blonde poker forum

Any heard or there heard anything about what happened?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/8230714.stm

is that ***?

It's right next door.

yep it combines as a strip club isis and senoritas

More info here (http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/hysongreen/Man-hospital-stab-wounds/article-1297571-detail/article.html)

Was pretty scary leaving at 4:30am this morning after chopping the £75 freezeout (obv brag!!)

Apparently it was an R&B night and it kicks off every month!

Blimey!  Was meant to meet up with a few over there too, but just didn't like the look of the crowd in the car park.  

[ x ] good swerve!

Lol I think I was with you.

I shall brag that I took the win ;);)



Yeah it was scary, I drove through it and there was ambulances and police everywhere, I was stopped by the police as they took my cars details before I left.

When you got £2k in the back burner going through that is not easy!!

Was leaving *** at around 4:30am, and since the entrance was all blocked by police cars, had to walk around the area trying to find my cab! Not to worry though had Chris Brammer and co as my back up ;)

now thats running good

Wasn't me.  I was out the gap around 1:30 or 2:00, but the crowd gathered outside that place when I landed at *** around 11:30 deffo didn't look fun.

Good luck James when it comes to license review :(

'Flirts' is miles better anyway.   ;)

but you cant stagger out of *** into there

A woman who was at the nightclub, and did not want to be named, said: "It was about 3.50am and there was lots of fighting.

Claw imo.

Can vouch for Claw being safely far away.  Why?  Because I phoned her trying to talk her into going!  lol


Fair point, but guessing that would probably suit *** staff grand anyway.

This.

are we all pussy footing around the fact that the crowd of black people looked dangerous?

I never saw any black people Rick, & I stood & watched the action (from a safe distance, in the *** Car Park!) for a goodly while. To be fair, my mincers are shocking.

It was "expected" apparently, & the usual *** Car Park entrance had been locked all day, by the Police.

As someone said, GG James getting his licence renewed.

Nothing to do with skin colour at all.  And I mean that 100%.  There was just a bad vibe coming from the car park and it felt some people were 'gearing up for it'.

Gang colours?

I spoke to James about this on Saturday night. There's always trouble when they have these R&B nights.

His license is safe. They take all the precautions they can as far as security goes.

I would guess there were loads of police there? Well they were all paid for by the club. Pre arranged. It costs thousands to have them there ready for when it kicks off.

I've left DTD on one of these nights before and must say it isn't pleasant.

maybe the title of the thread is a bit misleading, since the stabbings were obv nothing to do with ***.....

It begs the question - why hold them then ? surely its a loss every time and the police must be getting fed up.

It definitely makes money.

He said they need to do them to help pay the bills so he definitely wouldn't if they were a loser. With the Senoritas bit just being about 1/6th of the total club they are paying disproportionate rates I suppose.

The police won't love it but I bet they prefer R&B nights at ISIS rather than in the city centre. I would imagine it's much easier to control.

These nights are going to happen somewhere so it has to best to have them somewhere out of the way and more manageable.

Glad I opted for the early night now!

LOL, didnt know *** was near that club. Was shut down in the past, some shootings were there when my sister went to uni there. Fucking dodge.

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm?id=2627

something in there about one of them

This, you cant stop these nights so the police just have to keep them out the way.

Same as the Jungle fueding between Market Bar and Stealth crews. Its worse than organised football hooliganism because they bring machetes and guns. Plus they all smoke crack and thats aloud to carry on in two of the main clubs in Nottingham.

Im pretty sure the police would rather have an R&B night responsibly run by James, than what used to happen at the Marcus Garvey and Blueprint nightclubs. Pretty sure they never bothered to inform the police things were about to get a bit raucus.

P.S Its Nottingham , its what we do. As Cartman would say 'In the ghettoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..........

Stealth (or RKO) as always full of crack heads but Markey Bar?

The scariest looking person in there used to be Jermaine Jenas.

Only referring to their respective Jungle nights.

Believe me JJ dancing to Jungle is scary!

Neil,

I hope you don't mind, but I've amended the Thread Title.

I'm not entirely sure how these things work, but we don't really need Search Engines to pick up "*** Stabbings" imo.

I don't give a hoot about next door, but *** is different.

Oi!!

I give a hoot about next door!!

Can we change the title to random nightclub stabbing.

No!

I can, but I won't.

Neil can, if he so wishes, though.

I dont want to upset anyone by this.  Simply just saw the news and wondered what it was all about and if we knew anyone affected by it in any way.

lolol @ new title.

To be fair the emergency services were well on the ball - they had an ambulance parked outside the club at 12.15 am when I left ***.

As I told my mate the other day, what could be safer than playing poker near an industrial estate in nottingham and then walking to your car in the small hours with a load of folding in your pocket.

+1, gold.

Too late Tony, just thought I would try "*** Stabbings" in Google out of interest and up comes this thread.

No-one is gonna google '*** stabbings' though. It only matters if it comes up under a search for '***', which luckily it doesn't.

...but you see the point.

yup agree with you completely.

It doesn't matter if it appears on a search for '*** stabbings' or 'Random Knife piercings in middle part of the country which may or may not be near *** though and which DEFINITELY did not involve Barry Neville in any way shape or form......I hope', just as long as a basic *** search is clean so to speak.

Needs more love imo.

I think you made a boo boo Tikay, without even realising it.... Now when you google that phrase, your post is returned as the first result!

