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[petro]

Here's my 3 cents.


Changes between 2010-2014

If I recall correctly, there was an attempt to make the forum more casino friendly back in 2010-11.
E.g. the “Rep. Friendly” thread prefix was introduced.
I think this attempt met with limited success because I’m seeing a little more rep. activity now.

There are a lot more accredited casinos on the list.

There seems to be a lot more low quality/uninformative posts now than there was back then.


Existing strengths
It’s a good strategy to take your strengths and make them stronger. It has a multiplying effect.
Ordered in terms of importance

PAB process
It was the PAB process that attracted me to CM in the first place. MaxD is also a nice person on the forum.

Accredited Casino list
There are many more Accredited Casinos now than there was 2-3 years ago. I don’t feel as stifled now as I did back then.

Casino reps.
Being able to easily contact casino representatives; preferably ones who can pull strings
Mark_32Red is an ideal example.

Promos
Fun promotions exclusive to members of Casinomeister
Here is an example: Old URL

Screenshot thread
Screenies are one of the better things about CM.
Suggestion; instead of having to scroll down the page, for ease of access it would be a good idea to have the screenies thread featured somewhere at the top of the page.
I imagine it as it as a box at the top of the forum that displays the latest screenshot posted in it. The image would be large enough for forum members to see the actual win.

Member advice
You can get some pretty good advice here from the ordinary forum members about online casinos. Like just recently, I got some good tips about slots tournaments and an advanced warning about a bad sign up bonus.


Existing weaknesses

Site tech support
I reported a broken link recently and got no response. Since then I have found several broken links and never bothered to report them.


Not yet implemented

Accredited Casino search filter
I would imagine it as a webpage that lists all the accredited casinos with filtering/refine search options such as:
which countries can play, what currencies are used, what are the deposit/withdrawal options, and so forth.

Player's Choice Award
This forum has been running for how many years and still players cannot vote to award a casino?
My idea for this is: at the start of December each year make a thread titled; Player's Choice Award 20xx. Make a poll with each accredited casino listed and ask players to select the one that they feel deserve this award. Give members a warning just before they vote saying; All votes are final, are you sure you want to proceed?
Just make sure voters are fully fledged members to avoid shills.


Grey areas
If there are rules/guidelines (and I'm sure there are) surrounding these issues I would dispute that by saying they are not clear enough/not working because too many people are still making the mistake. You can't put the full blame on forum members for these things.

Online casino vs player rights
I think a balance between casino rights and player rights has yet to be found.
For example; does a player have the right to make a thread titled; Casino x stole from me?
Or would that be considered infringing upon the casino’s rights?
I can see there has been a crackdown on this because I'm seeing a lot more moderation of thread tiles now compared to a few years ago.

It’s still unclear exactly what an “Accredited Casino” is
From my forum experience I formed this rough definition of an accredited casino:
A casino that is has not gone completely rogue and a casino you can PAB.

When I first came I thought accredited meant that a casino is not allowed to do anything wrong or they will be booted from the accredited section.
I'm still seeing newbie members make the same mistake I did.
They see the casino that they had a problem with on the accredited list and hit the PAB button or start flaming in the forum about it.
It’s an all too easy mistake to make and perhaps the problem is in the word itself “accredited” as it could be found to be misleading.


Foreseeable threats

I have warned about this in the past. I’ve seen it happen to forums similar to CM before.
If online casinos get too much power and moderators drop their guard, online casinos will take over the forum and start spamming their “promos” and introducing shills.
Beware…

 

[Casinomeister]

Thanks a lot for this. It's much appreciated. I'll try to address a number of things in the next several days. I've been out of the loop for the past few months, but I'm back now, so we should see some improvements on the administrative (and creative) side of things.

As for what is an Accredited Casino, the description is listed here:
Link Outdated / Removed

The biggest problem with this site is the navigation. There is so much information that you sometimes have to dig a little. And it's not all that intuitive. I have a massive vBulletin form and joining this with several other huge and crucial sections takes a bit of ingenuity. And sometimes I don't have it (the ingenuity )

 

[Azzurri]

I know it's been a much talked about gripe, and I'm not sure if it actually can be improved, but I'll add to Petro's impressive list and mention the poor search function.

