There are plenty of automated swear word filter software, e.g., http://www.noswearing.com/index.php The issue is about trust, control, and software that supports self-moderated threads.
Another bit of feedback. I believe one problem here is not trolling, but threadjacking. Usually, you have a good thread going only to be interupted by someone whose only purpose is to turn the thread into a flame war. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thread+hijacking
Understood. Two points . . . I would suggest that you would really squash this type of neurotic "alias" behavior by charging a nominal monthly subscription fee. Why don't you move in that direction Baron? Also, why not just get rid of the "Politics & Religion" forum? It has absolutely NOTHING to do with TRADING and quite often than not, seems to attract non-traders that have nothing better to do. Seriously, the majority of people that create threads in that Forum don't even ( or rarely ) post on any other Forum on ET. Do you really need the web-hit activity from the "Politics & Religion" forum to make ET a viable business model?
Landis may i ask why you choose to make the majority of your posts in, the "Politics and religion" forum, and at the same time argue against said forum. This seems to be an excercise in futility, and a pressing problem on ET, there is no doubt in my mind that you are one of the problems, AND YOU ARE DEFINATELY NOT A SOLUTION You continue to bully people on these forums, and you never seem to have a reason. Please explain yor mindset, and also justify the reasons moderators should listen to you given the previous arguments. Thx in advance. -Dan
I've been a member of ET for many years (going back to 2002) and the majority of my posts are not in the "Politics & Religion" forum as you claim. An easy search on your part would confirm this. (Hint: You might wish to take a look at the Hardware Forum, or the EWT thread in the Technical Analysis Forum) Only in the last 6 months have I stepped up posting in the forum that you cite because I am concerned that there are a group of RACISTS that have littered this website with anger and hate and who have no other purpose than to spread such "hate". The election of the first black President of the United States appears to have attracted such "hate", or have you not noticed these types of posts and posters? These posters don't trade for a living. In fact, they don't trade period and as you can see (from once again using the search function) that they post in no other forums but the "Politics & Religion" forum. Banned ET member Mag Light comes to mind, among others. I am thankful that the Mods have indeed listened to my concerns ( Mag Light being one of them ), contrary to what you may believe. Moreover, I know that I have personally been responsible for reporting about a half-dozen aliases to the Mods in just the past month. ET needs to be cleaned up and become more focused on TRADING and the FINANCIAL MARKETS in my opinion. There are far too many "hate-mongers" on this website as well as "psychopaths" running around with 16 different screen-names. This doesn't even begin to also address some of the serial "cut and paste" clowns who are in sight of nearly 10,000 posts that "litter" ET daily with posts that have nothing to do with TRADING and making money. After all, is the website not named Elitetrader??? I believe the suggestion of making this a subscription site, with a nominal monthly fee and terminating the Forum on politics would go a long way to making this a much better website for market participants; increasing the quality of content to a much higher level than where it currently is, AND also help to alleviate all of the issues (and crap) that the Mods have to deal with day-in, and day-out. But at the end of the day, that is up to Baron and how he wishes to see his business model continue. Right now, I would suggest that it is only a notch or two above that of a Yahoo Finance message board . . . for many of the reasons that I cited above. But if your business model is based off of generating web "hits" and web-activity ( that you then present to current and future advertisers in your marketing material ) then maybe the concerns that I have sited above actually wind-up helping you become more profitable, eh? Again, it's up to Baron and whether or not he really is seriously interested in maintaining a certain level and quality of content. I would suggest that Elitetrader has been anything but Elite and full of TRADERS over the past year or two.
I already tried it and it didn't work. Sure, it can stop people from registering so many new aliases, but the real problem is that charging a fee causes about 99% of legitimate new users to not register either. You have failed to make a compelling case as to why the forum should be eliminated. However, you have managed to make a great case as to why you should avoid that forum completely. If the people that post in that forum are largely contained to that single forum as you suggest above, and you spend most of your time in other trading-related forums anyway, then all you have to do is not visit the Politics & Religion forum any more and your problem with the site will be solved.
Can you please share with us when you last tried this, and what the subscription fee was? Did you ever initiate a one month FREE trial, which then converted into a small, nominal monthly subscription fee?
I tried it about two years ago under a variety of different payment structures. That's about as much detail as I'm going into, as it's pointless to go any further. But hey, if you want to start a trading web site of your own and charge people to access it, go for it. I see them come and go all the time. When I first started ET, there's was only one other site at the time that was even a competing site, and they charged people for access. Today, it's a one-page site full of stupid google text ads. In other words, it's out of business. And like I said, sites like that are constantly popping up and then collapsing. Look, I don't talk about ET as a business much but let me just say this: I've been doing this for 12 years. I know what works and what doesn't. That's why ET is still around and doing record numbers year after year since it began.