FML.

Welll I'm, just off to London now, but if anyone (with Mod access) wants to clean up the thread, feel free. The problem with the web is that once it's out, it can never be captured. The Phrase appears in the Posts of others, too.

All too late now, pah.

I'll amend all the posts to star out the name of Rob's establishment (had to reword that so as not to do it again myself..)

Seriously. No offence intended to the mods but you've gone a bit far with all this *** nonsense.

Might as well just remove the whole thread.

Won't this just be for people who've already viewed the page so it's in their cookies or some such thing?

Surely if my sister goes on the internet at work to search DTD because she fancies a game of poker she isn't going to get a link to this thread??

I hear Isis has roulette machines as well now

It's on google.  So if someone searches for the name of a well-known and respected poker club, followed by the word that is the plural noun-form of the verb to stab - then this thread is the first result.  Nowt to do with cookies.

Of course, it's unlikely that someone would do that search.

However, if someone is looking say for directions to DTD, and knows of the ISIS. If they put in a search for the two names (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=isis+dtd) - then this thread again comes up top.  Which isn't ideal, but hardly the end of the world.

Yeah but they took out the condom machines so it's ok.

lol wtf this has gone to far, we cant be having mods going in and deleting DTD in people's posts, lets have some sense please.

Tikay asked for a Mod to clean up the thread, it was a choice of starring out the name or deleting the thread.

WTF!!!!!

By mentioning the holy word you've once again let the whole world know that next time they go to DTD, erm..... shit sorry, I mean *** they are going to die.

If someone mentions the word stabbing on the DTD thread would you have to *** out every DTD on that thread as well.

How about if there was a really big comp and DTD made a killing?

"The place was so busy. Leaving the DTD car park was murder!"

etc........

I went to DTD in the winter and felt like Death Warmed Up.

Luckily I didn't get knife pierced and actually die though

I'm so pleased that I wasted time cleaning this thread up.

 ;smackedbottom;

It's provided us idiots with some entertainment though so you done good really.

 :)up

And at least your purple font makes the thread look pretty.

Lucky you don't use blood red.

rotflmfao WP.

a standard td wouldnt think it the easiest abnormality of behavoiur to deal with

ZOMG

This is the funniest thread ever.

If someone was to search for DTD stabbings surely they would already know something about it and the best thing they could find is a thread about it being nothing to do with DTD?

Plus correct me if im wrong but once its in the search engines the key words wont be updated for weeks, so starring out the word wont do much?

You're wrong

DTD got away with murder IMO

I left the poker club at about 4.15am and it was starting to sound and look iffy.
As I tried to drive out the police stopped me, took my number plate and then waved me on. Odd.
It was obvious something nasty was afoot but I didn't realise until seeing this post that it was a 'piercing'.

best thread ever imo

This thread won't be a hindrance to the club even if it's seen on google. Rob Yong's razor sharp business savvy will know how to turn it into a positive.

what if someone innocently googles 'poker club piercing'? they'll now find out there was a stabbing near dtd

mine's the second post on the thread and without explination it looks like i swore and it's been edited but i cant think of any 3 letter swear words

Perhaps you spelt it wrong?

from now on i can just call boldie a dtd

nob has 3 letters

I had a cat called nob

it's knob not nob

This.

Nob is short for Nolberto Solano.

no it was one of my cats on the farm in ukraine, had to call it nob so the locals could understand it. they don't do silent letters and they don't do the roman alphabet so had to go all phonetic on them. he was a pretty good mouser

Shouldn't that be fonetic?

I am probably going to get castigated for sticking my head up here but guys come on...

is this place really just a kindergarten for juvenile swearing? My 12 year old chuckles when he hears the word Knob, I don't think its really that funny on here when made as a joke.

As for the DTD point, tikay mentioned that a mod could clean the thread up, a mod did so..each post by hand not so that mentions of DTD could be replaced by *** on every thread. Who cares if this was the right or wrong decision, or who cares enough about it to prolong a debate about it for several pages?

It may well be I am losing a little perspective here, but I am damn sure some of these attitudes are not those we'd have found on here nine-twelve months ago

 

Flushy for DTD stabbings mod imo.

someone got stabbed, it's not funny

lol, how did i miss this. modding going too far imo, borderline big brother.

Such a divide on blonde atm, it's like its been cut right down the middle.

to be fair i think it's 60/40 in favour of me getting a t-shirt

and I will tell you what, people after people come up to me and tell me why they are not posting on blonde anymore. A majority of these are female. Women in particular find blonde a far more threatening place than it ever was.

traffic is lower, people feel disenfranchised

they say..its rude, I get flamed, no respect...

One very respected blonde described it the other day as "posting on blonde now is like trench warfare"


Personally I like to see a lively and vibrant forum full of all sorts of characters...but recently the balance is all wrong

i think it's the price you pay for it being a fully commercialised forum now, you cant have untold sponsors, banners, logo's and a card room with casino and expect it still to retain the community based ethos from back in the day.

