Many people come across differently on the internet to real life. I’d bet that there are people here I get along with I wouldn’t like much in the real world, and others I’ve had spats with who I’d probably find myself getting along surprisingly with. We all have BTP personas that in a lot of cases don’t correlate too closely to reality, and many of us probably don’t come across as well as we’d wish.

It obviously and naturally bothers you that you feel people have misjudged you based on your BTP/2+2 persona. I don’t really know how to say this without sounding too critical, but I would characterise your BTP/2+2 persona as generally being very quick to prejudge people and somewhat dismissive of opinions that run contrary to yours, while being surprisingly sensitive to criticism yourself. However, I must say that on AIM you’ve always come across as being approachable and likeable; more human, if you will. FWIW, much of this also applies to me and many others at BTP.

If you think MVP’s still pissed at you, why not IM him and sort it out? I can’t and wouldn’t try to answer for him, but if I was a regular with thousands of posts who was banned without so much as a courtesy PM explaining why, I’d be pissed off too…….. errrrrrrrr………anyway, if you take unilateral action against someone without explaining it, you run the risk of both looking like a mad despot and losing the confidence and support of your regulars, most of whom like MVP a lot and don’t want to see him treated unfairly. Maybe now you can understand some of the reasons why people have felt the need to speak out?

You might not like what Seb said, but you should at least give credit to him for honestly stating his opinions. I hope you reconsider his ban in the light of all the recent events (ie kneejerk bans) at BTP that have led to such an unpleasant atmosphere of victimisation and thus suspicion – you only need to check out the number of recent threads about bans to verify this.

Re 2+2: I’ve got to be honest. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but many BTP regulars follow your 2+2 posts with a mixture of amusement and incredulity. I don’t know what sort of reaction you expected when you publicly called CTS (one of their high stakes heroes) a moron, but I can guess how you’d deal with the same situation at BTP if an infrequent poster similarly insulted, say, Shobute, and the two simply don’t tally.

I guess this post will become yet another stick to hit me with (God help the dissenter at BTP), but it’s genuinely not intended to be negative, more an assessment of the difficulties in putting oneself across on an internet forum, and I hope you take it in this spirit.

For about 2 years BTP hardly needed modding at all - in the past 6 months frankly it's been a pain in the ass to mod...

As for Ice, I know that (despite him often having very different poker and political opinions from me) he has always tried to help people who want to get better at the game. That's how BTP got started in the first place. Since we both happen to be shortstacking at the moment (DIE! SHORTSTACKER! DIE!) I have chatted to him on AIM a fair bit recently (not having done so much before) and he has been unfailingly polite and helpful.

I know he has run-ins occasionally with some guys over at 2+2, but the atmosphere in those forums is such that intemperate and overstated posting is more or less the norm.
If Ice has got frustrated and fired off a few STFU posts over there, it doesn't bother me.

If Ice has posted stuff that's wrong about other players' win rates over there - who cares? He doesn't pad his win-rates and, like me, he's just a part time middle aged player making a nice bit of pocket money and trying to help out a few others as we can -we are never going to catch up to the Godlike's and Xaston's of this world with our full time jobs, kids, mortgages and slowly atrophying brains

I'm not clear what Seb did/said, but if amongst all this hassle you decide to launch a personal attack on the site founder, you are obviously taking your chances as to whether or not you'll be allowed to post again.

The number one rule for this site has always been 'no personal attacks on posters' (except Briachek of course).

It isn't that hard to get a handle on is it?