Gary Johnson removal?

[Tartufo]

Originally Posted by RoundTripper

MM?

[RoundTripper]

Originally Posted by Tartufo

MM?

[Tartufo]

Originally Posted by RoundTripper

MM?

[aggo]

Although Mason has a cute story of how 2+2 got connected to Gary Johnson, I can't help but think that this was simply a ploy to further monetize 2+2 in the future. I thought it was very distasteful to shove a political candidate onto a online message board where (a) users who create content are paid nothing (b) 2+2 owners probably profit 500k+/year (c) this board traditionally was never polticized. Gary Johnson presented a unique opportunity for 2+2 to become a political arm, and a platform to push political messages to people who are traditionally disaffected by politics. There's no doubt that this was also a test case for the future. Look at how heavily monetized 2+2 is already. If you're a small poker site and you want a sponsored forum on 2+2, prepare to pay tens of thousands for a couple months.

[ChicagoRy]

aggo, your post has a lot of paranoia in it and you're overthinking a lot of it too.

Your conclusions are a few steps removed from the reality of the situation.

One example, you bitch about the price of advertising here, then you name literally the most expensive option on one of the highest traffic internet forums on the internet. Find some other forums near the top of the most popular lists (bigboards or some other metric) and see what it costs to advertise there. Ask them how much it costs to sponsor a forum and see what kinds of numbers you get.

This isn't a little baby site community, this place is massive, one of the largest internet message boards in the world (and there's free options to advertise here too, along with very cheap methods... there are poker coaches that make 5 figures a month coaching players that they come into contact with from having a $150 a month coaching ad on the site). 2p2 has actually made advertising options more accessible as they have grown, not the opposite.

Here's a gripe from me: You post a handful of outright false statements, I can literally prove a few of the "views" you made false. MM takes an action he probably believes in and likely is telling the truth about his intentions. Yet, MM gets a bunch of hate from users like you. My gripe: Who is giving the guys that post outright false stuff and obviously have no clue what they are talking about crap (the advertising thing makes this apparent that you have no idea what you're talking about WRT to advertising prices and setup)? The owners and management and a lot of the best posters on this site aren't so hands on, obsessed with answering every little inquiry or correcting every little false post. You and other users like you only thrive in this environment because the people that are responsible for it are pretty darn reasonable and hands off in most ways. If this place were like you imply it is, you wouldn't be posting in this forum because ATF wouldn't exist, nor would your account be free to post, because you'd be unlikely to have made 5k posts without being permanently banned.

[aggo]

Originally Posted by ChicagoRy

aggo, your post has a lot of paranoia in it and you're overthinking a lot of it too.

Your conclusions are a few steps removed from the reality of the situation.

One example, you bitch about the price of advertising here, then you name literally the most expensive option on one of the highest traffic internet forums on the internet. Find some other forums near the top of the most popular lists (bigboards or some other metric) and see what it costs to advertise there. Ask them how much it costs to sponsor a forum and see what kinds of numbers you get.

This isn't a little baby site community, this place is massive, one of the largest internet message boards in the world (and there's free options to advertise here too, along with very cheap methods... there are poker coaches that make 5 figures a month coaching players that they come into contact with from having a $150 a month coaching ad on the site). 2p2 has actually made advertising options more accessible as they have grown, not the opposite.

Here's a gripe from me: You post a handful of outright false statements, I can literally prove a few of the "views" you made false. MM takes an action he probably believes in and likely is telling the truth about his intentions. Yet, MM gets a bunch of hate from users like you. My gripe: Who is giving the guys that post outright false stuff and obviously have no clue what they are talking about crap (the advertising thing makes this apparent that you have no idea what you're talking about WRT to advertising prices and setup)? The owners and management and a lot of the best posters on this site aren't so hands on, obsessed with answering every little inquiry or correcting every little false post. You and other users like you only thrive in this environment because the people that are responsible for it are pretty darn reasonable and hands off in most ways. If this place were like you imply it is, you wouldn't be posting in this forum because ATF wouldn't exist, nor would your account be free to post, because you'd be unlikely to have made 5k posts without being permanently banned.

