Why people do not get TwoPlusTwo.
The recent banning of Daniel Negreanu from the TwoPlusTwo forums has brought this rant about why people (and smart people) just dont get TwoPlusTwo (2p2).
Let me preface this post by telling a bit of my 2p2 story. I was lucky enough to find 2p2 from the early days I lurked for years and then finally made a post in early 2003, finding 2p2 changed the course of my life.
Literally. (To read more of how I found 2p2 read: My Poker Story here.)
I have learned a lot about the internet by watching the forum grow over the years. Under the UBB format (launched in Sept 2002), I am registered member 2620 and I believe 2p2 has well over 250,000 registered users now and has moved well beyond poker (maybe poker has moved on at the same time.)
The TwoPlusTwo community has become so big that it is mapped on the internet.
Here is what everyone frequently forgets:
2p2 is a business.
Yes, that’s right, it’s a business. And we all know businesses can do whatever they want with their properties. Which means that posting on 2p2 is a privilege, not a right, and with privileges comes respect for the rules.
While the forum is fairly free to post anything from anyone when you register you agree to the Terms and Conditions. The T&C of 2p2 is set up to protect it’s business. Looking at the T&C you can clearly see that posts made to promote businesses are not allowed.
When you have a business (and I have several) and you are part of a community (like 2p2) it’s hard not to promote your business. I have been guilty of it in the past. I know many others have as well. But in all honesty you have to be extremely naive to get banned from 2p2. They are really easy to work with. That’s right, I said it, EASY. They’ll give you warnings, they will communicate you, and when they make a decision, you have to respect it.
It’s not that hard to understand.
@twoplustwoforum spammed vlog? You nuts? My vlog appeared there for 4 straight weeks. Thread called “Daniels vlog” and can’t post a vlog lol
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) March 21, 2012
While Daniel’s Vlog has been posted on 2p2, it was posted by fans of his.. Daniel needs to stop pretending he did not know what he was doing, just read the T&C, and thank 2p2 for the warning honestly.
If 2p2 allowed posters to promote their businesses, they would lose business, two fold. Their advertisers would not pay to advertise and the forums and would be run over by spam. Daniel remembers the days of Rec.Gambling.Poker, he knows how an unmoderated forum can be run over.
It’s not that hard.
Most posts on forms of social media have an underlying motive that has to do with business or ego.
Why do you think I made this one? 
Thanks for reading,
Joe
March 23rd, 2012 at 2:51 PM
Good post Joe. I’ve experienced similar on 2p2 in my years operating as a user/player/business.
“When you have a business (and I have several) and you are part of a community (like 2p2) it’s hard not to promote your business. I have been guilty of it in the past. I know many others have as well. But in all honesty you have to be extremely naive to get banned from 2p2. They are really easy to work with. That’s right, I said it, EASY. They’ll give you warnings, they will communicate you, and when they make a decision, you have to respect it.
It’s not that hard to understand.”
Particularly well said.
March 23rd, 2012 at 2:52 PM
Thanks Ryan, appreciated.
Hope all is well,
Joe
March 24th, 2012 at 7:01 AM
Disagree, there was no need to ban him whatsoever anyone associated with that decision could have seen the reaction coming a mile away. If that’s what the T&C say then they are wrong and bad for the community. If DN stops posting at 2p2 it is a worse place albeit only marginally so, scale that decision across other situations and it is a real problem that doesn’t benefit the community. While 2p2 is a business it exists because of their community and therefore should make decisions that benefit when it isn’t at the expense of the business (and probably even at the expense of it’s business if you use Digg as a case study). There would never be an advertiser who wouldn’t use 2p2 because sometimes they ban spammers and sometimes just remove the post depending on who it is.
March 24th, 2012 at 7:42 AM
2p2 is much bigger than DN.
You can see some of the actual 2p2 numbers that Mason Malmuth posted about 2p2 (and DN) here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=32225655&postcount=305
Thanks for your comments,
Joe
March 24th, 2012 at 8:19 AM
Well yea I addressed that, a bad decision is a bad decision that’s what we are talking about here no? Bring this mentality to other decisions now you have a real problem. If you aren’t familiar with the story of the Digg rage out these kind of decisions can have a huge impact:
http://www.michikono.com/2007/05/01/the-full-digg-scandal-summary/
The advertising aspect to 2p2′s business is beholden to its community, it would be a good policy to put the community first. Given there is a ~500 post thread in ATF clearly this is meaningful to a subset of the community (even if it is small relative to the rest of the forum). It was a -EV move that reflects a larger mentality of the forum administration (of which I am a part of), maybe it’s a small enough problem to not matter yet but at some point it might not be and that would be a shame.
March 24th, 2012 at 8:27 AM
While the Digg story is interesting I do not feel it is a good example but I also dont have time to outline why.
As for the EV, hopefully you read Mason’s comments about it as well:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=32223629&postcount=281
March 24th, 2012 at 9:01 AM
Mason does not address the fact that he could have simply deleted the post and everyone would have been better off.
March 24th, 2012 at 2:02 PM
After all that PokerStars invited people from 2+2 to work together on a solution for their rake and other change you guys just kick out their main name. So, there wasnt some other solution to make him silent? The new seriff in da house…wowowo
March 24th, 2012 at 5:46 PM
You are right, I will never get this (what you said that is, as it makes little sense, sorry.)