Suggestion: Gambling > Gambling Awareness board

[KingsDen]

I have read where people complain how their topics are being locked or at worse scenario trashed by moderators in the gambling discussion sub board. I will only say the moderation in that sub board should be done with leniency and not to create further board(s).

If you check around bitcoin discussion board you will see similar topics as "How much do you invest", "Not your keys not your coins", "Invest what you can afford to lose". All these are bitcoin investment awareness. But is there a special board for theatre.

[NotATether]

A gambling awareness board is not a good solution - it will quickly be flooded by spam.

A stickied gambling awareness thread on the other hand, is a much better idea. Ideally it should be on the Gambling board itself and locked so that nobody can comment on it, with a headline reading something like: "Gamble responsibly. Don't gamble what you can't afford to lose" and has links to other gambling awareness sites.

[Little Mouse]

An addict will not admit if he's an addict, even he's aware about it, he doesn't want to stop gambling.

You are wrong. There are thousands of people who have been a gambling addicted, confess them and trying to recover from this. Many has recovered them too. You should know the existence of such forum like gamcare.org, visit the platform. You will find a lot of gambling addicts who want to recover them from this addiction. Some gets success, some failed. Most of the addicts want to quit gambling but they can't. It's not necessary to quit gambling but it's necessary to quit the addiction.
I still think having such a board would be very much helpful.

[BenCodie]

A gambling awareness board is not a good solution - it will quickly be flooded by spam.

A stickied gambling awareness thread on the other hand, is a much better idea. Ideally it should be on the Gambling board itself and locked so that nobody can comment on it, with a headline reading something like: "Gamble responsibly. Don't gamble what you can't afford to lose" and has links to other gambling awareness sites.

My problems with this are:
1. No one will read the thread or check it for new discussion.
2. This does not allow anyone to give their input or share their experience. Every story and experience is unique, there are also a lot of topics surrounding the broad term that is awareness. Sharing is important for awareness, as is general discussion. Just like testimonials are important for new consumers looking at products. It's the same theory in terms of experience.
3. Discussion on a pinned topic on the other hand will be skewed to one topic that is "gambling is bad" and will not enthuse any form of discussion surrounding gambling. All of those threads listed are examples of different topics surrounding the topic. You can't possibly hold a discussion including all of these topics (and more) in one single pinned post without it being a cluttered and unreadable mess.

Experience is the most valuable thing about the board. Skipping over that and just doing a "gamble responsibly" thread would be a step, but it's not a solution and would hardly make any difference.

The spam problem can be resolved by disabling signatures.

So what you're trying to say is that you want a specific board for, like, a support group for gambling addicts, and those willing to help will post there along with the posters that are experiencing problems with gambling, right? It will be like the Serious discussion and Ivory tower type of things.

Why not include it in the serious discussion? It could benefit those trying to change and be aware of their addictions.

I have never said that this is a support group for gambling addicts. I have never said it is meant for people to help people experiencing problems either. Have you even read any of my posts?

It does not belong in Serious discussion. It belongs in the gambling section. The point of awareness is discussing the other side of gambling and being aware of it. That is a VERY broad topic, hence the suggestion for a board. Discussion and sharing experiences are two things that increase awareness, and only a board is capable of enabling both discussion and sharing experiences in an organized way that people will actually read.

Again - This idea is not to stop people from gambling, only the individual themselves can do that. The board does not seek to influence behavior, it seeks raise awareness of the negative effects of gambling, which currently those boards not only don't do, but lock all threads relating to the subject (which in my opinion is irresponsible, even if it is due to signature posting).

If the idea is just to convey the dangers of gambling addiction, then a board is not necessary.
A well constructed and pinned topic at the top will be more than enough for this.

Why don't you develop a good thread on the topic, and ask the moderator to pin it?

I've said countless times that this is not a sole focus or effort for "prevention" or to post strictly about "addiction". Awareness is a very broad topic, hence the board. All of those threads that I listed discuss an aspect that raises awareness. A lot of those topics are different. They are not all the same, if any of them are at all.


