2+2=evil?

[jstrike]

Just wanted to post up here, to direct people to this running blog entry that's going on about the 2plus2 poker forum. I'm out of my mind livid about it at this point, and probably not thinking too straight even. But I really want to share this and let people know what's goin on. So, here's the whole sordid tale... =)

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...y-project.html

[vinylweatherman]

Just wanted to post up here, to direct people to this running blog entry that's going on about the 2plus2 poker forum. I'm out of my mind livid about it at this point, and probably not thinking too straight even. But I really want to share this and let people know what's goin on. So, here's the whole sordid tale... =)

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...y-project.html

Why not get a second opinion.

Ask Bryan whether you would be able to post the exact same announcement you placed at 2+2, and see whether the rules here also require you to meet the same standards as other operators do when posting their own promotions, which here is to become accredited first.

The reply from 2+2 is worrying, as it seems members have been kept in the dark about the underlying arrangements for the posting of offers, and even some types of information. It seems that 2+2 members are not to be allowed to hear of projects and offers who's advocates have not first paid the appropriate fee.

Whilst not necessarily evil, it shows that the information flow to 2+2 members is not unbiased, and that payment of fees enables some offers to be discussed whilst others are not even allowed to be mentioned, let alone opened for discussion.

P. V. here has received reprimands about too much "plugging" of his own project for players' document verification, yet he is still here, and was not suddenly banned without warning or explanation when he first posted that he had launched, and was trying to get operators to sign up along with players. He was merely warned about "cross posting" by bringing up the fact that he had launched his service in any thread where players bitched about the ID process.

I am sure an open discussion about Bitcoin is allowed here, and you can ask to be made the official rep for your projects.

If your project gets going, I can see 2+2 members wanting to discuss it, and may ask why Casinomeister has a Bitcoin rep, and 2+2 does not. The answer is that 2+2 banned the Bitcoin rep because he didn't pay, whereas there is no charge here at Casinomeister simply for becoming the rep for an operator or other industry participant.

Rather that continue to attack them, ignore them and make them ask you to come back because 2+2 members are complaining about not having access to you without having to wander over to Casinomeister.

If Bitcoin is going to be used for casinos as well as poker, then here is the best place for that side of things.

The main problem with Bitcoin is it being located in Costa Rica, as players outside the US do not have to resort to such drastic measures to carry on playing poker. I would not use something like Bitcoin whilst I am free to use Neteller, cards, and even PayPal for gambling here in the UK.

[Nifty29]

Why even give them the time of day?

If the members there can't see when they're being led by the wallet then they deserve what they get.

Just move on.

[jstrike]

Well, VW, thanks for the level-headed response as usual.

Just to clarify, we aren't affiliated with Bitcoin, and I don't represent Bitcoin or the people in charge of that project... all I represent is my own site, which takes Bitcoin as its only payment method.

I wouldn't have posted the announcement here in the same way as I did over there, because we're not CM-accredited and the rules laid out by Bryan are very clear as to what's allowed and what isn't. There isn't a CM forum that resembles their forum. That's just not the atmosphere around here. Having said that, I've been allowed to talk about my project here, and I'm also pretty sure I would have gotten a warning here before being permanently banned if what I wrote was too much of a plug. What I wrote didn't scream "spam". But it did include a bonus code, and that would've been clearly off-limits around here.

Some of their boards are informative, but some of them, like the one I posted on, are borderline spam-fests. If you look over there, consider their TOS and then the "Internet Poker" forum, it's full of posts about bonuses and rakebacks, started and participated in by users who may or may not be affiliated with the companies involved, and no one's apparently being banned for talking about those companies. There's no clearly defined process like a Baptism laid out to determine who gets accredited, so I guess it's just whoever pays them...but they don't say that, either, so all we can do is assume it. The rules for posting are superficially vague or nonexistent, and I guess they like having it look like a "real discussion" is going on, which just happens to promote the companies who pay them, and sweeping anything they don't like under the rug.

I'm proud to be a rep here at CM, even for a non-accredited site, and there's nothing I want more than to one day get my site accredited here. And that's because the rules make it possible to know where you stand here. The separation of affiliates, reps, accredited reps and sponsors makes it honest, and demands honesty from everyone.

Truth is, I wouldn't post again on 2+2 if they begged me, and we will never place an ad there or put a rep on their board. I got no interest in feeding their racket. But now I should drop it, cool off and let it go.

[vinylweatherman]

Well, VW, thanks for the level-headed response as usual.

Just to clarify, we aren't affiliated with Bitcoin, and I don't represent Bitcoin or the people in charge of that project... all I represent is my own site, which takes Bitcoin as its only payment method.

I wouldn't have posted the announcement here in the same way as I did over there, because we're not CM-accredited and the rules laid out by Bryan are very clear as to what's allowed and what isn't. There isn't a CM forum that resembles their forum. That's just not the atmosphere around here. Having said that, I've been allowed to talk about my project here, and I'm also pretty sure I would have gotten a warning here before being permanently banned if what I wrote was too much of a plug. What I wrote didn't scream "spam". But it did include a bonus code, and that would've been clearly off-limits around here.

