like i said,he didnt start the post and his site is not being presented in a favoring lite so i doubt this qualifies as advertising,maybe the moderators can just delite it
This is my last post on this thread so I'll make it a good one. You must really over estimate the reach of this site. My url has received around 300 unique visitors from ET. When my articles appear on a non-message board trading site my domain get's about 4000 hits. Plus those articles get picked up by Yahoo Finance and bloggers. I did an Alexa search on my stuff a few months back and I was pretty shocked at how many sites have posted something I've written. Not to diminish ET-this is a a great, unique message board for traders but it's a limited resource for trader education. Look at this thread. 2000 views but I'd bet only 100 unique viewers. My articles on TM receive 20,000 unique viewers. Even still for Baron this site is a fabulous Horatio Alger type enterprise. Since I registered here in late 2001 I'd estimate his earnings have been between 6-10 million dollars. Not too shabby for a message board. The most writing he has to do is go on Feedback and deflect some asinine complaint. In turn I'm probably responsible for half a percent of the posts made in the history of ET and a shitload of page views. It's entirely possible that the presence of Pabst on ET all these years has personally put 30k or more in Baron's pocket. Not that I should violate a TOS for that reason or any other reason but any notion that I'm getting a lot of "free ink" or benefit by posting a url here-is ridiculous. If I wanted to do that I would've used the common sense approach and had someone else start a thread with my link. 95% of ET would never even know that ecktrade is Pabst and there would probably be a 1000 people posting "cool idea." If anything I used a detrimental ANTI-marketing approach. That being said I may elect to be a sponsor-it's not like I can't afford it. However given that ecktrade only pays me if I make money trading, the benefit of paying for non-guaranteed revenue from customers is something I need to think over.
<b>+1 x 1,000</b> Baron hit a vein of gold as a businessman when founding this site, and deserves mega-kudos on his personal success in milking a public message board for $$ in the bank. Brilliant idea, launch and execution at the perfect moment in time. As for viewership reach, it's six inches wide and five miles deep. A very small populace of repeat posters and viewers relative to other trading website forums as noted above. This is a fine hangout akin to your local tavern, where a few of the same regulars and now & then some new faces show up for conversation. It works perfectly per the forum that it is, but as for violating the TOS being something moral or legal to consider... no different than a yahoo message board. Self-appointed site police in ET need look no further than Politics & Religion and Chit-Chat forums to waste their time = lives in. I think we saw a thread with Ivan in the subject line today, or maybe two of them. Different aliases, same OP. Isn't that a strict violation of site TOS? Better get on that case right away. Best Wishes with your venture(s) pabst. This is a trader's message board, last time I checked. The subject of trading and trading alone is all that's appropriate in a professional environment imo.
I won't defend Pabst, but I do have two questions for him. 1. Why would you be so foolish as to paint an entire ethnic group with such a broad brush? 2. Why would you take on OPM? To me, that is like having employees, and if you have ever had any, I need not say anything more.
So the answer is no, you are not a paid sponsor and therefore you have been violating the T.O.S. by posting links to your commercial website. The post of your below is nothing but a rationalization of your violation of ET's T.O.S. What is par for the course is that you mention "ecktrade" again, even after essentially admitting you are in violation of the ET T.O.S. What can I say, dude is from Chicago...and Chicago is famous for the corruption and unethical behavior in the financial industry.
Pabst, my sense this is from the heart and i believe you. your post smack of frank honesty. it all adds up. you're the reluctant poster to this thread if anything. ZZzz, you seem to have an axe to grind here. Pabst has effectively rebutted each of your allegations. Your "TOS" BS just isn;t getting off the ground. Admit defeat and move on to your next 'just cause" (even thunderdog has abandoned the premise of his thread and moved on to more fertile trolling soil )
No axe to grind, I apply the same treatment for marketsurfer, Alex of Puretick, Brandon, Don Bright, and any other snake oil salesman. I could care less if my TOS gets off the ground, the point was made, and then the point was verified by "I will leave ET forever if my prediction of _______ doesn't happen" Kurt Eckhardt. Why don't you put up a cheesy commercial website about a new business venture (especially one that depends on raising money for trading the money) and post a link to it and you will see that I am consistent in my illustration and illumination of the snake oil types. Me thinks your bias is clouding your vision here... Or perhaps you are just as corrupt and unethical as Kurt, and have a knee jerk need to defend this type of unethical corrupt behavior...the Chicago traders do seem to defend each other, even when they are in the wrong.
777, i find myself often agreeing with you on more than one occasion but now you are coming across petty and vindictive you can't win them all, especially if you plAY A LOT OF HANDS take your losses like a man and move on