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Pastimes : The Death of Silicon Investor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LPS5 who wrote (702)	8/5/2002 1:12:32 PM
From: Toby Zidle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1003

Thanks for your comments, LP. Within a discussion, there should always be room for reasonable disagreement. You have a valid viewpoint. I just don't believe that much of it would apply to Raymond's postings in this thread. First, your options: 1) Moderating the thread: I saw myself as a one-time poster here. I'm a guest here, not a moderator. 2) Ignoring those with whom one doesn't agree: "Ignore" is a option on virtually every message board. It's Yahoo's first line of defense against spammers or TOS violations, which discourages neither spam not TOS abuse. I've always felt that if I choose not to read posts that offend me, it only feeds strength to the offender, free to perpetuate his views, but with one less voice to keep him honest. That's not how a free society works. If I don't see it, will the problem go away? No. The bigger question is that of the appropriateness of Raymond's comments on an SI board. You argue well for him and others of similar opinion. I should probably refine my position. If Raymond wanted to argue that SI SHOULD die, it's a view relevant to this thread. Relevant/acceptable, even if I disagree. I don't think he's said that (as far back as I've read here). Raymond says, instead, that investing is a rip-off by a criminal organization above the law. If he says it once (and even rebuts any arguments posted against his view), it's an opinion even if it's just tangential. However, when Raymond becomes so focused here that his view becomes a crusade ["The middle class of America has been betrayed by Wall Street. It's time for the public to wake up to this fact."], it becomes inappropriate and destructive of this thread. All I was saying in the first message I wrote here is that such out-of-thread-context postings are becoming so dominant in so many SI threads that, if SI does nothing to change this trend, SI WILL die. Serious investors will stop reading SI threads and SI will shrivel and die from lack of meaningful participation. I like your "behavioral finance lab" idea. If there were a Coffee Shop thread titled "Wall Street Criminality" and Raymond posted his views there, they would be entirely appropriate, no matter how much I disagree with them. They fit the topic of the thread. That brings me back to the opinion I initially expressed. Too many SI threads have too much disruptive trash and personal attack on them. This discourages legitimate investors from reading and posting on threads. If SI does nothing about this trend, SI is (in my opinion) doomed. That's the problem I see. That could be <end of message>. Let me now suggest a possible solution. Every thread could be moderated. To me, that is NOT a solution. It kills spontaneity. Moderators may tend to be biased and stifle content that does not follow their personal leanings on a subject. That's not a good compromise. I propose a "Shadow thread" for each thread. The 'Shadow' would be a full-content thread, no matter how irrelevant the posting. The "purer, on-content" thread would be a "Front thread". This would be the thread that posters would see when they first bring it up. The 'Front' thread index would have a button to display the 'Shadow' thread. (Shadow threads could be SubjectMarked as well as Front threads, if a reader desires.) How would a posting be demoted to Shadow thread? It's probably too much to expect SI staff to monitor threads and relegate postings to the Shadows. Instead, we might suggest a demotion by public vote. Five votes (or whatever) and a message is booted to the shadows. The vote level could be displayed on every Front thread message. When the vote hits five (or whatever) INDEPENDENT votes [no one gets more than one vote], down goes the message AND all replies to the message. Future replies to a shadow message would remain shadow replies. Will there be voting abuses? Of course there will. That's why the original poster should be able to appeal the vote to SI staff. (That's a lot less work on the staff than the monitoring of all threads for demotion candidates.) The staff will review any appeal and determine whether it should be restored to the Front, confirmed to the Shadow, or even deleted from SI. Appealed postings would be marked "Confirmed" and left on the 'Shadow' thread or "Restored" and promoted to the 'Front' thread again. Once restored, a message would no longer be subject to a demotion vote. It seems, LP, that I've gone beyond commenting on your reply. You make some good points in your reply. I don't agree with all of them. However, there needs to be room for disagreement. I think if SI staff can grapple with irrelevant and flame messages on the threads and restore the quality of the threads, there may be hope for a SI survival. But the patient is definitely sick and needs some treatment. I think other treatment suggestions can be better than mine. We have to start somewhere, don't we?