[quote author=TightEnd link=topic=43923.msg1033317#msg1033317 date=1251812260

It may well be I am losing a little perspective here, but I am damn sure some of these attitudes are not those we'd have found on here nine-twelve months ago

[/quote]

seriously, what attitudes? I've just re-read the whole thread and I'm struggling to find a single post with anything that could be described as attitude

Actually its not fully commercialised, lots of things not done so as to retain community ethos

The card-room has been around since 06. The worsening of forum "feel" is new as of the last six months I'd say

And furthermore I simply disagree with you I don;t think having sponsors or logos affects one iota whether people flame each other, are decent to each other, swear as a matter of course in posts etc

seriously, what attitudes? I've just re-read the whole thread and I'm struggling to find a single post with anything that could be described as attitude
[/quote]

attitudes on lots of threads. In this particular one a mods decision was rubbished, fair enough, and then became fair game for all and sundry to pile in

no but the numbers increase because of it which inevitably means the % of flamming posts/swearing etc will increase also

attitudes on lots of threads. In this particular one a mods decision was rubbished, fair enough, and then became fair game for all and sundry to pile in
[/quote]

yeah but none of it is vindictive or nasty, people are just having a laugh that's all, it's been a funny thread.

Again, I disagree. Attracting new members, which we have consistently done, did not lead to a higher percentage of problematic posts until recently.

We as mods also have to hold our hands up. We dropped the ball (my personal opinion) as so few were around for all sorts of personal and professional reasons for most of this year. We therefore let things slip.

Can't really see any attitude here Tighty to be fair.

The mod decision to remove all the DTD's was a bit silly and it's difficult to deny that surely?

A few people said it was unnecessary, I think the mods realise that it probably was and the silly people know that the mods know it was.

The whole thread got a little bit silly so the juveniles (I include myself) have decided to have a bit of fun on it. Yes this fun is at the mods expense but surely this can be seen as harmless fun on this occasion? Nobody's actually directed anything at an individual, it's just a bit of a rubdown as far as I can see with no malice intended.

A bit of childish humour really helps the day go by sometimes. Nothing wrong with acting like a 12 year old occasionally if it make one happy imo.

Btw. Great thread Dewi!!  :)up

it was a light hearted thread, right up until the point that you stepped in to criticise it. now it's not

your point may well be valid for the forum as a whole but to come on to a thread where people are enjoing themselves and bring that thread down only makes things worse. if you're going to criticise peoples attitudes then surely it's best to do it on a thread where people are actually out of line

attitudes on lots of threads. In this particular one a mods decision was rubbished, fair enough, and then became fair game for all and sundry to pile in
[/quote]

Just seems like an overexaggeration to me.

Tikay is Tikay and we all love him for it. It's clear his decision was to protect DTD and everyone on Blonde is behind that 100%, but this idea in particular was just a bit OTT. Fine, no problem there, easy mistake to make.

Subsequently everyone just started mucking around and having a joke on the thread about it. No-one argued but instead just made banter and a bit of a laugh of it. Surely that's what this community spirit that you say we're losing is all about?

ITB's only been back a matter of hours, and look what he's done already!

Just seems like an overexaggeration to me.

Tikay is Tikay and we all love him for it. It's clear his decision was to protect DTD and everyone on Blonde is behind that 100%, but this idea in particular was just a bit OTT. Fine, no problem there, easy mistake to make.
Subsequently everyone just started mucking around and having a joke on the thread about it. No-one argued but instead just made banter and a bit of a laugh of it. Surely that's what this community spirit that you say we're losing is all about?
[/quote]

I think the point is that it can't just be let go - everyone has to have a go about it. If Tikay wants to takes something out of a post he can do it. Why then does there have to be so much discussion about it? Just let it be. Are people sad enough that they have nothing else to do? Life is too short imo.

This is a community based forum and we, as members, have the opportunity to join in and say our 10 pence worth if we want to. But at the moment it seems to be that everything is questioned. That may not be the case, my view may be being coloured by just a few cases, but as I see it you often post at your peril and thats not what this forum is supposed to be about. And no - before ayone asks it wasn't me who said that Blonde was like trench warfare!

Tracey.

Were you the blonde that said posting on blonde was like trench warfare?

 :D

No - that was Dewi :-)

Prob best I keep schtum

Ahh right, in that case if tighty says it was a female member that leaves claw, suzanne, laxie or kinboshi....

Cos don't (as long as you don't flame me too much  ;) )..discussion is good

We do, absolutely 100% genuinely, always strive to improve this place and put a lot of work into it

I feel we've gone wrong along the line

If I, or colleagues, have got things wrong on this, in your opinion, then let us know.

I think the point is that it can't just be let go - everyone has to have a go about it. If Tikay wants to takes something out of a post he can do it. Why then does there have to be so much discussion about it? Just let it be. Are people sad enough that they have nothing else to do? Life is too short imo.

This is a community based forum and we, as members, have the opportunity to join in and say our 10 pence worth if we want to. But at the moment it seems to be that everything is questioned. That may not be the case, my view may be being coloured by just a few cases, but as I see it you often post at your peril and thats not what this forum is supposed to be about. And no - before ayone asks it wasn't me who said that Blonde was like trench warfare!

[/quote]

People on this thread weren't discussing it though Tracey. It wasn't a case of people letting it go because there was nothing to let go.

There was no heated debate just a bit of gentle light humoured mickey taking on a thread that didn't need to get serious.

It would've been gone in about 20 minutes once the 4 or 5 people involved had had their bit of childish fun. Once again I include myself as one of the childish fun folk.

Actually, I don't think it was silly. The choice was simple, remove the whole thread and be accused of being heavy handed, or remove 'DTD' and be accused of being heavy handed.

