Stats, Downswings, and Whatnot

[imported_leader]

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I agree with this completely. I'd also suggest enforcing the 20k hand minimum that is in the FAQ... but real stat posts are fine and often end up beneficial.

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Maybe like 20K or -300BB. Because let's face it if you've lost 300BB you most likely have major leaks and probably aren't going to make it to 20K. Of course that doesn’t mean that people that know they're winning players should be making whinny I just lost 300BB posts.

[scotty34]

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I agree with this completely. I'd also suggest enforcing the 20k hand minimum that is in the FAQ... but real stat posts are fine and often end up beneficial.

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Maybe like 20K or -300BB. Because let's face it if you've lost 300BB you most likely have major leaks and probably aren't going to make it to 20K. Of course that doesn’t mean that people that know they're winning players should be making whinny I just lost 300BB posts.

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but... but... please?

[imported_leader]

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I agree with this completely. I'd also suggest enforcing the 20k hand minimum that is in the FAQ... but real stat posts are fine and often end up beneficial.

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Maybe like 20K or -300BB. Because let's face it if you've lost 300BB you most likely have major leaks and probably aren't going to make it to 20K. Of course that doesn’t mean that people that know they're winning players should be making whinny I just lost 300BB posts.

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but... but... please?



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Well, you can't make them here, but they just started a whole forum for bitching about 150BB downswings. A brilliant idea IMO. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[TomBrooks]

MrWookie and All,

With all due respect, Forum Moderators are a lot like Politicians. They are mostly useless. They have very little of actual importance to do. Mainly, they entertain minor problems which come from their "constituents". These are generally people who are prejudiced, anal retentive, some kind of nit, a busybody, or someone who otherwise doesn't understand the concepts of minding their own business and live and let live. These people are usually narrow minded. The usually don't appreciate that there is a great diversity of interests amongst the many participants in a forum, and they tend to think that their way is the only good way or the best way.

There are also people who will lobby a politician or a moderator because they want things a certain way and they selfishly couldn't care less what anyone else wants. They are looking out for their own interests. That's normal and OK. The appropriate response to them is to ignore them. That would also be normal and OK. It's when someone listens to them and acts on their behalf that a real problem begins.

Now if a politician or a forum moderator doesn't get enough complaints from people, they tend to look for problems where none exist, or they look for minor issues and blow them up so they seem to have some kind of major significance. This is the way they justify their jobs and make themselves seem important to others and to themselves.

This forum, like most forums, pretty much runs itself. Little or nothing has to be done to make it "better." If the posters don't like a post, they will let the OP know. A moderator is not needed to do that.

At the same time, while some people won't like a particular post or thread, there will be many others that do. They will often not be heard from. It is the complainers who tend to get heard the most. This leads to the next point...

Conservatively speaking, about 90% of the actions a moderator takes are completely unnecessary. Out of the generously estimated 10% of the time that an action was really important, about half the time the moderator will take the wrong action. This too, closely parallels what a typical politician does. So the chances that a moderator will take an appropriate action that was really important is about 5% or 19:1.

As far as the specific question about stat posts. I like stat posts. I find them very useful. I urge you to leave them alone. Putting them in the BBV will make them almost useless. Who is going to look there for shorthand stat posts? Putting them in a designated thread is not so good because that makes it very difficult to study and address any particular one. It is a mixed up mish-mosh.

As far as downswing threads, I am often interested in them too. Not the moranic ones where some Noob says he lost 50BB, but many of the others. And I am willing to sift through the garbage to find the gold. If you throw all these posts somewhere else, there will be no gold. And anyway, the garbage is often good for a laugh or some good natured ribbing. This breaks up the generally serious tone of the forum and thus brings a unique and irreplaceable value of its own.

I would suggest you confine your activities to locking or removing the most egregious or vulgar of posts, those that clearly offend the sensibilities of almost everyone, and leaving everything else alone. Generally speaking - the less you do, the better you will be doing your job.

Regards,
Tom

[StellarWind]

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With all due respect

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Meaning of course that you intend to show no respect whatsoever.

You really could have made your valid constructive points without paragraphs of gratuitous insults.

I'll take some responsiblity here. I raised some of the subject matter of this thread with MrWookie yesterday. These downswing threads are happening and it's appropriate to think about whether we are going to do something.

I think he did a good thing by coming here and asking what you guys want us to do. It's your forum and it wouldn't exist without you.

My personal opinion as a reader/contributor is that downswing posts are pretty much a waste. They don't do much of anything to improve anyone's game and I don't find them entertaining. Just another type of N/C thread bumping the good stuff off the page.

Beats, Brags, and Variance is now designated for downswing posts. I agree that if SSSH members post their downswings in BBV many readers of this forum will not see them. But perhaps that should tell you something.

On the other hand many regulars do have a family feeling about this place and family sticks together. I get that and maybe it's more important than my desire for less clutter. The number of people who respond to these posts tells me that some people want them.

Stats posts are a whole different subject. They do have value for some people. Personally they help me understand how other people play and that's something I can take to the table and use next time I'm facing a strange TAG with a familiar-looking pattern of stats. For example it helps me know which hands a typical 30/20 is playing because I've seen 30/20 stat post threads.

