Sad part is that surfs net worth is actually less than most of those third world dreamers that he derides. No one in the phillipines who is on this site is trading 93 dollars for accelerated portfolio growth.
The original discussion was about having a verification system like facebook and twitter involving any ET member that states they are someone in particular (e.g. celebrity, politician, CEO or somebody important) that's famous or well known. For example, pretend a new ET member shows up and uses the user name Amazon_Bezos and states they are Jeff Bezos...the owner of Amazon. They than begin posting insider information at this forum involving Amazon...information that's not true but ET members believe it is true just because the new member "states" they are Jeff Bezos. To prevent legal problems...Baron would need something like that's being used on Facebook and Twitter to verify a member really is who they say they are. In contrast, now the discussion has changed topic into real names for verification involving profitability. I don't think that's the discussion. Regardless, as I stated before...we do need a verification whenever someone shows up at this forum and say they are somebody they really are not so that ET members are not following the advice or info by someone that's not who he/she say they are. Twitter has had problems with this issue and what has helped is when they started using the verification system. I think the original problem that started the issue on twitter involved a famous country singer. Someone new on Twitter had a user name similar to the famous country singer and soon afterwards had over 40,000 followers and pretended to be the country singer...posting updates about the family, tour information and so on. The problem was the real country singer found out about it and threaten Twitter with a lawsuit for allowing identity theft. Twitter deleted the account of the fake person and the real person then setup their own account and Twitter then developed a "verification system" and they then "verified" the account as that of the real person. Twitter was able to avoid a nasty legal case with the country singer and many other well known celebrities, congress people, business owners and such. Baron needs to have a similar like verification system because there have been a few situations at this forum where someone joins ET and pretends to be somebody important...famous athlete, head football coach of an SEC football team, CEO of a financial institution, PR spokesperson for the CME and so on. These types of people needs to be verified because I've seen conversations as if people believe the person to be who they say they are. Without the verification process...Baron could find himself in hot water in a legal battle with the real person...similar to what happen with Twitter. The verification system will be useful for ET members not famous. Thus, if someone joins this forum and starts using their real name (full name)...they need to send Baron identification information to prove they really are that person although it really doesn't make sense for someone that's not important to be verifying their real name is "Mary Johnson"...a stay at home mom. Simply, people not famous or not pretending to be someone specific that's important...verification of real name not needed.
Country singer, my ass. This is a non-existing problem in the form you stated. Just how often here someone pretends to be someone famous? Maybe once a year? I have been here for more than a decade and I don't remember such a case. And as I stated, just because someone is real, still can give bullshit advice or can lie so this verification won't protect from that. What protects newbies is using common sense and we who know better calling out BS when we see it. Like now.
I have no idea how often such occurs nor does it matter unless you're Facebook or Twitter. Remember, the OP of this thread specifically named having a verification system like Facebook and Twitter. Their verification system is based upon one fact only...identifying or verifying those that setup accounts so their fans or supporters can follow them and communicate with them. How often people steals the real person identity...I don't know. I do know (I just looked it up on Google) that there are dozens of websites telling people how to spot a fake twitter account or a fake facebook account. Apparently it must be a big issue for so many websites to talk about it. What about fake twitter accounts that actually fooled people for awhile: Queen Elizabeth, Michael Jordan, Bernie Sanders, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Floyd Mayweather, Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Usain Bolt, Tim Tebow, Oscar Pistorius and thousands of others. The above are ones where 10s of thousands of followers were establish BEFORE twitter was able to determine the accounts were NOT the real person...twitter deleted the fake accounts and then contacted the real person to see if they wanted to setup a verified real account...most of them did and now they have a verified twitter account. My favorite was the fake "Kayne West" account (not verified) that had thousands of followers and making headline news via dissing other celebrities. The real Kayne West being the way he is...didn't care until a particular dissing of a celebrity caused him some legal problems involving product branding issue by the dissed celebrity. Now real Kayne West has his own twitter account (verified) and the other fake accounts have been deleted by twitter. If its non-existing problem...why do Twitter and Facebook say it is a problem ??? Why do Twitter and Facebook have webpages that talks about the issue and how to become a verified member if its non-existent ??? https://www.facebook.com/ help/contact/356341591197702 (Note: I intentionally put a space in the above link for Facebook because this forum thinks its a "media" link and alters its code in such a way that the link does not appear. Therefore, to get the link to work...remove the space.) Facebook states "ordinary people" do not need a verification badge. The verification badge is specific to people like celebrities, journalists, government officials, entertainment people, businesses, brands, organizations and so on. https://support.twitter.com/articles/119135# Twitter states... Twitter verifies accounts on an ongoing basis to make it easier for users to find who they're looking for. We concentrate on highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas. We are constantly updating our requirements for verification. Note, verification does not factor in follower count or Tweet count. We do not accept requests for verification from the general public. If you fall under one of the above categories and your Twitter account meets our qualifications for verification, we may contact you in the future. Looks like the verification system is real to me but you say its non-existent...should I believe you or the info above ??? In contrast, the issue you're talking about...there's already an existing threads for that topic here in the feedback section involving sponsors and none sponsors and B.S. traders and proof