content poll

[axioma]

just reading a post of ed's where he states "we want some humor articles etc." i was wondering just who the "we" is he mentions. i could be way off base here but it seems the vast majority of *readers/ customers* are not interested in these humour/ filler articles, and would prefer the extra time spent in the more rigorous selection and editing of fewer, higher quality articls.

[Shoe]

I believe they have stated in the past that the humor articles do not replace any poker-related articles. They will publish as many good poker articles as they can, and then in addition to that, they will publish 1 or 2 more humor/filler articles. These humor/filler articles do not prevent a different poker-related article from being published.

[jdl22]

I'm assuming you mean the 5 articles that would be selected in the second option are still there? If so how could you vote for the second option?

It's like saying the WSOP was harder to win 5 years ago because the field only had a few hundred pros when the field currently has those same pros plus a couple thousand amateurs.

[axioma]

[ QUOTE ]
These humor/filler articles do not prevent a different poker-related article from being published.

[/ QUOTE ]

this cannot possibly be the case. since they have a limited number of articles published each month, and more decent strategy articles submitted than get published.

and the idea i was making is that i think many people would prefere the time/money/energy spent on finding, editing, and improving upon fewer, higher quality stragegy articles.

so if that means cutting the fluff then so be it.

[axioma]

its not like saying that at all, what a thoughtless comment.

but i wouldnt expect a mod of this forum to do anything but dismiss the point i brought up - well done for living up to my expectations!

[Ed Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
this cannot possibly be the case. since they have a limited number of articles published each month, and more decent strategy articles submitted than get published.

[/ QUOTE ]

I try to publish every strategy article submitted that has value and doesn't need a lot of work in another area (organization, English, etc.).

[AngryCola]

[ QUOTE ]
but i wouldnt expect a mod of this forum to do anything but dismiss the point i brought up - well done for living up to my expectations!

[/ QUOTE ]

Saying things like that is not productive. I suspect he would have the same opinion even if he had never been made a mod of this forum.

[jdl22]

[ QUOTE ]
its not like saying that at all, what a thoughtless comment.

but i wouldnt expect a mod of this forum to do anything but dismiss the point i brought up - well done for living up to my expectations!

[/ QUOTE ]

As a mod of this forum, I have absolutely nothing to do with the magazine itself. Personally however, I have published one article here (on risk aversion if you remember from several months ago) and have submitted an article which will be published next month. I don't feel that either of these things has biased my opinion of your post. Your criticism that my post was thoughtless may have been correct. Here's a longer, more thought out version (not surprisingly with the same conclusion):

Could you explain how they are different? If I understand you correctly you are asking whether I would prefer that the magazine have a,b,c,d, and e which are solid strategy articles or would I prefer for it to have a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i, and j where a-e are the exact articles from the above scenario and f-j are humor articles or filler. Unless articles f-j actually have bad advice and lead you astray I don't see how you could possibly prefer just a-e. Being an economist I'm biased here, but more articles should be better than less, no? Some have complained about the Atlantic City article being incorrect as well as given the same criticism to past articles, I agreed with many of the criticisms in the past though I don't know about AC as I've never been so I can't comment on that. I don't see how the table coach articles could possibly lead you to play worse than you are now nor any of the other filler articles.

If you're suggesting that 2+2 cut the number of articles in half and double the amount offered to improve the chances of getting better articles, I don't think that would work either. There is evidence from experimental psychology and behavioral economics. The problem is that those who write for the magazine tend not to do it for the money anyway. Increasing the amount by $200 will cause more people to want to write, but the people affected by this are most likely those whose articles we wouldn't expect to be as good. The top people would still most likely lose money by not playing poker during the time it takes to write the articles so doubling the amount offered won't cause them to write when they wouldn't before. It would also have the effect of some people not submitting good articles because they fear them getting rejected with the tougher guidelines. They had similar problems in England when they tried to increase blood donations by offering money (20 quid or so iirc) for donating blood. They did get an increase in blood donations, but this was all from people that weren't likely to have desirable blood - drug abusers etc. When they gave away the 20 pounds there was actually a decrease in the number of people that donated who had done so before.

[axioma]

first, i think its fair to say that as a mod of the magazine forum, you are not going to be in a rush to agree with any negative comments that are raised about the magazine. your unthought-out first reply might have annoyed me a bit, hense my response, but no big deal.

anyway onto the actual topic...

lets say even if the situation exists as you put it, ie that at the moment we have x amount of quality articles, and y ammount of not so great ones. you claim that surely a magazine with x+y articles is better than a magazine with just x. well i dont agree with this at all, and i think you should reconsider that point.

but rather, i dont even agree that the situation is how you have it. it cannot nessesarilly be the case that the top however many articles make it in each month, if there exists some quota to be filled of humor/fluff/nonstrategy topics each month. ed (correct me if im wrong) has more or less indirectly implied that there is some unofficial quota.

he has also implied that some potentially good articles have not made it in because of not having time/resourses to edit them. perhaps the time he spends looking through houmor articles etc could be better used in editing these potentially good strategy articles. if you cut the number of articles down by half say you could have $500 to pay an editor to do this for you if you wanted.

bascially my point is that i think many people would prefer a sleaker, higher quality product to the product we currently have.

i actually dont both reading past the first paragraph of many of the articles these days, so perhaps i have no right to these opinions anyway. in any case im not sure why ive taken the time to type all this out because the time spent is certainly not proportional to my interest in the magazine. most people wont read this anyay.

[jdl22]

While the magazine with x articles would have higher average article quality I would still prefer to read the edition with x+y articles.

As for your other arguments, I think we really just disagree because neither of us really know how publishing process works and we're making different assumptions about it. If they are scrapping solid strategy articles to put in the humor pieces I certainly agree with you, I just doubt that's the case.