An open letter to Mat Sklansky

[wacki]

I am writing this in an open letter form and not a PM for these reasons.

1) I want Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Ray Zee to see this.
2) I feel one thing the forum is severely lacking is communication not only between moderators and users, but between moderators themselves. I believe this causes a lot of problems and I hope this letter will help alleviate them.
3) 2+2 is an excellent place for discussion; hopefully this thread will help spur high quality discussion on this topic.

Although 2+2 started as a small friendly group of posters and poker players it has recently grown to become a large and successful business. Since it is a business it should be treated like a business. Your priorities should be in this order:

1) Avoid litigation
2) Attract as many advertisers as possible by having as large of a user base as possible.
3) Make 2+2 friendly enough to advertisers so none of them get scared away by it’s controversial content.
4) Allow enough controversial content to keep 2+2 interesting and people active in the forums.
5) Keep people interested enough in poker so they keep on buying books. Depending on revenues of books vs income via ads, and where the ads are coming from, this may be more important than #4.
6) Keep people interested in playing poker. Making them good at poker isn’t all that relevant. The money for your ads comes from rake. Most of the rake comes from losing players.
7) Keeping up good communication between the mods to make sure that the posters know the rules and the mods can discuss situations.

These are the cold hard facts.

Problem 1) avoid litigation

Earlier today a poster with only 1 year of law school under her belt represented herself as a legal expert. This is highly dangerous for a multitude of reasons. First of all it was very poor advice. Second she was giving law advice, representing herself as an expert, without a license. You can not afford to listen to bad advice. Going too lenient will eventually land you with a lawsuit. Becoming too strict will push away posters which will make you lose advertisement revenue. Both situations are a losing scenario.

I strongly urge David Sklansky, Ed Miller and Ray Zee to hire a lawyer to give Mat advice. You should talk to a lawyer that has experience in this specific field and not somebody fresh out of law school let alone a first year law student. I suggest that you do not look up a random lawyer, but find a good one, and then have him refer you to one that specializes in the field. For instance, talking to a friendly prosecutor is often a good way to find a good defense attorney.

Once you have found a lawyer discuss what you can and can not post. You should know your limits beyond a shadow of a doubt. 2+2 is too big, and too profitable, not to spend money on an hours worth of legal advice.

Problem 2) Attract as many advertisers as possible by having as large of a user base as possible.
Problem 4) Allow enough controversial content to keep 2+2 interesting and people active in the forums.

These should be self explanatory. Keep 2+2 interesting and people will remain active.

Problem 3) Make 2+2 friendly enough to advertisers so none of them get scared away by it’s controversial content.

This should be simple. Let the advertisers know you filter out specific words. You are already doing this. You also need to let them know that the moderators are not official employees of 2+2. They do not receive a paycheck. Their opinions are not representative of 2+2, nor should they be. They are merely volunteers that are helping 2+2 avoid litigation. If an advertiser feels differently, you can change your stance on this. Until then, this might be a good default course of action.

Problem 5&6) These are poker problems which are handled by the forums and indirectly OOT and politics.

Problem 7) A private forum is needed for the moderators to discuss situations and not to question your reasoning out in public. More communication is needed in the moderation and administration community. A public forum is also needed to allow people to make complaints or discuss why threads were deleted.

If anyone else has anything else to add, I suggest they do it here in the most constructive manner possible. If anyone makes a troll like reply, I suggest other posters ignore them.

Mat, I wish you, Ray Zee, and the rest of the 2+2 empire the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Wacki



Sorry if there are grammar mistakes. I spent way too much time on this as is.