Have you seen that A@P wins his vote.
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Ousted Commentator Regains
Silicon Investor Membership
By CARRIE LEE
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
October 11, 1999
Anthony Elgindy won back his Silicon Investor membership, taking a solid majority in an unusual vote the stock-discussion site staged to decide the fate of the prominent short seller and online commentator.
Mr. Elgindy was booted off of the service this summer because of his controversial postings on Silicon Investor's (www.techstocks.com) message boards. He had often posted scathing comments about companies whose shares he felt had been lifted by online hype, all while making no secret of the fact that he aimed to profit by selling their shares short.
Shorts sell borrowed shares in hopes of profiting by repurchasing shares later at a lower price to repay their stock loans.
Silicon Investor Puts the Fate of Banned User Up for Vote (Oct. 8)
Bryan Burdick, managing director of Silicon Investor, said the vote was 435 to 268 in favor of Mr. Elgindy, 31 years old, of Del Mar, Calif. Just a slim fraction of the site's roughly 150,000 members took part in the vote.
Still, Mr. Burdick says Silicon Investor plans to explore a way to develop an ongoing appeals process for ousted users that will take into account the views of members. About five users are booted from the service each month because of violations of its "terms of use" agreement.
"We think its definitely worthwhile to continue to experiment with some type of appeals process for members who have been terminated," Mr. Burdick says. "Many members were quick to point out potential flaws with this experiment. We'll evaluate all of that and try to improve the process."
Mr. Elgindy, for his part, says he is pleased with the results. "I'm glad that people for the most part believe and like what I have to say on the Net," he says. "I have every intention of still offering some information to people on Silicon Investor; [It's ] where I started, I owe it to Silicon Investor."
He says that this time around, however, he'll abide by the rules. "I'll have to refrain from adding those extra comments here and there ... in order to live up to the standard that they're looking for," says Mr. Elgindy.
Write to Carrie Lee at carrie.lee@wsj.com
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