The thing with all the FREE boards is that they are FREE! You get what you pay for basically. If you belong to a premium service, see if they provide a private discussion board. Private Boards tend to be more professional because for one, there are no anonymous posters! Secondly, there is no spam! Chatting at a free public board however is not unlike chatting with anyone in an open public area. Its wide open and anyone can come along and be as mean or as rude as they want. I have found that people tend to be much more bold and mean quite frankly, when they interact on public message boards or chat rooms. That's because they believe they are doing so totally anonymously. There is no such thing as being totally "anonymous" online however. Many people fail to recognize this. Everything is logged. fyi - By simply monitoring various boards, one can also obtain a decent read of popular consensus by monitoring opinions on popular chat rooms and message boards. Some of this has already been automated. For example, an automated program goes off and sifts through posted messages on dozens of boards and after reading through all the stuff, it spits out a summary report listing the markets most discussed, the most popular position (long or short) and overall consensus (bullish or bearish). It can be quite useful. Floyd Upperman
But......By the time you read about it on the boards, such as this one, the news is old. Example: GOOG AFTER GOOG makes a move the boards light up. Not very useful, unless you like talking about old news. Like this post from someone who has over 2600 posts, what a joke.
DAC - You are missing the whole point of ET. Its posters are IMO a perfect statistical representation of the short-term trading public (the "mob", if you will). It is the PERFECT place for a pro daily to renew his faith in the stupidity, naivete', gullibility, superstition and impulsivity of those he is trading against. Best regards. - Mike
Perhaps for most it is not useful, but I find this kind of information particularly useful myself. Obtaining the read on a flurry, after an event, is very useful and insightful in preparation for the next big event. Remember market events tend to be tied together. One event leads to another and so on. I am sure everyone has heard the phrase "snow-ball" before. That's when one thing leads to another and then finally everything just "snow-balls" as the saying goes. Well, the measure of popular opinion following an event is useful in determining the likely reaction to a subsequent event, a bigger event, and to gauge which direction the crowd is leaning toward (overly pessimistic or overly optimistic) in case the snow-ball really does begin to roll! These are the kinds of things you want to be paying attention to. Markets move up and down not because of the events, but because of the influence the events have on the participants (buyers and sellers). But as always this data must be combined with other data and information too. But you have to start some place, and an event always makes a good base (particularly for a Neural Network). A Neural Network is comprised of hundreds of inputs. A big event can also provide a Neural Network with the chance to "reset" itself because the bigger events tend to result in smaller influences (normal events) suddenly becoming unimportant. Take care and trade well, Floyd Upperman
I agree with Mark here. ET is what you bring to it and what you make of it - just like all other things in life. If you ignore the negatives and instead give reinforcement to the positives, then the board will slowly improve. I would second the suggestion to use the options Baron has give us: (1) 'complain' to let the Mods know of disruptive and negative posts (2) 'ignore' to filter trolls and childish taunters.
just a passing thought concerning your disdain for "chit chat"..... IGNORE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dont click on it... you will be amazed at how well it works!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chit- chat is good. Stops me getting crazy trading ideas or following ( subconsciously ) other peoples trading opinions. This is a good thing. I can appreciate, that hard core pro's feel offended at noob questions and threads, or that the person posting something in your dialogue might not run a hedge fund, may not have worked in the pit, and in all likelihood is just another struggling small cap retailer, who has migrated here because all the other forums are spam filled junk, and Et is just fantastic. I guess there will always be aspects many dont like, but its all about diversity, inclusion, and NO DAMN SPAM.