I would like to remind everyone of a couple important points because these same issues pop up occasionally.
You'll often hear members who have been around for a very long time talk about the early years here and how there were some real experts, high-profile people, and quality posters. Please remember that although you may not have been here at that time, you haven't missed out on anything. All of those quality posts that were submitted here in past years ARE STILL HERE, and that's going all the way back to 1999.
It's really just a matter of asking people like ajcobson and others which members are worth searching for from years past.
In regards to some comments being made about experienced posters branching off to start private chat rooms using various third-party services, they've been doing that since this site began. It's nothing new at all. Services like Telegram and Discord are nothing but IRC chat rooms from 25 years ago that have an updated skin and have been adapted to work on your phone. These services are terrible at archiving, organizing, and searching for information from the past, and the content that is posted by the participants in those rooms is virtually always LOST eventually. And you want to know why?
It's because facilitating discussions amongst a group of random people is a lot of work. What seems like an honest desire to have quality discussions between like-minded people turns into a nonstop job of moderating because guess what? Even experienced traders can be assholes. And who wants to manage a bunch of people that are constantly disagreeing with each other. It's a full-time job in itself, and it's one that chat room starters realize they have to do for free just to keep the room running.
And how are all those random chat conversations going to be organized and searchable for people who couldn't participate in real-time? Well, they aren't. I can't even begin to tell you how many people have tried to branch off to start all these private chat rooms, but virtually none of them are still around because they were eventually abandoned and the information that was submitted to those rooms is gone forever.
And that's why ET is a special place. All the wisdom posted here from the past is still here. None of it has been lost and it is all accessible for those that put forth the effort to find it.