Blonde Stats Page

[cambridgealex]

I always thought Keith Johnson would be a good man to get in the well. Ask him what it's like to run a big staking operation. And to get half of deadman's winnings... And how to deal with listening to Mitch's hand histories...

[scotty77]

in addition to all the issues discussed (updates, social media competition, lesser recreational involvement in poker from long time blonde members, not enough controversy etc) it is now easier to lurk on the forum rather than post than it ever was via mobile phones

For example when we first started people would have been looking at the forum on desktops and laptops. i know myself that these days that has changed a lot to tablets and phones

personally, when on the phone, its really easy to view every post in chronological order but not as simple, time consuming and fiddly to do a long post on a phone

easier on a tablet, but not as regimented as it was in 2005-2006 when everyone was using the forum in a more "static" manner

structurally, i feel this hurts post count too

the number of people who i see who say "i read it all, but i am not a poster" has risen a lot compared to a few years ago 

I suggested getting Tapatalk enabled for the forum last year.

I'm a member of another forum that uses the same software, and I never browsed or posted before I found they had Tapatalk.  Now I do both.  2plus2 recently added that functionality.  Think it would help.  It's so user friendly for mobile devices.

[George2Loose]

Think there's a lack of community feel poker wise. Sunday thread being an example- gone. Mondas staking threads- gone.

Also agree with Alex- i Cba to get involved with a few of the trolls on here who just make every interaction unbearable. Seems strange herbie was banned when there's a few way worse than him

[KarmaDope]

+1 for Tapatalk.

Forums evolve, constantly. I do feel that the community side of blonde has kinda withered and died, not from one big thing but lots of little things - members getting banned and their friends leaving in support, people using phones to lurk and not post as much, off-forum arguments/incidents with other members, people forming skype groups and chatting in those rather than on here to keep their strategy hidden etc, plus people not playing poker any more and naturally drifting away.

As for what we can do, I honestly don't have any suggestions. Live Updates would be good but they're expensive and probably don't bring in enough revenue to support them. The only other forum I can think of that is still growing is 2p2 and that's probably because it's more of a general forum than a poker forum. I'd say about 25% of their members dont even play poker, they post in the Gaming/Health&Fitness/Politics forums etc.

[tikay]

"Tapatalk".

We'd have it enabled now, if we could, but we have a few problems with our software, which is old, in dire need of an upgrade, & decidely cranky. And we are a bit scared that, like a very old car or lawn-mower, once we start messing with it, & adding gizmos, it will just fall over.

DTD offered to upgrade the whole thing, completely free of charge, which was very kind of them. However, to enable them to do that, we, literally, have to "hand the keys" of the blonde software to DTD temporarily. Which is fine. Except that means they could, we imagine, have total access to everything on blonde, including the PM's of all Members. We are, of course, reluctant to do that.

We will try to sort this Tapatalk thing though.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

In, perhaps, ironside's first ever post that contained those pesky paragraph things, he said.....

alot of the members from back in the day moved on to forums like sky and apat and even facebook


I don't want to argue with his fine post, but when we write something, it insta becomes a "fact", & everyone goes away believing it, so I need to correct part of it.   

No blondes, not one, have left blonde to go to Sky Poker Forum. As far as I know, only 3 blondes ever post on Sky Poker, & one of those is Tighty, who does so for work reasons. None of the three have diminished their blonde presence.

However, in the last 18 months, several dozen Members from Sky Poker Forum have migrated across to blonde, & most of them remain active on blonde to this day. They are VERY different forums, & groups of people, so it does not always work, & the rules & ethos are very different. The latest to come across to blonde from Next Door is "TeddyBloat", & I think all would agree, he's a very big win for us.

I have no idea if blonde has lost many or any Members to APAT. I'd guess "not many".

Since THM effectively died (sorry THM), several of their regulars have migrated across to blonde.

I am convinced that the main reason for the decline in post-count is just a factor of how we use the internet these days, things like social-media & Mobile devices. 

If the decline in Posts bothers people (& if unchecked, eventually the place will just wither & die), then the way to counter it is to engage more with others, start new threads, that sort of thing. New threads are the seedcorn, from which all else springs.       

[tikay]

I always thought Keith Johnson would be a good man to get in the well. Ask him what it's like to run a big staking operation. And to get half of deadman's winnings... And how to deal with listening to Mitch's hand histories...

