<b>How about the 3 year+ old posts?</b> Your members took thousands of hours of their time to provide you with these contributions... the least you can do is take 2 seconds to answer a simple yes/no question regarding their fate.
Hi Rearden, Although Baron doesn't have an Announcement thread for management to talk about stuff like this... He did say somewhere in one of these recent threads in feedback that he can bring back a particular old thread that was deleted via telling him the name of the thread. Regardless, he's still in my dog house for deleting old content based upon one rule only... Inactive and older than 3 years from the last post. Here's what he should do... He should bring back EVERY old thread that he deleted and then post in his new Annoucement section what threads are on the chopping block. Threads that get the most votes or however he wants to do it via allowing the members themselves decide what's important and what's not important... He can then DELETE the threads that members do not care about and than either archive the stuff members want into a special inactive area or private area as a paid membership area or put it on DVD for sale. Heck, Baron could even SPLIT ET into two sections... A public area and a private area. Private area contains all the archived educational threads and any current educational threads that was voted upon by ET members in the public area as the most/best useful. Those top threads from the public area are then transferred into the private area. A private that requires payment (small fee) to gain access. The above is slowly becoming popular among none financial sites and seems to be working very well so far. I've only seen one financial site do the above but I don't know if it's working or not for the website owner. Yet, if he's unwilling to try to sell something that was educational and no longer being discussed because the conversation occurred many years ago... He should at least gives us the common courtesy of making it available for download for a particular period prior to deletion. The latter above seems like an easy solution to this mess he created when he decided to delete USEFUL educational content that's still applicable in today's market. Mark
Barons Elitetrader.com is at a key pivot point in its business model. He wants more page views. Regardless of quality. However page views are a result of having quality content. Baron is deleting older content, not to save server space. Baron is deleting older past 3 years content because he thinks lack of relevant content will induce users to start new threads re-hashing the same content that has been deleted. Thereby increasing page views. This is a flawed strategy because of the current fundamental seismic shift taking place as regards to content generation. Example: 3 years ago, WSJ was the primary source for content. However recently, the WSJ is opening up content. This is because there are now MORE content sources competing for the same audience. Internet technology has moved rapidly in the last 3 years. 3 years ago, there were a handful of trader blogs. 3 years later, many traders keep a blog. There are now free easy-to-use professional level CMS tools available allowing anyone to share their ideas. Wordpress, Typepad, etc. Also, hardware and content generation tools are now priced to levels where anyone can get a world-class website up and running in no time. Anyone can now set up a professional trading site in all of 1 day. He can host all of this for free. Once the free bandwidth is exceeded, bandwidth can now be paid through Ad revenue. 3 years ago, no such tools and services were available. See the difference? That's why 99% of the relevant content ( relevant to trading) was posted 3 years ago. Traders begin to write blogs, instead of starting a ET journal to chronicle their trades That's why, even if you delete all the old relevant content, no one will post that information on ET. All the relevant content is being posted on the blogs and elsewhere. That is why your old content is exceedingly valuable. Because of content disintermediation. Instead of deleting old journals with merit, you should make an effort to connect the old relevant material to your current user base. Baron is in the same conundrum as WSJ online. There is so much really good content available all over the place, that content aggregators are losing page views. The page view metric is also going to be revised sooner than later. Smart Ad payers want unique visitors as well as the page views. ET has the same problem as every other content aggregrator. Content is being disintermediated at a very high rate because of the low cost and ease of publishing online. No specialized knowledge is needed for a Acrary or a Dbphoenix to begin his own blog and keep the Ad revenue. Deleting valuable content will not solve Barons problem. Once the content is deleted, the user base will slowly disintegrate. Instead of finding the content in the older journals, new traders seeking to learn will find the relevant content posted on a blog elsewhere and migrate there. Deleting 3 year old journals serves no purpose because the content will NOT be re-generated. Once all the relevant older threads are deleted, what will be left on ET are the same 5 fools now posting every day. Since more Ad payers use the #Unique visitors as a key metric, this will eventually adversely impact the bottom line. Online content generation has changed. You're deleting the most valuable part of of your business. Also, I noticed those commenting on this thread and making valuable suggestions are the older members. Those making these suggestions actually trade for a living. They know quality trading content when they see it.
