I do enjoy poker forums even after many years of reading, posting, abusing and being abused. A poker forum is truly a great medium to express yourself in regards to poker. With that in mind it saddens me to see poker forums dying at various rates, some slow, some fast. What causes the demise of these once great spaces of the Interweb?
I’m sure Facebook and Twitter are largely to blame for the decay at some sites. While poker forums are mostly a free-for-all, the social networking sites allow users to specify who they wish to interact with. That gives the users more control over their Internet leisure time, allowing them to delete and block the less-desirable people who choose to interact with them.
I’m also sure there are enough established forums around now to make “breaking into” the market a much tougher proposition for any poker site.
So what’s the answer, how do you stop decay and continue to grow? I’ve given this some thought and tried to recall some events from my own internet/forum use in the past. I remember my early internet use in ‘92 - ‘93 and the creation, moderation and “meets” from IRC channels. IRC peaked in the mid 90’s and died. Forums/discussion boards lasted a little longer but they too now appear to be dying. Facebook appeared and, although it continues to develop and be hugely popular, it appears Twitter is now the interactive tool of choice. We have almost gone back to square one. Twitter is a very simple tool to interaction openly and privately with people that follow each other. IRC worked in a similar way.
The answer? There is no answer. It saddens me to say but I really think, as the Internet continues to advance, that forums will become an increasingly smaller part of the WWW. Poker forums will disappear and we’ll all use a select number of sites to interact with fellow players.
Like the rest of the UK I tuned into Question Time last week to hear what Nick Griffin would have to say. Griffin is an interesting character. With a law degree to his name I was expecting him to articulate himself rather better than he did on QT. That said, the majority of the show appeared to be based around a lot of shouty student types asking questions which didn’t get an answer because David Dimbleby told us there wasn’t enough time. What Dimbleby meant was; “We’re not going to answer your question because I’ve got lots of questions of my own to ask Griffin. Sorry.”
The think the BBC missed a trick here. The panel on QT was perfect for an hour long debate BETWEEN THE PANEL MEMBERS. Instead they wasted time asking the audience to chip in with comments and questions which rarely got the attention they deserved.
I also think the BNP have missed a trick by having a clearly racist leader and, no doubt, many racist candidates. Griffin’s previous antics will never go away and to this day he doesn’t really help himself with his ridiculous comments. Had the BNP presented itself as a legitimate political party and not a mouthpiece for the racists it could’ve really given the lazy, corrupt politicians of the UK a nasty bloody nose. Instead, their views will have resulted in a peak in their popularity at the last Euro elections. Griffin’s 15 minutes of fame will be gone soon enough and we can all go back to being disgusted by the way the government we elect runs our country.
I’ve been searching for an image of Griffin in specs because he reminds me of someone I used to know. Ah well.
I personally don’t see a decline in the membership to these forums. People are moving from sites to places like 2p2 and cardschat. This is either because the admin interaction is poor or that the activity is low. You can’t ask a quick question about strategy on facebook or twitter. There’s no better place to improve your game than a forum in my humble opinion.
Racism begins with our families, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, people we admire, respect and love.
However, as we grow and mature we come to the realization that what we were told by our family when we were children were slanted lies base on their prejudices. We realize that most people are like ourselves and not so different and want the same things, like a home, steady work, a Medicare plan and schools for our children (if you travel you will see this). We realize that most people are of good hearts and goodwill.
This reminds me of a parable from the good book where a Levite and Priest come upon a man who fell among thieves and they both individually passed by and didn’t stop to help him.
Finally a man of another race came by, he got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy and got down with the injured man, administered first aid, and helped the man in need.
Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his fellow man.
You see, the Levite and the Priest were afraid, they asked themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”
But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before us. The question is not, “If I stop to help the immigrant in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help the immigrant, what will happen to him or her?” That’s the question.
This current climate of blaming others for our woes is not new. We have had this before and we have conquered it.
Remember “Evil flourishes when good men (and women) do nothing”. Raise your voices with those of us who believe we are equal and we can win this battle again.
I had to include the reply from “Paul” as religious nutters generally amuse me.
That’s not your alter ego is it Movesy? You out spreading the word when your not donking off chips?
BNP are a pain in the arse, they make it impossible to have a reasonable debate on the protection of national and cultural identity because they’ve basically stolen everything right of centre and made it dirty and unappealing.
He makes me sick tbh, Kev.
Some of the facts he does present correctly are just destroyed by his racist hatred.
If only we could all just get along
Hi do you have a reference of some sort to prove that online poker forum usage is in decline? It is just that i am currently doing an assignment for my uni and this would be very helpful.