I'd appreciate if people actually read posts before posting the same thing that has been answered more than once. I'll edit the OP with answers to these continually repeated questions later.

[BenCodie]

@BenCodie, even with warnings and flashy signs, the last thing I would do, if I am a compulsive gambler is to go to Bitcointalk and visit the gambling awareness board just to seek for help.

What I should be doing instead is to consult the support of the site in question and request them to apply a self-exclusion or do it by myself. And to a certain extent, some support staff from the casino I represent do offer therapy sessions for those that are struggling to control themselves.

Even with self-exclusion features becoming more common on casinos, with existing disclaimers, people still gamble and to a certain extent, open multiple accounts just to fuel their addiction.

Sigh

The purpose of the board is not for compulsive gamblers to go and seek help. I have already stated (in multiple posts) the purpose of the board. If you are not reading all of the posts, then don't post at all.


Added the following to the OP so people who don't actually read posts can understand the idea without misconstruing it, as so many have throughout this thread.

Edit: This elaboration seems important as I have repeated myself quite often to people stating that have concluded (somehow) that the primary and only purpose of this board is to be anti-gambling, a support group for self-admitted problem gamblers. This is far from accurate and is not at all the primary/sole purpose of the Gambling Awareness board.

Some purposes of this board can include:
1. Discussing the factual negative sides of gambling generally, a side that is currently not possible to be discussed anywhere in the gambling board without your thread being locked due to "signature spam" that is apparently prevalent in these kinds of topics (solution: signatures disabled in this new sub-forum so that all discussion is non-incentivized and genuine).
2. To house the abundance of unique topics relating to gambling awareness, some examples include the long list I've provided in this thread (There are well over 30 topics listed below). You can not possibly merge all of these unique topics into one sticky topic (as some people have suggested is enough)
3. To provide food for thought for people who do regularly gamble when reading other peoples experiences and posts in the wide variety of topics that stem from the points above.
4. Ultimately, to balance the scale of the bitcointalk gambling forum. Right now, casinos have 100% dominance in the scale that is "pro gambling" and "anti gambling". This balance can be set to about 75% pro gambling and 25% anti gambling (via awareness NOT by pure anti-gambling discussion).
- There are probably many more positives that will arise over time than the above. These are just some examples.

To those who have repeated "it will just be full of signature spammers" - I have stated multiple times (including in the original OP) that signatures would be disabled to solve this problem.

Key takeaways:
- Signature spam problem will be resolved as signatures will be disabled in the board.
- There are many topics other than "stop gambling" or "be aware of the dangers of gambling" which is why one sticky topic labeling the dangers of gambling is not enough to fulfill the same purposes that a dedicated board would.
- This board is not designed to be a support group for self-admitted problem gamblers and it is not designed to "put an end" to people gambling. The purposes stated above are only some of what could be included/some of the purposes of the board and do not relate to this falsely perceived objective.

[crwth]

So what you're trying to say is that you want a specific board for, like, a support group for gambling addicts, and those willing to help will post there along with the posters that are experiencing problems with gambling, right? It will be like the Serious discussion and Ivory tower type of things.

Why not include it in the serious discussion? It could benefit those trying to change and be aware of their addictions.

I have never said that this is a support group for gambling addicts. I have never said it is meant for people to help people experiencing problems either. Have you even read any of my posts?

It does not belong in Serious discussion. It belongs in the gambling section. The point of awareness is discussing the other side of gambling and being aware of it. That is a VERY broad topic, hence the suggestion for a board. Discussion and sharing experiences are two things that increase awareness, and only a board is capable of enabling both discussion and sharing experiences in an organized way that people will actually read.

Hmm. Okay, I assumed wrong. That's basically the initial impression. So basically just letting other people know hence awareness. I don't see really the point of another board other than a Gambling discussion. Discussions can cover a lot of topics, and awareness is one of them. I'm not sure why the mods lock it up all the time, but probably it's been discussed multiple times.

The anti-gambling purpose that you have said in the original post might mean to people that they shouldn't gamble and the ones who could say that are the ones who have gambled already. They need people to discuss things like that, and hence the "type of support group" thought comes along.

