As far as I can tell, I've been banned from the Programming forum by that forum's sponsor, some outfit called "Modulus". This was after I objected to Modulus treating another ET poster poorly, and Modulus deleting some of their own posts in what I can only imagine was an attempt to look less unprofessional. Is this normal ET practice? ETA: It appears Modulus has blown away the entire thread.... ETA2: Interesting - I can't even see the 'Programming' forum in the list of forums unless I logout as myself. It's like it doesn't exist.
The Programming forum was started by Modulus and is sponsored by them as well. They can allow or disallow anyone they want as far as I'm concerned.
Ah, I see. You're basically subletting ET to them. Thanks for the clarification. So how does that work if someone starts a programming-related topic in another area of ET, and Modulus the Mod promptly has the thread moved to their captive and heavily-censored area of ET?
Baron, I am a long term EliteTrader member who programs financial software for a living. I am currently in the middle of a real-time decisioning and risk management project for a large European bank. Despite my background, I will not post any information in the Programming forum. The vendor has banned any discussion that even touches on the software products from other vendors, and spends endless energy to posting responses pitching their ModulusFE products. Here is the vendors post regarding the rules for the Programming forum Most financial software projects for traders involve products from multiple vendors (Data Feed, Screening, Decisioning, Brokerage Interfaces, etc.) that require integration for a complete successful project. Many times a programmer is dealing with interaction between these products. Banning communication that discusses these other products is counter productive in making Elite Trader a useful website. I would ask that we create another forum ("Software API Help") that is open to all financial programming questions. Thank you for your consideration, - Greg
Seconded. It's understandable to delete threads about other products on a site fully owned by the vendor, but this is ET and we would expect to be able to have some place to talk about programming related to other products.
Perhaps a more appropriate place for those kinds of technical interactions is over at Wilmott... http://wilmott.com/categories.cfm?catid=44
I already participate over at Wilmott. Trading is rapidly becoming more technology driven and many traders need to utilize programming and integration of third party products to be successful. Elite Trader is an excellent forum to discuss all aspects of trading as the entire industry has evolved, but suppressing discussion will not help ET remain as a top resource for individual traders. The intent should be to have traders come to ET as a preferred resource, not force them to go to another site for programming questions. Limiting a Programming forum to only queries about one vendor's products will quickly force traders to perceive ET as providing limited or no value to their needs. I can understand not allowing non-paying vendors to spam the programming forum with pitches for their products. However the idea that if you answer someone's questions about integration of multiple products then the entire thread will go **POOF** and disappear -- makes it clear that Elite Trader is providing less than optimal service to the needs of the site's customers. This in turn will reduce hits and advertising revenue.
The problem is that the programming forum guidelines are missing a key sentence, but before I tell you what it is, please consider this background information: The Programming forum is one of those situations where a company comes to me and says, "Hey, we want to sponsor a forum on ET but there currently isn't one that really matches what we specialize in. So we'd like for you to set up a forum that we can sponsor, which is for advanced traders and developers to talk about the details of programming as it relates to building trading apps. We have expertise in that area so we would like to participate by answering programming questions that match up with what we do. Ultimately, by bringing together that audience of programmers and helping them out with tough programming questions, hopefully they will take notice of our company and find out that we already offer many modules and plugins that may help solve other problems and save them a lot of time and effort." Obviously I said yes to that request and the forum was created shortly thereafter. Now, the reason why I let Richard from Modulus set up a sticky thread indicating the posting guidelines is because he is a programming wizard and there is no one better suited than him to explain what type of things should be posted in the forum he sponsors. This was crucial because he was adamant at the beginning that he didn't want the forum to be about high-level scripting topics like Easy Language, etc. because those topics are more about trading system development and less about trading platform development. So getting back to the missing sentence that should have been in the posting guidelines, it should have started like this: If you would like for Modulus to help you with your programming question, then these are the guidelines to follow: If you read that sentence above, and then go back and read the programming guidelines for that forum, I think it will all make a lot more sense. In summary, Modulus was simply trying to say that they want to help with real programming problems, but they don't want to provide technical support for another company's product, or service. Now that doesn't mean you can't submit a question about programmatically interfacing to IB's API in that forum. It just means that Modulus is not going to help you with that question, so another member will have to step up in that case. Otherwise, your question will simply go unanswered.
It does not help much when threads in which questions are answered about products from other vendors magically go **POOF** and disappear. I (nor any other programmer) is going to post a lengthy response - which took time to research - to provide an answer when the entire thread disappears after the question is answered. Having this happen does not add lasting value to ET as a discussion website to provide help to others. Now please do not take anything I stated as a slam on Modulus products. I happen to think that the Modulus products are excellent and well supported.... and would recommend that people consider using them (based on their needs). I just want to be sure the policy is put in place on ET where threads discussing products other than Modulus in the Programming forum are not deleted (unless they are obvious spam). Thank you for your response BTW.