You're right that merge skins paying 2+2 somewhere around 80-120k/year for a sponsored forum is kind of irrelevant in the absolute sense, but you're also disillusioned by that.

MM uses black friday as a mechanism to allow a presidential candidate to have an platform on this website, under the guise of "well he's for poker guys!" In effect, 2+2 has become a political arm for a candidate that many reasonable poker players don't care to vote for, regardless of what they think of black friday. Yet, 2+2 is being used as a vehicle to advance the political careers of MM's friends. Which in it of itself, is laughable because 2+2 has publicly, since black friday has **** on PPA, publicly supported iMEGA in favor of PPA, threatened PPA, oh but wait, red mods tell us that PPA can't be happier with 2+2 right now! But yeah I'm the paranoid one for believing that just because GJ doesn't pay for his face to be on 2+2, that everything is ok!

The moment you post PMs from a red mod, you get asked to leave, because they happen to contradict what he's said publicly. When the most respected mod retires because of GJ, I'm paranoid. When red mods repeatedly piss on users in ATF with ultimatums I'm the paranoid one!

[Mason Malmuth]

Originally Posted by aggo

Although Mason has a cute story of how 2+2 got connected to Gary Johnson, I can't help but think that this was simply a ploy to further monetize 2+2 in the future. I thought it was very distasteful to shove a political candidate onto a online message board where (a) users who create content are paid nothing (b) 2+2 owners probably profit 500k+/year (c) this board traditionally was never polticized. Gary Johnson presented a unique opportunity for 2+2 to become a political arm, and a platform to push political messages to people who are traditionally disaffected by politics. There's no doubt that this was also a test case for the future. Look at how heavily monetized 2+2 is already. If you're a small poker site and you want a sponsored forum on 2+2, prepare to pay tens of thousands for a couple months.

First, why was my story cute? It's exactly what happened.

Second, is there something wrong with increasing the revenue that this site receives? For years we read posts that stated we were doing a poor job of monetizing this site, so I guess your post means we are doing better.

And one other point, would you prefer a subscription model? That's the alternative.

And concerning politics, if 2+2 can make a positive contribution to the passing of a positive Internet poker law, don't you think we should do so? Or would you prefer that we step aside and leave this fight solely up to other sites who don't do such a good job of representing player interests and who would quickly delete a post like yours?

Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Originally Posted by aggo

You're right that merge skins paying 2+2 somewhere around 80-120k/year for a sponsored forum is kind of irrelevant in the absolute sense, but you're also disillusioned by that.

MM uses black friday as a mechanism to allow a presidential candidate to have an platform on this website, under the guise of "well he's for poker guys!" In effect, 2+2 has become a political arm for a candidate that many reasonable poker players don't care to vote for, regardless of what they think of black friday. Yet, 2+2 is being used as a vehicle to advance the political careers of MM's friends. Which in it of itself, is laughable because 2+2 has publicly, since black friday has **** on PPA, publicly supported iMEGA in favor of PPA, threatened PPA, oh but wait, red mods tell us that PPA can't be happier with 2+2 right now! But yeah I'm the paranoid one for believing that just because GJ doesn't pay for his face to be on 2+2, that everything is ok!

The moment you post PMs from a red mod, you get asked to leave, because they happen to contradict what he's said publicly. When the most respected mod retires because of GJ, I'm paranoid. When red mods repeatedly piss on users in ATF with ultimatums I'm the paranoid one!

First off, what friends are you referring to? I had never even met Governor Johnson until we received the initial phone call in May, and first met him in person when he attended our party in July.

As for IMEGA, we felt they were a good organization that might be able to produce some positive results, and we still feel this way.

As for the PPA, while we feel that they are an important organization, that does't mean we are going to sit idle and watch them screw up things and damage it for all of us.