[BenCodie]

So what you're trying to say is that you want a specific board for, like, a support group for gambling addicts, and those willing to help will post there along with the posters that are experiencing problems with gambling, right? It will be like the Serious discussion and Ivory tower type of things.

Why not include it in the serious discussion? It could benefit those trying to change and be aware of their addictions.

I have never said that this is a support group for gambling addicts. I have never said it is meant for people to help people experiencing problems either. Have you even read any of my posts?

It does not belong in Serious discussion. It belongs in the gambling section. The point of awareness is discussing the other side of gambling and being aware of it. That is a VERY broad topic, hence the suggestion for a board. Discussion and sharing experiences are two things that increase awareness, and only a board is capable of enabling both discussion and sharing experiences in an organized way that people will actually read.

Hmm. Okay, I assumed wrong. That's basically the initial impression. So basically just letting other people know hence awareness. I don't see really the point of another board other than a Gambling discussion. Discussions can cover a lot of topics, and awareness is one of them. I'm not sure why the mods lock it up all the time, but probably it's been discussed multiple times.

The anti-gambling purpose that you have said in the original post might mean to people that they shouldn't gamble and the ones who could say that are the ones who have gambled already. They need people to discuss things like that, and hence the "type of support group" thought comes along.

The discussions I listed have no duplicates as far as I am aware. At least most of them don't.
I said in the OP that anti-gambling was not a primary purpose. Nor was support group. I don't think people are going to be discussing their feelings and supporting others to stop. I think they will be sharing their individual experiences and participating in whatever the subject of the topic is, which will probably be similar to one of the 30 topics I listed in the OP.

[stompix]

Let me tell you why creating a board for this is, well, going overboard!  
I'm willing to bet that over 95% of the posters in the gambling sections are not gamblers at all, and I seriously doubt that the majority would even be able to make a bet if it's more than one click and the odds are British odds like 6/4 , 13/2.

If you create a signature disabled board it will be a ghost town, you can speak with the mods to allow a self-moderated topic and keep it clean and you're going to see the results of it, because not only it will mean they need to not shitpost, they might not get paid for it but also take the risks of angering their campaign manager by having a negative attitude towards gambling and get excluded.
The other tricky part is, do you think there are members here with enough power of persuasion that would be able to really do something effective for people who have fallen to gambling addiction or are on the path of doing so? I'm a small gambler myself and I avoid completely the gambling section cause it's pure crap, but I know enough real-life gamblers who have destroyed their life, and hours of advice and begging from their families haven't changed a thing one few posts on a board is nothing.

Oh, and one more thing, just because you see tens of topics opened about gambling problems, it doesn't mean each one of them is real and not another way of fishing for some merit or increasing the weekly quota. Read them again and look at the OP history before taking all those stories seriously!

[BenCodie]

Let me tell you why creating a board for this is, well, going overboard!   
I'm willing to bet that over 95% of the posters in the gambling sections are not gamblers at all, and I seriously doubt that the majority would even be able to make a bet if it's more than one click and the odds are British odds like 6/4 , 13/2.

If you create a signature disabled board it will be a ghost town, you can speak with the mods to allow a self-moderated topic and keep it clean and you're going to see the results of it, because not only it will mean they need to not shitpost, they might not get paid for it but also take the risks of angering their campaign manager by having a negative attitude towards gambling and get excluded.
The other tricky part is, do you think there are members here with enough power of persuasion that would be able to really do something effective for people who have fallen to gambling addiction or are on the path of doing so? I'm a small gambler myself and I avoid completely the gambling section cause it's pure crap, but I know enough real-life gamblers who have destroyed their life, and hours of advice and begging from their families haven't changed a thing one few posts on a board is nothing.

Oh, and one more thing, just because you see tens of topics opened about gambling problems, it doesn't mean each one of them is real and not another way of fishing for some merit or increasing the weekly quota. Read them again and look at the OP history before taking all those stories seriously!

It's not going overboard, it's doing something responsible.

Let me ask you something then. Why would they not have a dime for more than one click/bet if they are being paid weekly for their signature campaign? Gambling?

