Guidelines For the Casino & Cardroom Poker Forum
Welcome to the Casino & Cardroom Poker Forum (CCP), formerly Live Casino Poker (LCP) and even more formerly Brick & Mortar (B&M).
CCP is a place to discuss all aspects of poker (except hand playing strategy which is discussed in the strategy forums) as it is played in casino poker rooms or other live venues such as dog track poker rooms or stand alone card rooms. Also, it is a place where forum members can congregate by particular poker venue (e.g. The Tampa Hard Rock) or by Regional Community (e.g. Macau) to discuss topics of interest with others who play in the same locations. Together, the members of the CCP forum represent a vast collection of poker knowledge and experience, with many players, dealers, and poker management personnel having decades of experience in live poker rooms around the world.
While there are many veterans of live poker in the forum, we particularly welcome those who are either entirely new to poker or those new to live poker having played previously on the internet. We encourage you to ask questions, join in our discussions, and become full participating members of our group. Everyone was a newbie live player at some point; this forum is a great way to learn about the live game and help you get comfortable in the live setting.
We want to ensure that the forum provides a place where everyone will feel comfortable asking questions or giving their opinion. Our goal is to have the atmosphere of CCP to be that of a club where older members help guide newer members, and newer members bring their enthusiasm and excitement for the game to the group. In order to achieve this goal, we have a few guidelines that need to be followed by all members who post in CCP.
1. The Golden Rule. Just be nice, and treat everyone with respect.
It’s really that simple. When discussing a topic and you happen to disagree with another poster’s position, state your alternative position and the facts that support it. Do not attack the poster personally, or use unnecessarily derogatory or demeaning language to make your point. Also, avoid making absolute statements about any poker procedure being right or wrong. No matter what rule or procedure you may be discussing, you can be sure that somewhere is a poker room that does it exactly opposite from the way your room does it, or that Robert’s Rules of Poker calls for. Remember, poker rules are completely room dependent. There is no recognized governing body for live poker.
So rather than having an exchange like this:
Poster 1: “If a player’s card hits the muck, it’s dead, period. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just stupid.”
Poster 2: “Try reading Robert’s Rules of Poker, dumbass. If the cards can be identified, they can remain live. Only a moron wouldn’t know that. ”
A better exchange would be:
Poster 1: “where I play, if a card hits the muck, it’s always ruled dead.”
Poster 2: “that’s interesting, because Robert’s Rules of Poker allows for the hand to remain live if the floor so decides, and all of the poker rooms I’ve played in ruled that way.”
So skip the insults, and keep the conversation friendly. We want to encourage people to ask questions and give their opinions. We want to encourage debate, but not in a “you must be wrong and I must be right” atmosphere. Watch the tone of your posts. It is easy to misinterpret humor or satire for meanness or ridicule on the internet, so use the emoticons as appropriate so your real intent is communicated, and misunderstandings don’t lead to more insults being exchanged.
The bottom line is you shouldn’t need a thick skin or feel like you are going into battle to participate in a discussion in CCP. If everyone does their part in keeping the tone civil and friendly it will be a better experience for all.
2. The Privacy Rule. Don’t name names in your posts.
Respect others' privacy. Many of our most knowledgeable posters work in various poker rooms, and can only contribute by remaining anonymous. Likewise, many players wish to remain anonymous in regards to their card room. So unless another poster has given explicit consent to being discussed on this board; has given implicit consent by becoming an authorized room representative; or is a famous poker player (to be determined on a case-by-case basis unless it is someone who is undisputedly a celebrity poker player), do not post any information that could be used to identify a player or industry employee on the open forums.
This includes not just their names, but any physical descriptions or other identifying information. For example, don’t say “the supervisor who is seven feet tall with long red hair sucks”. This is an extremely important rule, and we will delete any post that contains a violation of privacy. [Card room employees must become authorized representatives before posting information on their place of employment. Please contact Two Plus Two Advertising for more information.]
3. The Do Your Homework Before Posting Rule.
(a) Before creating a new thread, read through the list of active threads to see if that topic is already being addressed. Also, many questions and topics come up again and again, so use the search function to see if there is already a thread on the subject that will give you the answer you are looking for.
(b) When you do decide to create a new thread, make sure the title is descriptive of the topic, so that it will show up in the search feature appropriately. For example “is out of turn action always binding?” is a lot better than “another ruling question”.
(c) Before posting in an active thread, read the previous posts so you are aware of where the conversation is, and what points have already been brought up. Don’t be the guy who posts “you can’t really answer this until we know what seat 3 said to the floor” when four posts earlier it says “seat 3 told the floor he heard seat 2 say all in”. So make sure you are up to speed before sharing your comments with the group.
(d) Legal cardrooms only
As noted in rule 5(e) below, discussion of underground and other illegal games is not permitted here in CCP.
There are some jurisdictions (e.g. Texas and Oregon) where live cardroom poker is more of a gray area: operating as "membership" organizations, or otherwise operating in semi-public, but not under any sanctioned gaming jurisdiction. As of 2022, please make posts about these gray area locations only in the relevant threads in the Venues & Communities forum - they will be closed and/or deleted if posted here in CCP.
