My criteria for a message board are:
1. I want to read intelligent, thought provoking posts;
2. I don't want to wade through a lot of crap to do it;
3. I don't otherwise want to have to take a lot of time to read the posts referenced in point #1. If your server takes forever to advance to the next message, then I'm not interested.
Yahoo failed miserably on points #2 and #3, especially after switching to their new format, which seemed to take forever to wade through.
Investors Village seemed better, but their servers are horrendously slow. For things like that, I have the patience of a two year old on speed. Plus, it is unmoderated, and it allows unlimited logins, so it is likely only a matter of time before it becomes infested with the "litterbugs" who waste tons of bandwidth with their silly posts. (As FHM said, this goes for pumpers as well as bashers. "IT'S GOING TO $20 NEXT WEEK BABY!!!!" is just as annoying as "GONNA GO TO ZERO AND BE DELISTED HAHAHAHA".)
So far, I like this board the best. I don't find it a coincidence that of the few Yahoo posters that I respect, several of them are already contributing here.
Nor do I find "moderation" to be evil. It certainly has that potential, and if good posts start getting whacked, then I'm outta here. But I am willing to take the chance that it won't be like that, in exchange for a board that is populated by reasonable people and that does not require wading through hundreds (perhaps thousands) of nonsensical posts each day. I understand the point about using the Ignore feature to do your own moderating, but that doesn't work on a forum like Yahoo's where new IDs can be (and are) created instantly and the Ignore list tops out long before you can whack them all.
We've all gotta make our own choices. For me, this is the place to be. I am encouraged that other good posters have apparently reached that same conclusion. |
