Good point, mobile is where growth is. But it needs a real app like BBC or CNBC or Reuters News Pro. Some apps are just pared down crap to load faster on mobile. A prime example of this is Amazon where the mobile app lacks Look Inside and for iPhone, very limited details. I never use it and always access the full site. If I were Baron I would solicit opinions from ET members who use mobile for trading related discussions and design the app accordingly. Get it right or don't bother.
Too many cooks in the kitchen. Baron built a hell of a site here without all the armchair QB's.. Let's see what he comes up with before kabitzing this thing to death. Walt Rennick Greenberg out
I personally don't understand the resistance to the self moderation idea, there will still be plenty of shit-storm threads to generate the 'hits', but at least good threads won't get ruined as has happened so many time before. The point of the site for the owner is to make money through site traffic, but I don't think quality threads through self moderation and high hit weenie-roasts are necessary mutually exclusive.
If you don't know if it still exists or not (it is not) how do you know it has failed? It was a popular feature, and took away much heat from other threads, but I guess since it wasn't generating page views and money, it was just an extra problem for Baron, thus he discontinued it... It would be nice to bring it back... Anyhow, one other feature would be nice to have (ALL message boards have it) is the numbering of posts. So people can refer to a particular post by the number instead of the pagecount what is different for everybody... Also, if I put someone on Ignore, I don't want to see his crap when someone is quoting him. Kind of defeating the purpose of Ignore. But I don't expect this to be fixed....
+1 to above. People should be allowed the rights to self-moderate their own forums. Instead of private invite-only forums - everyone should have "read-access" to everything posted on ET, but thread starter should be given the right to moderate his own forum by taking away "write-access" from the people who create trouble on his thread. To be able to bar anyone from being given write-access on a particular thread, thread starter must gain some kind of acceptability from other readers. My suggestion is follows: Implement following small little box that will be present on top of each thread. The box will have the space for thread starter to propose the name of the miscreant from whom he wants to take-away the "write-access" for this particular thread. People should be able to vote in favor Vs against the proposal. vote to ban "this guy" from this thread - kind of small window on top of each thread. I will say if 75% or more people vote to ban the guy, the thread starter should have the ability to ban the guy. Minimum number of votes required should be at least 10, this will ensure that just 3 guys don't collude together to ban a person from a particular thread. Threads like "Characteristics of a Successful Trader" are very useful thread for majority of people. If some miscreant will start making trouble, hordes of silent majority will come and vote to ban this person and so the problem that EricP faced will be alleviated.
I "completely" agree with your problem, and I like components of your proposed solution - however I do not like it completely. Following is my point. Giving the ability to ban a person to the thread starter - is like giving him authoritarian powers. This can be mis-used by charlatans and their followers. However, being able to ban someone with at least 75% votes in his favor and at least 10 guys voting will be a great example of collective wisdom at work. Please read the post I typed in prior to this for my suggestion.
Maybe a solution to the thread pollution is to allow users to easily +1 or -1 a post (or some other mechanism) based on how useful they found it. Users can then set a default in their settings to show only posts with 5+ or 20+, or -5, -20 etc if they wish to see all the crap. You could eventually all that as a sort criteria in the search.
I must confess I cringe at some of the stuff I read on ET. Something should be done about the boorish individuals here. Freedom to express ones opinion and engage in vigorous debate are hallmarks of true democracy. Some of the proposals here would be worthy of a communist system. Please, let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.