OK Ask away

Rod said:

The poker and chat room are both extensions of CP; they do not make up the bulk of the site, or the site's primary focus. I don't have the resources to police every part of the forum; that's why we're a self-moderated community. Maybe it's time we scale back to a community, and forgo the chat and poker room for now. We don't operate like other forums - we actually encourage everyone to speak up with they witness foul play. That's what has always separated CP from the rest.

Click to expand...

Why in the hell is the chat room continuing to get lumped in with this poker fiasco? Why are we getting punished for doing nothing wrong. I will say that every damn guy that participates in the chat room contributes to this community in many fashions. Other than some server problems created by the chat format, I've not heard of a single problem to come from that area. :angry:


EDIT: I won't delete this post because I know that is very frowned upon. I will say however that I let my emotions get away from me for a minute here, and I apologize to Rod for that. I am a chat regular, and have made some good friendships through that part of this community, so it is a hot button issue for me.

Bsneed51 said:

Rod said:

The poker and chat room are both extensions of CP; they do not make up the bulk of the site, or the site's primary focus. I don't have the resources to police every part of the forum; that's why we're a self-moderated community. Maybe it's time we scale back to a community, and forgo the chat and poker room for now. We don't operate like other forums - we actually encourage everyone to speak up with they witness foul play. That's what has always separated CP from the rest.

Click to expand...

Why in the hell is the chat room continuing to get lumped in with this poker fiasco? Why are we getting punished for doing nothing wrong. I will say that every damn guy that participates in the chat room contributes to this community in many fashions. Other than some server problems created by the chat format, I've not heard of a single problem to come from that area. :angry:

Click to expand...

I completely understand if Flashchat was causing issues with the server. An IRC channel (Bob suggested irc.cigarpass.com) however wouldn't be intensive at all, and those of us who have been long time CP chat regulars could still remain part of the community.

Some of my brethren are feeling like they are being exiled right now. I'd hate to see chat and Cigarpass become two separate communities.

Bsneed51 said:

Rod said:

The poker and chat room are both extensions of CP; they do not make up the bulk of the site, or the site's primary focus. I don't have the resources to police every part of the forum; that's why we're a self-moderated community. Maybe it's time we scale back to a community, and forgo the chat and poker room for now. We don't operate like other forums - we actually encourage everyone to speak up with they witness foul play. That's what has always separated CP from the rest.

Click to expand...

Why in the hell is the chat room continuing to get lumped in with this poker fiasco? Why are we getting punished for doing nothing wrong. I will say that every damn guy that participates in the chat room contributes to this community in many fashions. Other than some server problems created by the chat format, I've not heard of a single problem to come from that area. :angry:


EDIT: I won't delete this post because I know that is very frowned upon. I will say however that I let my emotions get away from me for a minute here, and I apologize to Rod for that. I am a chat regular, and have made some good friendships through that part of this community, so it is a hot button issue for me.

Click to expand...

Rod, I've not heard anyone suggest that you begin policing the chat room. I would venture to say that the Chat Room is very efficiently self-moderated, and does not require you to be present to protect us from ne'er-do-wells who may enter the chat room.

While I concur that a more-efficient chat service may be required to avoid resource contentions on the main Cigarpass server, if you elect to discontinue hosting CP Chat on the CP servers, we will happily continue outsourcing it ourselves.

Rod: For the amount of time you have spent with us in the chat room I am surprised to hear you say you want to discontinue it permanently, even if a low bandwidth option like IRC is available.

Why are you guys so sensitive about the chatroom being removed? Bottom line is it's a resource hog. If you have a problem with me taking the chatroom down, PM me and I'll gladly talk to you. It won't be coming back anytime soon; as I've stated several times now, it's a resource intense application, and I am not going to continue wasting my time having to bring the server back up every time the chatroom kills it, not to mention risking another corrupt database. I have no problem with you guys "outsourcing" chat. If there is a more server-friendly chat application, I will evaluate at that time and make the decision whether or not to reinstate it.

As for the poker room - there are clearly some issues there that need to resolved.

I think some of you guys tend to forget, CP is a free service; if you're not happy with the fact that chat and the poker room may be going away, I really don't know what to tell you. Those two services were nothing but an added bonus to our community. Once again, the cost to keep chat running is not worth the time, money or effort involved - I really hope that makes sense... As for poker, I've already explained my reasoning for possibly eliminating it.

Rod said:

Why are you guys so sensitive about the chatroom being removed? Bottom line is it's a resource hog. If you have a problem with me taking the chatroom down, PM me and I'll gladly talk to you. It won't be coming back anytime soon; as I've stated several times now, it's a resource intense application, and I am not going to continue wasting my time having to bring the server back up every time the chatroom kills it, not to mention risking another corrupt database. I have no problem with you guys "outsourcing" chat. If there is a more server-friendly chat application, I will evaluate at that time and make the decision whether or not to reinstate it.

Click to expand...

Rod, no one has a problem with you removing Flashchat. If it's causing problems with the board, it should go.

I'm personally just not sure I want to see chat "outsourced". That is your decision however, but it is what many of us call home here. To remove it from CP altogether brings concerns of it cutting ties with the CP community and being a community of its own.

