Webmistress: objectionable behavior report - original post #7642 has been removed without good reason or notice. If nothing else, this affects thread continuity. I took a look a "terms of use" and the only reason I could see for removing Morpher's post was the "otherwise objectionable" bucket. Pretty weak grounds for a post that was clearly humor within the recognizable grounds of April Fools Day.
Personally I rated the post a rather small chuckle so my main objection would have been that it could have been much funnier - but the nature of humor is some jokes work and others do not. What I find much less funny is that a relatively harmless post having generated a significant number of related posts was pulled without explanation or placeholder. While certainly one of the qualities of SI is the relatively clean threads due to SI's efforts at control, I have seen much garbage much more objectionable than Morpher's April Fools parody remain indefinitely.
Assuming Datek was the complainee, pulling Morpher's post reduces the integrity of this thread to less than a clearly Datek-sponsored and Datek-controlled thread. On such a thread, you know going in that you will be reading party line and party line only. On SI, the appearance of impartiality was present. As I recall, I stumbled onto SI via the "good, bad and the ugly" link from Datek. I am very disappointed to apparantly find Datek and SI conspiring to manipulate a thread whose primary attribute was impartiality. In my opinion, this deed reflects poorly on both Datek and SI.
Datek: subject to the assumption that you pulled Morpher's comic pseudo-news, beware the slippery slope you are on. One of the reasons I have stayed with Datek was the 'feeling' of realism this thread lends to your operations --- as opposed to the big brother feeling that Schwab reeks of. Do you really want to become so slick in your PR dealings that you suppress the squeaky wheels? You used to at least say you valued the input.
P.S. If Datek wasn't the puller of the post, in the spirit of integrity, I would have to say I would owe at least Datek an apology. If Datek was the cause of pulling the parody, then the thread lead post ought to be modified to include a warning that the thread has become edited by Datek's PR/Legal staff.
P.P.S. I opened my daughter's diaper pail while I was reading that Datek newsletter so I'm not sure what it was, but something smelled very slick. I hoped it was not a sign of things to come, but since we have had mutual fund 'trading' introduced. (Would you like some fries with that fund?) Now we (presumably) have behind the scenes 'spin' control. What next? Will the Datek legal department begin to design the web site? What colors and how many confirmations/disclaimers do you think they will choose? Does it rhyme with squab? Is it time to look for the 'next' Datek? Is it normal for an innovative company to lose its early customers as it greedily moves to the fat part of the market? Perhaps I just handle change poorly. Oh well. McDonald's ain't what it used to be either... |
