Random Knife Piercings in some random part in the middle of the country

[tikay]

i can see the connection between anyone flaming consistantly and members not wanting to post, what i dont get is how all this has supposedly happend since flushy baught 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 baught in, i'll be honest i'd say it's been a lot less

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.

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.

[pokefast]

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

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!

As a reletive newbie i agree.

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

There is no better forum out there.

[The Baron]

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

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!

[mondatoo]

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.

[GreekStein]

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.

[Royal Flush]

[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

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

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

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?

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.

[Royal Flush]

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

Alex Martin trading at 1.64 on betfair...

[mondatoo]

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

Alex Martin trading at 1.64 on betfair...

Nah he'd just get the shotgun

[Royal Flush]

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

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?

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   

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.

[Royal Flush]

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 fanboy's.....

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?

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??

but he is multai

Was, sigh, shrewdies for sale....

[cia260895]

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 fanboy's.....

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?

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??

but he is multai

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

[boldie]

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.

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.

[EvilPie]

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.

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.

[MANTIS01]

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.

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.

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.

[TightEnd]

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

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?

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  

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.

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.