A few procedural things for SSNL

[chumsferd]

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I think alot of people find it tiresome to read 3+ hands in one post. I don't really have anything to back this up with, but I sense that the post I have made that contain 3+ hands, get few ansers.

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For what my (still relatively) newbie opinion is worth, there are some posts with multiple hands in that I find quite interesting. If it's just "here's three beats I took, am I doing anything wrong?" then, sure, it sucks. But if the post is a general question about strategy, supported by a collection of 3-5 hands that demonstrate a problem, I think it sends the posts value way up.

The other day someone posted a general question saying they felt they over-estimated their implied odds. If the poster had made that general point, and then talked through 3 hands from a recent session with common villians where they made calls based on implied odds, along with their thinking, I (would like to) think it would have generated some great discussion.

JMO.

Edit: looks like I might be in the minority here

[IamLeach]

I concur. I do not seem to get a lot of help with hands. ( I am not complaining here) I assume it is my own fault for not posting correctly coupled with the idea that I am a mere fish.

fim,

i agree w/one hand post per day/3 max and also just want to say thanks to everyone for the advice going on in this forum, it's been a great help.

[GrunchCan]

The question of how to keep the signal:noise ratio high in a forum like this is a difficult one to answer; but fortunately there have been attempts to answer it in other forums before now. Some attempts have been successful, others not so much.

In my opinion, there are three factors in particular that help keep the signal:noise ratio high in a forum like this. I will draw on examples from the micros forum, because I am familiar with a lot of its history, and the various attempts that have been made there.

1) There needs to be a comprehensive FAQ, and it needs to be stickied. The FAQ needs to be sweeping, answering questions that run the gamut from "how do I post on this forum" to "what are good stats, what are bad stats" and "what is some lingo used here." For an example of what I think is an very good FAQ, look here. This FAQ could use updating, but it would be incremental, nor revolutionary. The FAQ is good, and it has helped the forum’s quality which is, after all, the purpose of any FAQ.

Note the focus of the FAQ: it's pretty procedural-oriented. This was on purpose -- there is a distinct lack of strategy advice in the FAQ. Questions like, "What line should I take with TPTK?" are best answered in the forum, and not in the FAQ. But many of the noise threads that originate that ask for basic strategy advice would be avoided if the posted had access to other basic information, even if his actual question isn't directly answered in the FAQ. The FAQ empowers a lurker/poster to answer many of his questions himself.

2) Posters should be actively encouraged to reply to strategy posts, and actively discouraged from initiating strategy posts. I'm not trying to self-promote, but take a look at this thread. If I had it to do over again, I might explain certain things more fully and perhaps reword other things, but overall that suggestion has been overwhelmingly accepted in micros. Again, I'm not trying to self-promote, but I can see a visible improvement in the signal:noise ratio in micros due in part to that thread. I hope this isn't taken as bragging.

Read the thread for a thorough discussion of why this works, but here’s a synopsis. When posters post bad advice to a strategy thread, it actually benefits the forum as a whole. Paradoxical, but true. The reason is because when an SSNL poster like me posts bad advice, it is quickly corrected by someone who knows better. That better poster might not have replied to the thread if no bad advice were given, simply because the need wasn't as great. So an interesting thing happens: when posters post bad advice, everybody on the forum benefits from the advice from the experts even more.

3) A weekly threads digest. This is a new phenomenon in both the micros and SS limit forums, and it is probably the greatest single benefit I have ever seen to the forums. Once a week (usually Mondays), some designated person (usually self-appointed, not necessarily the mod) selects the 10 or so threads with the best content from the week before, and posts a link to each. Usually there are 5 or 10 words describing the thread content.

This has been fantastic. There are so many new posts every day by so many people that nobody can see them all. A lot of people only open threads where certain people have contributed, and that's fine. But then they may miss many great or potentially great threads because nobody they are looking for contributed to them. But by putting links to them in the digest, these great threads get popped again. More often than not, the resulting traffic in the digest threads is even better the second time around.

So, those are the things I'd recommend for this forum too. Since this is my new home for learning, I have a pretty vested interest in the quality here.

Another thing I might recommend with reservation is the idea of a weekly session post & review. This is another new thing happening in micros, and it has a lot of potential. Once a week, someone is selected to post a session of about 100 hands, including all the PF folds. That person can be anonymous or known, and the session can be from any level or structure. The rest of the forum then reviews the session, and posts hands that they find interesting in some way. The resulting discussion has been really good. Many topics are covered that otherwise would not be covered, because everyone sees an entire session. Everybody benefits, including obviously the session poster, and the people who review the session but don’t post reviews, and those that do post reviews or replies to reviews.

I recommend this with reservation for just one reason -- it's a hell of a lot of work. First, someone has to select the poster. Next the poster has to convert 100 hands for posting (there's software to do this en masse, I think). Finally, everyone on the forum has to study the entire session. That's a lot of work for everyone, but it's worth it. I'd recommend every 2 weeks for the session post.

[Malachii]

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about a sort of gentleman's agreement to make one hand post per day with say a max of three hands. when many people put like 5 individual hand posts up it dilutes the number of responses that each thread gets and often there are threads that get posted with no good responses, which is bad.

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I think this would be a good idea. However, I think the most important thing is that posters try to have ~10:1 response to new post ratio. If you don't feel quailfied to give advice, ask questions of the people who are giving advice. Everybody benefits when people ask questions.

Btw, this is a total non sequitur, but does anyone have any idea what happened to Soah? I haven't seen a post by him in ages.

I like the idea of minimal hand posting, maximum hand analysis.

People may be posting numerous hands thinking that their situation is unique, when in fact, there are five similar situations that have each got 2 replies and fell off the first page.

[fimbulwinter]

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If you don't feel quailfied to give advice, ask questions of the people who are giving advice. Everybody benefits when people ask questions.

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this is great advice, all new posters should read this.

fim

[IamLeach]

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I think that a lot of the new poster dont have the confidence to give their advice and thats why they only post their hands.

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I am not scared to make a reply but I somtimes feel awkward giving advice to ppl who I KNOW are better than me. Also, I feel that I have way to much to learn right now and that my advice is not really good advice. So yes i agree. problem is when I do post hands they don't seem to be accepted all that well.

[GrunchCan]

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I somtimes feel awkward giving advice to ppl who I KNOW are better than me

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Not me. I look forward to giving advice to someone better than me, becasue I know they will correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll get better. In fact just today I responded to Ed Miller's advice in micros, hoping that he would improve my thinking and not the other way round.

[IamLeach]

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Not me. I look forward to giving advice to someone better than me, becasue I know they will correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll get better.

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This is a very good point IMO. From now on I will respond to TWP Fim Xorbie and JK's posts religously. and anyoine else I am forgetting.