I think that would be stunningly good, but he'd be asked a lot of, perhaps, "awkward" questions as to his staking, & finances.

Do you think he'd be happy to do a Well, knowing that? Some of these matters, as to staking etc, are often considered a bit private. I never knew, for example (if you were being serious) that he staked Simon Deadman.

[tikay]

Can we get Father Gascoigne in the well?!

Tighty normally "conducts" the Well threads, gets them started & "works them", but in this case, I think you should do it Ian, you know Father Check-Raise betteer, & have a wonderful kinship with him.

Over to you.....

[tikay]

There has been repeated mention of "trolls" making life difficult.

Think we need to tread warily here, it's quite hard to accurately define what is, & is not, trolling. 

Just because a Member regularly posts extreme & disagreeable views does not mean he is a troll - maybe he just thinks different to the rest of us?

We get a lot of complaints about one chap, & I'll name him, because he is that rarity, a man who soaks up the jibes & stands his corner - KMac. He's thick-skinned & he'll not be overly bothered by me mentioning him. He might put a few fucks into me, mind, but I'll live. Say "boo" to some folks & you'd think you'd insulted their kids or summat, but KMac just spits back.

Do I agree with many of his posts? Hell no. I disagree with at least 90% of them.

Do I like his online personna? Nope, I think he likes to offend way too often. I've never met him in real life, I suspect we'd get on fine, as it happens. 

Is he often rude? Yep.

But I genuinely think that he believes the stuff he writes. He's a radical, bit of an extremist, some might say a bloody nutjob.

Even so, I don't think he is a troll at all, just someone who thinks different to most of us. No crime in that.

We should not ban people because they think & act differently to most of us.

Remember, too, that without exception, when we ban a Member, we lose other Members in sympathy.

KMac is still a Scottish tosser though.

[Doobs]

Tikay has said what has caused the "death" of the forum a few times.   The world has changed a bit and blogs and fora are dying.  Always feels to me like when people blame diaries or TfT they are just saying what they don't like on Blonde.  The rail is probably where it has died most, but the diaries and TfT don't "get in the way" of the rail as they are separated out on the front page of the forum. 

I guess most of us that were once crushing simply aren't anymore and the recs who could get by are now losers.  Hard to get so excited about poker in those cases.  If the people who are now crushing have lived their lives through Facebook, Instagram and twitter, nothing is going to change that when they start crushing poker.

I love the interaction on Blonde and the way you can see the history.  Facebook and twitter seem to be very much about me and right now.  I just find it harder to enjoy, but I do realise I am becoming a bit of an old fart on this.  I guess I'll have to move on and enjoy what everyone else does, but am happy plodding on here for now. 

Must all do our bit.  Will go start a new thread and cause a bit of controversy elsewhere to help you out.

[GreekStein]

Some dwindling in numbers is obviously unavoidable. Mobile browsing coupled with Facebook and Twitter etc are just too big obstacles to overcome.

That's not an excuse. It's a fact. There are some things (imo) that can be done to help forum activity a little bit.

This is just some of my thinking out loud:

- Live updates returning & Sunday sweat thread returning.

- Let's perhaps get some blonde badges printed and have blondes wearing them at events and their local card rooms.

- FLUSHY. As the major shareholder, Flushy was maybe the original and certainly most prominent of the high stakes players. Almost all blondes (particularly in the early days) were very keen to read his posts. Him posting again a bit more regularly and enthusiastically could have a good impact, particularly if he tries to encourage his buddies who also used to post but rarely do anymore to continue posting. The likes of Moorman and Pab posting in the sunday sweat thread would be great.

- Mods need to sort the diary section out. Just get rid or lock an absolute ton of them. Too many diaries mean too much interesting discussion gets missed unless you read every diary. Keep the 5-10 longest standing ones and just archive the others. Might not be popular amongst some, but needs to be done.

- TFT. This I'm really not sure of what to say. It's the most popular thread on blonde but one I never even click. It's too much for me to digest though I was surprised to read that the likes of Monda, Celtic and Red Dog feel the same as me about it. I guess it stays but the slight problem I see in it is that the guys who do use it, spend half their forum time there and not bothered about contributing elsewhere or posting in new threads etc.

- More exciting 'In the Wells' are needed. Surely as a DTD sponsored forum someone could pull a few strings and get the likes of Sam Trickett doing one. Would be great.

