Thanks mods for letting this thread become a troll thread yet deleting my posts that weren't trolling nor breaking rules. Double standards. GG!

There have been zero posts deleted from this thread.

Are you kidding me? I was ofc speaking of the posts ChicagoRy deleted. What was the reason for this thread after all. And as said before thanks for letting it become a troll thread.

Of course I'm not kidding. You talk about mods as a general group that took an action in one thread and not in another, and you talk about double standards, which would only be the case if different standards were being applied to the same forum. So your post very much could have been taken to mean that posts were deleted from this thread. Since other people have no idea if any of your posts were deleted from this thread, I wanted to clarify.

Perhaps you're not aware of this, but different forums here are modded in different ways.

Going back to your original question, perhaps part of the problem was in the way you approached your question.

A post that starts with "Is it me or are most of xxxxxxxxx (a HU sng stable) members quite weak and easy to play against?" is likely to lead to nothing but an argument. What kind of answers are you expecting? Either it's going to be that people disagree with you and think players from that stable are fine or nothing exceptional either way, or you'll have a bunch of people agree with you and then what? You all discuss how bad they are and why they're so bad, then people from that stable feel the need to come in and defend themselves, and off we go into a "You suck!" "No, you suck!" "HU for rolllz!" exchange?

It may have gone differently, but I can certainly see the potential for that kind of negative derail that gets everyone nowhere. I expect that if your post had been more along the lines of "What does everyone think of players from stable XYZ?", it would've been much more likely to be left alone.

And then of course there's the whole "don't tap the tank" principle as well. I'm pretty sure that some of our strat forums discourage that kind of behaviour.

But that's just my own thoughts on it - I don't mod strat forums, so I can't say for certain exactly what standards the mods of each strat forum holds posters to.

Finally a reasonable and well worded reply! Thank you very much!


Oh I see. Yeah I understand that and it makes sense you wanted that clarified.




Yeah I agree my question was provoking and I should have worded it different. But is that already enough to just delete. Why not just tell me that it's poorly worded? Is there a new rule I don't know about that says we do not tolerate negativity in any form nor heated discussions? What would have been so bad if this discussion would have led to a HU4ROLLZ? I seem to remember that they are usually quite popular in our forum.

I agree my question wasn't great and certainly wasn't very valuable if at all, but deleting it was wasn't appropriate either imo.

Yeah I agree with it. You're right.

I couldn't care less about that really. And if it comes from ChicagoRy's mouth it is kinda comical since he is the owner of a poker coaching site not me. What is tapping the glass more? Me telling someone you're weak or someone helping this weak player and actually masses of weak or average players to get better?
Same applies to the strat forums as well. They have a way bigger effect in educating the masses about poker than me telling a stable have look at your weak horses.

Sure, I can understand where you're coming from. I'm not here to defend or criticize this particular deletion, as I don't mod that forum and thus don't know what the usual tone and expectations of the regs thread are. But what I will say in general terms is that sometimes mods just quietly delete a post or posts that they feel are likely to cause a problem. I say "quietly" not to mean it's being intentionally done in a secretive fashion (although that is sort of the result), but that it's done without posting and making a big deal about it or without starting a long PM exchange about what they see as a routine deletion. Some posters don't notice, I'm sure, some do but don't care, and some are upset that their post was deleted. Moderating is a volunteer job, so it's not reasonable to expect that moderators are always going to discuss every deletion with posters, and they might even take the easy way out and delete a borderline post or two rather than have to deal with what they fear will the subsequent fallout of the post(s). But again, I'm speaking in very general terms here - I think ChRy had more specific reasons for this deletion:

While you may not agree with his reasoning, I don't think he's coming from a bad place here. It sounds to me like he did what he thought was best for the forum, which is what I think we all hope moderators will do.

No, it's definitely not coming from ChRy - that was just another possible reason I came up with. But I will just say that I may not have worded that in the best way. It's not so much a matter of educating players as it is of not calling out particular players or groups of players for their bad play. Some of our forums discourage that for the lack of respect it shows for others as well. Yes, I know that probably sounds funny with the trolling that often goes on in a lot of threads, but some forums do try to keep that more under control than others do.

Moving forward, I'd suggest you just leave this behind you. I think both your and ChRy's positions are understandable, and you may have both learned something from it. But that's up to you of course. If you actually want the decision overturned, that's something only the original moderator or Mat Sklansky would do - and Mat doesn't do that often.

One reason ATF is here is so posters can start threads like this and discuss their concerns; hopefully this thread has served its purpose for you in that regard.

To clarify, when I said "if you think a group of players is weak, you should just keep that to yourself and not publicly post about them being weak like that" it was more of just a "hey, why not keep this private anyways?"

I didn't delete the post because I want you to profit more off of a group of players or anything like that.

Almost every complaint in the forum this year has been people just insulting others blindly (not like hu4rollz, as those are entertainment) and not really building a more positive place for discussion.

Your post certainly is near some undefined line, it's not like I infracted you or even sent you a warning for your post, it just looked out of line and purely negative with no real value and it was deleted.

If you're really looking for an answer to your question on why a player could potentially be bad when being in a good reg's staking program, the answer is essentially two fold

1) It's really the player that makes the game, not the coach. Coaches and videos and forums can help, but players need to think for themselves and perform under pressure, not to mention put in their own study time/work.

2) Just because a famous coach's name is on a stable doesn't mean they spend a ton of time with every single horse. Other stables (not the one I work with or the one you were questioning) I've actually seen have had name guys on the stable not even coach their players before. Some stables have good performers that aren't good coaches too.

But if you'd said "how could players in a staking program with good coaches be bad?" I think it would've been a great question that could've had good discussion. Singling out a specific program and calling their players all bad with leaks, I would've bet 10-1 it would've just created flaming and negative arguing. If you disagree that it warranted deletion, that is certainly fine, but that's where I was really coming from here.

I am glad you can see where I am coming from and after reading this I am way more at ease with ChicagoRy's decision (even though I still not agree with it ).

And hearing that it's solely a volunteer job I kinda feel bad to have caused all this drama but I felt it was needed since I think censorship is a sensitive subject and it should be handled cautiously.
Yeah you're right it shows lack of respect and I can understand it if it is not tolerated in some of the forums and even support it. So in this sense mea culpa.
Yep I've learned my lesson here and I thank you for your calm voice of reason. It's contagious.

Okay, seems like I've misunderstood you there and yeah it would have been prolly better if I've discussed it privately. To my defense though, I don't really talk to online poker players outside of this forum or only very rarely.

Yeah I understand this even though I think it is more in the sense of being more friendly to newcomers and different views rather than no negativity at all. How boring would a strictly positive minded HU SNG forum be, no? But I ofc agree that a generally more postive/friendlier atmosphere is better for the forum and my deleted posts weren't certainly helping in this area.
I am glad you didn't infract or warn me, especially after the discussion between us heated up. Thank you.
Even though you might still not believe me, that was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for your opinion on this subject.

I fully agree that your proposal would have been the way better question than mine. And I repeat I think I've really worded it poorly. And I guess a mea culpa is warranted here as well.

On a side note, this post comes way more across as ChicagoRy-like than your PMs which irritated me at least a bit.