It's called getting Control of the Narrative. I am sick of seeing kids trying that on ET. Zero intellectual maturity and driven by a narcissistic desire to see themselves as a thought leader. I would rather see that one broken sentence from a trader that I know has "it". Start a blog, @studentofthemarkets. Pay your tuition on the forum. Get to know the people.
If I start a thread, I think I should have some say over the discussion that takes place in it. Why would I continue with a thread that has a stated purpose if others can come onto it and try to turn it into a platform for their own agenda? It's one thing to bring up a different viewpoint for the purpose of respectful discussion, it's an entirely different matter for someone to disrupt the thread because they don't like it and want to ruin it. It's difficult, I think, in a forum like this to have fairness when it comes to religion. ET isn't set up to have us "own" our own threads, and that's fine. It's not set up to be a religious discussion board either, nor should it be. However, because it's not conducive to allowing some control over the content within a thread, I will likely not continue with my threads in the religious section. I'm still very thankful for ET. This forum has helped a lot with my trading and I've met some nice people on here.
How about adding a 'dislike' button? The community gets to vote on whether they found the post useful or not and if more negative votes are cast then the post is hidden. The post is not permanently hidden though, an option could be made available to expand and read it should a user choose to do so.
Self-moderation in the context of trading threads , keeping them clean and on topic, as long as the OP doesn’t abuse the privilege, could be helpful making the moderators life easier. But how many can accept true criticism, if their ideas or calls are flawed? An opposing view might be the best gem in a thread? I can understand the irritation from the OP, have experienced myself, but threads in the Community section, to me, are different and are here to keep the trading threads clean and an outlet for members to talk, discuss topics outside the purpose of the site. “Elite Trader” is a trading site. Religion, Politics, et al. are allowed as a perk. Serious discussion of these matters would probably be better served in a different forum.
I disagree, I think you are confusing an open, public discussion thread with a WordPress blog. On a blog, you can write whatever you want and you are the moderator and have full control. In a public forum, thread-starters are just what the term implies, they merely started a new channel so to speak. The rest is out of their hand because the main purpose of a discussion board is to spark debate and discussion, especially opposing opinions. Allowing OPs to moderate the thread is, as Baron stated, causing all sorts of conflicts of interest.
And the benefit of that being? The only effect I see of that (other than granting the satisfaction to voters to artificially feel being in power) is that minority opinions are discouraged because they are naturally downvoted by the majority. The politics forum should be a testimony to the fact that even most adults are incapable of differentiating between useful content and disagreeable content.
Actually, ET trolls should get banned for posting BS and disinformation on the ET message boards. It is the ET trolls whining and crying after being challenged on their lies and disinformation. These ET trolls abuse their posting privileges. Yeah, ban all ET trolls who post garbage day in day out. They serve no useful purpose for majority of traders using the ET message boards. Nobody is going to miss them.