With the outcome being the same either way, I thought there was no need to remove the thread in it's entirety, so I got on with fulfilling a request made and to wait for what seems to be the inevitable outcome these days.

My daughters swimming lesson beckons, I'll be back later to reply if needed.

People on this thread weren't discussing it though Tracey. It wasn't a case of people letting it go because there was nothing to let go.

There was no heated debate just a bit of gentle light humoured mickey taking on a thread that didn't need to get serious.

It would've been gone in about 20 minutes once the 4 or 5 people involved had had their bit of childish fun. Once again I include myself as one of the childish fun folk.
[/quote]

I was meaning this comment not just on this thread but on others too, I think this is an example of straw on camels back and an opportunity to comment generally about the forum rather than specifically about this thread.

I am just filling the bath now dear.

lol

But once you've edited out all the DTD's only the people who've already seen the thread had any idea what it was about.

That's when it became the butt of a few jokes especially as the thread title had changed.

It started with Tikay changing the thread name which was fair enough. Once that had been done there really wasn't any reference to DTD being linked to stabbings other the I think post 2 which could've been deleted as it wasn't relevant other than the poster wanting to know whether it was DTD or ISIS.

When I light heartedly asked Tikay to change the name again because I love ISIS as it's full of fit blonde birds he said he couldn't but Blatch could. He added a wink which suggests light hearted as he knows that I love fit blonde birds.

Now when Blatch changes the name again the thread becomes a bit of a joke thread that people who are contributing to the thread find funny.

When DTD gets edited out it becomes even funnier.

Now all of a sudden it's got all serious.

Nobody has ever intended to insult or offend anybody on this thread.

EDIT: I said "once you've edited out the DTD's." This is aimed at mods in general not Ginger.

I was meaning this comment not just on this thread but on others too, I think this is an example of straw on camels back and an opportunity to comment generally about the forum rather than specifically about this thread.
[/quote]


even though tighty says it's been over the past few months i'm sure i remember at one time or another(nearly every other month probably for the past 3 odd years) one mod or another saying that the place has been going down hill for the past couple of months etc and then it's always forgotten about

this is like that pha thread on whether to open shove AJ UTG where people started doing all the maths to see what was the best option, shove or fold, while completely ignoring the fact that there was a 3rd option, the standard open, which was way better.

Ban Bolt??

a mantis-esque use of example to make a point ;hattip;

Anyone else think the title of this thread (started by TK BTW) is a bit unfortunate now?

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=43890.0

PMSL

even though tighty says it's been over the past few months i'm sure i remember at one time or another(nearly every other month probably for the past 3 odd years) one mod or another saying that the place has been going down hill for the past couple of months etc and then it's always forgotten about
[/quote]

Ive only been around about a year, so pretty sure Im to blame for and demise of said community spirit.

For once though I agree with Bolt, whenever you find reviews of this forum its always described as 'excellent content, but beware very cliquey and danger of extreme flaming' and from what I remember they're reviews old and new.

There is rarely anything said that is meant to cause any offence to individuals though, but on a forum there is obviously no context and people can interpret posts how they wish.

Find a comedy thread on Blonde, join in, have I got anything better to do? Simple answer to that one no, I'm at work.

Personally I think Ginger missed an option, delete thread, delete DTD's, or how about just PM Tikay suggesting it wasnt neccessary?

this needs more love imo

Bit harsh to blame the Shrewdies Rich.

I'm not.

FYP

pmsl

Nah that particular quote wasn't me, although I am one of those that has discussed with Rich the change in tone on the forum over the last few months.

If ever I flame you or anyone it's not meant with seriousness anyway. I'm sure once we meet you'll realise that, if you don't ring my neck before I manage to say hi!

I also agree that a line needs to get drawn somewhere on some things but a lot of stuff feels like it's blown out of proportion just for the sake of it so some people can be self righteous. Like so what if someone says 'die lederer' or 'diagf'. It's obviously not meant with any real malice but is just youthful banter yet people have to make a big hoo-haa about it and talk down about young people and respect as though we're all just yobs. I think that's far from the case as the younger and older people on here make a great mix but people look to take issue with everything and focus on the bad rather than the good.

I also think there isn't enough of a guideline on here as to what is and isn't acceptable. If certain people are posting things often that they shouldn't then shouldn't a mod send a pm to them informing them of why their behaviour on the forum isn't really acceptable and ask them to re-think the way they put things?

It was a bit of a surprise to me when recently I had words with Blonde mod Ironside who quoted in public on the forum that he thinks I'm a troll. I just say things exactly as I see them and don't pussy foot around with diplomacy when I don't think it's necessary but I'd hardly say I was a troll. I'd also received no prior warning that I'd made any posts particularly out of line.

Either he's being unprofessional and withdraw his comment or I should be banned right?

lol @ you including yourself with the young people

Don't hate the playa, hate the game. 22 mofo!

Correct, now ban him pls mods.

He's seen your picture IMO.

Ironside can speak for himself about why he thought you were in that instance trolling. I'm not aware of the circumstance though was aware there was a private exchange too. In reality we are highly reluctant to ban people, even more so regular members, and we'd always do a lot of discussing with people privately before we get that far.

Indeed Cos, we had a PM exchange recently where we exchanged views on such matters - not as a prelude to a ban but as a way of airing concerns.