Some of their boards are informative, but some of them, like the one I posted on, are borderline spam-fests. If you look over there, consider their TOS and then the "Internet Poker" forum, it's full of posts about bonuses and rakebacks, started and participated in by users who may or may not be affiliated with the companies involved, and no one's apparently being banned for talking about those companies. There's no clearly defined process like a Baptism laid out to determine who gets accredited, so I guess it's just whoever pays them...but they don't say that, either, so all we can do is assume it. The rules for posting are superficially vague or nonexistent, and I guess they like having it look like a "real discussion" is going on, which just happens to promote the companies who pay them, and sweeping anything they don't like under the rug.

I'm proud to be a rep here at CM, even for a non-accredited site, and there's nothing I want more than to one day get my site accredited here. And that's because the rules make it possible to know where you stand here. The separation of affiliates, reps, accredited reps and sponsors makes it honest, and demands honesty from everyone.

Truth is, I wouldn't post again on 2+2 if they begged me, and we will never place an ad there or put a rep on their board. I got no interest in feeding their racket. But now I should drop it, cool off and let it go.

I see, so the SAME type of content as yours is allowed provided payment has been made, but post the SAME type of content WITHOUT making payment, and the information is censored from even being discussed, and the poster banned without warning.

You were CLEARLY told later on that your content was against the rules NOT because of what it was, but because you hadn't PAID to post it. If there is nothing in the rules about such fees, they can hardly expect members to know, so it follows that others are probably breaking the same rules without knowing, and other discussion threads and members may have similarly disappeared without trace, with 2+2 members none the wiser to the fact this has gone on.

When someone gets banned here, it is not "cloak and dagger", but a footprint is left behind of what they did to get banned, and the fact they are banned is shown by their username changing to red with "banned user" beneath it.

When non accredited casinos post their own bonus codes, much of the post remains intact, but the codes and clickable links are removed, and a warning posted to the rep for all to see.

Had you done the same here, it is likely you would have been warned not to post the codes and a link to your site.

Had you posted something without codes and links at 2+2, they may not have reacted by banning you.

If 2+2 made their rules clearer to start with, you would have known that you had to buy some kind of "license" from 2+2 to post what you did.

If your site ONLY takes Bitcoin, it is unlikely to get accreditation since Bitcoin is based in Costa Rica, and I would presume your site is based there too. It is exceptional for Bryan to accredit a casino based in Costa Rica, as there is no licensing authority to protect players should the operator turn rogue. Virtual Group are based in Costa Rica, and have been freely ripping off players for years with the Costa Rican government doing nothing about it whilst they still get their cut.

[jstrike]

While we are Costa Rica-based, we hold to our own ethical standards which are the highest in the industry, and are radically transparent on our site. Every card shoe is published daily, along with spin distributions and randomness tests. But your point about CR-based casinos is well taken, and I'd expect we'd have licensing in another jurisdiction, or at least some pretty heavy auditing, before being accredited.

Bitcoin is actually not based in Costa Rica, or anywhere. There's no company that owns Bitcoin. It's an open source network, unlike Paypal or Moneybookers... the money is stored on your own hard drive as an encrypted file, and transferred directly from peer to peer, a lot like file sharing, and you have to trust whoever you're sending it to, because once it's sent and the other computers on the network see that you sent it, they all update to show who the new owner is, and then your coin stops working for you and starts working for the person you sent it to. This is why there are no transaction fees.

There are currency exchanges that let you buy and sell with other people, which are the closest thing to any central authority Bitcoin has. The two largest exchanges are based in Japan and Chile. They do let you keep coins or dollars in accounts on their servers for the purpose of trading, and you can send directly from there to another Bitcoin user if you want, so in a way it's a little bit like having a Paypal account if you sign up with one of them. But they're not in control of the currency... no one is. Which makes it all kind of scary and exciting at the same time.

[IanO]

I had a similar run in with the folks over at 2+2.

A member had posted incorrect facts about a site I was representing, and an affiliate of ours pointed it out to me. I was not a member of the forum at the time, but in an attempt to be helpful I opened an account and replied to the thread, setting people straight and letting them know what to do to get more asistance/info. No advertising, no spam, and with all the right intentions.

I log back in the next day to see if anyone has responded with any questions to be met with: ''Account Banned. Date ban will be lifted: Never'. I contacted them and was told that my username was similar to the name of the site and as we had not paid to be advertisers on the forum my account had been closed.

What really bugged me was that two other posts by other users were deleted from the thread, yet mine remained with the 'banned' tag. What would you think if you see a bunch of members say things about a site, then someone claiming to represent the site says something different and the rep gets immediately banned? If I was a player I would immediately assume the rep was full of it.

