Why there should be a rule against sharing ANY passwords.

[gefishy]

Ok, I know this is not going to be a popular idea but I am asking you to bear with me on this.

PO is a great site. I have been here for a couple weeks now and have played a few tourneys and gotten to meet some awesome people. In general people here are kind, helpful, and understanding.

I hear people complain all the time about beggars who are looking for money/points/passwords yet we all participate in behavior that encourages it. How many times has any of us given a password on the chat board? I know personally, I have given a BRM pass before and, though it is INCREDIBLY easy to get, I am still not proud of it.

I know we have talked on here numerous times about how frustrating it is that there are so many leaks into our tournaments. Understand that there are members of other sites that are probably having the same conversation about their tournaments. How many of those tournaments have you been to that you didn't "opt in" to? Complaining about our leaks is a little too much like a pot calling a kettle black for my taste. We have an opportunity to be a better site, a high quality site by simply discouraging the sharing of other passwords here.

Apart from giving passwords on here encouraging begging and being hypocritical, there is a monetary consequence here as well. Web domains and site code cost money. I don't have to run a website to know that, though it is a relatively small investment of cash, the time spent creating and running a profitable site is not insignificant. Zab would be the one to ask, but I am sure that the time he spends on his site is quite astounding. As a result, we have a nice site but he has to get paid.

Last I checked, there aren't any members who are simply writing Zab out checks each month to run his site. Zab, like other site admins, get paid by the surveys we take, tasks we complete, and videos we watch. This money allows him to put on free-roll tourneys, encourage site growth, and keep the site looking amazing. When his password is leaked, no matter how insignificant the leak may seem, that takes money directly out of Zab's pocket. It is exponentially worse when a thief wins the tourney because chances are, their winnings aren't going to end up like JB's or Btngu's where they won a larger tourney and gave back. More likely, they will give back to their home site.

Finally, I saw something today that I think is just plain disgusting. The rewards4cash admin was on our site monitoring the boards. She had been there for a while and several people know by now that she is leasing code from Zab for her site (explaining why they look so similar). Just before her tourney is about to start, people leak her password directly on to the chat-box.

Again, I will be the first to admit, I used the password. I played in the tourney (got bounced out with AK suited vs QQ but that is another discussion...) like several others. It wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that there were several members repeating and repeating the password. Even despite the admin's insistence that it stop. To draw a parallel, imagine you own a store. A robber walks in the store and casually takes some of your merchandise. Then the robber tells their friends who immediately do the same thing. Now there are robbers filing in and out of your store, silently grabbing hundreds of thousands of dollars of your investment while you are powerless to stop it. All you can do is yell at them hoping they just go away.

This is what I imagine it was like for the rewards4cash admin today. Maybe this is hyperbole (over-dramatizing for effect) but even if it isn't a lot of money, it must still be incredibly frustrating.

My only request is that we all remember that we are human beings. It is very easy to hid behind an internet avatar and say hurtful things that we would otherwise never say to somebody's face but I would hope that we could all be members of a site who is above that. Let's try to participate in encouraging respect and kindness.

Who knows, maybe some of the other admins of the other poker sites will start doing the same and maybe we can finally start having less leaks. Maybe.

OK. I'll get down from my soapbox now.

[synergybros]

lol..

[gefishy]

I know... wall-o-text. Sorry!

[walter1024]

Well The only reason i Gave out the rewards4points password is I paid for my password Awhile ago and they played several games before i got to play one And I do not ever plan on playing there again they treated me like shit and It Is not right I DON"T DO SURVEYS I PAY $$$$$$ TO PLAY .... IF THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE MY $$$$$$$$ AND TREAT ME LIKE THIS SCREW THEM

[synergybros]

Okayyyy.

This goes with the business unfortunately, and you learn from your mistakes. When you release your password to early you will have lots of leakers. I don't see why the complaining... We have the least amount of leaks of any other site, like we're talking 1 or 2 per tournament which ends up just being roomates or spouses more than likely.. All I'm saying is that if we did not share passwords than this site would not be as strong as it is. PO = 2nd to none!

[gefishy]

I agree with you Syn, and I am not necessarily trying to say that this practice must be abolished however I wanted to provide a relatively outside opinion to the situation. Whether it is common business practice or not should not determine our participation. Just like if everybody else was jumping off a bridge, I would ask that we take into consideration our own opinion on the subject and make a decision from there. If the community at large is fine or even in favor of this continuing then great but if not, we may have an opportunity to be even better and more unique than any other site out there.

I agree that PO is second to none, so why are we doing what everybody else does? Can't we be better than that?

@walter: I understand your frustration but you should be taking that up with the admin. In my opinion, sharing the password to "get back at them" is like stealing bread because you think the grocery store over charged you for your last load of groceries.

[Zab]

My 2 cents..

I would take a stand against PW sharing if the other sites did. As it stands, instead of taking a stance against PW sharing, the admins of NBRN and FRC routinely enter pokerowned tournaments.

Not only that, they use PWs for their tournaments such as POsucks, POthis, POthat.

Now, you can quote me on this, I will NEVER enter another sites tournament and I will NEVER use a PW to degrade another site. I wouldn't stoop to those levels.

With that said, PokerBandit reaps what she sows.. Had her stance been different, I would say ok, let's work together.. Instead she thumbs her nose at this site and in turn has caused a war with us and its members. To this point, I have sat back on the sidelines and I won't get involved, but I will not stop members from doing what they want to do.


Now rewards4points. That is different. I have a vested interest in that site, and I actually forgot to put a sticky msg on there to please not leak the PW.

Zab

[gefishy]

Ok, I understand. I only posted this because it wasn't fun to be watching the chat this afternoon. It felt weird to be on the sidelines while Cynthia saw her password spread like wildfire.

Your site, Zab. Your rules! I have personally seen some slanderous passwords from NBN and FRC. Not cool.

[ilovesylvia]

Huh? Imo no

[d36jenkins]

i agree