I accept your points on a generation gap entirely. I feel it on here, and feel on the wrong side of it if that makes sense

i expect the mods are too scared to barr greekstein cos they'd prob get a slap next time they bump into him outside ***

Im too busy stabbing people.

i do love about blonde you could have the best thread in the world and 5 people clock it at a time, as soon as theres the slightest barny theres 25 having a look

be good if more of them gave their opinion too.

+1

This

What Cos said

Its not a new problem....

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=2301.0 (http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=2301.0)

but then it would be carnage.  It's good for people to offer their opinion where they feel it will add something to a debate. What's the point otherwise? A lot of people just want an easy life too. I've held back from commenting on a number of threads recently because I know what the reaction will be and it's not worth it. Sometimes it's better to just pick your battles rather than piling in on any thread where there's a disagreement.

yep

there are probably about another 20 threads like that evenly distributed throughout the past few years.

i'm sure it's just said for effect sometimes.

Yeah but when you get the same 5 people on each side expressing their opinion it doesn't seem to do much good.

lol i have not even posted on this thread until now! and what was it tighty put about the mood of the forum changing for the worst in the last 6 months? how long was my ban? oh yeah almost 6 months!

good job im back aye  ;) ;D

re-ban imo

Groan.......

1) The Thread, on the whole, is fine by me. There is only one Post on it which is bang out of order, & I'll be contacting that individual very shortly. Tea & biccies won't be appropriate. The banter is absolutely fine, AFAIC.

2) I was rushing out of the house when I made the comment/suggestion/request "Mods, feel free to Edit if you feel fit". That was, perhaps, a mistake. Either way, Ginger was just doing as she was asked, so get on my case, not hers.

3) The Thread has crossed over into "Standards", & I'd ask you - suggest to you, strongly - to keep your powder dry for a day or two. I'll be starting that open discussion shortly (probably Thursday now, I'm busy tonight & tomorrow), & you'd be well-advised to save your arguments about "standards" until then. As we remove most of the stuff that's really bad (in our view), you cannot possibly know how bad some of the Posts have been. But here's a taster, something for you to chew over until I put the Thread up. It's from a regular Poster, in the last few weeks

min raising mother fucking twats deserve to been shot in the balls and smashed wiv a baseball bat imo. i fucking hate retards

If you really think were gonna allow that sort of stuff, (& there's plenty more of that) think again.

Have a nice day. If you don't hear from me in 10 minutes, your Post was fine. ;)

min raising is rubbish though

Did you actually get compaints about that?

I dont recall actually using those words but I too have mentioned to Rich that i dont feel that the forum is the friendly place it once was.

I have noticed that a lot of people who once posted dont do so now although I still see them logged in and I include myself as one of them.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a thread asking if anyone wanted to play a "$5 extended" which back in the days when blonde first opened its cardroom was very popular and was a fun game to play, I posted this because I had noticed that there were a few of the guys logged in who used to play it and thought they might want to have a bit of banter.

The following morning I received a PM saying that the thread had been removed as there had been some general mickey taking, nothing malicious I was told as I hadnt actually seen the replies but obviously bad enough that it was thought best to delete the thread.

Its things like that which makes me think twice about posting at all.

I'd have played if I'd seen it Suz - they used to be good fun.

Exactly!! Which is why I thought it strange that the thread had to be deleted.

Sorry Tikay didnt read your post before clicking send.

lol, i dont think you can blame it being deleted for the reason why no one played, it was 5am when i posted on it and there was only a couple of us on the whole forum so you must have known no one responded by then and gone to bed.

I find it difficult to accept criticism of fellow members that their tone and consequently the tone of the forum is declining when Flushy one of the sites owners has the worst tone of all. Pls load up any PHA thread and see who is responsible for discouraging contribution. The tone has declined since he bought in? and business is falling since he bought in? Surprise that.

cue the Flushy fanboys.....

The 'Term' Knife in the Title of this thread upsets me, can we change it to EAR please.

ta

I did not say business had fallen, I said traffic is lower..forum traffic...just to clarify

Where did I mention that no one played because the thread was deleted? As I said there were some of the old regulars logged in and the post was aimed at them BECAUSE it was so late.

its not that i'm bunking in like you say but i dont see the correlation between the sites -%$ and flushy buying in, or for that matter him contributing to the apparant decline on the forum, he was banned 3-4 times before he bought in and if anything has really toned it down since then, i'm not bunking in for him, i just dont see where you're coming from?

Might have been a bit of a misunderstanding regarding Suz's post ... the thread was this one

    
$5 extended anyone?
« on: September 25, 2006, 12:38:43 AM »

It had no replies until it was bumped almost 3 years later at 5am.

Once it was bumped, it quickly degenerated.

I suppose people look for daft things to do at 5am when they are bored.

fyp

yeah thats the one, is that the one i bumped, what thread is being talked about then?

the old thread i bumped went:

bolt: "im in"

no2"im in"

no3"[ ]gl"

bolt:"i'm out"

that was about it wasnt it?

Might as well hit the most viewed thread with a bit of spam :D

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=43936.0

But surely Traffic = Business?
No traffic = No Business.

It has been quite noticeable the traffic has been lower just looking at the logged in figures, maybe its nothing to do with the forum content just the forum is not doing as well in the search engines?

 ;popcorn; ;popcorn; ;popcorn;

Traffic = pennies
Rake = pounds

the point I was making was that I was referring to traffic figures. Not revenue. A Lower number of forum posts from exisiting members may or may not lead to revenue falling (as yet, there is no direct link and in four years of blonde the link between traffic and revenue is not as simple as that).


