Who thinks the dispute thread should be incorporated into the main room here?

JayC · Nov 27, 2004

This forum was set up to talk about sportsbooks and the offshore industry. It says underneathe it "praise, *****, and moan."

For years all disputes were handeled in here in plain site, it was only recently that disputes were buried. I say bringthem back here. Who agrees with me?

(Also, most recently it has been moved to the absolute bottom of the main meny, you can't even see the latest thread on your way to the offshore forum.)

ChuckSims · Nov 27, 2004

Jay, Only disputes with RX advertisers are moved. All others stay put. I think they should all be seen here but I assume it was a business decision.

charleslanger · Nov 27, 2004

There's the problem of slanderous disputes w/o merit--

Noreaga+ · Nov 27, 2004

if you're going to put disputes buried in another folder, then bury the compliments too.. dont let the compliments stand but not the disputes.

Doug · Nov 27, 2004

It ain't buried, it's viewable ! The bigger problem is everything thrown into "offshore". People put it here so it's seen, I've come to accept that. There's a folder for it, it seperates RX books ( many I dislike) from others. I have no great problem with it !

RPM · Nov 27, 2004

i agree with you. bad idea in my opinion to not allow dispute threads to stand.

posters are smart enough to tell the scams from the legitamate issues.

wilheim · Nov 27, 2004

This is a sensative issue for all the moderators, believe it or not no one likes to move threads at all. The problem we have is almost all the disputes can be easily handled by General or one of the other moderators without a lot of book bashing. The Rx. especially General has developed a very good line of communication with all of our advertiser books. We all have contacts at every advertiser book - a simple Email before posting will almost always solve the problem, if not then feel free to post Offshore that moderator assistance did not help.

Anyone needing moderator assistsance feel free to contact any of us:

Fishhead- Strutnut@aol.com
General- Generalpete@hotmail.com
BUCSFAN- bew47710@aol.com
WIL- person19481950@yahoo.com

I know there are other mods but I think these 4 handle disputes.

wil.

DarrylParsons · Nov 27, 2004

If I were running a professional shop like Pinnacle I would LOVE to have someone try to slander me in a high-traffic forum. Why? Because I know lots of well respected and intelligent posters will come to my defense and essentially create free advertising for me. OTOH if I were running a mediocre shop I'd be worried about my mediocrity getting exposed.

Fishhead · Nov 27, 2004

Jay-
Respect your opinion and thoughts on this issue.

The owners and the mods here hashed this out for quite sometime before deciding on a final decision, and currently as it stands, we still feel it was the right decision.

One really nice thing about it, one of many, is that it does keep the disputes in an organized format in one single forum with no other threads to weed through and readers can quickly go to that forum.

If one goes to the advertiser dispute fourm right now, they can plainly see every dispute that was initiated in the forum and how it was handled.

A big reason for the move however, as was mentioned, was the many many instances where posters that clearly had agendas against a sportsbook and/or the RX would take advantage of the main forum to bash a book for no reason, just to start trouble.

Having been on this forum pracitcally everyday for numerous hours the past 5 years and seeing this firsthand, I myself feel this is definetly better the way it is handled now..........both for the player and the adverising books themselves.

As Wil mentioned, if ANY player as any problem with any sportsbook, they can contact any of the MODS listed or the SHRINK and we will work together to try and solve their situation.

This goes for NON-ADVERTISING books as well as those that do.

Again Jay, thanks for your opinions, like always they will be considered by the staff here with great respect.

Hope all is well with you and hope you had a super Thanksgiving!

THE SHRINK · Nov 27, 2004

In case you may not have noticed, we do allow posters to complain about sports books in this folder...

However, many times there are disgruntled employees who come in here solely for the purpose of smearing their former sports book...

What we are trying to accomplish is to spare the ones who spend thousands of dollars per month in advertising on this site from being slandered...

For exapmple, so the way it works is if a first time poster comes along and makes a claim that is against one of our sponsors, we immediately move it to the DISPUTE with our ADVERTISERS forum. It's not like this forum doesn't exist just because it isn't here..

