paywalls only work for sites whose members have a narrow and specific dedicated expertise and are looking to communicate on a regular basis. these distinct factors do not apply to members of ET.
I think a simple solution would be to ban any reference to a trading system or anything else for sale other than perhaps a simple link to a website in the signature of a post except for posts under Classified / Trading Systems for Sale sub-category. Make a separate forum category for people selling trading systems and that's the only place where they can talk about their system. No mention should be made to it in any other forum category.
That's a pretty good idea. But I'm not sure how vendors would react. Vendors like bone are downright pleasant compared to some more aggressive system sellers.
If you'll excuse a dissenting note, I think that's asking/expecting far too much from Baron! The forum needs its sponsors. The reality is that there are many sponsors who know how to behave in public and a few others who don't. (And some of the ones who do know how to behave in public also happen to have some experience of real value and hence content of real value to communicate here, and are greatly appreciated for that - a couple of them have already been mentioned above.)
You're right Xela. This forum survives on vendors. Members of this forum have expressed concerns about exaggerated claims by vendors in the past but let's be frank...everybody exaggerates a bit at times. Little white lies are part and parcel of marketing. However, some vendors are taking things to another level and behaving atrociously in public.
These things are connected to each other. It is clear that in a aggressive, hostile, nervous athmosphere the "positive productivity" will be much lower. People get distracted and switch from producing quality to the question: how to get ride of this idiot. So improvement should come from two sides: create the best conditions for a good working forum remove all disturbing elements from the forum
You're right about the sponsorship and as other have pointed out, there are many good sponsors like Rob Morse who contribute useful information to this forum. Where I disagree is that it's also in the forum owner's best interest to promote only good sponsors. If they don't then the community will start despising the sponsors for promoting scams and ripping people off causing a severe loss of interest in sponsorship by the good vendors. If you're selling a reputable product you don't want to be associated with scammers. So the good vendors would leave which would lower demand for sponsorship. Lower demand means that the site has to accept less for sponsorship and therefore make less money while the community abandons the forum and goes someplace else. I always get a laugh from radio talk show hosts who are so desperate for money that they sell out to any advertiser while not realizing or thinking that their audience is too stupid to notice contradictions. For example, if product 1 actually worked, you would not need products 2 and 3.