nothing, or nothing you can see...

[TightEnd]

yes, but I'm not going to fall out with you over it.

If my tone is inappropriate in that post above or you are implying my tone is inappropriate in general (I'm not sure which), well of course I respect your view and I am sorry you feel that way

[Heid]

when did i criticise the mods?
i give up, you 7 will never understand what i'm saying simply because you will think i'm having a pop at you personally and i'm not..........at all.
picking my closest friends is what i'd have done too.

Tight end..........you are offended by MY tone??

I didn't think you were having a pop at anyone, and I asked about how we could uncliqueit

Please tell me your ideas - it will make my real life job much easier if someone can tell me about how to unclique places

[Ironside]

sorry tikay didnt pick his closest friends

junior or thewy or rob yong

infact none of his notts crew

tikay has met me 3 times he only picked me cause he thought i knew my way round a pc (i am a good bluffer)

the fact the mods and admin occasionall go nothing you can see is because we are doing something you cant see some UNPAID work if we want to have a chat we chat on this board with everyone else

sorry but if work needs to be done then it needs to be done

[tikay]

Srewth alike.......it really IS hard to keep everyone happy on a Forum!

By contributing to this thread, I risk pouring fat onto the fire. But I've always been open with everyone. Confessed every "conflict of interest", explained commercial deals (Poker 425 blonde Forum), new arrivals, (Tony G), explained controversial decisions with total honesty & in great detail (UKPoker), been 100% honest when things appeared to go belly up (Titan), etc. 

So lets try & allay these fears.

A clique? I'm not in a position to comment, I, of all people, would not see it, from where I sit. One or two folks have thrown stones at me, & this Forum. They sting a bit, but I have to view the overall state of play. I ask myself, continually, is this place the sort of place we had in mind when we began it? So far, from where I view it, yes, it is. The new Member sign up rate has accelerated rapidly from July, & has shown no signs of slowing down yet. Every time a new member signs up, I kinda say to myself - well - that person must have been viewing as a Guest, liked what they saw, & decided to join. We don't advertise, so nobody is persuaded to join by any means other thsn their own choice. And they do keep joiining, thank heavens. And the number of posts is increasing at an astonishing rate, a rate which any Poker Forum in Europe would be delighted.

But as it got bigger, inevitably, problems started to arise. Spammers, free-loaders, peeps with self-interest, started to take advantage of our lack of Moderators. EVERY Forum of any size has to have Moderators, unless it's prepared to have a "free-for-all".  Dave & I were NOT. We wanted a comfy place, where Members could feel safe, not be insulterd, not be anonymously attacked. Where we could have a laugh.

I refused to accept the need to have Moderators for a long time. Partrly because I felt I couild cope. Partly because, no matter how many Moderators I appointed, & who they were, I'd offend some by not selecting them.

But things started to get away from me. Spammers started appearing. I'd get phone calls whilst I was playing a comp, & it'd worry me to death for the rest of the night. Then someone joined with, it appeared, the deliberate intention of causing problems. He set long-standing mates against each other. It was awful to see how quickly the atmo on here changed. Put simply, I could not deal with all this alone any longer. So I relented, & appointed a team of Mods. The best decision I ever made, but I made it a month or even two, too late. Never mind, we all make mistakes.

Communicating with the Mods is very awkward on PM's. I don't find the PM service user-friendly. (I apologise to those who await replies to PM's to me - I have 29 in there right now, unanswered. I always tried to answer PM's immediately, but the Forum workload has just overwhelmed me of late). So someone suggested a Moderators Board. as a result of that Miods Board, all sorts of little improvements have been made to the Forum recently. These will continue. We are trying to make a better product. Better software. More smileys. More sections. Blonde bashes. Weekly blonde tourneys. A blonde Tourney league. And much, much more - watch this space.

It was suggested in this thread that "I too would have appointed my friends". But I never. I have a number of close friends in poker. I never appointed them as Miods. I like to think, in my naive litle way, that all blondeites are my friends. Yeah, that's siily. But I DO think that.

So let's look at these "friends" it's been said I appointed.

Administators first. There are a number of shareholders in blonde, & all of them are granted Admin status. They do own the place, so that seems reasonable. Plus our previous Webmaster, & our current Webmaster - they have to be Admins, obviously. Beyond that, let's take a look.