(e) Containment threads
There are some topics that come up so often, or are so contentious that they derail any thread that they appear in. So we have created Containment Threads for those topics. The current containment threads are:
•
Discussion of the Moderation of the CCP Forum
•
Coronavirus, masking, science, and other non-poker pandemic arguments
•
Tipping
•
Human-dealt tables v. e-tables
•
Chicago-area "charity" poker rooms
If you want to discuss any of those topics, do so ONLY in the containment thread. Don’t introduce them into another thread, as it will lead to a derail of the main topic. Violations may be moved or deleted, at the moderator's discretion, and continued violations may result in you being restricted from CCP or 2+2.
(f) Contentious Topics
There are other topics that are either the territory of conspiracy theorists, or just lead to loathsome behavior from emotionally invested participants, and in an effort to keep signal-to-noise ratio high and keep the forum free from inanity and namecalling, discussion of these topics is forbidden in CCP. If you feel the need to talk about these topics, there are generally other areas of 2+2 where their discussion is permitted. CCP-restricted topics include:
• Politics
• Religion
• Automatic shufflers are rigged
Please do not start topics or make posts in other threads in CCP about these or other non-poker related or otherwise contentious topics. If you do, they will be deleted, and you may be restricted from CCP or 2+2.
(g) Low Content Chat Thread
Finally, sometimes you might have a short, small question that you don't think needs its own post. Of just an offhand, oddball post you want to make that doesn't neatly fit anywhere else. In that case, please use our
Low-Content Thread to post in.
4. The You Have No Business Doing Business in the CCP Rule.
You may not conduct any type of financial transaction in CCP. For example, you may not sell tickets, arrange for staking/backing for a tourney, or any other activity that involves financial arrangements. Those must be conducted in the Marketplace Forum, and you must get prior approval from the moderators there before posting. Once you have done that, though, you may make a post in CCP simply stating what you are offering in the Marketplace, and provide a link to your Marketplace post.
Example: In the Tampa Hard Rock Venue thread, you could post “have ticket for sale for Monday’s Main Event. See my listing in the marketplace forum.” And include the link.
5. The Avoid These Types of Posts Rule.
The twoplustwo website's
Terms and Conditions provides general guidelines about the types of content prohibited in posts throughout the forums. All posters should read those guidelines before posting. By their nature, many of those topics are subjective in nature; what is considered objectionable to one person may seem perfectly fine to another.
In addition to the overall site guidelines the following type posts are to be avoided.
(a) No-content posting. No-content posting is not permitted. Please make sure that your posts contribute positively. Examples of a no content post are “Yeah, Baby!”; “LOLOLOL” or many of the other memes you may find in other forums on the site (inb4….; about 350). Also included are most of those meme photos you think are so clever but are really not. Don’t use them.
Note: +1 comments are not considered no content posts. They may be made when you feel appropriate. There is one caveat on their use. Users should not post +1 after every post they happen to agree with as a substitute for a Like Button. Rather use them to indicate your agreement for a particular position or post as part of an issue being debated. Use common sense in determining if using the +1 post will really contribute to the thread in some manner.
(b) Posts that attack another poster rather than address the issue of the thread. This includes rude, insulting, or snarky comments that add nothing to the discussion but rather seek to ridicule, demean or embarrass another poster.
(c) Politics, religion, and other contentious topics. Posts on these topics, or even casually mentioning them, have a way of derailing and devolving almost any other poker-related topic into the same tired arguments which are not worth reading. Posts of this nature are not permitted in CCP, and will be removed. There are plenty of other places on the internet (and even within 2+2) where you can have these discussions, so make these posts there instead.
(d) Don’t bypass the Profanity filter. 2+2 has a profanity filter built into its software. Please do not self-censor or otherwise attempt to dodge that filter; simply type expletives as you would normally and let the filter do its work. That means don’t type F—K it! Just type **** it! and the filter will do its job.
(e) Unlawful activities. Posts about breaking the law are not permitted. (E.g., underage gambling, underground card rooms, etc.)
(f) Trolling. Trolling is not permitted. A troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. (from Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll.
Don’t be a troll.
(g) Disturbing images or videos. These types of images/videos include those that depict excessively violent, gory or otherwise disturbing images such as sexually oriented material, profanity that bypasses the site filter, or other material NSFW. As this is a subjective standard, it is impossible to list all the things that may be prohibited. Use as a reference point if a user is sitting at his computer reading about live poker stuff, and then saw the image/video, would he likely go "whoa, that's graphic stuff." Place spoiler tags around potentially disturbing images and a warning that describes it such as "warning: includes violent images". If unsure as to whether the item crosses the line for posting, check with a moderator before posting. If the community's users or the moderators deem the material inappropriate for posting, it will be deleted and the poster informed as to why.