If you're really willing to discuss other options for chat on CP, a bunch of us have been looking at options and would love to do some more research and talk about it. If you are just trying to humor us I understand that too, but we'd like to know how serious you are about exploring other options.

We'll be in touch. :laugh:

Rod said:

I think some of you guys tend to forget, CP is a free service; if you're not happy with the fact that chat and the poker room may be going away, I really don't know what to tell you. Those two services were nothing but an added bonus to our community. Once again, the cost to keep chat running is not worth the time, money or effort involved - I really hope that makes sense... As for poker, I've already explained my reasoning for possibly eliminating it.

Click to expand...

I disagree. CP is not a free service... it is a money making venture for you, with advertisers paying you for ads here. Why do they pay for ads? Because people use these forums. CP is not a free service, it is actually a business that works because people visit this site -- even if it is only a marginal or "break even" revenue stream in terms of server bandwidth, admin time, etc.

People visit this site in large part because of the contributions from the community. The reference threads, the cigar reviews, the idle banter, and so on and so forth are what bring people here, and community keeps people here. Advertising works because of the people who are here.

Pursuant to that, the two services you've mentioned were not just a bonus to the community, they were other things that brought people here. If you offer something, then take it away from people, they will be unhappy. It's human nature.

Make people too unhappy, and they go away. In that way, it's arguable that failing to provide these services could affect readership and contentment among the user base here, which could affect advertising impressions that you can sell.

I'd suggest you look into implementing the chat that mibit.com uses:

http://mibbit.com/widget.html

It should use very few "resources", and very little bandwidth. Not trying to be haughty here, Rod, just realistic about the situation -- and I'm by no means suggesting that CP is a huge revenue generator, just that "free service" isn't quite right. You will do what you feel is best, of course.

Put the same limitations on the poker room as are on the Buy/Sell/Trade room. Maybe it will help, maybe not, but at least it's an attempt at doing something before shit canning it altogether.

I don't see how that could possibly be seen as unfair to anyone that actually wants to be a part of CP or anyone that plays there already and isn't a welcher.

This may be a business of some sort, but it doesn't cost anyone that uses it money. I certainly don't see myself as a "customer" of CP. Ultimately, this is Rod's ship. It's his decision.

EDITED TO ADD: I really don't think it's unfair for those that don't play poker to comment on it. It's a part of this site as much as the Lobby is. If there were problems in the Pipe Room and someone made a comment about it that's never visited I wouldn't be up in arms about it. We are all entitled to opine about the goings on here.

LilBastage said:

This may be a business of some sort, but it doesn't cost anyone that uses it money. I certainly don't see myself as a "customer" of CP. Ultimately, this is Rod's ship. It's his decision.

Click to expand...

Television doesn't cost anyone who uses it money either -- but it is still very much a business... supported by advertising. Eyeballs are everything in advertising-driven businesses, thus my conjecture of why these additional services might be more than just peripheral to CP.

Again, I'm by no means comparing CP to a TV station in terms of its commercial driven nature. I am not privy to the pecuniary nature of CP, but if I had to guess, the advertising probably just pays for the bandwidth, and sometimes, Rod's time.

I agree with you, it is Rod's decision, and I think he has excellent judgement, and will do what he feels is the right thing to do. However I think it's also important to make sure he's aware of all facets of this discussion.

I beg to differ with you Moki. CP is not a business, and I'll assure you any money brought in from the sponsors does not cover all of costs of running the site. The chatroom only started becoming popular about a year and a half ago. It's an added cost (and headache) that simply isn't necessary, and definitely is not what makes CP a community. If there was no money coming in from the sponsorship, I would still run this site; I really don't care if that means paying for 100% of the bills with no monetary support - bottom line is it's a passion and hobby that I love doing (been doing it for over 8 years now). Money is absolutely no encouraging factor to keeping CP going, absolutely none at all. CP and TV are two entirely different animals.

The community is successful because of the fact that it's not over-moderated, we have just the right amount of forum categories, and the member contributions as you pointed out. ~98% of the members did not use chat, the other ~2% did. There are many long standing members who still contribute a lot of useful information, who never used chat. If 2% of the membership left CP all together simply because the chatroom (which was reinstated about 2 years ago and became popular only 1 1/2 years ago) was eliminated, that would mean those members were not true members of the community; only their own community (ie: chatroom). I know that's not the case; all of the members I've seen in the chatroom were active in the forums as well, so I find it hard to swallow that they would all leave. If they left simply because the chatroom was eliminated, that would be a clear indication that chat meant more to them than the community itself; I doubt that's the case. As I've stated before, I will pursue other chat options, however I am in no hurry at this time as I have other more important upgrades to work on.

Too bad this thread has strayed so far off track.

I will be in touch with the guys from the poker room to help resolve the debt issues, and we will work on rules as well as a "blacklist".

EDIT TO ADD: One more note, if CP were a business and I wanted to draw revenue from the traffic, you would see a ton more ads in various locations, in addition to Google text ad's (adwords). I could rake in a ton from the traffic that CP generates; never been my motive to do so, nor will it ever, simply not my intent nor is it necessary.