His apology reminds me of when politicians deny, deny, deny -- until they get caught, then they come out with an apology statement and show supposed contrition, which never would have come if they could have gotten away with it. Except this is worse because he didn't apologize even after it was pointed out that his action was wrong by many members and mods(!) until their discussion with Mat.

He stuck to his guns right up until "we've decided that it is more important that we continue to protect the anonymity of non-famous posters in this forum, as per our forum rules."

Really? Right up until that discussion with Mat, he still didn't know that it is more important to protect this information rather than for him to win his argument? It's not because he now understands that it is wrong. It is because "we decided." This shows again his extreme lack of judgment, which I wouldn't want to have in a mod if I ran the forum.

After a lot of discussions with mods and users I've decided that Rapini will no longer moderate this forum. The years he has given this site and forum are incredibly appreciated.

While Rapini did make a major error and has not really repented well enough for most..... this thread should not continue on as a ****storm of hatred directed at Rapini because:

I like Rapini the poster and hope he doesn't leave mad. I think mods should have term limits. Let newer posters have an opportunity to give back to the community by working for free.

this is very true. and i also want to add that the decision did not come at all easily. it's not unlikely this will become a situation where people should have been careful about what they wished for.

This.

And this.

What is the meaning of your words?

I mean that over the many years Rapini ruled this forum there were plenty of people who thought he was doing a great job. Without him things are bound to change somewhat. And those of you who were so eager to see him leave might not like the changes.

I'm not talking about anything specific or making threats. I was just pouring a little ice water on those who think this is something to celebrate.

I have confidence that Lattimer and dinesh will do a great job moderating this forum. My one suggestion is that they bring another mod on to help since this forum is busy. Garick spends a fair amount of time here and would bring a steady hand in this situation. He would be my first choice if I had a say about it.

Given my role in the recent controversies, I think that would be pretty uncomfortable for the current mod team.

I will personally say that I am not particularly happy with how any of this happened. Whatever the issues, the process used was ****ty, and I don't think very highly about many of the people involved.

When I cool off I'll discuss things with Lattimer and we'll see what we think.

I guess we can take that as confirmation of Garick's perception.

I just gave IQofTwoPlusTwo a day off for continuing to be an ******* about this, it won't be tolerated. Just a warning for the rest of you.

So I actually kinda gave up on this thread based on the length of time it took to come to a conclusion. I very much appreciate that the community stepped up here. I realize it wasn't specifically in my defense, but it felt that way to an extent.

I THINK Mat doesn't like me based on this part of a post, but I could be missing something in the tonality.

I sincerely apologize for the adversarial nature that this thread took out of what I felt was necessity on my end. Mat, I appreciate the time you devoted to dealing with this, despite my status in your book.

I realize this created a lot of work for a bunch of parties involved (twice) and I very much appreciate the sacrifice of your free time in dealing with this.

I do care very much about the poker community as a whole, and while that's true I don't make any assertion that my motivation behind all of this was completely benevolent in nature - I was obviously upset and had selfish motivations, but believed that I was right.

I hope the CCP community ends up better off - and I will endeavor to participate more and more, from time to time.

Thanks again, and I hope at some point in the future I can change negative opinions created of me in the process with actions.

Maybe misreading but I'm pretty sure that was Mat giving "tone" to the mod and not to you.

I could have been totally wrong, I never did hear directly from Mat other than that particular quote. I'm certainly not upset if that's his perception, but it's even better if it isn't.

To change the topic: i know the posters, not the the mods, choose the thread titles but the mods should change them to provide more information. In turn, i think it will generate more reading and postings. Thread titles like "worst angle", "epic dealer mistake" and "worst ruling" should be something like "angle: does river card stay when player skipped", "dealer error: mucks stub before river", and "floor ruling: xxxx"

I will sometimes do this for particularly egregious titles, or when the mood strikes, but as a rule I try to lightly moderate. Changing scores of post titles is not something I am planning to do. I do appreciate the sentiment though - proper thread naming is one of the forum rules, after all.

I asked about sharing comped tickets in a venue thread. I think it was deleted. Is this not allowed?

I don't know what specific post/thread you're referring to, but anything transactional must go through the marketplace forum (following its rules for approval), and once it's listed there you can post a link to it here only.

If it wasn't a transaction, then lattimer will have to chime in.

I guess I wasn't specific but I wasn't looking to pay for anything. I was looking for free comped tickets. I suppose any exchange would be a transaction, even a free one?

Sharp analysis.

Timely commentary.

At this point it seems ss1 is arguing just to argue. All points have been made. Might be time to close the thread mods?