WOW! What happened to the tastytrade thread?

I am confused, can you help me out. The user that sparked the deletion of the Tastytrade thread was "jamesbp," who you say "contributed over 440 posts to ET, and every single one of them were bashing Tom Sosnoff and/or Tastytrade in that one thread."

However ET member "jamesbp" according to his profile page (see below) that I pulled out of Google's cache says he was a member of ET since September 29, 2006. The tastytrade thread that was deleted was started on March 2, 2013, and jamesbp did not make a post to it until May 1, 2014. This member was not dormant for over 7 1/2 years and then started attacking Tom Sossnof. He had posted in many other threads unrelated to Sossnoff and Tastytrade. So your statement, some of it in bold for emphasis, does not appear to be correct.



When I do an ET search on ET member "jamesbp" I currently find 4 pages of results that include numerous threads that jamesbp contributed to (see below) that have nothing to do with Tastytrade or Tom Sossnof. For example, the screen shot below shows some threads from 2010 that jamesbp participated in. And the weird thing is when I did the search 30 minutes ago there were 6 pages of results?

Can you share with the ET community any explanation for this discrepancy in the facts?



Also, can you tell us exactly how many complaints you received that warranted the action?

 

I think the posts of "jamesbp" have saved a lot of "traders" from a lot of "whining" by illustrating some of the folly of tastytrade.

Those posts have a lot more value than a great percentage of posts on ET.

 

I agree. The information was contained and posted with decorum. He might have had an axe to grind, but he did it with information and data. It wasn't the spread all over the forum like some other individuals' agendas. A lot of other people took their causes and spread it in every forum. Marketsurfer did it. GrandSuperCycle did it several years ago. Atticus/convex did it too. This was contained.

I personally think Elitetrader is worse because that thread was deleted and what precedent that creates going forward.

If I start a thread where I talk about the perils of short vol and spend my next 500 posts showing why it doesn't work, will that get deleted too?

 

Elite Trader is still the best website for traders on the web. One of the better things that Elite Trader does in my opinion, is determine, who exactly is, or is not, an "elite trader." Tom Sossnoff is loudly proclaiming to an audience of between 50,000 and 100,000 daily that he is an elite trader. He basically says that many, many times a day. Therefore, he says that his network, because they are "elite traders," can teach tens of thousands of new traders how to be successful.

Sosnoff says that he will soon be bigger than CNBC, who he bashes relentlessly. Sosnoff and Tastytrade will introduce more young people to trading than anyone else. Much of your future audience will perhaps come to you via an interest in trading that that was sparked by Tastytrade. So this is big picture, long term, future of ET stuff.

The fly in the ointment is that Sosnoff is not an elite trader. Maybe back in his market maker days he was, but it's a different market now. I think newbees to trading need to have a place to be warned of the problems with the tastytrade method.

There is a great deal of evidence to prove that Sosnoff is not an elite trader. He is a fraud. He's blown up the account of his daugher, Case, and one of his young employees had her account blown up by his sidekick, last year. Sosnoff refuses to disclose his performance results. He pitches futures scalping to become "engaged" in the market. It does go on and on. I can provide pages of evidence, with links, testimonials, etc., that support my point of view. And you may disagree and still say that Sossnoff and this other tastytraders are elite traders, and is qualified to teach others. So we have a debate. That is what ET is for.

I'm sorry, you perhaps feel that I was trolling you, with that proposal about starting a "I hate Tom Sosnoff" thread. But, by suddenly deleting that 100 page tastytrade thread, and banning a long time member you have upset me. That thread did have a legitimate debate between supporters and critics of tastytrade. Exactly, what ET is about.

Yes, the debate was being tipped in one direct by the member in question. But all his arguments and points had merit in my opinion. I will point out that he did have 8 followers, and 25 likes and none of that comes from me.

Nassim Taleb (the Black Swan author) says on the top of his website:

Ethics: "If you see fraud and don't shout fraud, you are a fraud"​

I see a fraud with Tastytrade. The long-time member, jamesbp, that was disappeared was providing evidence of that fraud. Fraud in the sense that Sosnoff and Tastytrade are not "elite traders." It's false advertising. Other long-time members, who contributed to the tastytrade thread were of the same opinion. You have eliminated a growing body of evidence of that fraud/false advertising.

So where do we go from here? We can all see that you have a financial interest in this question. Ameritrade is a sponsor here at ET and they are Tastytrade's patron.

How, can you allow any serious criticism of Tastytrade to take place here on ET? We are biting the hand that feeds you. There is a clear conflict of interest.

Because, if we were relentlessly bashing and criticizing another person or business, who was a fraud, and who was not a sponsor, you would allow it.

You know you make these decisions on a case-by-case basis. If someone had an axe to grind with Jon Corzine and MF Global, and was commenting on them in the same vein as jamesbp was on Tastytrade, you would not have even cared or noticed. But, if Corzine had one of his Goldman people contact you, I guess, you would have then noticed. That is how it works. We get it.

I am now more than ever a passionate critic of Tastytrade, because of their hypocrisy. Sosnoff and his crew can relentlessly rant and criticize everyone and everything in the investment community, but they can't stand anyone who criticizes them. This is truly intellectual dishonesty.

So, please make it crystal clear, what are the rules for criticizing Tastytrade, because I now want to go all the way to that line that you draw.

 

(I'm pretty sure the answer would be "no".)

 

I completely agree.

 

Fair point. But he's bashing someone whose not
1. a member of the site.
2. a sponsor of the site.
3. most likely is bringing shills on the site to spread their propaganda.

This is my opinion. While I didn't read 90% of the thread (and I think I only posted once), it wasn't destructive to the site's culture unlike a lot of other crusades on this site. And nothing he said wasn't true. He was going My Cousin Vinny all over tastytrade.