I believe an ignore feature would make the bullish slant of many threads even worse... be used by many members to discourage people with negative comments from posting.
While I do not presume to know how the ignore feature would be used by SI members, I do have two pieces of "evidence" to help me make a guess.
1. I have BrowseMaster and I use the ignore feature. I have only "ignored" a few posters and have never mentioned to them or anyone else that I had done so. Since my reason for ignoring was to avoid what I saw to be worthless blather, it would have been counter-productive to contribute to the blather myself.
2. Others have BrowseMaster also, and the only mention of "ignore" I remember seeing was when someone was complaining on a thread about the worthless posts of another. A BrowseMaster user would say something like "I use BrowseMaster and it enables me to ignore people like that, You should try it, it's great!" Now I'll grant you that since SI doesn't have ignore, this poster (or others) didn't have the opportunity to encourage everyone to specifically ignore a particular poster, but they could have encouraged users to get BM so they could do so and I don't remember anyone ever doing so.
Also, since this is a beta, we have an opportunity to test an ignore feature rather than guess how it would be used.
I believe that a primary use of an ignore feature would be to use it as a tool to ignore bearish viewpoints and to let everyone on the thread and the bearish poster (often only one) know that the bear is being ignored with the hope of driving the bear away.
Why do you believe this? Everyone has the ability to skip past posts from a particular person, but I don't hear a hew and cry from bulls to get everyone to skip bears posts. I'm sure that some people would use an ignore feature to read only what they wanted to read. Do you think that's any different than what they do now? Do you think they continue to read with an open mind posts from people they consider beneath contempt for being bearish, or, God forbid, short?
I agree that most posters are positive, but at least on the threads I frequent, there is little support for the bear baiting you describe. When it happens, and it does, that someone jumps all over a negative poster, that negative poster is typically supported by those interested in hearing both sides. This usually causes the bear baiter to quit, or at least back off somewhat. If a poster is a negative hypester, coming on strong with post after post on how XYZ is a bloated pig and due for a 30% fall, without ever giving reasons for his/her beliefs, then when the brear baiting begins, nobody comes to the negative poster's defense.
Of the two negative posters described above, I think a few would ignore the first, and very few would encourage others to do so. I agree that the second would be ignored by many, and might generate some of the encouragement to get everyone to ignore him that you seem to fear. I think this would be mitigated by others reminding the encourager that he's becoming a bore and is being hypocritical and is himself in danger of being ignored if he keeps it up.
I think ignore kind of polices itself. The catfights that break out occasionally on some threads and all too often on others would be greatly diminished by the fact that the posts that drive one crazy will now go unseen and therefore not draw return fire.
And in answer to those who say "I don't need "Ignore", I just press "Next", I say great. But the fact that you wouldn't find a feature useful is not a reason not to put it in, so long as its inclusion does you no harm.
In general, I worry about the abuse of an ignore feature by SI members who have other agendas other than discovering the truth. For example, the under $5 area is a particular worry where often times non-reporting OTC BB companies have no operations at all, and there are lots of bullish opinions being posted for everyone's consumption. Someone (a bear) gets on the thread and tells the negative truth and then all hell breaks loose and we get flooded with emails demanding that SI have an ignore feature.
In this environment, where by your own admission stock hyping is already going on, and you're not doing anything about it, why are you worried that ignore will make it worse? I believe that if someone wanted to ignore the negative poster, he would no longer see that poster's messages (unless they were addressed specifically to him because then I believe that should over-ride ignore) and therefore wouldn't feel the need to encourage others to ignore. That kind of obvious hypocritical behavior would encourage me to ignore him, not the negative poster.
And now on to your belief in how markets work.
Like many SI members, I also believe HYPE creates value. Therefore, it makes sense to HYPE (and only focus on the positive) and squelch the bears. So, it's really a question of truth seeking or hyping. There's probably merit to both investing approaches/activities.
I hope you don't really believe this. Hype may indeed, in some circumstances, be able to raise the short term price of a stock, but I don't for one second believe that it creates 1½ worth of value. Companies create value by creating good products, or cheaper or faster or prettier or more desireable products, or by becoming more efficient or using a better distribution system or a million other things that make the company stronger and better able to make money. Both today and into the future. A rumor can make a stock price move too, but you wouldn't call that value, would you?
Let's see, you think there's merit to both truth seeking and hyping and can't seem to decide which approach to use. I hope your thoughts on programming this beta are less muddled. My God, man, are you PC that you see value in everything that's said, just because someone said it? It's a fool who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. |