So now you are the resident EXPERT on what works in trading and what doesn't ? Stick to what you do, run a trading forum. Let us decide what we think is valid or not. That thread was the best you ever had here on ET. Put the friggin thread back !!! Actually don't worry about it, I was looking for a good reason to spend more time over at Traderslab.
Reardon, I agree this is typical (arrogant) Baron behavior, I'm still amazed I even visit this site anymore. He has always been a bad businessman and ET could have been soo much better if he had even a clue about what the business of trading is.
I would appreciate knowing the latest word regarding the deleted posts. Quite a few of the threads that I had subscribed to, and which I had been using to build a training program, are no longer available. I'm attaching a couple of old screenshots of subscribed threads in the hope that the threads might be returned even temporarily to give users an opportunity to archive them.
arealpissedgoy, Excellent overview of exactly what is occurring at ET, content industry et cetera. It's also very accurate considering I've read similar like info in various online publications that deals with the content industry. Baron error is that he's hoping old valuable threads will be discussed in-depth again to help with his page view count et cetera. The flaw is that those traders that produced such threads have been posting the same in-depth information at the competitor location, personal blogs and so on over the past few years. In fact, what is occurring here at ET is that members are referring other ET members to sources outside ET and I expect such to occur more often now that the valuable old content has been deleted here. Simply, there will be no or very little rehashing of valuable content here at ET. Look at me for example...many of my topics about volatility, price action only trading, Japanese Candlesticks have vanished (deleted) that occurred within many old threads started by others. I have no intentions to discuss (do it again) such topics at ET especially knowing these topics are being discussed elsewhere in-depth. In fact, the more I use Google search engine to find specific topics... EliteTrader.com is no longer getting the top search results or when ET does get the top search result... It's now a dead link. If Baron is as concerned as he implied via his comparison of ET to the Wall Street Journal... His new coming forum will need to provide exactly what traders are leaving to do on their own: * Blogs * Ability to moderate your own trade journal * Private member only area where the really good stuff is posted or stored instead of being deleted because the discussion is inactive via +3 years * Video Uploads (investing and trading forums are beginning to have a video area where member can upload education information they've prepared concerning the markets) * Enforcing the TOU policy With that said as I wait to see what Baron does with his new pending forum to come... Here's a recent quote from one particular top well followed internet content industry source - ---------- At some point, perhaps two years from now, a bottom will be found. More and more quality content resources will have either closed down or gone to a subscription model. Enough people will become willing to pay, after they get sick of wasting time clicking their way through oceans of free, mainly poor quality content. It has to happen. Quality is quality, and quality costs. ---------- Mark
Yes, that is correct. The nature of the beast ( The internet ) is rapidly changing. The first gen: Hardware was king. second gen: Content aggregrators were King. we're now rapidly entering third gen. third gen: content providers are king. I'll provide Timothy Sykes as an example. 3 years back, there was no way he could have single handly generate the website he now has. What did he do? he showed up on ET. Created some controversy. Then left and opened his own site. He created his site from scratch using wordpress. Put up adsense which generated some revenue indicating he was doing something right. Then he put up his own forums and all types of apps ( all available for free ). With his re-designed site he probably makes much more than he ever did trading. The key point is, he designed his preliminary site all by himself. Using free industrial strength apps. 3 years ago, guy like him would be posting on an ET journal ( for FREE). That's why the ET Journal section is pretty much dried up. Why bother providing content for free when you can have your own blog and keep the income from adsense. Baron is deleting his most valuable part of his website. His quality content that every new trader is looking for ( but doesn't know it yet). If Baron was a trader, he'd know the difference between quality trading content and nonsense. Much of what is being posted in the past year has been nonsense.
All of the threads, posts, and attachments from the past have been restored. Thanks for your patience. When I deleted the older content, my thought process was obviously not in line with what the members wanted, so I apologize for making that mistake. I can't guarantee that I will never screw up again, but if I do, I will do whatever it takes to make it right.