It's still on this site for ALL to SEE...

Now if we believe there is MERIT to the dispute, it WILL ALSO be moved back here for all to see especially if the gambler and sports book can't work out their differences...

THE SHRINK

PimpinAintEasyBros · Nov 27, 2004

I can understand "slanderous" complaints but I have seen mere "questions" or just simple criticisms moved very quickly. That seems heavy-handed.

jjgold · Nov 27, 2004

Get rid of them

I do not need to look at scammers here shaking down books

THE SHRINK · Nov 27, 2004

PimpinAintEasyBros said:
I can understand "slanderous" complaints but I have seen mere "questions" or just simple criticisms moved very quickly. That seems heavy-handed.

Pimpin,

I agree with you and if you can think of any specific one, I'll be glad to bring it back...

Our mods try to do their best in determining which ones belong here and I believe that they would not have a problem with your feedback...

Ken

jjgold · Nov 27, 2004

Kenny most of the problems posters have with books have 4 different stories we never get

Books most of the time are correct with disputes

PimpinAintEasyBros · Nov 27, 2004

that sounds fair Shrink. I'll let you know if it happens again. Rather not delve into the past. thanks.

TheGeneral+ · Nov 27, 2004

I don't see a problem as of now. It is challenging for me to fully understand why the topics do not get as much drastic and dramatic feedback now as they did in the offshore room. It has reduced the negativity in here by quite some margin while traffic is growing healthily. Nothing wrong with trying an idea.

Dante · Nov 27, 2004

I have seen this for years on this site where ghosts and disgruntled employees of books will try to slander them in the main forum I have also seen many REAL complaints about books also, why not have it in a separate forum that people can check everyday

...As long as problems are getting handled when Disputes arise, The General and Fishhead have a great experience in handling complaints and from what I read they get fixed fairly fast!

...IMO a separate forum is not that bad an idea....There are separate forums for everything here ( contests, nfl, ncaa etc) so as to keep it more CLEAR, on topic and less cluttered....

JMHO

Groucho · Nov 27, 2004

There are reasonable points made on both sides here. Ultimately, I lean towards Jay's original assertion, that I would like to see any dispute threads front and centre.

I guess my main reason is the obvious one: I want to know if a shop I'm thinking of sending money to is scamming players, pulling bait-and-switches, monkeying with payouts etc. I also want and need to know about the less egregious complaints like clunky websites and odd little policies that are buried in the fine print. I can evaluate the validity of complaints.

Another small point to perhaps consider - if you're interested in an outsiders perspective - is the credibility of theRX itself. People may not want to hear this (although I know the point has been made many times before) but to a lot of my contacts, theRX has long been seen as a being a little too controlled by advertisers. Anything being posted is always first approached with skepticism about who is pulling the strings. "Hiding" disputes certainly only adds to that perception. I know they are not literally hidden - they can still be viewed if you look for them - which I do - but I think you're kidding yourself if you think putting them in a separate folder further down doesn't have an appearance of heavy information control.

JayC · Nov 27, 2004

Im not talking about pure trash posts. I am talking about legitimate complaints and sometimes legitimate criticism. You can really get to know a book by how they handle these situations.

The readers of this forum are smart enough themselves to ferret out the truth.

Fishhead or Shrink,

Why was the dispute forum slid down to another category on the main menu in the past few days? At least when it was under offshore talk I could see the latest thread and if it had changed It doesn't change that often but when I did I knew to look inside.

It seems to me there has been a blatant attempt to bury the thing as deep in the site as possible.

Look at the dialogue in the Royal Sports thread across the street, there is a discussion going on about somethingthat happened. People are expressing their opinions.

THE SHRINK · Nov 27, 2004

Jay,

Your point makes a lot of sense. I will bring your suggestion about placing the DISPUTES forum back up higher to the owners and see if I can get this done...

All of the other mods and I were NOT in agreement for moving it lower to start with...

I believe a Sponsor may have requested it and the owners obliged...

Let's see if I still haver some clout left...

THE SHRINK