(h) Hotlinking of images you post. Hotlinking is when you find an image you want to post on a website somewhere, and copy its URL directly from the site, and paste it into the 2+2 image posting screen. Don’t do that. When you hotlink, the image draws from the host website’s resources. Plus, if they change the image associated with that link, it will get changed on your post as well. You must first upload your image to a image hosting site like imgur.com, and then use that link info. For further discussion of how to post images, see here:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...s-more-285800/
6. The Help Keep CCP Beautiful Rule
The first level of effort in keeping the atmosphere of CCP an inviting one is the posters themselves. Most importantly, don’t make inappropriate posts yourself. Think before you post. Next, help enforce the community’s standards. If you see a post that you feel violates the guidelines listed above please use the Report Post function located below a poster's statistics to the left of the post to notify the moderators. Don’t assume a moderator will catch an obvious violation in every thread. There are too many threads for the mods to read each one on a daily basis. The more information you include regarding your rationale for reporting, the more informed and better of a decision we can make with respect to the post or posting pattern in question.
Also, if you have suggestions regarding moderation, please post in the CCP Moderation Discussion Thread. Unless you have an issue you believe needs to be discussed privately, we'd prefer that discussion regarding moderation be discussed in that thread for the sake of transparency and also as a guide for posters on how the guidelines are interpreted.
7. What Happens When You’re Bad
Most rules violations are simple honest mistakes. Unfortunately, it seems that no matter how much we would like to keep CCP the welcoming forum it is, some posters feel compelled to break the rules. So when that does happen, here is the general sequence of events related to handling violations of the rules.
Posts that the moderators believe to be minor or accidental violations of the guidelines will be deleted with or without notice to the posters who made them. Time permitting, the moderator may choose to notify the poster to make sure the poster understands why the post was deleted, to reduce future repeat violations. But that is not always possible. So if you open up the forum one day, and go “hey, where did my post go?” most likely it was deleted by a mod for a rules violation. If you know in your heart it was a no content or insulting, snarky post, just roll with it and don’t do it again. But if you have a post deleted, and you really don’t know why, PM a mod and he will explain why it was deleted.
There will be no infraction points issued for these minor corrections. The goal is to educate posters on the standards in CCP, and have everyone willingly follow them. However, if a poster continues to make many violations of small rules, as captured in the user's mod notes, the cumulative effect can result in an escalation of discipline.
Posts that are egregious violations or that show a willful disregard for the forum guidelines, i.e., the moderators think you're breaking the rules on purpose or that your posts show a pattern of undesirable behavior, will be handled first with an official warning via PM and then with escalating tempbans based on the number of total guidelines violations the poster has made that are egregious or willful.
Ex. 1: Poster X makes a post like "lol." Poster X will not receive a warning or an infraction. The post will be deleted and Poster X may or may not be notified of the deletion.
Ex. 2: Poster Y, who has no history of problems in the past, goes on an incredibly vicious, expletive-laden rant against another poster. Poster Y will receive a PM from a moderator giving an official warning that his next guidelines violation could result in a tempban.
Ex. 3: Poster Z, who has a history of making personal attacks against other posters, is back at it. This is his third time flying off the handle, so he receives a two-day tempban.
Posters who continue to post inappropriate things will be subject to an exile from a particular CCP thread, an exile from CCP entirely or a site-wide permanent ban. There is no specific number of tempbans you are allowed before an exile or permanent ban. It is decided on a case by case basis, taking the posters entire posting history into account.
The ban appeal process outlined in the About the Forums forum Sticky thread:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...-forum-116988/
describes a process of emailing the administrator Mat Sklansky and asking him to have other moderators in the same forum review/consider the ban imposed by a particular moderator. In CCP, our policy is that before a temp ban or permanent ban is issued, all three moderators will discuss and reach a consensus. So in practice, any proposed ban will actually receive an automatic appeal to the entire mod group, but before it is actually implemented.
Therefore, there will be limited additional venues for a poster to appeal a ban in a timely manner. You may, if you feel the decision was completely unjust, email Mat Sklansky at
mat@twoplustwo.com and request his personal intervention. However, given the short duration of temp bans, and the fact you have already received a moderator group review, it is unlikely that any further appeal would be completed prior to the expiration of the ban.
Since you may or may not have access to the website during a ban, depending on your computer cookies, etc, if you are anticipating a ban upcoming, you might want to write down Mat’s email.
Do not appeal your ban in the CCP Moderation Discussion thread. That is not the purpose of that thread.
8. The Big Finish
Many internet forums are battlegrounds where posters compete to see who can be the wittiest, sharpest, meanest, and most condescending poster of all. The Casino & Cardroom Poker Forum is the opposite of that. We strive to provide a place for the exchange of knowledge and experiences about live poker in an environment that everyone enjoys and is comfortable in. It’s up to each of us to help follow and enforce these guidelines so that posters get the maximum value from our forum. A little consideration of others goes a long way. Make sure you reread your posts before hitting the “post reply” button to double check that your post adds something to the discussion in a positive tone.
Finally, if you have any questions regarding using 2+2 or finding particular information, please post in the Low-Content Thread or send one of the mods (Lattimer, Rapini or dinesh) a private message. We're here to help. We hope you enjoy our forum, and thank you for your participation.
Last edited by dinesh; 08-28-2022 at 02:00 AM.
Reason: revised gray area rules to point to V&C
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.