A lot of what you said seems very well said, though just like I said to another user
1. Who exactly are you to say or know all of these things for a fact? Do you have data to support these claims? That's rhetorical. The board has never been made so whether or not the board will be a ghost town with signatures disabled or not is an unknown and always will be until it is seen in practice. Any assumptions like yours and others are mere baseless speculation. I on the other hand have compiled 30+ threads that fit there with hundreds of posts in them that contradicts this baseless point, and as said in the OP this is only scratching the surface. Whether or not these threads/posters are all "fishing for merit" or "reaching their quota" is irrelevant because people clearly do that in other boards too, and these are posts nonetheless. You can't conclude that every single person who posted these threads and within them are just making up their posts to fish for merit or reach their quota. That's absurd.
2. Even if it is a "ghost town", who cares? The point is to highlight the negative effects of gambling period and have an avenue for discussion for anyone that wants to participate. As said, there are already 30 threads that fit there and about 60 more from glossing over my searches. Almost all of them are unique, have plenty of posters within them and all of them are locked. It's simply not a reason to scratch a valid idea especially if the problem, being signature spamming, will be resolved if signatures are disabled in the new board.

The other tricky part is, do you think there are members here with enough power of persuasion that would be able to really do something effective for people who have fallen to gambling addiction or are on the path of doing so? I'm a small gambler myself and I avoid completely the gambling section cause it's pure crap, but I know enough real-life gamblers who have destroyed their life, and hours of advice and begging from their families haven't changed a thing one few posts on a board is nothing.

This has nothing to do with persuasion or getting people to stop. Persuasion, quitting, support etc are all one step further ahead of awareness. A deluded gambler is not aware until he/she reads or hears something that gets him/her to think about what the are doing. If you have the avenue there for a potential thing to be read that raises awareness, then there is a chance a positive outcome could be made. If it's not there, that possibility is eliminated. It doesn't matter how small or large you think that possibility is, the point is that this board will open up that possibility.

[hilariousandco]

I've already found a lot of other topics with the theme of responsible gambling/gambling awareness. Please note that all of these threads are locked for further discussion. Why? A guess is signature spam. I don't know the official reason. This list is only scratching the surface based on my searches.

Because they're shit threads created solely to be shat in much like your how long do you spend gambling thread which has probably been made half a dozen times. A better solution would be just to lock/trash that entire board instead of creating a Gambling Awareness board sub.  Go to a Gambling help forum if you want to talk about gambling awareness of addiction or whatnot.

[stompix]

A lot of what you said seems very well said, though just like I said to another user
1. Who exactly are you to say or know all of these things for a fact? Do you have data to support these claims? That's rhetorical.

And who are you and where is your data?
Where are your facts, where are your numbers, where is your expertise, where is your notarized and published study?
You're just like any other around here, a user with an opinion, nothing else, and that opinion of yours can be wrong, have you thought of it?

The board has never been made so whether or not the board will be a ghost town with signatures disabled or not is an unknown and always will be until it is seen in practice. Any assumptions like yours and others are mere baseless speculation.

That's why I said to test it, but we could make this speculation more interesting with a bet on the outcome!
Since this is about gambling, care to put some money where your opinion is?

You can't conclude that every single person who posted these threads and within them are just making up their posts to fish for merit or reach their quota. That's absurd.

I could still bet on 95% of it, and I could still win! Why do you think those topics were locked in the first place?

If you're that interested in researching topics, you could do something interesting for example.
Look at the profile of those users, and then search if in all their gambling posts, be it 10 or 1000, have they at least once mentioned some odds or god forbid a multi bet! You're going to be surprised!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Random pic from those topics, tell me what's the ratio of gambling talk to fan gossip?  

[BenCodie]

I've already found a lot of other topics with the theme of responsible gambling/gambling awareness. Please note that all of these threads are locked for further discussion. Why? A guess is signature spam. I don't know the official reason. This list is only scratching the surface based on my searches.

Because they're shit threads created solely to be shat in much like your how long do you spend gambling thread which has probably been made half a dozen times. A better solution would be just to lock/trash that entire board instead of creating a Gambling Awareness board sub.

