know how to deal with that.

The other is the "no reads" problem. Well, ya got no reads, what do you want us to do about it? Call him down, raise him, whatever. It really doesn't make any difference except to your variance.

[Sarge85]

Levity to the issue at hand....

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php

Sarge[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (More of the problem than the solution i guess)

[Blarg]

I don't agree that we should have any community members be moderators or monitors of any kind. A great many of the old hands here are just as guilty, if not more, of posting foolishness as anyone else. That would just lead to an increase in the cliquishness this board can sometimes descend into, lots of posts deleted punitively or for smart-aleck reasons, etc. I'd rather have things hardly moderated at all than handed over to someone with "good intentions" who winds up turning the boards into a private preserve for people like himself, which is generally what happens on moderated forums.

I've seen this happen on too many boards before and it would be a real disappointment if the herding tendencies of people here took over and held sway.

Then you'd have just another pointless club, the permanent installation of moderator fear, worship and self-worship, and an environment that is all about fitting in. Poker is good old American anarchic chaos, where everyone is who they are by virtue of their performance and there's not a thing anyone can do about it. Making this board a closed social system with benign overlords and varying levels of social status based enormously on "fitting in" would make it a place that truly sucked, which sounds like the path some want to go on, some without realizing where it will end up and some relishing the establishment of a herd and its masters. I've seen too many boards lose their liveliness "for their own good" this way before to want to see it happen here.

[Shalara]

I saw a post suggesting a sticky, and I think that's a great idea! The problem isn't the converter, it's that people don't know what makes a good post. Also, the search engine sucks.

When I first started posting, I read through lots of posts to figure out post etiquette. Let me tell you, from a newbie's view, it's not easy! There are so many poor ones, very few have reads, or reasons for no reads, or comments on how the thinking goes or anything. Most had results til recently, and a lot still do. Part of a FAQ showing helpful things in a post would be awesome.

As for the common questions you see all the time, when is the last time any of you did a search? Some things are easy to find, but some are like needles in haystacks, even if they are frequently asked questions. The search engine needs a lot of improvement. It is positively vile. Maybe adding common situations to the FAQ would be helpful.

I really loved the idea of an updated "best threads" link. That was really awesome.

The converter is awesome, and I know it's really up to Bisonbison if it stays, but I think it has done more to contribute to our ability to improve than anything else. It's not the converter that created the poker boom. Rather, it lets us better take advantage of the poker boom. The converter is a fantastic tool that helps everyone, and I for one would be very disappointed to see it pulled offline unneccessarily.

One sticky, with a list of frequently asked questions, a note on the kinds of things that should be in a hand history post, and a link to "best threads" is all it would take to bring up the quality level of posts considerably.

[JDErickson]

Thought I'd add my thoughts.

I think the best thing to do is add mroe forums to break apart Micro and SS. I would suggest a seperate forum for the huge limits. 1 for .50/1.00, 1 for 1/2, 1 for 2/4, 1 for 3/6, 1 for 5/10 etc.

This coupled with continuos reminding of individuals when posts are placed in the wrong forum I think would reduce the post count quite a bit.

Jim

[zram21]

While I think dividing the forums up a bit more has some merit I also think it is going to be a hassle. There are certainly some subtle differences as you move up through the limits, but I would say a large number of issues at a .5/1 table are going to be relevant at a 1/2 table etc.

It seems like the easiest place to start is just create a forum dedicated to posts like the PT stats, an should I move up, should I go pro, etc. It seems like an existing forum such as The Zoo would be sufficent, but if that isn't clear enough or people are concerned their posts will get lost in The Zoo then a sub forum dedicated to those posts would be good.

From that point on a FAQ stickied at the top of the Mid-High, SS, and Micro forums could just state that these forums are only for hand discussions and could line out what an acceptable post is. That seems like it would clean up a lot of the problems.

[thirddan]

I try to post at least a general description of my opponent, but i tend to have more trouble playing against opponents that i have no reads on and sometimes those are the hands i think i need to post. When i know more about the player the decisions become less difficult because i have more knowledge to base my choices on.

[Talex]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree that we should have any community members be moderators or monitors of any kind. A great many of the old hands here are just as guilty, if not more, of posting foolishness as anyone else. That would just lead to an increase in the cliquishness this board can sometimes descend into, lots of posts deleted punitively or for smart-aleck reasons, etc. I'd rather have things hardly moderated at all than handed over to someone with "good intentions" who winds up turning the boards into a private preserve for people like himself, which is generally what happens on moderated forums.

[/ QUOTE ]

The above is sort of why I suggested moderating without the code support that moderators generally get. A moderator that was chosen by the collective would just make a post, and it'd be social contract to not continue posting in the thread if the moderator (or thread owner) said it was closed.

That means that if they've misread things and there is still stuff to be said on the thread at hand it doesn't kill discussion if it's valid, but it does let us cut down on the threads that get 15 "wrong forum, or, off topic" replies. I think a lot of those get copious replies because there aren't a couple of people designated as a soft authority.

I don't think hard moderating is a good thing in general for the reasons you outline in your post. I think that having some soft moderating though is useful in keeping topics on target, and doesn't necesarily breed cliques anymore than the normal process that occurs on these sort of fora.

-Tim