Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
My general feeling regarding trolling is this:
First off, while I am fine with people criticizing/insulting me on PFA, I don't want this to be a place where dedicated trolls follow me around and attack me on every thread I start. So those are the only people I ban/restrict, while everyone else is free to speak their minds about me, whether good or bad.
Regarding other people being trolled, I try to assess the situation.
If the "victim" of trolling is a frequent troll himself, then I don't do anything about it. You can't routinely attack/bash people, and then cry foul when others do it to you. Same with people who routinely post outrageous viewpoints either to get attention or to use this forum as their soapbox. I allow them to do so, but they can't complain when this leads to people trolling them.
Marty is one of this site's bigger trolls. He rips into many people here unprovoked, myself included. There are indeed people who also troll Marty unprovoked, such as bottomset. However, I can't ask these people to stop bugging Marty, because it wouldn't be fair to them, as Marty does the exact same thing to so many others.
Marty has always had an inflated sense of worth on these forums. That's why he actually demanded (and received, I believe) money to post on NWP shortly after it was bought by Pokernews. There is no doubt that there is a contingent of people here who enjoy most of Marty's antics. The forum is also more active when Marty is posting, as it brings out both his fans and his trolls. At the same time, I don't make money on PFA, and Marty's antics don't bring new users to the site. Therefore, I don't gain anything from his presence here -- not money, not new traffic, and not reputation or notoriety in poker.
As Marty himself can attest to, running a forum is a pain in the ass. I honestly don't run PFA as any sort of ego boost or power trip. I run it for the dual reason of keeping this original NWP community together (plus anyone else who found us along the way), as well as having a place to post about things I want to share with the public, whether it's scams in poker or other topics I care about.
To be honest, and I swear this is true, I don't even look at PFA's traffic anymore. I don't really care. Barring some fluke such as me final tabling the Main Event, the site you see now is all PFA is ever going to be. If it becomes a failsite/ghost town, I will shut it down and move on. I enjoy PFA and hope it lives a long time, but I have other more important things in my life, and do just as well without it. My life was just fine for the 6 months I was off all forums after I left DD.
Bottom line is that Marty is welcome to post here, but I don't need him to post here. If he wants to take his ball and go home in order to show me up or "prove" he doesn't need this place, he knows where the door is.