Look, I'm not going to comment on what you've said or the way you've said it. Feel free to drop the thread links of these duplicate threads because I searched both before and after the thread was locked and didn't find a duplicate. Unless the search functionality is not working as it should, I didn't find a duplicate.

I've already found a lot of other topics with the theme of responsible gambling/gambling awareness. Please note that all of these threads are locked for further discussion. Why? A guess is signature spam. I don't know the official reason. This list is only scratching the surface based on my searches.

Go to a Gambling help forum if you want to talk about gambling awareness of addiction or whatnot.

Gambling is endorsed to its maximum here. The imbalance is here. I'm not looking for a place to talk about gambling awareness or addiction. I've pointed out a flaw in the gambling board here and I'm suggesting a solution.

Right now would you agree or disagree that topics relating to the negatives about gambling are disallowed by the technicality of assumed signature spamming?

A lot of what you said seems very well said, though just like I said to another user
1. Who exactly are you to say or know all of these things for a fact? Do you have data to support these claims? That's rhetorical.

And who are you and where is your data?
Where are your facts, where are your numbers, where is your expertise, where is your notarized and published study?
You're just like any other around here, a user with an opinion, nothing else, and that opinion of yours can be wrong, have you thought of it?

My data is the pre-existing threads. So, where is yours?

Yes I understand my opinion could be wrong just as much as yours or anyone elses could be, that is why this is a discussion and the topic title says "suggestion". Doesn't mean I'm wrong though. I've provided basis, you haven't. Awareness/statement of negatives is becoming a norm, even a requirement on casinos. I think that's enough to validate my opinion enough to talk about the idea, alongside the existing threads that are (in my opinion) fine topics and are locked for a reason that this board suggestion will resolve if implemented.

The board has never been made so whether or not the board will be a ghost town with signatures disabled or not is an unknown and always will be until it is seen in practice. Any assumptions like yours and others are mere baseless speculation.

That's why I said to test it, but we could make this speculation more interesting with a bet on the outcome!
Since this is about gambling, care to put some money where your opinion is?

What about people who keep their gambling private? I doubt many people post many of their bets in the forum to begin with. It's a wager where the outcome does not have reliable data. It'd be silly to take it.

You can't conclude that every single person who posted these threads and within them are just making up their posts to fish for merit or reach their quota. That's absurd.

I could still bet on 95% of it, and I could still win! Why do you think those topics were locked in the first place?

If you're that interested in researching topics, you could do something interesting for example.
Look at the profile of those users, and then search if in all their gambling posts, be it 10 or 1000, have they at least once mentioned some odds or god forbid a multi bet! You're going to be surprised!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Random pic from those topics, tell me what's the ratio of gambling talk to fan gossip? 

The topics were locked probably because of signature spam. I'm not commenting further on that topic. It's also easy to get a screen grab and skew it to suit yourself. It's also pretty unrelated for the reason I said in the previous part of this post.

This all aside, the signature spam debate was over the moment that it was recommended for the board to have signatures disabled. Talking about what peoples motives were in the past is something that can't be determined accurately. Only the board will be able to give the answer.

[hilariousandco]

Look, I'm not going to comment on what you've said or the way you've said it. Feel free to drop the thread links of these duplicate threads because I searched both before and after the thread was locked and didn't find a duplicate. Unless the search functionality is not working as it should, I didn't find a duplicate.

I'm not going to waste time trying to find them as most of the truly terrible ones get sent straight to the trash but I can tell you from personal experience I've seen multiple threads asking some variation of how much time do you spend gambling. It's completely unnecessary and it just invites lazy shitposters. People will find a way to squeeze every possible permutation of something into a thread somehow vaguely related to gambling and I can't even begin to tell you how many nonsense threads I've trashed from there.  Some of them are beyond ridiculous: does your mother/children/wife/grandparents know you gamble. All we need now is 'pets' to complete the combo.