I like to regularly search for historical advice and information, and of course the search function could be better in that regard.

Not a big issue, but whilst on the subject of improvements.

 

[maxd]

... I'm seeing a lot more moderation of thread tiles now compared to a few years ago.

I think this one pretty much falls on my shoulders. I reckon the uptick in "moderated" thread titles can be traced back to sometime after I signed on in '07. I think it is fair to say that I end up editing more thread titles than Bryan does.

A bit of definition of terms might help here: as I see it a "moderated" thread title is a thread where the title has been changed from the original because of some judgement made by a moderator.

Q: Why would I do this?

A: Two primary reasons:

1. I believe the forum is sometimes abused by angry players, fraudsters and scammers using inflamatory and/or defamatory thread titles to attack casinos. The point is that they're using CM's good standing in the community -- meaning "eyes on threads" -- as a stick against the casino.
2. the title of a thread may adversely effect an ongoing PAB. Here it's a case of the casino being disadvantaged by an defamatory thread title while they are expected to be negotiating a settlement with the player that posted that defamatory thread title. In other words the thread title change is a leveling of the playing field in the interests of resolving a player's issue.

The trouble is that in both those cases changing the thread title is a totally subjective call on my part: I do it because I think it would be unfair not to.

That said I'm well aware that doing so is an intrusion, the bottom line is that the OP is not being allowed complete freedom of expression. Obviously such a restriction needs to used as sparingly as possible and that's something I keep well in mind when debating whether it __really__ needs to be done.

Clearly this whole business is directly related to the question of balance between casino and player rights. As you've said it, "Does the player have the right to say [meaning 'post'] 'Casino X stole my money'? In general I'd say yes the player does have the right to do so. Obviously in some cases that's exactly what happened -- or some derivative thereof -- and the world needs to know about it.

However, it's just as possible that such a thread has been posted by a disgruntled and/or vindictive OP trying to pressure a casino to fork over payment (or whatever) which they may not be entitled to. It's an attempt to coerce the casino, sometimes unjustly. If this is found to be the case does the OP have the right to expect that their thread title is sacrosanct and untouchable?

There has to be a line in the sand somewhere and I think that Casinomeister's "Fair Play" principle is it. Does the OP have a legitimate case for posting an inflamatory and/or defamatory title? Is the casino being unfairly accused? Is it just an unjustified attack to gain undeserved attention? No matter how you slice it it comes down to making a judgement call. So the real question is, I think, is that judgement call being misused or abused? At the end of the day that's Bryan's call and, as ever, I'll follow his guidance on how to proceed.

 

[chayton]

I know it's been a much talked about gripe, and I'm not sure if it actually can be improved, but I'll add to Petro's impressive list and mention the poor search function.

I like to regularly search for historical advice and information, and of course the search function could be better in that regard.

Not a big issue, but whilst on the subject of improvements.

To be honest I find it's sometimes easier to just go to Google and search there (just add casinomeister to the search term) than to use the search feature on the forum.

Actually if you look on the submenu under information there's a 'search Casinomeister' option that's like a google search, it searches the whole site not just the forum though. But still it's better than the forum one.

 

[Casinomeister]

This is what needs to appear in the forum search box:
https://www.casinomeister.com/?s=

I use this search function all the time. The vbulletin forum search is useless in my opinion. But getting that to appear there is a bit harder than you'd think. I've tried it before - I'll try it again.

 

[Balthazar]

The vbulletin forum search is useless in my opinion.

This is true for pretty much all the vbulletin boards.

Here's a tip for those using multiple forums as it works everywhere: just go directly to Google.com and type site:domainoftheforum.com whatyourelookingfor

Example:

 

[Casinomeister]

Yessss!!

Okay - try the search function now!!

I've got it to work - and it includes the entire site - not just the forum.

This is press release material

 

[incrediblestuff]

Yessss!!

Okay - try the search function now!!

I've got it to work - and it includes the entire site - not just the forum.

This is press release material

This was my only real gripe with the forum functionality and you just solved it properly, way to go!

 

[chayton]

Hah! Funny, I just used the new (MUCH improved!) search and used the search term "forum search" and found this post from a year or so ago when it was me complaining about the forum search sucking.