of profitability and proof of being a trader. You should use those threads for that conversation instead of trying to change the topic of this thread...you're not the OP. With that said and back to the OP's topic...we do have some ET members stating for fact they are someone important and I've mentioned a few situations here at ET. Other situations I've seen that needs verification involves members that say they are employed or working at a particular hedge fund, prop firm without giving their real names. I believe strongly that any ET member that specifically states they are an employee of a financial institution...that ET member needs to verify to Baron that they are in fact an employee of the firm. This is important because these members engage in conversation with other ET members as if they have information about what occurs at the firm that's not generally shared with the public regardless if the info is negative or positive and so on... These people need to be verified via their name and have the approval of their firm that allows employees to openly discuss the firm here at ET. This has nothing to do with profitability BSers, nothing to do with people proving a trade is real...but it does have to do with protecting ANY ET member from those that say they are someone or a firm when in fact they are not. So yeah...its an existing problem and just because you're naive about what's occurring on Facebook, Twitter or ET...does not imply it does not exist. That's the discussion in this thread. Yet, if you want to change the discussion to something different or whatever...what's wrong with discussing those issues in the other thread instead of hijacking this thread ??? Did you get the threads mixed up or forgot to look at what the OP stated ??? P.S. We need a verification system and most likely different types. Thousands of people are fooled on Facebook and Twitter...what makes ET so special in that hundreds here can't be fooled ? Doesn't anybody remember the fake tweets out of AP News @ http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/23/ap-tweet-hack-wall-street-freefall After the above incident...AP News now has a verified twitter account @ https://twitter.com/AP and it now has verified twitter accounts for their employees. The tweet about the white house explosions came from a fake employee account mistaken by AP and then uploaded to its news network. The result was a sudden -143 point drop in the Dow Jones. I remember it well because I was in a trade and took a big loss because people with "common sense" believed the hacked tweets included professional trading firms. What has happen sense that day for AP News ? They are now verified on twitter and so are their employees that uploads info to the AP News network. You know its verified because it has the blue badge next to its name. Simply, this stuff is real...not non-existent.
Man, that is one long post, I lost interest 1/3 through. But if you can give us a SHORT* response why should ET care about a Twitter problem, I promise you to read your response. Now if OCCASIONALLY a member here needs to be verified (let's say someone is giving an interview), that can be easily and quickly done through Baron or a mod, no extra feature or complicated update is needed. End of story. * short meaning 3 or less lines
I've read some of your long posts but there's no need for me to comment about it because I like reading. Regardless, here's a short response and I decide (not you) the length of my short response... The OP (thread starter) stated this forum should use a verification like Facebook and Twitter. You responded to me (not the OP) that such was non-existent. I responded to say there is in fact such a verification system and that ET should use something similar because there are members here that do in fact pretend to be somebody else. Those that do pretend to be somebody else via claiming that person name or employment location should be require to prove such. Do you understand the above simple English ? Is it too much information to process for you ? I can write it in two other different languages if need be just in case my English is poor (English is not my first language). P.S. Now go back and read the P.S. statement in my prior statement and tell me again its non-existent. Please keep your reply to 1 sentence with no grammatical errors. Simply, I can be a jerk too when someone starts crap. P.S.S. My English sucks but you should understand the above.
1. OP just used FB as an example he said later we have to debate what we want in the verification process, YOU are stuck on Twitter and FB. By the way, I have a fake FB profile. So much about their verification. 2. I like to write not so much about reading, so I might skipped over some of your points. They were probably not important or repetitive. My main point is that except a very few cases, there is no need for Verification. A very good example is Reddit, where 99.999% of the users are anonymous and in a few cases they verify, case by case. That should be our analogy not FB and specially not Twitter. 3. And Verified posters can lie, cheat or be unprofitable (Marketsurfer), so what is the point of this again ??? Anyhow, I am done with this silly notion...
I only use the info given...facebook and twitter. If not used by the OP as the example...no need for me to talk about Facebook or Twitter. Lots of people have fake FB profiles. For example, you've admitted you have a fake FB profile. What you do not say is that your fake FB profile does not have a verification badge in your attempt to claim to be someone else that you are not. Out of curious, do you claim to be a politician, celebrity, business owner, famous athlete or what ? Its ok, you don't have to tell me the name you're using because I'm not going to contact facebook. The point I'm making is specific and its completely different than your topic but you've decided to jump in my topic. My topic is this...there are members of this forum that claim to be somebody specific (they use the person's name) or claim to be an employee of a organization and they use the name of that organization. Next, the person then gives advice or makes statements as facts involving that person or organization. Those individuals that claim to be someone specific or some organization needs to verify such as true. In contrast, there's another thread about your topic involving people like marketsurfer or anyone else that claims to be profitable...another thread among many others like it. Simply, had you not responded to my topic (message post) involving someone pretending to be someone else that has nothing to do with your topic involving someone pretending to be profitable...you may not be confused about my point even though I knew what your point was which is why I said there's another thread for your topic.
I would think a better way is to set up a new group called "Controversial Ideas". Some threads including with extraordinary claims of guaranteed returns should be moved to this Controversial Ideas group for anyone who would still like to visit/watch or join in controversial discussion. Chit Chat (or banning) may not be the most suitable way, imo.