Numbers of new members and guests hasn't fallen much, if at all, suggesting the problem we have is with current blondes not attracting new ones   

Ok there has obviously been some misunderstanding here on my part, I deliberately bumped the old thread as i had spotted a name from the past logged in, I suppose a PM would have been a better idea.

you're not taking into consideration boldie used to post 865 times per day

Understand dude that this isn't a personal attack. I don't know this fella and from what i've seen of him he's seems like a stand up guy. However, you simply cannot chastise random members of Blonde for discouraging contribution by manner of their tone if you don't want to begin that chatisement process a little closer to home. You can't see the connection with Flushy flaming and members not wanting to post. C'mon??

i've got a problem attracting blondes :(

I understand that the decline in traffic, in some cases does have to do with the fact that some members of the forum don't like the current tone of the forum. In my opinion there are other contributing factors to it.

1. Blonde banned a number of well established members in the last 6-12 months who contributed a lot of posts on a daily basis, i am not saying the bannings were wrong. Yet those people posting and then people replying to them has quite an effect on traffic.

2. The live updates which brought new people to blonde more than any other avenue, are now more infrequent and all domestic based. There is also a certain saturation point we only have so many people play poker on the uk circuit and want to post on here.

3. We haven't had a bash for nearly a year, something that tends to help community spirit greatly.

4. The diaries, I know this is an issue that has been discussed ad nauseam. I am still of the opinion that any newbie is rarely going to want to trawl through 100+ pages of a diary to get a feeling for the forum. When a lot of the interesting stuff discussed within them used to be in individual threads easily accessible and readable within 10 minutes.

You make some great points. 4 I can take or leave but 1,2,3 are almost certainly correct

As someone very new to blonde especially the posting side, I see completely where Mantis is coming from. I use alot of forums, poker and otherwise and as a newbie on this forum I have seen nothing other than unhelpful one liners from Flushy (and dont get me wrong others with high post counts too) which I thought was against the ideology of the site especially the PHA section.  (Again I read this thread pre edits and I agree with the reasons behind editing and also love the fact that there are mods online willing to do the edits so quickly), so for that everyone should be grateful, but I also laughed quite hard at some of the shorter responses in this thread and would hate for good hearted banter and flaming of those you know well enough to flame to disappear.

I didn't bother reposting in the thread in PHA that interested me or responding with what I thought there because the cliquey-ness of everyones post made my head spin.

I see a forum with the biggest spread in ages I think I have ever come across, and I see a huge online and live player divide. Yet it seems neither is willing to learn from the other or to accept their difference. Similarly if you aren't in the specific blondite crew of acceptance then the value of your opinion lessens vastly if not completely.

It is a shame, I have taken great enjoyment in reading Tom and TKs diary (and im sickened not to have been in on the larry the lobster fest that's just the best most +EV staking deal ever!) I started to read alot more of the pha and other threads but I really cant be bothered to validate myself everytime I want to post, to the point of acceptance by the 'clique'. From the fact that I am meeting more and more people live and the fact that there seem to be alot of good posters it seems a shame that some of the more prominent people dont seem to be on the same wavelength.




Bolded to highlight what is true for me.


My 2 pence.

What on earth are you almost apologising for? Pretty sure you should be free to bump what ever you like.  :)

i can see the connection between anyone flaming consistently and members not wanting to post, what i dont get is how all this has supposedly happend since flushy bought in? i can say hand on heart i havnt noticed any single change in him since he bought in unless you've seen something i havnt, are you saying he flames more now he's bought in, i'll be honest i'd say it's been a lot less

this thread is certainly a cut above

I agree the dude flames less. But I'm reading a thread that is making me lol and suddenly the good people who manage Blonde are saying you shouldn't take such and such a tone because it prevents people who want to post from posting. Now read what Titanium wrote and realise I am simply throwing the same point about tone back to the good people who manage Blonde.

u have a lot to answer for  ;)

blonde isnt disenfranchising, dont listen to him,he's barely got 100 posts and hasnt even got an avatar

but he is multai

Fwiw my post relates nothing to a time line of actions as I didn't until a few moments ago know who owned any of blonde! But since I started reading blonde again in the last month I dont think i've seen many worthwhile strat posts esp not from the more prominent post count people.

anyways going back to the op they have no worries just look what happens in sarrrrrrf london

 if carlsberg done incidents at nightclubs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210210/Man-shot-dead-outside-Ministry-Sound-nightclub.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210210/Man-shot-dead-outside-Ministry-Sound-nightclub.html)

"reveller is 'decapitated' by car"

"A post-mortem examination on the 25-year-old found he died from head injuries caused by the car"............................erm yeah

I know I lol'd @ that as well

only the best for us southerners eh?

Wasn't me, can promise you that.  I'm one of those odd sorts who's stuck in the middle of the oldies and the young uns.  I often see both points of view but stay out of it for fear of firing it up further.

Every forum on the planet has a certain 'family' feel to it.  Families are made up of people of all ages and in every family there are gains and losses.  It can be difficult for a newbie to settle in, regardless of the 'feel' of a place.  IMO, it's as much up to the new member to make an effort as it is the regulars to try and help newbies feel welcome.  There's a fine balance and sometimes we fall off the beam, but doesn't make blonde a bad place to hang out.  