- Ultimately members who love the forum have to be committed to making more of an effort to post a lot. Pleno stopping his diary is a huge shame. The likes of me, Vinny, Monda, Celtic have all posted in this thread showing our concern for Blonde's numbers etc yet our levels of contribution have also declined hugely so some responsibility falls on our shoulders as members to give a bit back.

[BigAdz]

There has been repeated mention of "trolls" making life difficult.

Think we need to tread warily here, it's quite hard to accurately define what is, & is not, trolling. 

Just because a Member regularly posts extreme & disagreeable views does not mean he is a troll - maybe he just thinks different to the rest of us?

We get a lot of complaints about one chap, & I'll name him, because he is that rarity, a man who soaks up the jibes & stands his corner - KMac. He's thick-skinned & he'll not be overly bothered by me mentioning him. He might put a few fucks into me, mind, but I'll live. Say "boo" to some folks & you'd think you'd insulted their kids or summat, but KMac just spits back.

Do I agree with many of his posts? Hell no. I disagree with at least 90% of them.

Do I like his online personna? Nope, I think he likes to offend way too often. I've never met him in real life, I suspect we'd get on fine, as it happens. 

Is he often rude? Yep.

But I genuinely think that he believes the stuff he writes. He's a radical, bit of an extremist, some might say a bloody nutjob.

Even so, I don't think he is a troll at all, just someone who thinks different to most of us. No crime in that.

We should not ban people because they think & act differently to most of us.

Remember, too, that without exception, when we ban a Member, we lose other Members in sympathy.

KMac is still a Scottish tosser though.

I was working backwards through this and was thinking the same.  

Probably because a few people here love to chuck the "troll" word at me.

Having a strong opinion doesn't make you a troll does it? If you can back up an opinion with a reasoned argument, seems more than fair to me, doesn't mean I agree, but doesn't make them a troll.

Its those people that chuck in a name/comment/abuse and scarper without backing it up, I would say are the trolls, and do more long term damage.

I find KMac very interesting. Don't agree with all of what he says either, and maybe a bit too many F-bombs, but defo an interesting guy. However. This place would be poorer without him, literally(he is a genius on Scottish footy).

I think that peoples knowledge of others here gives them a major advantage. I know very few people here irl, but those that do, know I have strong opinions, nothing more than that. I also try my best to make worthwhile contributions in many threads, hardly the work of a troll. Ditto KMac.

Devils advocate, RED, friend to many, will often pop up on TFT and make a joke or comment, mainly taking the piss out of us punterers, but because it's RED, it's not classed as trolling, but were it a newbie, I suspect it would. Bothers me not, but were it a Newbie, I'm sure the "troll spotters" would label them thus.

Can be a tough gig sometimes, this foruming malarky, and maybe the thin skins find other stuff to do?!

[scotty77]

I first heard of Blonde cos I'd got to Luton for a £50 comp 30 mins early and there after about 5/6 (tighty/Chompy/Celtic/claire) around a table chatting, including Tikay who I said Hi too as we had chatted pm the Sky forum. By the time the tournie started, fairly sure that 30 of the 80/100 players were blondes.

As Luton was my local, I think I kept posting cos of the Luton thread, which back then was extremely active. I reckon only a few that used to post back then are active now. But I think it's not cos they stopped posting here but continued playing poker. I think a lot of the nice, friendly, interesting recreationals just found something else to do with their spare time, and thus blonde wasn't relevant to them anymore.

[bobAlike]

I think people are missing the elephant in the room

DTD sponsorship

I know that there may not even be a Blondepoker if it were not for the kind Mr Yong but before the DTD deal, the promotion of the various different festivals surely encouraged a wider audience and more new members especially during the live updates. It was during a Blondepoker live update that I first heard of the forum.

WRT to TfT I agree with Ray, Vin and Red. It's not for me but I totally endorse it and def would not want to see it go.

[Omm]

I was browsing Blonde the other day while playing poker at Luton, one of the guys asked if I posted, I obviously said yes and asked if he was a member. He said he was but "blonde is not what it used to be, it's a lot less about Poker and more a general forum, the PHA area used to have a lot more high profile contributors" hence he rarly posts or reads anymore.  I didn't think anything of it at the time but the reason for that is how blonde is now is how I have always known it. Everything evolves and changes, doesn't neccesarily make it worse maybe just different.