you are joking. to say it gently ET is full of members who have fragile egos. also, the thread doesn't belong to the OP. "if they continue to be a pest. " some OPs are also pests.
Hmmm...I'm a bit worried about myself. Maybe I need to seek some counseling. Why? Because I am finding myself in agreement with brother Surf here on this issue. Well stated, brother Surf!
The ignore feature works for me. Despite all the flames I recd over the years, only one member is on my ignore list--- a true serial polluter and time waster.
Exactly. There are currently several popular (well followed) ET members with private threads, private twitter groups, private chat, facebook and so on posting useful content "outside" of ET because they don't want to share it within the environment of ET public areas. They view this place as entertainment only and post their useful content elsewhere. Thus, I think Baron's trying to keep those particular traders here at ET so that they can setup their own private areas at ET when they don't want the typical ET troublemakers to view their content. Simply, I welcome private areas here at ET and it just may encourage some overflow of the content into the public areas of ET in comparison to the same members posting their content elsewhere in private.
I agree, maybe the top profitable traders can setup a private group and invite one new/struggling trader in a year and mentor him/her.....since its my idea I will nominate my self as the first candidate.
Yes, absolutely this would be a good idea. It would also, IMO, lead to having more serious discussions and contributions from successful traders, many of whom tire of the pollution and newbie insults that they encounter on the site. Transparency is good and public discussion should be available to anyone and everyone. However, once someone has proven themselves as a pest, the OP should have the ability to ban them from their thread before the thread becomes completely trashed and destroyed. Several years ago, I started what was intended to be a very useful and newbie helpful thread entitled "Characteristics of a Successful Trader" (or some such title). The thread was well received and generated good discussion until one ET member decided to come onto the thread and trash it. Anyone reading the thread will know exactly what I'm talking about. With absolutely no control over rogue posting, I find it easier to mostly refrain from posting on ET, especially any 'useful' content. Why bother? Unfortunately, this change has been suggested and discussed previously and Baron has made the business decision that flaming increases his page-views and is not harmful to his business. I disagree, but obviously, it's his call. This was the prior discussion on the topic: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168825
The issue doesn't involve whether someone is profitable or not nor does it involve mentoring. The issue is that useful content by some ET members are being posted elsewhere in an environment that's better moderated. EricP complaint is an example of what has happen to him. Simply, ET members that start threads aren't given the ability to moderate their own threads when troublemakers show up...eventually these useful content providers (ET members) post their content elsewhere or don't post useful content at all. Therefore, they eventually just hang out here at ET for entertainment purposes only...sometimes just lurking. Therefore, Baron deciding to allow ET members to create private threads instead of giving members the ability to moderate their own threads is better than nothing...although I prefer both.
Yes, I think it would be mandatory the feature was such that a poster was warned first on each thread. (not sure how this could be coded). For example, one couldn't just willy nilly block someone from posting because OP didn't like them. The warning feature could be like a special PM which was publicly displayed on the forum where OP gave his reason for telling the offender his reason the offender was polluting. Should the OP be out of line with his rebuke (ie just wishing to block someone because of previous personality clash which is not a good reason in itself) then I'm sure that, being in public view, the OP will get himself a serve from the rest of ET for being unreasonable. In my opinion, having everything out in public view is better than having discussions going on in private. Having conflicting opinions out on display on ET is healthy, but blocking someone for a very minor piece of trivia should not be encouraged.
Perhaps you could have a voting poll, when votes reach 12 points then whichever side has most points determines whether the pest is blocked. Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread, just throwing in some ideas for weeding out idiots who as mentioned can destroy good threads.