Having spent some time in threads on this forum over the past few months, I wanted to make some comments intended to improve the quality of discussion in the threads. Some of you will agree with what I have to say. Others won't. Others will have the 'TL;DR' attitude. My goal is that if even a small portion of the forum population improves the way they post we will all be better off.

Why Do You Post?
Here are some reasons I can think of, in no particular order:

1. To get advice on how you played a hand with the purpose of improving future play
2. To help someone else improve their game
3. To post a hand to show how good of a playa' you are
4. To improve your game through analyzing a hand someone else had posted and learning a situation away from the table that can come up in your own games
5. To show people how smart you are/support your forum 'rep'
6. To generate potential students if you are a poker coach

What Kind of Posts Are Most Helpful?

1. For replies to other people's hands:

- posts that explain the WHY of the situation rather than just stating what to do. By that I mean they relate the relevant specific circumstances to hand ranges and how to make the most +EV decision given things like villain's range, his perception of our range, board texture, villain's tendencies, future street action.

- posts that help the OP evaluate the merits of different lines/plans and not just ones categorically claiming that only one possible plan is possible (well, sometimes this is true, but then this is still best explained by showing why the other plans are bad)

2. For posts asking others for advice/posting hands:

-clearly articulating the available information on villains, stacks, image, history, etc
- explaining what was the OP's thought process for why he took certain actions, so that other members can comment not just on the line taken, but on the reasoning behind it
- Further replies in the thread providing answers to reasonable questions asked, and eventually providing feedback to those who took the time to reply with what they thought of the replies.

What Kind of Replies Are NOT Particularly Helpful?

- one liners stating what to do rather than why. Really, why are you even bothering? If someone is posting a hand, the person clearly doesn't understand it well enough - hence the post. Saying 'easy shove' or 'bet/fold' might help someone. Or it might just confuse them because they won't understand the reasons that advice is good and mis-apply it in the future. Or your advice might actually be wrong or highly questionable, but because you have a lot of posts on the forum a new poster might think that makes you right. This applies irrespective of how much of a 'balla' you are at poker, whether you are a coach/pro or a beginner.
- replies that are attacking the poster as opposed to attacking the argument someone is making. Posting something like 'wow this is terrible' is ... well... a terrible post. Why don't you take the time to show the person why they are making the mistake rather than to post something that has no value to anyone other than your ego?
- replies that are rigid and absolute with no explanation. 'I am never calling here, that's just terrible'. See this a bunch and it's another waste of space.

I know this is already a long post, and most of you won't have gotten to this point. My hope is that some of you will and that it will cause some of you to improve the quality of discussion here. I know nobody is paying a membership fee here. I can certainly be posting on DC or Cardrunners and be talking to a much smaller audience that will have a somewhat higher average quality of discussion. The thing is that from some of the great posts I read on here from some of the posters that take the time to do it well, I learn a lot. I totally think we can have more of those posts and less of the filler that makes some threads long without much content in them.

Just my 2c.

Good post but I have to take issue with "one liners stating what to do rather than why".

I'd rather read 1 sentence that says the correct answer than reading a novel on the completely wrong answer (although it is amusing how people arrive at the wrong answer).

Usually if people post obvious hands with obvious answers, I just type 1 sentence (or even 1 word). Not to be short with the person, but because the answer is so obvious, 1 word is all it takes.

setsy is the nuts, good post

I understand your point and understand that your time is valuable. But how do you expect someone who is posting a (to you) obvious question to know that your answer with no explanation is actually correct? And furthermore how do you expect them to learn to apply what you are telling them to similar situations if they aren't getting which factors made this an obvious answer to you?

I post long answers partially because I think it helps the person asking for advice, but also in large measure because it helps me understand the situation better and go through my rationale for my line away from the table so that I can spend more time at the table on other things.

I agree with this but I would ask what brought it on? I would say the majority of threads I visit have multiple helpful posts in them... do you see it differently?

I see some great discussion in some threads. In other threads I see some discussion that could be better. In the threads with some great discussion, there are some posters who IMO are putting a lot into it in terms of analysis/explanations that I believe benefit both them and others, and other posters who are putting very little in but like to come in with authoritative one-liners that I feel frequently do more harm than good.

Just one person's opinion, and certainly not an attack on anyone. I understand that by the very nature of a free forum everyone is free to do as they think best. I am merely laying out what I think could make this forum even better, and since I am spending some time on this forum as way to both improve my game and help others do the same, I feel I have a vested interest in the quality of discussion increasing over time.

one thing is, i have to step in to defend one-liner responses. cuz sometimes i just wanna chime in that way. sometimes there are things that i think are obvious, sometimes i just wanna basically +1, and i do think those are useful for a lot of people to get a feel for a consensus on a particular hand. hands that are more difficult to determine the right course of action i'm usually posting longer, more thoroughly explained responses.

if i post a one-liner or a poorly explained response, and someone wants to know my reasoning, just reply to my post, i will always explain my thinking if i see your post, which i almost always will, and if i don't, PM me.

p.s. man u bitches need to get yourselves some avatar pics. look how grey this thread was before i came on

I hate large bodies of text when trying to look at hands.

