One of the best sites on the net. Barron and assisting moderators, excellent professional and responsible job! Baron... a suggestion that could further improve quality vs noise: Consider allowing new members to post only after some ID check, and all existing members to register with an ID verification within x amount of time. Reminders can be sent over e-emails etc. 100% Free access to read and pm but post on any thread only after ID verified. ID verification, can be done by subscription request through Credit Card, Check, money order... Not much of a different process than buying a book form amazon, trade on ebay, or any other purchase over the net. E.G. subscription for a token fee of 1 dollar for a year, heck make it refundable after sometime. I'd bet there are many of us that would be delighted to spent way more than that just to get the dupes and spam out. The idea is to minimize the huge number of aliases. The quality / quantity ratio should drastically improve. Less pissing contests. More serious members and responsible posts. The ignore functions would really work. A member would think twice before makes a jacka$$ out of his/her self. Moderator's load should be less and it would take less time for the readers to go through threads when most of the garbage is gone. On the downside, it may effect the number of hits on the site, as one of the selling points for attracting advertisers, and possibly effecting your bottom line. U and your associates have put a lot of work in this, and it's truly commendable. No question the efforts need to be and remain rewarded.
A similar Message Forum to Elite Trader, revolving not around the stock market but around online poker (www.pokah.com) has a reward system that seems to be worth considering as a model, if Elite Trader could somehow adapt it. Pokah.com gives reward points for active membership, which are redeemable as real money playing-cash in their interactive poker tables. Punishments of abusers of the message forum, which usually has to be pretty extreme to result in being banned from a site like this, is made more pragmatic: abusers will lose reward points. And some members who are seen as beneficial will receive bonus reward points as incentives. Now that's capitalism at work! How about this: arrange with the sponsors of Elite Trader to create a similar award point system at their services. Let's say for instance that 1,000 Elite Trader points might be redeemable for $1 rebate on a single commission at brokers or $1 rebate for one month's subscription fee at other sponsor services. Rather than affecting the number of hits on the site, the reward system would keep people interested in participating, and in not being jackasses when they do, which in turn would improve the quality of the site, making it more attractive for users and sponsors alike. I'd rather have this than the credit card ID check, you already need to be a member to post messages or send PM's (I think). I don't think this site should be restricted only to those who have credit cards, and validating the credit cards itself would become a whole other hassle for the staff of this site. If ID verification is an issue worth considering, it could be accomplished in this way, as anyone redeeming their Elite Trader points from the sponsor site would be identified by their membership on those sites. Suppose if every time a member got put on Ignore List they would lose reward points (while putting someone else on Ignore would not increase the points of the person doing the Ignoring). Instead of each person's number of posts displayed beneath their name, their number of earned reward points would be displayed. Members' status might more accurately reflect their value to the site and to other members by this figure. Here's the rewards payout from pokah.com: Logins: Each day you login to Pokah!, you will get 10 Pokah! points. Guestbook posts: Each time you post a message in another members guestbook, you will get 10 Pokah! points. You can get up to 50 Pokah! points every day. Posts in your guestbook: Each time someone post a message in your guestbook, you will get 5 Pokah! points. You can get up to 25 Pokah! points every day. Posts in Forum: Each time you post a message in a forum, you will get 10 Pokah! points. You can get up to 50 Pokah! points every day. MyPage visitors: Each time a member of Pokah! visits your page, you will get 1 Pokah! point. You can get up to 50 Pokah! points every day. Behavior: Your behavior on Pokah! is monitored. If you behave bad on Pokah (i.e spam, bad language...) you will get negative Pokah! points and in some cases you will get blocked from Pokah! If you behave good, you may get positive Pokah! points. Static Pokah! points Photo: Upload a photo to your Pokah! page and you will get 500 or 350 Pokah! points depending on motive. Every photo is approved by the Pokah! staff. In order to get full points, your face must be visible. Copyright protected, offensive or otherwise unsuitable content is not allowed. Pokerfacts: If you fill out your Pokerfacts, you will get 1000 Pokah! points. Presentation: Fill in a presentation about yourself and you will get 1 Pokah! point per character up to 500 Pokah! points. Member since: You will get 200 Pokah! points per month since you signed-up with Pokah!. Real-money account: You will get 700 Pokah! points, if you sign-up for a Real-money account at PokerRoom.com.
It's simple pragmatic capitalism all-around. Which should be entirely compatible with the fundamental basis for this site's existence. (capitalism, supply and demand, etc). Improved quality of the site would attract more membership, more active membership, or more serious members. The reward points incentives could be deducted from the advertising costs charged to the sponsors. This would be an incentive to the advertisers. Improved site quality would also be an incentive to the sponsors, who would feel that keeping serious investor/traders interested in following this site would be to the sponsor's advantage in advertising their service to more likely prospects.
When I look around ET I don't see the problem that some of you do who repeatedly call for reform. Most threads and posts are on topic and to the point. Sure some posts are made in jest, even the most solemn of posters kid occasionally, is this really a problem, enuf to turn ET upside down? I suspect that what those who are calling for changes really want is verification of what they read and of the integrity of the poster, and that can and will NEVER happen. It is not possible. Info must be evaluated on its own merit by the recipient, and me giving you my credit card will not change that fact or the truthfulness of my communication.