I'm curious: are the twits warned, too?
I was warned, and was a bit taken-aback. As has been the case with others here, I was only responding to a twit (or, in my case a couple fo twits) who were basically trying to ruin a thread. They posted little about the stock, and spent most of their time attacking others on the thread. What "information" that was offered was typically incomplete or inaccurate.
It's not a matter of the content of their postings. Sure, some people will get a bit "spirited" in defending their stocks from negative postings (and these are almost always negative). It's the way that they do it. While I "know" that talk on SI "can't" influence a stock's price, I still have to wonder if these postings have a purpose, and if they continue to do this because they've found that they CAN achieve their purpose. If there is a purpose, I'd have to say it was less having a direct effect on stock price through negative comments, but more to the purpose of rendering the thread worthless for any serious purpose.
Or, are these just seriously mentally-challenged individuals with plenty of time on their hands?
Now, perhaps there is method to Jill's madness, in that ignoring these creeps IS generally the right thing to do. I suppose giving warnings to those who answer the twits instead of the twits does get them ignored.
However, there are those (and these two fit in this category) that if you ignore them, they will just INCREASE the frequency of their posting until somebody notices them.
I see a number of solutions to this problem that don't involve censorship or banning people:
1. Limit daily postings. Can any of us claim that we are really so wise that we need to make more than, say 15-20 posts a day?
2. Too bad SI isn't true threading or tree-structured system. Each thread could then have a "flame" sub-thread. Offending posts could be MOVED to that thread's flame sub-thread. Not censorship. Just moving it to a place where it can be fully appreciated by those who are into the art of flame, and ignored by others. I don't think that moving flames to a general-purpose flame thread would be appropriate - each thread should get it's own little garbage dump.
3. Implement chat, or some other mechenism for dealing with topics of short-term interest. This would solve a number of other problems at the same time - for example, posts of real-time quotes which are meaningless the next day. Problem here is getting people to use it - especially the "some other mechanism" - something like this (I think they called them "cafes") was tried on Motley Fool for the more popular stocks, and was not very popular. Chat rooms might work, though, as the chat rooms for popular stocks on MF *are* popular, and god only know how junked-up the threads would be if they DIDN'T have these!
4. Require real names and e-mail addresses. I realize this is controversial. But most of the twits use pseudonyms, totally bogus profiles, and don't put their e-mail address in their profile.
5. Multiple accounts, if found out, should be grounds for immediate lifetime explusion.
But, getting back to my original question: are the twits warned too? And, if so, why are they still here? I guess that's why I'm not too worried about my warning - if these twits can do what they do, and continue to do it, on thread after thread, what, me worry? (Or should I?)
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