Last night I couldn't sleep -- railroad construction outside -- so I was surfing around mindlessly and decided to re-explore Yahoo v. Google Finance sites. I was blown away....what is it about Yahoo Finance discussion boards that draws out the worst of people? For every 5 discussion threads that are useful and civil, there are 20 trolls, racists, political hacks, spammers, and tons of general a--holes who feel the need to insult every person participating in a serious community discussion thread about position X. Not being a frequent YHOO board person I don't know how long this has gone on, but I am just amazed at the level of total garbage that's there. An absolute cesspool. Are other such boards/forums just as bad? Anyone know *why* this is the case? Seems like Yahoo Finance boards are nothing more than a magnet for the dregs of the trading world or those who want to scam folks.....I really feel sorry for those who try to hold civilized talks about their particular stocks there.
I'm not sure why it is, but I can tell you it's been that bad since at least '97 when I started trading and actually read some of the stuff on the Yahoo boards. The ratio of crap to serious posts wasn't quite as bad then, but it was still bad. Now, it's really not even worth looking at their boards.
Why was my post deleted? For the record, here is what I said: I find ET to be almost as bad. Anonymity of the Internet + Cowards + Low Self Image = typical hate-filled poster on either site. To the person that deleted my post - grow up. I didn't violate any TOS.
For every 5 discussion threads that are useful and civil, there are 20 trolls --------------------- The 20 trolls are the same person. Probably about the same ratio (5/20) as the general population. In real life we generally can avoid that "person" but on the written forum it isn't as easy.