OK, so perhaps there are rules about becoming an official rep on the forum. I admit I probably should have looked a little harder before I leaped, but did I really deserve the immediate banhammer?

If I owned a gambling forum, and a rep came forward to help with a site, I'd make it my business to verify that rep and encourrage them to stay. More reps means better support for the players... no? This aint rocket science. No mail from them before or after I was banned, or at all until I contacted them.

At the end of the day they seemed a lot more interested in improving their own bottom line that doing what they could to get their members the best support available.

[nisosbar]

Not evil, but it seems like many members there are quite young, based on all the references to prostitution and other illicit activities. Okay, yes, it's a forum about gambling and poker, but I never liked it over there, and rarely check in anymore. Now that online poker is a shadow of what it was, I'm not sure what the point would be now, unless you are big on live play, which I'm not really.

[Simmo!]

Here's my take on it fwiw but first I'd like to point out that although I am a moderator here, I moderate to Bryan's rules and ideology, not mine.

The way I look at it is this: has a user joined the forum with an agenda to promote? If the answer is yes, then the next question is "are they looking to participate in the spirit of the forum" - or get away with the minimum needed to get their brand noticed.

Usernames that are brands can be an initial indicator but not immediately conclusive. Its the first few posts that define it for me. Is the user clearly contributing something useful to existing discussions without sticking the brand in as opportunity presents? Or are they doing friendly-yet-pointless posts with a view to simply building a post-count (usually for sig priviledges) and/or brand profile.

After a while you get a feel for who it's genuinely nice to have around and as a moderator your tolerance levels adjust accordingly.

I don't think enough people stop to realise a forum is run by - and belongs to - someone else. If they are happy for other people to benefit from traffic to their forum then that should be clear somewhere (ie: signature priviledges). If it's not clear, then IMO it's not good etiquette to go there and divert visitors they have doene all the work to atrract.

Or put another way - if people want to do that they should get clarification that it's acceptable.


Simmo!

[jstrike]

I'm with you on that, Simmo. There need to be rules, and any rules are preferable to total arbitrary chaos. And -- well, obviously, I guess -- I should have gotten clarification first. Thing is, I entered that site in a very similar way to this one. I wasn't actually on that forum to promote my site in the first place. For one thing, I didn't actually have a casino until a few weeks ago. I never, once, ever mentioned the name of my site there during beta testing. I never even linked to my own website where people would be able to find info about it. I never gave my name... just "jstrike". I had a lot of questions about how to get payment processing, how and where to get incorporated, how to keep things legal, how to avoid the pitfalls in starting a poker room... and all said, I only started 4 threads. I had about 100 posts on there, and now they're all just gone. 90% of the conversations I was involved with had nothing to do with my project at all, it was just talking with people about their questions, mostly in the legal forum, and trying to soak up the info I could. I wasn't, y'know, lying in wait for two years to spring this on them. But the first time I put a link to my site, banhammer.

I get that it's their site and they spent effort to build it up. But whether they like it or not, a forum by its nature becomes a public space, like a casino...it attracts a community, and dealing with that community in a reasonable way is critical to its success. And if it doesn't deal with them reasonably, then it deserves to get called on it. Just like I wouldn't expect to flat-ban some guy without a backlash, if I didn't know who he was. Guys on my site joke about not being allowed to mention the Bitcoin poker competition, and I always say I'm not a censor, I'm not a prison warden, you guys want to all use my site to plan to go meet up over there, it's fine with me. I was a bartender, and a poker dealer, a waiter and a taxi driver... my idea of customer service is, the customer's the boss. Now, I've already had to ban about 20 users from my site, but never without either an explanation or an invitation to email me personally and talk about it. All of them were for multiple signups and/or pretending they were from outside the US. Of those, the few who actually contacted me have all been reversed. I almost banned a colluding pair, but talked to them and found out they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and 300 miles apart. I told them they can't play on the same table anymore, and they understood, and now they don't. Now they're on different tables, and they're some of the best people to have in a game. So, communication is good. Giving people the benefit of the doubt, or at least a fair hearing, is the right thing to do. Being a human being is good. I think most people can see the difference between spam and someone finally linking to his own self-made project after dancing around it for two years. But most of all, I think everyone should be treated equally. And as site owners, of course they have the right to treat people unequally, just like I could ban my competitors from visiting my site to take notes, or ban anybody who mentioned them. But if I did that, I'd expect to be loathed for it, and I'd rather be loved. I reckon they need a re-think, or should be called out for what they are, and that's what should be happening to them 'bout now. And there's no comparison between them and this board. So imho, putting yourself in their moderators' shoes isn't even possible, just like I can't put myself in the shoes of a rogue casino operator. Straight-up people don't act like that, and what really gets me...I'm always trying to see things from the other person's point of view, and I try twice as hard when something upsets me. The only time I ever get really angry is when people do stuff I just could never imagine myself doing in a million years. It only happens about once a year, but this is one of those times.