Many posts criticizing how the horseshoe has handled things have been deleted from that thread. Many have been my own. And I don't know why and we never got explanations. There were some about switching from time rake to pot rake in the pink chip game. And others about specific floor rulings that were made, mostly in the pink chip game. I do not make personal attacks. I might have referred to a floor ruling as ignorant or dumb. Is that not allowed?

At any rate, in the incident that Uhaul described, I, like Karl, know the person involved and all the details of the story. But I guess we can't post it on there bc it shows the casino in a negative light? That's what I'm trying to clarify. We can't post heresay? What are the guidelines for that so I know what I can post? It seems like everything here is heresay.

I would assume you could post the story.
Minus the insulting description of the shift manager.
Minus the insulting terms directed at the Poker Room manager.
"Moron" and "idiot" when applied to easily identified casino personnel might be considered "over the top".

Thanks for the questions about the Horseshoe posts by Uhaul. Let me explain in more depth what the issues were.

On the privacy policy in the guidelines, it states that in addition to naming people, you cannot use physical descriptions that identify the person as well as a name. In the guidelines, the example given is don't say "the 7 foot tall red headed floor" or words to that effect. So when referring to an employee as "the fat, bald, moron..." if there is only one fat bald employee in the room, then that is just as descriptive as using his name.

Another aspect of criticizing employee rulings is the same rule we use about criticizing forum users posts. It is absolutely fine to say something like "I think it was absolutely wrong/unfair/outrageous/whatever that the floor kicked him out of the tournament". That is a valid opinion, and the comment addresses the ruling, not the person. But when you say something like "that ****ing **** for brains ugly moron kicked him out of the tournament" then you are not attacking the ruling, but rather attacking the person. That is what is not appropriate in LCP. It goes against our golden rule of being nice and treating everyone with respect. Plus, denigrating or demeaning a person does nothing to move the conversation forward as to whether the action the floor took was appropriate or not.

The distinction between critcizing a ruling and attacking a person is an important one and is one of the bedrock principles of posting in LCP.

As to the "$850 incident" the problem, (in addition to the personal attacks included in the same post as the description of the incident) is that there was not sufficient information for other posters to assess what really happened and if the action was justified. Especially given that the poster stated it was hearsay and did not happen to him, and it seemed like such an unusual thing to happen, more info should have been given to set the stage better.

For example, at the time the floor gave the guy the 850, did he think he was #1 on the leaderboard, but then the next day they realized they miscalculated and someone else rightfully won the 850, so they asked for it back? Or did somehow the floor thought the #1 guy gets a prize, but in fact they don't (seems highly unlikely)? The absence of those types of facts, coupled with the personal attacks, made the posts appear to me to be more of some sort of rant than a description of an incident for discussion. Since derogatory information does stay forever, and given the seeming unlikelihood of such an event happening as described, I determined that absent the clarifying information, that I would err on the side of caution and delete the posts, especially since I had to delete the personal attack aspects anyway.

I hope this explains how I saw the posts and why I took the action I did. I have also explained this to Uhaul in PMs and I believe we are on the same sheet of music now. No one should feel restrained from criticizing any poker room actions. But you must remember to attack the problem and not the person.

edit: after seeing a couple of posts above this: Uhaul or anyone else with knowledge of the event should absolutely feel free to post about it. But state the facts, and leave out the personal attacks. Then other posters can add their opinions as to whether it was handled correctly or not. I can assure you that posts will not be deleted simply for being critical of a poker room's actions. But if those posts violate our posting guidelines, they will be deleted for that.

Ok. Thank you for the response. I agree ad hominem attacks on people are not useful.

My pleasure. I appreciate that it's confusing when you can navigate just around this site and start in politics unchained, where the purpose of the forum seems to be to insult each other; then go to NVG where about half the posts seem to either attack other posters or successful poker pros; and then come to LCP and we have a "no personal attacks" rule. But I really believe that given the wide spectrum of experience of our users, from absolute beginners to old timer experts that keeping our forum as friendlly and positive and as informative and educational as possible is the best way to go.

But I understand it's easy to slip up once in a while, so generally speaking a quick note in a thread should suffice to get things back on track. My goal is really to never have to escalate to the discipline level unless someone is just really being obstinate about it. The more everyone buys into what we are trying to build here, the smoother things will go, and I believe the more enjoyable the forum will be for everyone.

So just apply this check to your posts right before you hit the post reply button: does your post contribute to the discussion? and are you being nice? If you answer yes to both of those, then there should be no problems.

A little note on threads running their course, derails, and use of the /thread.

Sometimes the pros and cons of a thread topic have been well discussed, but then the thread devolves into personal attacks between posters on opposite sides of the argument. When that happens, i will close the thread, and say TTHRIC. But while that's true, the actual reason it's being closed is that it's gotten out of hand.

The normal way for a thread to run its course is for people to just stop posting in it after they feel the topic is well covered. Then the thread will drop lower and lower on the pages, until it is basically out of sight. But it remains open, so if a new person sees it and wants to ask a question, it will get bumped back up and be seen again. This is the desired end to a thread.

On derails, if they are somewhat related to the topic, and just last a couple of posts, I'll let it go. But if you feel a thread is losing its focus by the derail, rather than post about it in the thread, just use the report post button to bring it to a mods attention. That way, if we feel it is a topic worth more discussion, we can break it out into a new thread. Or if it's just a distraction we can delete the posts.