It's our opinion that this has clearly been the case in the past, but fortunately today, mostly thanks to TheEngineer, they appear to be on the right track. In fact, if this improvement wasn't the case, there would be no PPA Forum on 2+2.

So you see that we are capable of making unpopular decisions if we feel that it is best for poker to do so. It also allows us to act in a completely independent manner. And one other important point, unlike many other organizations in our field, we can take criticism as well as dish it out.

Mason

[loK2thabrain]

Originally Posted by aggo

You're right that merge skins paying 2+2 somewhere around 80-120k/year for a sponsored forum is kind of irrelevant in the absolute sense, but you're also disillusioned by that.

MM uses black friday as a mechanism to allow a presidential candidate to have an platform on this website, under the guise of "well he's for poker guys!" In effect, 2+2 has become a political arm for a candidate that many reasonable poker players don't care to vote for, regardless of what they think of black friday. Yet, 2+2 is being used as a vehicle to advance the political careers of MM's friends. Which in it of itself, is laughable because 2+2 has publicly, since black friday has **** on PPA, publicly supported iMEGA in favor of PPA, threatened PPA, oh but wait, red mods tell us that PPA can't be happier with 2+2 right now! But yeah I'm the paranoid one for believing that just because GJ doesn't pay for his face to be on 2+2, that everything is ok!

The moment you post PMs from a red mod, you get asked to leave, because they happen to contradict what he's said publicly. When the most respected mod retires because of GJ, I'm paranoid. When red mods repeatedly piss on users in ATF with ultimatums I'm the paranoid one!

Good god, man. Pull yourself together. I've browsed this forum every day since black friday, and have only seen or heard the name Gary Johnson a handful of times.

It's not as if they're flooding our inboxes with spam or something. There's a sticky in all the subforums.

Whoop-de-****ing-doo.

[aggo]

Mason, I deleted that post within seconds of making it.

that's for the record.

but since it has re-appeared, i will respond.

Originally Posted by loK2thabrain

Good god, man. Pull yourself together. I've browsed this forum every day since black friday, and have only seen or heard the name Gary Johnson a handful of times.

It's not as if they're flooding our inboxes with spam or something. There's a sticky in all the subforums.

Whoop-de-****ing-doo.

get your facts straight, please.

Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth

First off, what friends are you referring to? I had never even met Governor Johnson until we received the initial phone call in May, and first met him in person when he attended our party in July.

As for IMEGA, we felt they were a good organization that might be able to produce some positive results, and we still feel this way.

As for the PPA, while we feel that they are an important organization, that does't mean we are going to sit idle and watch them screw up things and damage it for all of us.

It's our opinion that this has clearly been the case in the past, but fortunately today, mostly thanks to TheEngineer, they appear to be on the right track. In fact, if this improvement wasn't the case, there would be no PPA Forum on 2+2.

So you see that we are capable of making unpopular decisions if we feel that it is best for poker to do so. It also allows us to act in a completely independent manner. And one other important point, unlike many other organizations in our field, we can take criticism as well as dish it out.

Mason

So let's get this straight Mason.

When you threatened to remove the PPA from the 2+2, which was many months before black friday, you did so knowing that the PPA represented the only mobilized lobbyist group solely devoted to legitimizing online poker. Daily, there were threads in the PPA forums about how to reach members of congress, what to write, how to donate, legalities concerning online poker, uigea, tax law, tax filing, and generally how to get involved. That was 95% of the content in the PPA forums. Not the background noise about how/why 2+2 (for those who don't know, 2+2 as a business) was unhappy with the PPA. Yet, you're suddenly allowed to claim that you support GJ because it's the righteous thing (for 2+2) to do for poker players?

Then IIRC, shortly or around thereafter, you created a new subforum for iMEGA, who has many other interests than just online poker. And you explicitly supported iMEGA over the PPA for many months with posts on the forums.

[Mason Malmuth]

Originally Posted by aggo

Mason, I deleted that post within seconds of making it.

that's for the record.

but since it has re-appeared, i will respond.




get your facts straight, please.