Ironside (Administraor). I can't imagine anyone could object to Iron being an admin. I'd guess that hundreds - literally - of Members have used Iron to set up their profile pic, or avatar. He solved a thouand problems for me as a regular Member. I never asked him, he just volunteered. Is he a friend of mine? I've met him 3 times. Once at The Vic, in 2003 I think. I particularly recall recoiling with horror when a very famous player described Iron as "a lucky bastard", as Iron, with a wheelchair that would not allow him near enough to the table to scoop his chips up, struggled to stack them. And Iron was laughing. I next saw him in Blackpool earlier this year, & then in Walsall, 3 months later. I've always respected him. I have a relationship with him via blonde - nothing else. I may ring him up & wish him better if he's unwell. I'd do that to anyone who I knew, if I had their number. I do it to regular blondeites all the time. Spends a whole heap of time sorting out passwords & stuff for blonde tourneys. I've just asked him to be the blonde Tournament Manager. A thankless task, if ever there was one.

Heid (Moderator). I've met Heid once. At Gutyshot, maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. She is a Moderator by Profession, that's what she does for a living. Damn good at it too, in my view. Her outfit has over 300 Moderators, so that's big-time Moderating. Her job these days is to train Moderators, & she's trained hundreds of them. Surely, an asset to bonde. A friend? I hope so, but hardly close, given I've only met her once.

Robert HM. Met him, I dunno, 4 or 5 times, always when we happened to be in the same casino. Had dinner wth him, & 7 or 8 others, in Newcastle, after the P4C do. A legal chap, we needed legal help. He's invaluable in that respect. I don't know his phone number, where he l9ves, nothing else about him really.  But a great Mod, in my view, very supportive. He offered his services as a Miod, I accepted his kind offer.

snoops. I know snoops & his bro, Jammer. I never know which is which. I THINK Jammer still lives in Notts - I saw him 2 months ago, at the Notts £100-er. I used to know snoops via Notts, we'd see each other once or twice a week. He moved to Birmingham, I think, 2 or 3 years back. I may have seen him twice in those 2 or 3 years. If I saw him today, I'm not entirely sure I'd recognize him. I don't have his telephone number.  Our relationship is blonde only. I think he's an incredibly clever guy. I adiore reading his posts. And he's about to become a contributor to the blonde site as a whole, though he's refused payment for the articles he's written for us.

Red-Dog. Red has become a friend over the last 2 years, but I really don't feel a need to apologize for that. He's seen grief in his life like you'd never imagine. I have a weakness for folks who can overcome adversity in the way he & his wife have. Probably everyone's favouirite blondeite, due to his incredibly funny & insightful posts. A "natural" to be a blonde Mod.

Tighty. Been So helpful in so many ways, with advice, time, & support. There is no amount of work he can't get through. Met him, I dunno, 6 or 8 times, but only because we played in the same comps at the same venues. No idea where he lives. We share an interest in business & the Stock Market. I discovered a month ago that he was on Mastermind, & got 17 out of 19, & 19 out of 21, in his specialist subjects. We NEED him.

Colchester Kev. When blonde was a 1 man band, & I was failing manfully when trying to do Live Updates, Kev was always there. Gave up night after night tio help me, weekend after weekend. One of THE most popular guys on blonde, & not half as daft as he makes out. I've met him 15 or 20 times, but only at Casinos.

I rejected the notion of appointing several Mods, simply because they ARE close personal friends. jbsc7769 would have been PERFECT, but because he's such a close pal, outside of poker as wel as in it, that disqualified him.

I also drew up a list of the next 6 Mods. But lets keep that out of it for now. I am the only person who knows who thry sre. Even they don't know.

So, I appointed my friends? I dont think so. They were all selected for a reason, & NOT because they are friends. But they are friends now, I'll gladly admit that. Llike I said before, I consider all blondeites to be.

What do they get paid? Nothing, zero, zilch. Not a button. None of them. We offered payment, they all refused. So they give up hours & houirs of their personal time for blonde, & get nothing for it. Except criticism from time to time, & very occasionally, thanks. They must have spent the equivelant of 8 or 9  man days on blonde last weekend alone, after the Titan do.

So, I have to reject the notion I have appointed a chummy bunch of mates. It's simply not true. Or that we are cliquey. The Forum' growth suggests otherwise, no matter how much some would seek tio deny it.

