Notice all the ads lately? Hmm...could it be that yet another soul has learned that it is more profitable to sell advice than trade?
In general, I can deal with the ads (someone's got to pay the bills, after all). I do, however, question the propriety of allowing links that lead to pop-ups, traps, and dialog boxes.
How about those affiliated with advertisers posting reviews and praise of their own company without disclosing the relationship? How about Baron deleting posts that criticize his advertisers?
Its costs alot of time and money to run a large website such as elitetrader. The bills need to be paid and I think Baron should be rewarded for his efforts. The ads don't interfere with the discussion so I don't have a problem with them.
I agree. However, it would be nice if, assuming you were interested in checking out the products or services available from one of the sponsors, you didn't find yourself trapped at the site or having to deal with multiple pop-ups. Really, I only object to the form, not the substance. Even then, only a couple that are problematic.
I don't have any problems with the adds. I hope Baron makes a pile of money off this site. What does concern me is the deletion of posts. Not that Baron doesn't have the right to do this (and I appreciate it in the case of profane, tasteless, unrelated posts) it's his sight. But the problem is, if this happens too much ET will be nothing more than a biased advertising medium. I think that would be unfortunate, and somewhat misleading - people would come here thinking they are seeing an open discussion when they are actually seeing filtered biased information.
New_2_this How about those affiliated with advertisers posting reviews and praise of their own company without disclosing the relationship? How about Baron deleting posts that criticize his advertisers? Eldredge I don't have any problems with the ads. I hope Baron makes a pile of money off this site. What does concern me is the deletion of posts. Not that Baron doesn't have the right to do this (and I appreciate it in the case of profane, tasteless, unrelated posts) it's his right. But the problem is, if this happens too much ET will be nothing more than a biased advertising medium. I think that would be unfortunate, and somewhat misleading - people would come here thinking they are seeing an open discussion when they are actually seeing filtered biased information. Its called "credibility" and once you lose it its gone forever and that would be a shame because there is SOME good content here, after the "mine is bigger than yours" stuff.
Lately??? Elite Trader has been running since 1997 and advertisements have been displayed site-wide the entire time... so this is nothing new. If you think I'm getting rich selling banner ads, then you should learn more about the web advertising business. The vast majority of sites that depend strictly on ad revenue lose money while the rest hover around the break even mark. That's why sites like TheStreet.com and CBS MarketWatch are moving away from advertising to subscription-based services like selling stock picks. Most of the time posts are removed for the reasons you described (off topic, tasteless, etc.) The remainder of the posts that are removed are from people who come on the boards as unauthorized advertisers pitching their products/services which are mainly things like pirated trading software, stock scams, etc. Also, most posts are removed because other members use the kill function to request that they be removed, not because I deleted it on my own. In addition, I don't moderate every forum. Most forums are moderated by volunteers who are regular members that have no bias whatsoever other than to keep the discussion somewhat clean.
The broker and software ratings areas have become a joke. About 3 weeks ago 3 different names posted 3 broker ratings in the space of 10 minutes. It was obviously bogus and someone pointed that out. NOW I notice the timestamp of when the rating was posted has been removed.