They also sometimes help weaker players identify areas of their game that are far from "consensus" good play. Leaks can appear in stats but only big ones and only certain types. Good players should have stats that look perfectly acceptable even though they still have leaks to plug.

Anyway there is no reasonable home for SS 6-max stat posts except here so they need to stay. Booting real poker content off 2+2 is not something I want to be part of.

Don't think I don't know that many stats posts are BBV material in disguise. Police yourselves please. Ditto for waiting until you have enough hands. However much I may criticize a post for having a 5000-hand sample, that's just my opinion and I don't want to censure poker ideas because I disagree with them. Police yourselves please.

Anyway, these are my personal views.

What do you guys want us to be doing?

[imported_leader]

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What do you guys want us to be doing?

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Lock junk that obviously has no value and leave everything else alone. As to stuff getting knocked of the page, people should change there settings. I have the max, 99, threads on one page. So it's not a problem for me.

As long as the stats are 20k+ they are cool imo.

[adsman]

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What do you guys want us to be doing?

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I agreed with a lot of what Tom wrote but he did go a little overboard. If you look back through the archives, some of the most helpful threads arose from a downswing or "low content" post. We saw one just the other week in the general forum where Ed Miller got involved in gentleman gerry's, (alla the matador, alla cinna....etc) low content downswing thread. That thread tuned out to be so good, Greg made a link of it to the micro forum.

And this is my concern. By cutting threads off with a heavy hand you risk losing some great discussions which can come out of nowhere. And that is usually where great discussions come from. You can't forsee it happening. Now, don't get me wrong. You guys haven't be using too much of a heavy hand. But I'd hate to see it go that way by accident and a general misinformed desire to do good. Leave the threads there. The forum will take care of them. Survival of the fittest and evolution theory on a speeded up scale. And who knows what may come of it. Some of the funniest threads as well have come out of extremely low content. Sup bro and poo mountain just to think of a few.

So what should you guys be doing? I think the whole matador debarcle was a good example of where a mod was sorely needed. These boards are for the discussion of poker. When an obvious troll comes in who's only desire is to disrupt and cause chaos, that's where I think a mod should be. Not necessarily banning. But warning would be good.

[Wynton]

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What do you guys want us to be doing?

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I've already expressed my view that there needs to be a place for stats posts, as they can trigger substantive discussion.

Note, that one driving reason for the HUSH split is that many upper-level players were tired of stats posts, especially those that were actually whining posts.

I say create a designated stats area, with some simple instructions emphasizing that this is not a place to whine, noting the need for a certain minimum threshhold of hands before the analysis can be relevant, and perhaps with some good links to prior threads.

[TomBrooks]

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With all due respect

[/ QUOTE ]Meaning of course that you intend to show no respect whatsoever. You really could have made your valid constructive points without paragraphs of gratuitous insults.

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Stellar,

My comments above sounded harsh but were not intended to be personal or insulting. Had I had the luxury of more time to rewrite and refine them I could have better achieved that goal.

MODERATORS ARE USUALLY NICE GUYS
I think most moderators, and I know this about MrWookie because he is the moderator of the forums I participate in most, are nice guys. They generally want to be helpful, they give freely of their time, they obviously care about the forums, and they contribute a considerable bit to them. I can say that about MrWookie in particular - for instance, he has contributed some well thought out and written FAQ type posts.

MODERATION SKEWS A FORUM
Notwithstanding that, I stand by the points I tried to make. This thread itself shows why perfectly. Some people want stat posts. Some people do not. If a moderator decides to change something about the stat posts, some people will like it, some people will not. No matter what a moderator does, many people will consider it a detriment rather than an enhancement to the forum. Therefore, there is virtually no decision any moderator can make that is a good one for everybody.

The more things a moderator moderates, the more a forum is artificially skewed from representing the true interests of the participants. For example, perhaps 50% of the people want to read stat posts, 40% want to read downswing threads, 35% want to read x, 30% want to read y, and 25% want to read z. If the moderator removes stats, downswings, and x, y, and z, chances are that almost everybody have will have had one or more things removed that they would have preferred weren't.

THE BENEFITS OF DOING NOTHING
Now if a moderator does nothing, those that like stat posts can enjoy and benefit from them. Those that don't like them can address their criticism directly to the OP or they can refrain from opening and reading them. This is a simple solution that is good for everybody and requires no tinkering.

This allows the forum to self moderate, similar to capitalism in an open market. Supply and demand forces will tend to make the forum conform to the types of posts people want in proportion to the extent that they want them.

THERE IS BEAUTY IN AN OPEN FORUM
It is a beautiful thing to watch a forum self-moderate. To the extent that a post is liked or disliked, or someone is seen as getting out of line, other posters will like clockwork almost auto-respond in appropriate measure. There is freedom of speech and open debate. Opinions are exchanged freely. Diversity is honored, respected, or learned about. People grow.

There is nothing a moderator can do to improve that. By definition, it is the absence of a forced hand that allows it to happen.

Regards,
Tom