I owe it to them to defend them against unfair criticism. I will. I owe it to the Members to be fair & honest with them. I always have been.

I hope that's allayed your fears. I'd like to think that you'd reconsider your views now.

OK, I'm out of here, it's 0415. Night all.

[I KNOW IT]

Looks like its gonna piss down folks. hope you brought a brolly

[Ironside]

Looks like its gonna piss down folks. hope you brought a brolly

beautiful day here all though it might snow later

[Royal Flush]

bit cold here, rain unlikely.

[tikay]

Sun is shining brightly here. Ddoes every day.

[dan]

I know snoops & his bro, Jammer. I never know which is which. I THINK Jammer still lives in Notts - I saw him 2 months ago, at the Notts £100-er. I used to know snoops via Notts, we'd see each other once or twice a week. He moved to Birmingham, I think, 2 or 3 years back. I may have seen him twice in those 2 or 3 years. If I saw him today, I'm not entirely sure I'd recognize him. I don't have his telephone number.  Our relationship is blonde only. I think he's an incredibly clever guy. I adiore reading his posts.

tikay there are several posts and a poll that says he not

[tikay]

True Dan, I just made it up - thought I'd give him a break today, it's his birthday.

[mikkyT]

Accusations of cliques are normal for forums of this size and poster count.

I am a regular poster on numerous forums and have over the years administered and admined my own. Briefly, gaming clan, UK gaming ISP forums, MMORPG gaming group come gaming community, and general interest forum (populated mainly by posters from the earlier forums and ISPs we had been gaming on).

When you have a large number of posts mostly filled with people having conversations, in-jokes and what not will appear to be cliquey to those not "in the circle jerk". It is quite comical at best, and downright annoying at worst.

[tikay]

Well I found it quite distressing to be so accused, but you seem to be saying I gotta expect that. Guess that's the price (apart from one helluva lot of time) of running a Forum. Hey-ho.

As it happens, there is a lengthy & interesting post from "cybertim" on this subject in a thread entitled "can you stll feel the love". He sorta says the same thing - these accusations are gonna be thrown our way, like it or not.

[ifm]

oops, i upset the boss
firstly, i should appologise for my inability to read.
I had scanned Ironsides post and in my slightly agitated state i thought he'd said you had chosen your friends and what was an actual agreement (i thought) became an accusation.
You have explained things every step of the way and that in itself leads to problems, oddly enough myself and another blondite were talking about exactly that only a few days ago, both thinking maybe you were too open!!!
The side effect is of course that when something is obviously going on you will get questioned, for some reason i have always felt that everything that goes on in here is my business when of course it isn't at all.
I do seem to end up as a sort of spokesperson lately (i'm easily led you see) and i wish people who pm me would step up and give an account of theirselves.
The whole clique thing is not a new thing as you well know, i just didn't buy it.
I guess when you are on the outside looking in you can see that, though obviously from the inside things look very different.
dunno what else to say

[tikay]

Apology not needed ifm, but thanks anyway. It musta took courage to say that openly, & I think you are a big man.

Are we, to use your words, "too open"? Some would say yes, but I see no reason not to be. It's a "look, my hands are squeaky clean, nothing up my sleeve" way of earning trust. My whole business career was based on being totally open with everyone. They could see the company accounts, everything - why hide anything is my view?

"....when something is obviously going on...." Well, I guess that's the nub of it - what COULD be going on? We have nothing to hide from anyone, there is no need for anything to be "going on"! But things DO get said between the Mods & I off-forum. Today, we had a big problem with a legal matter, we had to sort it out before the post in question could be published. That HAD to be off-Forum. And after the Titan thing, things had to be said between the Mods & myself in prvate - I had to give them the message, & assure THEM  - "look - EVERYONE will be paid", etc. And we are trying to make things better - we discuss new ideas, better ideas, etc. Anyway, enough of that.

Finally, let's remind everyone of something. ifm is in the top 6 posters, & top 6 in time spent on blonde. That means he means a lot to us, he's not just a Member, he's a salesman for blonde, & a spokesperson too. He continues to be very special to blonde.

[Ironside]

Finally, let's remind everyone of something. ifm is in the top 6 posters, & top 6 in time spent on blonde. That means he means a lot to us, he's not just a Member, he's a salesman for blonde, & a spokesperson too. He continues to be very special to blonde.

yeah but he is from the midlands do i have to talk to him?