[BenCodie]

Look, I'm not going to comment on what you've said or the way you've said it. Feel free to drop the thread links of these duplicate threads because I searched both before and after the thread was locked and didn't find a duplicate. Unless the search functionality is not working as it should, I didn't find a duplicate.

I'm not going to waste time trying to find them as most of the truly terrible ones get sent straight to the trash but I can tell you from personal experience I've seen multiple threads asking some variation of how much time do you spend gambling. It's completely unnecessary and it just invites lazy shitposters. People will find a way to squeeze every possible permutation of something into a thread somehow vaguely related to gambling and I can't even begin to tell you how many nonsense threads I've trashed from there.  Some of them are beyond ridiculous: does your mother/children/wife/grandparents know you gamble. All we need now is 'pets' to complete the combo.

That topic in the gambling awareness board would inevitably make at least some people who aren't there to shitpost think about how much time they are spending gambling. Just like "how many times have you chosen gambling over family" or "do you have any other hobbies aside from gambling". You might call these shit posts, I would call these good food for thought that might make at least one person think twice about about their habit and make a positive change.

The only reason to shitpost or find every possible permutation in these threads would be signature spam, so the answer is to trash and lock these threads completely and block out all discussion that provides this food for thought instead of giving them a section where there is no incentive to shitpost and the problem of signature spam is alleviated?

[joker_josue]

I'm not against the idea, I just don't think it has any practical effect. And the content that would be posted there could be done in other sections of the forum.

Having a "gambling awareness" area in the middle of the betting area, it's the same as if you arrive at a casino and the doorman asks if it's your first time, and if you're going to tell the person first to go through the beautiful awareness office that It's in the middle of the casino. It just says to go there, and it's up to the person to decide to go there or not. The measure ends up having a minimal effect, because for those who should serve, did not read what they should read.

This is like drugs, everyone knows that consuming drugs is harmful to health. Even so, millions of people, despite knowing it and its ill effects, continue to get involved in the drug.

[Welsh]

My problems with this are:
1. No one will read the thread or check it for new discussion.

That's probably true, but even then if you look at stickied threads, they generally get a lot more views than the average thread in a section. Then, you're relying on users to visit the new gambling awareness section, and actually click on various threads instead of one. Plus, I know it's probably a good idea to give people an idea about the risks associated with gambling, I don't think it's a broad enough topic to actually have ongoing discussion to justify it.

2. This does not allow anyone to give their input or share their experience. Every story and experience is unique, there are also a lot of topics surrounding the broad term that is awareness. Sharing is important for awareness, as is general discussion. Just like testimonials are important for new consumers looking at products. It's the same theory in terms of experience.

Most of the common pitfalls aren't unique, and it would just be a rehashed version of someone's story, but fundamentally the way they got hurt or whatever would be the same.

3. Discussion on a pinned topic on the other hand will be skewed to one topic that is "gambling is bad" and will not enthuse any form of discussion surrounding gambling. All of those threads listed are examples of different topics surrounding the topic. You can't possibly hold a discussion including all of these topics (and more) in one single pinned post without it being a cluttered and unreadable mess.

You aren't going to convince gamblers who would only be visiting the section to gamble or have an interest in gambling that gambling is bad. They've probably already been sucked in. Should they know the risks? Probably so, but they aren't going to activiely search out that every day or week. So, again I think a stickied thread would be the best option.

[Saisher]

I think the gambling discussion board is perfectly fine for it. that board is very broad and a lot of things can be talked about under it as long as it has something to do with gambling or whatever is allowed to be posted on it. I don't really think adding another sub-board in the gambling board is necessary. also, I have a feeling that if "Gambling Awareness board" is created and the signature campaign is disabled it'll just become a dead board.

You are right about disabling the signature, it's ok to have a Gambling Awareness board it will serve people who are hooked to gambling, and by not disabling the signature responsible members will post rich and helpful content, if there are spam members can report it, there are members who are good in giving advice on how to control gambling and including their post in their signature post count, will encourage them to post more and dedicate their forum activity here.

[libert19]

I'd agree. Most of gambling board users appear to be in support of gambling just because they are promoting a casino. I'm bit surprised with poll results though.