Misc WizardOfVegas Forum is Dying

It's as close to free speech as you will find on any gambling forum anywhere in the world. Do we allow child porn? No, but anyone is free to discuss any gambling-related topic they wish here and they will not be banned for it nor will they have their posts removed nor will we edit their posts to misconstrue their message.

This is not true. Say all the bad things you want about us and our forum and we won't interject. Test it right now, go ahead and insult us and our site. Tell us we are the worst and have no idea what we are doing. You won't get banned. You won't get edited. You won't have your post removed. We won't interject. However, if you make false claims on one of our most popular threads, then yes, you can expect us to do a rare interjection to correct those false claims to ensure readers don't get the wrong impression about this site. Please have a look at our post history to see how often we've interjected into threads over the past 2-3 years. Also, our interjections don't limit free speech in any way, unless you are suggesting we ourselves should not be free to speak.

No, we do not edit member posts. If there is spam or a rule violation such as posting a member's phone number, we'll simply replace the offending part with [removed] and you will see a moderator edit timestamp like in this recent example. Even posts that are sanctioned for breaking our rules can be viewed by simply highlighting them (this is by design so that even our moderation does not censor). Any suggestion or insinuation that we edit member posts in a manner that stifles free gambling speech is patently false.

This is 100% false. We have never banned a single member for saying anything bad about us or our forum. In fact, we've only been accused of this once, and that one member could not back it up with any evidence because it was false. Furthermore, we stopped banning members altogether over 3 years ago and have not banned any members since at least 2017.

The same rules apply whether you say something bad about this forum or any forum. Feel free to test this by creating a "GF sucks" thread here. Of course, we would prefer constructive criticism in our Feedback section, but there is nothing stopping you from creating a thread critical of us our our site here.

Correct, what you described is not free speech. However, it also does not describe what we do here.

redietz, we don't know where you are getting your information from, but you are not an active member of this community, and you have a very distorted view about GamblingForums.com.

Again, we invite you to go through our post history, and also to talk to actual active members about our uncensored nature. They will give you a much more accurate representation of our independent, uncensored, and comprehensive nature.

 

We agree that it does not put is in the best light. However, we will not censor a gambling topic if it's legal in some jurisdictions. We will also never cave into pressure to censor a gambling topic. If Advantage Players tell us "remove those kinds of posts or we will not post", then we will still not remove them. That's because GF is a safe space for any gambling topic. It's our main differentiator since day one and we will not corrupt that founding principle even if it costs us pageviews. There are enough gambling forums with heavy moderation and censorship. We're not one of them and never will be.

We have always said from the start that our members can make of this site what they wish. Members are free to outnumber such poor topics with better and more informed topics. However, for that to happen, those more informed members need to post, and we cannot force members to post. So if those that purport to offer better topics refuse to post, then there is not much we can do about it beyond what we already do which is to give everyone a safe space to post, and listen to feedback to improve the site for everyone as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights. We just find it very confusing when we are criticized for having poor topics considering we give those very criticizers the safe space and freedom to add better topics, yet they choose not to.

 

You made several false claims, so we have to interject to correct those false claims as we mentioned we would do up above in the same post you quoted. However, you won't be censored or penalized for doing so, you'll simply be refuted with facts.

We would find that completely dishonest too, as would any reasonable person. Except that never happened. In fact, this is not only completely false, it's frustratingly false because the sheer amount of effort we had to undertake as outsiders in this industry in order to reach those very private yet very well-known individuals was incredibly time-consuming and that work and achievement is trying to be unfairly and undeservedly discredited.

Let us be unequivocally clear. Any well-known Founding Member who is actually saying what you are claiming is lying. Full stop. That's because we know for a fact that every single well-known Founding Member registered here of their own accord after receiving an invitation either from us or from another Founding Member. If they are now embarrassed by that fact and are denying it, then that's on them. However, we will bet any Founding Member $100,000 that we can prove their registration on this site is legitimate. They will need to provide a legal release that we can reveal the e-mails we exchanged, their e-mail address, their IP, and any posts they may have made. But we will back this up with $100,000. Will they?

If what you say is true, then it's a no-brainer and an easy $100,000 for them. Except we are certain they won't take the bet because we know that they are lying, and we know that they know that they are lying.

But feel free to show them this $100,000 bet, and then observe their reaction and excuses when they refuse to take us up on it. That will be your tell about who is telling the truth.

All of our Founding Members are 100% real and registered of their own accord prior to our public launch because they believed in our mission. We stand by that claim 100% and can back it up in any court of law.

We've addressed this time and again and for some reason the same false claims keep getting repeated many years later. We syndicate content via RSS which every major Forum software has built-in. We've had a source link on such posts since the very first syndicated post in order to attribute the source.

If a Forum owner does not understand what they are doing or how their own forum works, then we cannot be blamed for that. We also syndicate our content via RSS and anyone is free to do the same and syndicate our content with a link back like we do. Unlike several other Forum owners, we understand web technology and we understand how our Forums work and we do not blame others for our own mistakes.

