Talk:Russ Boyd

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Contents 1 Dutch Boyd and Pokerspot 2 Operating costs 3 Law School/University 4 Boyd claims... 5 Raymer take two

[edit] Dutch Boyd and Pokerspot

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The coverage of Pokerspot in the Dutch Boyd article is very one-sided. It sounds like it was written by someone who lost money at Pokerspot. Just Google Dutch Boyd and you can find what other people write about it, including Dutch's own explanation of what happened. The current Wikipedia pieces has the most anti-Dutch viewpoint of anything I could find on the first page of Google, and certainly assumes that Dutch's versions is untrue.

How does it assume that? That's quite an assertion. What it does is reference the most significant archived information on the subject, from Boyd and from others, that is available. It would be hard to be more objective than that! 2005 10:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about this. I took a look at this page, and it looks dodgy to me. The first "citation" is a link to a google search of usenet for "russ boyd pokerspot". This is not a source, but a list of dubious sources. The second is better, its a link to a post by dutch regarding pokerspot. The only problem, this site contradicts the information contained immediately before it. For instance, there dutch claims that it was the "major casino" backed out of the deal to purchase the assets, not him as the wikipedia article claims. Nor did I find any reference for the claim that boyd said "checks were in the mail". I remember pokerspot, and I remember them telling me my check was in the mail, but I'm not an objective reference. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 18:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The RGP link references a wide variety of comments which cover a lot of different perspectives. In other words, its a mass of POV, whether players or Boyd's. None of that concerns us much, other than when the two are in agreement. Linking to the POV is useful, but we should not print POV. The facts may be unflattering to Boyd, but they are facts. Some facts maybe do assume we take statements from individuals mad at Boyd and from Boyd himself that coincide as facts. I've edited the page to stick to three facts: 1) players lost thousands, 2) Boyd had an offer that he turned down, 3) people have not been paid. There is no dispute of these facts by Boyd or those owed money. There are a couple cites. That should be plenty for this topic. 2005 22:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It is better now, thank you. I added a sentence to clarify that he did not refuse a deal that would have returned most of the owed money. (Or at least, he claims that was the deal.) I think without this sentence the implication of the article is that he turned down a deal that would have refunded players their money.

I'm also copying this to Talk:Russ Boyd, where we should continue the conversation if necessary. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

But that sentence is completely inapproriate. It's just the POV that has no place in the article. If you put what "he says" then you need what "she says". Leave the facts speak for themselves, and leave it to the cites to go over the endless POVs. 2005 01:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay... I guess we'll continue the conversation here. In order for the sentence I added to be "POV" as opposed to "fact" it needs to be the case that someone disputes the claim. Is there such a person? Could you supply a reference for it? If so, shouldn't it be included in the article? WP:NPOV does not require, or even suggest, leaving out individual's points of view in order to make the article neutral. Instead, it encourages the addition of properly attributed points of view if doing so will help the reader to understand the situation. I did not add a sentence declaring that the casino had backed out on a deal, I added a sentence that said Boyd claimed the casino backed out on the deal. It is, I take it, uncontroversial that Boyd claims that a casino backed out of the deal. If someone disputes Boyd's assertion, I believe the article would be better with both points of view described instead of neither. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 01:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well obviously there are many people who dispute his claim, so I'm not sure what you are saying. Just as obviously, a lot of people do not believe a word that he says. More imporatntly, look at the sentences I removed, "despite Boyd's assurances that this would not occur and that checks had been mailed" saying "despite assurances players claim Boyd made that this would not occur and that checks had been mailed" and "which would have given Boyd $300,000 for himself, in addition to enough to repay the owed players". All these (and a lot more) have been asserted in RGP and 2+2 threads. Having a line saying "a lot of people think Boyd is a pathological liar" accomplishes nothing, even though it is clearly true. If you want the line you put in, how can you justify not putting in the 300k line? Why present his POV and not others. Sure, we could present his POV, but that should not be alone. And so, I say forget the whole slippery slope of he said she said and just state the simple facts that are not in dispute. If you want to also remove "Several months after the site's close, Boyd turned down an offer from an online casino operator to buy the Pokerspot software" that would be fine too, even though there is no dispute about there. There is tons of dispute about all the exact details though, and we don't need or want that. 2005 02:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't remove the 300k line nor suggested that it be removed, I requested a citation for it. If people have some (i.e. any) evidence that this happened, by all means put it in the article with the citation. To my eyes, the implication of our article is that Boyd turned down an offer that would have returned money to the players. Allowing this implication to remain in the article unchallenged leaves a biased article (since Boyd disputes this claim). If a suitable citation can be found, I would love to have the article say something like "Boyd claims the online casino backed out on an earlier offer that would have returned all of the players money, and that he refused the deal in order to persue other buyout options that fell through.(link to usenet post, faq, whatever) This is disputed by xxxxxxx, who claims that yyyyyyyy. (link to credible source)." I believe this would be a more balanced article than the one we have now. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I originally included the line about Boyd receiving 300k. I see I transposed the amount of the Pokerspot debt as told to Burton Richie (300k) with the amount Boyd was to receive as reported by Burton Richie(200k). I have since corrected it to read 200k. I also included a statement about Boyd lying about "checks being in the mail" which was removed for a lack of citation. Boyd later posted to the rec.gambling.poker Usenet group that he told his support staff to lie, in order to buy the site some time, including lying about the checks being in the mail, but I haven't been able to track that post down yet. When I track that down I'll put the line back in and include a link to the Usenet post. 68.38.127.139 04:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I found the Usenet post where Boyd admitted that he instructed his support staff to lie about checks being mailed, and cited it in the article. 68.38.127.139 17:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I did some digging, and found what appears to be a credible usenet post. How's this look:

Boyd claims the online casino backed out on an earlier offer that would have returned all of the players' money, and that he refused the deal in order to persue other buyout options that fell through. [1] Burton Ritchie, who claims that he represented the internet casino, claims that Boyd reneged on a deal that would have paid back all the players because the deal required that Boyd leave the internet casino industry for 2 or 3 years. [2]

I think this is an adequate description? 2005, would you be ammenable to it being in the article? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's okay with me to present that information, but I was responding in part to the earlier comments that the article was "one-sided" against Boyd. If allegations are included, and denials or other stories, fine, but that leaves the chance for POV emphasis, whereas the simple facts don't. So go ahead and add the above and we'll see what happens. 2005 06:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, 2005. I'm glad we got this worked out. I hadn't thought about PokerSpot in a long time, and I must admit, I never knew the whole story. From what I read it sounds like I may have been the only person in the world to actually get money from them after they went belly up. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 06:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operating costs

I removed the following paragraph from the article. It remained uncited for some time. If you have a citation for it please put it back into the article with the citation. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 04:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

First, the primary cause of PokerSpot's inability to repay customer funds was the fact that repositories for customer funds and operating expenses were not kept separate.^{[citation needed]} As a result, funds being deposited by customers were actively being used to pay PokerSpot's operating expenses, and were not available for customer withdrawal. In the United States, this business practice would be illegal. Because PokerSpot was based in Antigua, however, they were not subject to this legal provision.

I can't find a factual citation for this paragraph, but this is a generally accepted fact, from what I've seen of both sides of the Pokerspot argument on the internet. While never stating it explicitly in interviews or usenet posts (that I've seen), Boyd has also never denied the allegation that he used customer funds for operating expenses (and it's one of the most prevalent claims made by people who aren't just calling him names). This is an important aspect of the Pokerspot failure, and I think it should be mentioned in some way, even if it's difficult to cite. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jhortman (talk • contribs). - sorry, I did forget to sign this. See my userbox about screwing up edits.  :-) --Jhortman 03:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Please read these two sections regarding verifiability of information about living people. It MUST be cited, if for no other reason than to protect wikipedia from legal action. If it is, in fact, general knowledge, it shouldn't be hard to find someone who says it's true. Given what you say about this, it's probably gossip. As such, it can certainly be in the article, but should be marked as "So and so has accused poker spot of..." rather than stated in declaratory language (if accompanied by an appropriate citation). --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 20:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find it yet, but there was a post made by Greg Raymer, I believe to either the 2+2 message board or rec.gambling.poker, in which he discussed the commingling of funds by Pokerspot and why such practices are wrong. 68.38.127.139 18:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I found Raymer's comments on an old entry at Party Poker Blog (it's about 1/3 of the way down the page), but I can't find that quote anywhere else, and the source isn't referenced in the blog entry. (And I couldn't find it in the Google archives of RGP.) It's a significant piece that says exactly the same thing as the passage of mine that was struck, but I'm not sure that's really solid enough for a reference. What do y'all think? --Jhortman 03:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the original post from Raymer. Since many of the citations in this article are usenet posts, I'm happy for it to be readded. But, since this is an uncited accusation by Raymer, it should be presented as such in the text. (I.e., Greg Raymer accused Boyd of...) --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the original location of Raymer's comments... I've re-added the section about operational funds, with wording changed to reflect the fact that it's speculation. --Jhortman 02:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! I'm glad you found the reference. It would be nice if we had a reference for the legal status of this practice in the US and Antigua respectively. But, I don't think this is required because its not strictly about Boyd. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I found a citation from another well known player, Paul Phillips, about the commingling of funds. I'm not really sure how to include that in the article so I'll just paste it here and someone else can decide if it's worthy of inclusion: http://extempore.livejournal.com/76520.html 68.38.127.139 02:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Law School/University