Would rather simple breakdown with a little table dynamic/history

Example:

Effective stacks ~900

HERO raises UTG+2 (KK)....X and X called

Flop XXX (pot 75)

ect

or if there is a live hand converter I don't know about

This is not referring to Setsy, but I lol at lots of the long replies sometimes. Some people seem incapable of reading OPs, just as many seem incapable of judging opposition at the table.

So many times long replies are full of terminology/concepts which are clearly wasted on OP, given its content. I frequently suggest that the 1st step is to realize you are crap and go and read a decent fundamentals book, which I believe is far more productive than trying to ram all the things you know down the throat of somebody who is not ready.

For all the Limon fanboys I saw in his thread that he's told several of his students to give up poker. This is the kind of honesty that is far more valuable than telling people what they want to hear. How many times to we get OPs saying "i'm in a downswing, give me some advive" and replies of take a break, come back fresh etc, when in actual fact the vast majority of these posters are losing players. That doesn't mean they should quit, but the first step is realising it.

Another point is that most productive learning, IMO, comes from active thought. Basically, if you give somebody the solution to a problem and say "understand now?", a huge majority of people say they do, even though they don't. If by chucking out a couple of lines or questions, you require the OP to think/respond it will often be far more useful to them.

Have to agree with Livegrinder here. It's much better to be forced to think for yourself than just having everything spelled out for you. Giving someone the answer and forcing them to figure out why that is right is often the best thing to do. It's how I learned the most using this forum. When I first started posting I was given a one line answer from a very respected poster but I couldn't figure out why he said that this was the correct answer. I pmed him to ask if he'd explain, he basically said no way in hell would he get into it for free. Took me a long time to figure out on my own why his answer was correct, but it helped my game immensely.

I should have added:

What actually benefits the forum is having a mix of different abilities, experience, personality, posting styles etc.

I think Setsy is one of the best contributors to the forum. IMO, his advice tends to be accurate, humble and very clearly presented. That is a great thing to have. I just believe it is a dangerous road to go down when you start (even subconsciously) thinking that everything would be better if only everybody did it like me.

Different posters add so many dimensions. Top strat advice, clearly explained concepts, links to better resources than poster can provide themselves, thought provoking comments/questions, pleasantries, reality checks, thorough debate, humour and many more things all have their place in the forum and make it what it is.

I feel this is way more of a detriment than a help. In this forum, you have plenty of posters who understand their level, read and learn from the quality posters, and contribute properly when entering a discussion. When these square pegs fit into their square holes and round pegs fit into their round holes, the community flourishes.

Unfortunately, you also have some posters who "over value" their knowledge, giving long, drawn out, fundamentally horrible advice; claiming to have a BR of 1500 BI, winning $75+/hr @ 2/5 in Vegas (); with a post count to the moon. When new members read advice from people like this, they may think that b/c this guy has a bazillion posts and writes practically a novel for an answer that he's gotta be right. Unfortunately, 9 times out of 10 these bad posters are hurting more than they help.

PERMABAN

But if a person cannot judge the validity of a post on its own merits, that surely backs up the idea already mentioned that the person is failing to actually learn or understand in the first place. They are simply reading and believing. If a person is lazy enough to see a post count, assume that person knows best and follow that advice without trying to understand why, why should we as a forum feel bad about that?

tbh I don't think this thread is helpful.

an advantage of one liners is people thinking to work out the reasoning. they arent the issue with the forum.

horrible titles, poorly written posts, results in OPs (and not being removed by mods-not their job I suppose but it'd help), results after 3 posts, and the high high % of posts that are hands that heros lost.

Thank you for everyone's responses. My goal was not to create a consensus or to try to get everyone to follow one way of doing it. I wanted to get my ideas out there, fully understanding that only some might agree/be influenced by them.

I also agree with some of the other things that others have said in the thread:

1. Short posts can be as good/better than long posts
2. Asking the OP a question to get him to think through ideas on their own can be more helpful to his game than spoon-feeding an answer

A number of posters who participated in this thread, such as Quesuerte, post very helpful short responses in my opinion. The reason I made this post is that I feel that sometimes there are others posting short, arrogant and frequently questionable replies that lower the quality of the discussion.

Cliff notes for my whole point: short or long, let's focus more on WHY something is true, not just on what to do.

you do like to take charge dont u