That being said, our preference is to not have to syndicate any content and have our members do the posting. However, in the absence of any content in a particular forum, we reserve the right to syndicate content from elsewhere with proper attribution, and any member is free to end that by posting regularly in any such section. Although we should point out that our site has grown since then so we don't need to syndicate much content nowadays.

We fully agree that it's best to build volume and discussion with topics created on our own site by our own members. However, what you described is not stealing. It's syndication. We respect your opinion, but it's not based on facts or laws. We established that many years ago in this thread where Norm (member "Victim") also participated: https://www.gamblingforums.com/threads/hey-assholes.3542/

(By the way, note how that one member in the link above calls us "assholes" in the thread title, and that thread is still up many years later, supporting our assertion to redietz that folks can insult us and criticize us freely.)

Again, it's absolutely not our preference in any way to syndicate content from elsewhere. However, in the absence of posts from members, we reserve the right to do so in order to add content to build up our site, precisely because it's completely legal to do so. However, as demonstrated many times in the past in the few Forums where we posted syndicated content, as soon as the posts from members start, the posting of syndicated content ends. Again, nowadays we don't need to post much syndicated content as our site has grown.

Lastly, both you and Norm are completely wrong that posts made on his Forum are "his" property. Forum owners don't own posts made by their members, they only have a license to display that content. The copyright of a Forum post is always retained by the original author of the post, not the Forum owner. Again, it is not our fault if another Forum owner is ignorant of their own Terms or that pertaining to Forum-related law. We always do our homework which is why we can always backup what we say like we did in that thread about RSS syndication we linked to above. That of course doesn't mean we are never wrong, it just means we don't tend to make uninformed statements since we usually carefully look into matters before we say or do something.

We get that Advantage Players are skeptical by nature and that that skepticism serves them well. However, if folks just gave us the benefit of the doubt instead of shooting first and asking questions later, then we think those same folks would have a very different view about our site as they would be able to properly inform themselves about how we run this site instead of basing their opinion on hearsay. It is clear from the recent posts up above that several people have a completely distorted view of our site and our moderation. This is a perfect example of the saying, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes".

It's also important to note that if anyone is not happy about any aspect of our site, they are free to post about it in our Feedback section and we'll always reply. You can even start a poll to see how other members feel about a certain matter pertaining to this site. We take member feedback very seriously and have made changes to our site based on such polls and member feedback which is how we continuously improve. However, it would likely take more than the opinion of just one member to make a significant change to the site, but you never know how other members will feel about something you object to until you post about it. At the very least, you will get a response from us and we if cannot implement the change you seek at that very moment, we will always give you a reason why and back up what we say and we will never shut down any idea without giving an explanation why as we respect the time our members invest in providing us feedback.

Instead of assuming we are these nefarious operators out to scheme everyone, try the opposite. Give us the benefit of the doubt. See us as the very simple folks we are. We just want to grow our site. Everything we do can be traced back to that single objective. We know that in order to grow our site, we need content to be posted, and for our members to want to add content, we need to provide them with the type of site they want, that is why we always listen to member feedback. We are simple. Not complicated.

So have an open mind and give us another chance. Post suggestions and criticisms in our Feedback section. Help mold this site into the kind of community you want it to be. This is one of the very few sites that will listen.

P.S. We've already moved the Advantage Player sub-forums into their own section outside of the non-Advantage Player sections. The new AP section appears above the rest and is not public so it doesn't get indexed by search engines, which means you don't have to worry about your AP-related posts there making their way onto Google. Now it's up to you folks to fill that AP section with content. We obviously can't do that for you. If you folks have any ideas on how it can be improved, then just leave us Feedback and we'll get right on it so that we give you the type of experience you are looking for. That's all we care about because if our members get what they want, then we get what we want. We're that simple.

 

Keep the following in mind. Today you object to Cock Fighting. Tomorrow someone else objects to something you say. If we start censoring members and picking and choosing which gambling topics our members are allowed to post and which ones are prohibited, then we quickly become that which we specifically launched to differentiate ourselves from and avoid being: every other gambling forum.

There's a better solution: let free informed speech defeat free uninformed speech. Think Cock Fighting is wrong? Post a reply in that thread explaining why. No one gets censored, and everyone gets to see the other more-informed side of the matter.

Keep in mind that the world didn't need just another gambling forum when we launched a few years ago, and it doesn't need one now. What it needed was an independent, comprehensive, and uncensored one, and that's what it got, and will continue to get.

We have stayed true to our founding principles since day one, which is why all you folks know you can always come back to the safety of GF to air your grievances about anything. Of course, we would prefer that you all posted here regularly instead of using it as a gripe site, but we cannot force you to post. We can only listen to your feedback and try to provide you the site you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. We already took the initiative of making the Advantage Play section its own section above all the others, and we're happy to make more changes based on all of you folks' feedback. Be a part of the solution. This is your opportunity to have the kind of gambling community you want.