So let's get this straight Mason.

When you threatened to remove the PPA from the 2+2, which was many months before black friday, you did so knowing that the PPA represented the only mobilized lobbyist group solely devoted to legitimizing online poker. Daily, there were threads in the PPA forums about how to reach members of congress, what to write, how to donate, legalities concerning online poker, uigea, tax law, tax filing, and generally how to get involved. That was 95% of the content in the PPA forums. Not the background noise about how/why 2+2 (for those who don't know, 2+2 as a business) was unhappy with the PPA. Yet, you're suddenly allowed to claim that you support GJ because it's the righteous thing (for 2+2) to do for poker players?

Then IIRC, shortly or around thereafter, you created a new subforum for iMEGA, who has many other interests than just online poker. And you explicitly supported iMEGA over the PPA for many months with posts on the forums.

We had many reasons to remove the PPA from this website, and my public warning to them was our last attempt at straightening things out. Unknown to you I have had a number of conversations with both D'Amato and Pappas, so they were already well aware of our unhappiness.

Our problems with the PPA go back over five years when we posted a report done by our attorneys addressing some of the initial problems, and there were many including board members whose removal we called for. And by the way, even though the report came at our expense and led to a number of improvements at the PPA, we have never asked for any reimbursement.

Today our attitude is different. We have been working with TheEngineer and only TheEngineer and the results are what you currently see.

As for IMEGA, our support for them was completely independent of the PPA. But behind the scenes we did play a role in encouraging these two organizations to get to know each other better to see where they could be beneficial to each other.

And one final thought since you are so obsessed with Gov Johnson. The PPA has also featured him on their site. Perhaps you should complain to them as well.

MM

[Ce1ska]

[Jzo19]

Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth

First,

And concerning politics, if 2+2 can make a positive contribution to the passing of a positive Internet poker law, don't you think we should do so? Or would you prefer that we step aside and leave this fight solely up to other sites who don't do such a good job of representing player interests and who would quickly delete a post like yours?

Mason

why not support ron paul ? someone who has a viable chance of winning ..everyone from the start knew johnson was beyond a longshot ..im not sure the reasoning behind this

[Mason Malmuth]

Originally Posted by Jzo19

why not support ron paul ? someone who has a viable chance of winning ..everyone from the start knew johnson was beyond a longshot ..im not sure the reasoning behind this

1. Ron Paul never contacted us.

2. Paul's foreign policy views would be an issue with me.

I do agree with much of what Paul says concerning the economy and other domestic issues, but his views of foreign policy make it a no go for me.

However, if Congressman Paul, as well as any of the other candidates, wanted to come on here and participate in these forums, he would be welcome to do so. (The only issue is that we would have to confirm that it was really him or an appropriate representative.)

Best wishes,
Mason

[Doc T River]

Originally Posted by aggo

You're right that merge skins paying 2+2 somewhere around 80-120k/year for a sponsored forum is kind of irrelevant in the absolute sense, but you're also disillusioned by that.

MM uses black friday as a mechanism to allow a presidential candidate to have an platform on this website, under the guise of "well he's for poker guys!" In effect, 2+2 has become a political arm for a candidate that many reasonable poker players don't care to vote for, regardless of what they think of black friday. Yet, 2+2 is being used as a vehicle to advance the political careers of MM's friends. Which in it of itself, is laughable because 2+2 has publicly, since black friday has **** on PPA, publicly supported iMEGA in favor of PPA, threatened PPA, oh but wait, red mods tell us that PPA can't be happier with 2+2 right now! But yeah I'm the paranoid one for believing that just because GJ doesn't pay for his face to be on 2+2, that everything is ok!

The moment you post PMs from a red mod, you get asked to leave, because they happen to contradict what he's said publicly. When the most respected mod retires because of GJ, I'm paranoid. When red mods repeatedly piss on users in ATF with ultimatums I'm the paranoid one!

How has Mason **** on the PPA since Black Friday?