It would be useful if ET would strengthen the Terms of Use/Service. There are gaping loopholes. The following behaviors are all highly correlated to commercial websites: 1) Sell service/product directly 2) carry advertisements/Adwords to make revenue from OTHER sites 2) gain traffic to website [especially, repeat traffic] 3) harvest emails/personal info to resell or for marketing purposes 4) promote/advertise/market website [especially free redirects from other blogs, forums, websites, etc.] 5) Uplift site owner/blogger as some kind of expert in field. This is the main purpose of blogs, and enable them to eventually be monetized. But since the TOU/TOS are vague and do not address these directly, there are constantly a stream of people who push this and try to gain some of these advantages, and ET is often very slow to respond, allowing some threads to exist for many months and build up the site's traffic For example, this person and his "blog": http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=195415 -Starts off in the OP with his personal site (that is not the official definition of a blog - which are usually in something like blogger) - Requiring registration (including email) to participate. This is a standard trick to build email lists, which are quite valuable wen targeted, such as "traders." In addition, -- The purpose of ET journals IS to be a blog. -- There is rarely a time when the content on a "blog" could not be listed on ET sites. It is hard to justify why people need to redirect off of ET into their personal sites, and especially seeking to perform any of 1) to 5) above. I suggested some wording changes to the "commercial site" part of the TOU/TOS that addressed this (a couple of months ago), but that was glossed over. It has a lot to do with whether ET is a serious commercial enterprise, or sort of an informal forum that does not take spammers seriously, to the detriment of posters, readers, sponsors, and its overall reputation.
Seems to me the only violation is that he his hosting his own charts. He doesn't have any ads on that site, looks like he's totally self supporting on this.
requiring/collecting email addresses is not particularly a "personal" blog... that alone is worth forum participation with a website
Blogs are harmless inventions. They are simply an organized collection of someone's thoughts and ideas...an extension of that person's self. In the example you posted, it looks like the guy is just trying to organize his thoughts in a way of self expression. Lets say there were a few ads on his blog...so what...these blogs usually eat away at more money then those Google adsense ads generate. Authors usually put them up so they can break even on the costs of the blog. Lets say the guy is using the blog to promote himself further...to gather names and emails... then I have to ask you the question if when you meet someone in real life do you not try to promote yourself? We all try to promote ourselves from time to time and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. As well, whatever two consenting adults agree upon is their own business. If someone meets this guy as a result of his blog, then whatever business arrangement they make is their business. If, say, one person is cheated out of cash then thats their own fault. Lets say he is gathering things together to make a subscription site. He gets some followers together. The subscibers of said site then will make their own decisions and the success of the site will rely mainly upon the success of the subscribers in executing their systems...it will not rely upon links placed on Elitetrader. We are all adults here. As adults, we make decisions. We can choose to click on the link, read the blog or simply hit that X button at the top right to close it. We can comment in the blog or we can just sit there and read it. We can email the guy or simply not email him. We can make a business arrangement or not... Whatever happens is our own decision. Please trust us to make our own decisions. If we make a mistake, then we learn and move on. If anyone here believes a nameless faceless person, they never met, on the internet is an expert at anything because they placed up a blog, then they DESERVE to have their money taken away and learn the hardest lesson possible.
I too don't think blogs should be promoted here at Elitetrader.com by the author considering the fact that ET has a Journal section. However, there's nothing wrong with members promoting the blogs of others. However, the particular blog TraderZones is complaining about has no advertisements, no click me links so that the blogger gets financially compensated et cetera. Simply, it's not a commercial blog. Therefore, TraderZones obviously has a personal vendetta against this particular blogger via attempting to label it as a commercial blog. Yet, I do understand why some have blogs (those that aren't commercial) instead of posting the same commentary here at ET in the Journal section even though I don't think the author should be posting links here at ET to their blogs. * Moderate your blog but you can't moderate your journal at ET unless you ask for help from moderators for any problematic member. * You control the attachments, fonts, stylesheets et cetera in your blog while you can't do such here at ET other than basic font changing and you have a attachment limitation here via 1 attachment per message post. * If you don't like something you've said in your blog...you can delete it anytime you want or delete the blog itself. In contrast, you can't delete your trade journal here at ET and if others have posted messages in your trade journal here...Baron will not delete your trade journal even if you beg for him to do such. Also, some bloggers (those that aren't commercial) gather email addresses to better keep track of those that are interested in reading the blog and may use the email address to notify those that are registered that the blog is ending, going to a new link or special free trading related info that the blogger doesn't want any casual visitor to read. Last of all, I find it odd that TraderZones tends to complain more about bloggers that have no commercial content versus blogs that do have commercial content...he's using his bias against bloggers that are popular or posting technical analysis information that strongly contradicts his negative opinions about TA... Shame on you TraderZones especially considering you've advertised several times here at ET your 250k trading system without ET management permission. Mark
Here is something to think about in the journal section. A person can have 3-4 different aliases with 3-4 different strategies. Then whatever strategy that works...that is the alias that is kept while the other aliases drift off into oblivion. How many journals are started just to float away and why? There is always a way to twist and turn things no matter how difficult you make it for people. The journal section can be manipulated. Personal blogs are nothing new and I am not about to believe or rely on a blog just because its there on the internet. I think I am a little more intelligent then that...
the blog harvests targeted email addresses, which to anyone who has ever dealt with online/web businesses is thoroughly aware, has a very high value. your complain more about bloggers that have no commercial content versus blogs that do have commercial content is obviously somehting you have no idea about, but soudns good to say. It is obviously untrue for anyone who actually looks at the reality. So your theory about "targeting this vendor" does not hold water.