A anonymous user made this edit which I reverted. He has contacted me by email, asking which law school boyd attended. I don't know, but since its printed in a magazine (Rolling Stone) and not challenged by any equally reputable source, I think it ought to stand unchallenged in the article. Since I received this email from the anon, I thought I would bring up the issue here to see what others think. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 23:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

After a bit of poking around I found this site that says he graduated from the University of Missouri law school (the site doesn't say which campus). This makes sense since he received his BA from Central Missouri State University. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 23:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

See message 13 here. "University of Missouri Law School in 1999". 2005 01:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boyd claims...

This comment is regarding this edit. Everything about Boyd's history in this article is from him, shall we bracket every sentence with "Boyd claims..."? E.g. "Boyd claims he was born in Columbia, Missouri". I think unless that particular claim is disputed by someone with some real reason to dispute it, we should take it as fact. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

We should take nothing as fact that he says, or what anybody says. 2005 19:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course, everything is set off by a citation which gives the basis for what we claim. My phrase "treating it as fact" is shorthand for, state it in the declarative mood without a disclaimer like "X claims that..." Are you suggesting that every sentence of every article begin with "X claims that..."? For instance, "Partypoker.com claims that texas hold'em is a variant of poker." --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

No, and I hope you see why. We have an article on Texas hold'em, which we link to. But here the article was saying Boyd has above average intelligence and an IQ of 150. That is EXACTLY like sayinf "Party Poker has the fastest software" just because they say so. Anything a person or entity says about THEMSELF should be disclaimered by "SoandSo claims..." or similar language. It should never be stated as fact. 2005 20:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think your standard is still too strict, but I think I see what your saying. I don't think everything he says about himself warrants a disclaimer, but perhaps everything that puts him in an overly positive light. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 20:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I made that edit after reading the David Sklansky page and I noticed that the positive things Sklansky said about his own intelligence were cited as "Sklansky claims..." Given their respective reputations for credibility it seemed unfair to hold Sklansky to a higher standard than Boyd! 68.38.127.139 01:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Right, or anything that reflects a significant POV. "Boyd claims to be the smartest person in the world" is different than "Born in Peoria in 1980" or whatever. It doesn't need to say he claims to be born in Peoria. 2005 21:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Raymer take two

I have been thinking about the "Greg Raymer accused... " paragraph some more, and I think it ought to be removed. I think we need to consider the veracity of Raymer's claims. I don't know any reason why he would know more about PokerSpot than anyone else. In fact, he didn't even have a pokerspot account. Since the accusation comes from a Usenet post, there is no control over the statement, and even in the post he makes no assertion of authority (unlike the other usenet posts that we do cite). I think without a more credible source this accusation ought to be removed. Perhaps, someone could contact Raymer and see if he actually has some specific information. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 21:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd remove it. But then I think there is a lot more detail here than there should that is based on Usenet posts or Boyd's own statements, neither of which are normally reliable sources. Anyway, I don't see the paragraph as important... why they failed is really not our mission. The fact that it failed is a relevant fact, the ins and outs, details and allegations are not vital to the article. 2005 22:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

In the entry for dutch boyd, it claims he went to college after scoring a 23 on his ACT. This figure can not be correct.

                    24.148.161.157 17:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)