PS  I do love the banter!

Hang around for a while, please.

I am trying to encourage the better Players to revitalise the PHA Board by writing to them & asking them to start a few decent Threads, & Tighty has amended the PHA Guidelines recently. We do have some very fine players on blonde, & I'm hopeful that the PHA Board will be much better quite soon.

I've also written to a bunch of players, some of them quite prominent, in the last month, asking them to Post poker tales & stories. To be honest, that's been an epic fail, there does seem to be some resistance to non-regular Posters.

Blonde is owned by a number of individuals, but the largest Shareholders are Flushy (63% I think) & myself, 25%. We get on very well, & he's actually been an excellent & incredibly supportive co-shareholder, the best I've had in fact. We don't always agree, but the debates are always civil, there's no shouting & screaming, it's just like we are proper grown ups, so thats OK.  In fact, we just chatted, a few minutes ago.

As a reletive newbie i agree.

In fact i've seen nothing to stop me posting here.

There is no better forum out there.

Fair one Rich but I actually agree with 4. Now that my time is more limited (as I'm sure a lot of people's is) huge threads, which I'm sure are good, just aren't possible for me to follow. All I can say is that must be some post Vegas aftermath! :)

Oh well here's my 2 pennies worth

I"m not just being diplomatic but i can't think of any one person or people to blame for the atmosphere to have worsened,as it has imo over the last couple of months,that's honestly how i feel.

Before i go on I'll first say i would imagine most people that think about what i post (doubt anyone would actually do that but anyho) is it's the same old same old:football,drink,and whinging about bad beats in that order and probably that I'm a bit boring,i don't put that hoping people will say no that's not the case as i don't see it as flaw in my character and i'm comfortable with that but anyway my point i'm getting to is without wanting to sound obnoxious if i'm honest i've found the forum a bit lacklustre/boring or however you want to describe it recently not in the sense of the people more so the content.I don't read blonde at work and when i used to come in would spend half hour to an hour reading what had gone on and joining in whatever discussion that had gone on but a lot of the time now there isn't much to catch up on.I find myself quite a bit writing out a post then deciding not to bother posting mostly due to expecting it to be misinterpreted or "shot down" and it would seem others are doing the same.Also i probably swear/use bad language more than most on here but i don't see that as a slight on me as i do it in company where we're all the same,common :) and we are happy with that and not offending anyone but i would never swear at work as i don't think it's appropriate and i think people should maybe tone it down a bit on here as well.

Imo blonde is still a great community and is full of good people/characters.The mods and especially Tikay seem to be down a lot about the forum and how it is going but this still is a great forum that you can be proud of i think.

With regard to the Flushy bashing I think he's tried to tone this stuff down since he became a shareholder and he's ALWAYS posted this way on PHA and on other parts of the forum. If it's not deemed acceptable why hasn't it been nipped in the bud before now? I'm using Flushy as an example but I'd include myself in the same bracket.

I think the point is that it can't just be let go - everyone has to have a go about it. If Tikay wants to takes something out of a post he can do it. Why then does there have to be so much discussion about it? Just let it be. Are people sad enough that they have nothing else to do? Life is too short imo.

This is a community based forum and we, as members, have the opportunity to join in and say our 10 pence worth if we want to. But at the moment it seems to be that everything is questioned. That may not be the case, my view may be being coloured by just a few cases, but as I see it you often post at your peril and thats not what this forum is supposed to be about. And no - before ayone asks it wasn't me who said that Blonde was like trench warfare!

[/quote]

I can't speak for other people but i was just talking about Tikay not the mods. Tikay has a habit of being a bit over protective regarding certain subjects i would imagine if this was a post about a stabbling outside the Vic it would not have received a blanket instruction to the mods to delete the word 'Vic'

After that it just seems to have gone a bit weird, the thread was pretty com, puns galore etc then somewhere along the line people got ontop of those horses.

Alex Martin trading at 1.64 on betfair...

Nah he'd just get the shotgun

There are a few logical reasons this might be the case.

1) It's summer, everything poker takes a dive during the summer especially when the weather hasnt been bad at all.

2) Some people have got bored of poker, its been around a while now, the boom has boomed people are likely to fall off.

3) The whole world is skint, a lot of people cant afford to play poker atm, or do many other hobbies.

Was, sigh, shrewdies for sale....

you wanna start a mini stakes stable of shreddies you might not win much but at least you would still be multaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

TBF, I have always considered Flushy to be one of the best posters on PHA. I remember the olden days when Flushy and Tank ripped me to shreds for being too tight. I think I learned more from those short "why the F did you do that, do this!" one-liners than I have from many of the longer posts that others seem to favour.

I'm obv still shit though, so the above doesn't mean that much.

Agree with this.

The tough love approach to some obvious things is by far the best way.

I think you only add weight to my posts Boldie. There is no doubt the guy has the potential to be one of the best posters on PHA....but he ripped you to shreds. You come across as pretty thick-skinned and had the tenacity to learn from it but most new posters would find getting ripped to shreds quite unpleasant. Hence they wouldn't continue to post. Hence traffic would reduce. I personally found the content of this thread pretty funny and objected when the people who were contributing to it were blamed for the reduction in traffic/general tone. Mods blaming posters for traffic reduction/tone was a bit rich imo.