As to the /thread wording, don't use it in a thread. You don't get to decide if your post is the definitive, correct answer so that no other discussion is necessary. If that were the case, almost every post would have /thread at the end of it. We'll let the community decide when to end a thread. But if you see a problem like a derail or personal attacks, then report it. I guarantee that will be more effective than posting /thread.

Thanks.

browser for mod!

Proposal: can we create a Run it Twice containment thread? Or, a "common rulings peole fight about" thread?

Any thread about RIT with a side pot invariably turns into a debate about why it should or shouldn't be allowed. Same withIWTSTH, oversized chip, etc.

I feel like people asking for rulings help is fine, but once things get off course, it would be nice to throw the debate somewhere.

We can take a look at it.

My first impression is that in general, I personally don't care for containment threads that cover multiple subjects (i.e. common rulings) because I find them hard to follow since people respond to posts about one topic, then another, all mixed together so there isn't much of a flow to the discussion. You have to read through a bunch of posts on say IWTSTH in order to find responses to RIT, for example).

We do have several IWTSTH threads listed in their own section in the FAQ. Maybe we need to add a RIT thread or two to the FAQ that we can refer people to. Or perhaps someone has some suggestions as to a way to make those common topics more visible than the FAQ. Maybe a sticky titled: Common ruling issues?

Of course, the other option is just to let people have the discussions. Sometimes new people like to engage on it, rather than read a 3 year old thread about the same topic. While it gets old for the "old timers" it does provide engagement for people, which is after all, an important aspect of a forum.

So let's open this up for comments. Is there a way/better way to catalog or make a reference place for the most common reocurring issues than FAQs? Should we allow these topics to run their course every now and then as new people engage in the discussion?

Please let us know what you think. It's your community, so what approach do you think will cover the topics the best while maintaining the most enjoyable environment?

Rather than quote this post, use: Re:FAQs for the first line of your post, so we can easily see those posts that are commenting on this.

Thanks.

The less containment the better. I see the need for tipping containment. Very few other things truly need containment imo.

Hi Mods,

Sorry to bother you but I just accidentally posted a new thread in the Midstakes MTT section of Tournament Poker. The thread is called "LV trip report senior week".

Could you please move that thread here to Live Casino Poker?

Thanks,
- Rick

Done. Glad you moved it here. Great report!

How did you do that? What dark sorcery did you summon to achieve that?

New mod special powers!

Must have been a Senior Moment.... GL in LV...

I know you do what you gotta do. I should know better than to start a discussion with someone who will inevitably get the whole thing deleted.

And then I come back and edit some things I said in this post out because I don't want it to feel like I'm personally disappointed in any of the moderators. I would have done the same if I was strapped with the responsibility. I get it. It doesn't make it any less frustrating to have an entire conversation obliterated like that as opposed to locked. (yes, I realize you can't just lock the containment thread)

Hi Reid--thanks for the comment. Here's the things I look at when deciding whether to lock a thread or delete posts (or both).

First is the level and extent of the discourse, i.e. how nasty has it gotten or how personal are the attacks or how over the top are the violations of guidelines. If I feel like a thread has essentially run its course in regards to actually discussing/answering the OP, and the comments are just starting to get a little edgy, then I'll just lock it up. But if I feel that others may still want to weigh in on the topic, then I will delete the offending posts and leave the thread open.

But if the posts have really crossed the line, then I will delete them, whether I decide to lock the thread or not, because every new person clicking on the thread would see the inappropriate comments, and IMO nothing good comes from that. To use an extreme example, let's say two posters got into an argument where they are throwing around racist comments back and forth. And lets say this goes on for several posts before a mod sees it. It wouldn't be appropriate to leave those racist remarks up there for all to see, just so that some sort of historical record is preserved or because of some recognition that the people put a lot of effort into writing up those racist remarks.

So I'd delete them. If they are needed for background for other disciplinary action later, mods can see the deleted posts in the spot in the thread they were originally posted. They aren't lost to history, just public view. And as you pointed out, in this case with the tipping containment thread, locking the thread isn't an option anyway.

I hope you see where I was coming from on this. I don't like to leave up posts that violate our guidelines; I think the potential downsides outweigh any upside (which I really can't think of) it may have.

I didn't do anything to help the situation. I definitely had some borderline scathing commentary in there that the discussion could have gone without.

No problem. I've started working out, so I hardly get winded after a deletion anymore.

To Rapini. I understand why you deleted that last part of my post, but just so you know it was a legit question and I wasnt trying to troll. t would explain a lot about his previous posts if that was the reason. But again I understand your reasoning for deleting

It absolutely was not a legitimate question. It was a completely inappropriate question that has no place in the forum anywhere. You could make up hundreds of hypothetical situations that could "explain" a particular attitude, but that doesnt make them legitimate questions to ask.

Intrigue, rising

Yeah, I figured this exchange would seem strange since I didnt want to repeat the deleted remarks. But let me summarize it this way: it is never allowed to speculate on a poster's personal matters or that of his family, period. Address the poker topic or action at hand; leave any amateur psychological analysis as to the possible motivations behind the actions out of it.

Well you certainly made that sound about 1000 times worse than it was, but ok. Ill take my posts elsewhere

I'm really sorry to hear that. But I think my summary describes the comment perfectly. While I'd like to see everyone stay and participate in LCP, if you really believe that was a legitimate question as you stated, and were going to want to continue to post comments like that in LCP, I'm afraid you wouldn't be posting here very long anyway.

Thanks for your contributions to LCP. Good Luck.