HEAR HEAR

great post, spot on

Nicely said scroooge I agree with almost everything you said. However, suggestions rather than hard fast rules can promote anarchy. We've all seen the results of that in the transferring and dishonest behavior of a few players that would rather cheat then be honest for an emblem of a medal and bragging rights at the end of each month. Having a base set of limited rules is needed to promote and enhance the learning experience this site has to offer. Note that I said limited rules because too many rules becomes cumbersome and counter productive. Your points are well made. Thank you for the discussion topic.

Believe it or not the rules are meant to support community. I like the idea of calling moderators advisors.

The original intent of the site was to be poker with a 50/50 mix of socialness and competition. I haven't updated this intent in a while but would love feedback on this.

I think we're thinking along the same path in terms of moving forward. The extra stats, country flags, and sit and go tables were things that I ran out of time to include in the current version and hope to get back in there.

Last week I actually took some time to rethink the strategy of the site (to follow the original intent). I identified 3 priorities (the last big priority was performance and it was handled very well with the january update).

1) Increase Site Traffic - The community is a great size at the moment but the server can now support up to 10x the players. Part of my solution to this is to find reduce people playing once and leaving. One large reason this happens is because they see lots of posts of cheating or see porn or abusive chat - thus enforcing these rules is important. I've also added the weekly update emails a offsite reminder that the competition is running. The other part is regular web marketing with SEO and such.

2) Increase Brand - You'll notice I moved back to the original GPokr logo. I think it's important that GPokr is not only distinct from other poker sites but also from the other games (kdice, xsketch). The site definitely has a different culture and this needs to be developed in a way unique to this site. Part of increasing this is to build the social network side of things with better profiles, country flags, maybe more photos, and friends.

3) Features - General feature that don't fall into the above categories are still important for the site. There's a lot that I'd like to do here but it is still the 3rd priority and least important. These changes include having leagues, teams, tournaments, and sit and go.

I hope this helps and apologize for the patchwork of ethics.

On another note I'd like things to be more open to the community about direction. This was the original intent of the ideas page. the problem with the ideas page is that they are less high level ideas and more one-off ideas. which is still great. I would love to create an open discussion about high level development somewhere and would encourage anybody interested to contribute. I would also love to find ways that the community could contribute (I have a bit of a fear of open source development since much of the IP that I've built could go elsewhere, so I'm not sure what the best solution is). At the least I may open up a contributor's forum or something.

Thoughts?

The refill rule has dramatically reduced chips in play and probably therefore, traffic.Ryan's big issue now is driving new traffic to the site and that starts by asking :

"How is this site different to and more attractive than other sites?"

If its a learning site, rich in resources and easy to use, that might do the trick. That will also help retention.What will NOT help retention is complexity (eg of rules) or message boards full of cheater posts.

Something I remember from my first days here was a lack of teaching/learning resources. Yes we had cAPSLOCK's article on how to navigate round the tables etc, but nothing on how to play the game of texas holdem itself. When I came here I had played little holdem, and was hoping to find a guide on how to play. I had to go offsite and google how to play. Yes it may seem silly to say this, but at least 10% of people brand new to the site will have not played before. So I suggest including a guide on how to play texas holdem under the How To Play section. Also perhaps extending the current How To Play article to cover technical aspects like adding players to favorites, and uploading pictures, as I remember having to ask players at table how to do this when I started.
I really feel we also need to have a clear and concise Rules post stating what exactly is not tolerated, written by Ryan and either fixed to the top of the forum(so its always at the top) or as a clickable link under How To Play on the main page.
Some people may argue that too many rules lead to a constricted and boring website. But in my experience with forums/websites, as long as the rules are reasonable and workable, the result is a smoothly running, friendly and safe place in which to spend time.
And with the problem of cyber-bullying growing around the world, players (and especially new ones) need to know that this is one website they can come and play poker at without being vilified or insulted.
Aslo, YES Gpokr is first and foremost a GAME, and in every game there are those who bend the rules to get further. But with the incidence of longterm skilled players leaving the site for good in recent weeks due to "cheating and loaning" the benefit of having rules is to retain these players. I for one would rather see 1 good and decent player stay and have 10 "cheaters" go!
xxx Lei.

Lei~I agree 100% with what you have said and I know Ryan has said there is a forthcoming set of rules! So Ryan, if there is anything I can do~please advise:)

Xela: "The refill rule has dramatically reduced chips in play and probably therefore, traffic"

I don't see how you get to this. Why would there be less traffic if there are less chips? Traffic has remained constant since the change. Believe it or not, most people aren't relying on the refill style playing across multiple accounts. This was a small set of people that wouldn't dent the sites traffic if they left.

Furthermore, all this conflict we're talking about isn't a big deal. These are small changes that nudge GPokr in the right direction. It's silly to take offense or get upset about any of it.

I should add that I personally don't take offense to anything going on in GPokr right now. For the most part I'm very happy with how smooth the site runs and the quality of the people and poker being played.

Its just that sometimes poker gets a little boring for some and its easy to get wrapped up in some conflict no matter how small.

So take it easy. None of the posts are anything to get worked up about. I like this post from scrooge because he's asking about next steps instead of claiming stupid things like "rules killed gpokr".

Well said scrooge!

Gpokr already has and excellent sense of community but this shouldn't stop Ryan from trying to improve it further. Most of us are here for the game and the chat; sure it's a competition but that's not all playing is about.

I would like to see some of Ryan's views or thoughts on developments a more fixed part of the site. At the moment the are a flash in the pan - half a dozen posts of 'this is the best hand ever' and the message is lost.

Ryan, keep up the good work and make your words more visible!