I was in the casino last night and in shitty Poker Europa magazine I saw James Dempsey was now 3rd in the UK online poker rankings. That's pretty good. So it's clear his advice is going to carry a lot of weight. Owning a poker forum to boot offers a great opportunity to use that weight to influence new posters attitudes in a positive way. Flaming uses that power in a negative way. Tikay, your words about how Flushy has been nothing but excellent and incred supportive to you are poignant. So here is a guy who generally has this sort of character but chooses not to offer the same kind of incred support to new posters on a site he owns. I can say that without prejudice cos i'm sure he's a swell guy. People are too sensitive. There is usually no malice in what people are posting and this should be considered before reacting. By the same token posters should be aware of how their words can effect sensitive people. It is important to strike a balance if we want to continue enjoying this forum.

Also, this is one of dem longer style posts you mention. I think I favour this style best.

3. For sure

2. Probably. Certainly all figures I see are that poker growth has flattened off considerably, if not totally

1. Not sure this holds. Comparing May 09 and May 08 and May 07 on blonde we see a 40% drop in new topics and post count over the month 09 vs 08 and 07. Some of this will be a lower volume of live updates. Taking July for the comparable years the drop is similar, though in 07 we have WSOP coverage which inflates the figures. I thought long and hard about seasonality and whilst it is true that online play is seasonal this would be the first year that forum traffic is seasonal. Hence I took there to be other factors at play



Following on from that Mantis states "Mods blaming posters for traffic reduction/tone was a bit rich imo" Maybe so. However I can back that up in my own mind with testimonials from 10-15 once high post count individuals at events, on PMs, in emails all saying the same thing to me. The forum is too confrontational, they do not feel comfortable posting for fear of being flamed or made to look and feel small etc etc. Contrary to what I expect some people think and was suggested earlier I do not specifically blame any one group for this, and indeed I said earlier I think myself as a mod am as culpable as anyone else in the development of this trend, expressed to me in the feedback I have been getting.

and I should add, it could be forum maturity seeing the traffic plateau...more forums around to post on too, a more competitive environment...

whoa, sincere apologies, totally out of line and take that back. I think to be fair i was completely and utterly out of it after having been on a 2 day bender, i believe i sent some random pm's too, but i had just finished doing my third stump run of the day and havent consumed that much alcohol in about 5 years and i do tend to turn into a grade A moron when i get sloshed. V sorry for offending anyone blonde.

Sometimes its easier to say yes I made a mistake and avoid more confrontation.

I spotted an old friend from the past logged in and bumped an old thread to remind him of the good times, unfortunately by the time I found it he had logged out so wasnt expecting a responce and so I went to bed. I had seen your posts Bolt and as you said didnt really expect to get a game going at 5am but would have liked to have had a chat over a quick stt with him and another blonde who was logged in to exchange hellos.

Please dont judge people by your own standards Bolt, not everyone is "smashed" at 5am....probably quite a few are (myself included sometimes) but I think you might find that the "regular" night owls have sleeping problems just like myself.

Im off to bed now to try and get a couple of hours sleep before I get up at 7am

PMs seem to be down temporarily

such a diss on all you guys that he hasn't PMed huh... Oh.


fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu HU4ROLLZ U STUPID OLD SHORTSTACK MFer!!!!  ;grr; ;grr; ;grr;

.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTBPdVpdMc

FFS

Whats up with you Benson.

eh.. have i missed something here?

No , i overreacted to a post and made a reply that was unneccesary so i have deleted it.

Cheers

ACES

Ok...My view as one of the readers rather than posters in the main... My Blonde credentials...  i have a total of 220 posts over the years and joined the forum on Jan 31 2005 ...two days after Tikay...
When the forum started it was a very friendly and informative .. top threads and top posters... However as time has progressed the forum has become a little more unfriendly with people being, at times, be-littleing in the posts they put to others who have less knowledge than them... no doubt this has put people off as well.. I have to say there has never been any flaming towards any of the posts that i have put up...
However over the last 6 months or so i have to say that i have noticed hat the friendlyness of the forum seems to be returning and so much the better for it... Blonde has seen many emotive issues over the years... Vegas trips ...Red-dogs postings (my favourite) and DTD's battle from conception to inception.. I feel that Rob Yong's battle to get up DTD and his thoughts he posted as he progressed was the most intresting thread..
Sadly though i feel an air of protectionism has fallen over this etablishment... as one of the other posters put "if this happened outside the Vic would it have been blanked" doubt it.. I love DTD as an etablishment to play poker but i love the Poker community  and the game of poker more.... Blonde Poker Forum can and is seen as clique by those that view it from outside .... and this is the reason that friends of mine have viewed the forum but have not joined as the view it as to cliquey.. But if a forum is a friendly and vibrant place then it needs to have a cliquey atmosphere as people know each other well...the trick is welcoming others, and this is something that BB's do ...sadly i have never been able to attend...
My overview and the reason i follow Blonde so much is that i view it as a more adult and mature place to discuss poker and it's related topics... as a forum we may be cliquey at  times but without a doubt we are a very well repected and knowledgable forum ...

good post k9


really? where did we meet then, I thought it was at a bash

Blonde being cliquey has a great deal of +++'s too.

Forums by nature are cliquey, when you have a number of posters with 1000+ posts, they are going to get to know each other and therefore in jokes are pretty standard. Could we try to be less cliquey, probably. We are still going to be a clique though.