Toby,
That was a great post. With regard to this comment,
I am strongly pro-'legitimacy-of-context'...
As am I, but guardedly remind anyone sick of what they read that both (a) the option of restarting a fouled thread in a moderated format, and/or (b) ignoring certain posters, remains intact.
I've been on SI for over four years now, and lurked periodically starting in 1996 or 1997. Within these threads are told the entire tale of the bull and subsequent bear markets, the various submanias therein, and individual perceptions at various points along the way. To be sure, SI may be thought of as a microcosm of the investing public's perception of the markets, and for many of us serves not as a place to give or get recommendations or to discuss the direction of the market, but as entertainment and, perhaps, to pick up the scent of overall sentiment.
...SI should not be a dumping ground for personal attacks of an ideological nature. If a message is not somehow about the nature of investing, it should be excluded...Tear a stock apart or wrap it all in blue ribbons. That's all investment-relevant.
What you are seeing, in terms of personal attacks of an ideological nature; absurd, often illogical politically-oriented conspiracy theories; disillusionment; and the wholesale gnashing of teeth are what should be expected in times such as these.
They're pronouncedly, definitively, "investment-relevant," and there is much to be learned from them: not topically, in most cases, but instead in terms of their underlying motivation and what potentially lies behind them.
To the extent that SI is, as I am prone to calling it, a 'behavioral finance lab:' the recent trend in posting - not only qualitatively (in terms of content), but quantitatively (in the massive decline in number of daily/monthly posts) - are completely consistent with what one should expect at this juncture.
Still, though: great post.
LP. |
