Quote from IBsoft:
The following is an extract of IB communique that went out over the weekend:
Nominate and Vote on Your Favorite New TWS Features
One of the advantages of being an IB customer is that we listen to our professional customers as we continue our never ending quest to lead the industry with the most advanced trading technology. In order to systematize your requests we are adding a new permanent feature poll that allows you to suggest new TWS enhancements and to have other customers vote on the enhancements. We will do our best to prioritize those requests with the most number of votes. To nominate requests and to vote, visit our new TWS Voters Poll page http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/poll.php?ib_entity=llc to learn how to sign up for a Voter ID and password in order to add your voice to our programming queue.
We intend for the TWS Voters Pool page on IB's website to completely replace this thread. As a result, we will no longer be monitoring it, and I believe it would be best if the moderator closed it.
Thank you for your attention.
Quote from optionpro007:
I think it is a mistake to close this thread.
I can understand why IBSoft would not want IB to be associated with some of the behavour contained in this thread. Some of the people who add value to this thread are regrettably engaging in some of the behavour which threatens to destroy this thread. If this problem is to be addressed by closing the thread, then I think it would be a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. The new feature poll, on IB's website, allows for the posting of suggestions, and for voting on them, but it doesn't seem to provide a forum for discussion and debate, and it certainly excludes participation by people who are not IB customers. This prevents me from seeing how the new feature poll can substitute for the positive aspects and interactions of this thread, or other ET threads, for example,
http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=73376.
IBSoft's posting seems to reflect a reduction in IB's enthusiasm for EliteTrader. If so, then this is not good for EliteTrader, because IB is a paying sponsor of ET, and because IB's willingness to participate on ET also adds value to ET. Perhaps Baron brought this on ET, by encouraging abusive and disruptive behavour throughout the website, and by allowing it to displace and to drive away much of the serious discussion and serious participants which otherwise would be present, and by generally ignoring complaints about this problem. An example of encouraging abusive behavour would be that instead of banning abusers, ET neglects their behavour until and unless it escalates into a spectacle, and then finally closes, moves, or deletes threads that have been targeted for disruption, thus giving the abusers exactly what they want: the power to disrupt serious discussion, whenever they feel like it.
I think the best course for Baron, at this point, is not to close this thread. I think Baron should delete some postings, but that far more importantly, Baron should stop encouraging abusive behavour, and start encouraging serious discussion throughout the website, and try to persuade IB that things on ET are changing for the better, and that IB should still participate on ET. I think Baron should move ET away from dependence upon sponsorship by scammers and frauds, and toward sponsorship and participation by legitimate companies like IB and Bright Trading - and to do this, Baron would need to make ET a nicer and more rewarding place for serious honest discussion, and not such a nice and rewarding place for fraud, scamming, and personal abuse. I think that Baron should try to attract viewers to the site by promoting serious discussion, instead of the public spectacle of personal abuse.
If IB is partially or totally withdrawing from the kinds of discussions it has been having with its customers, and others, on ET, then I think everybody loses: ET, IB, and its customers. I think that such withdrawal will substantially reduce the effectiveness of the communication between IB and its customers, as well as between IB and its potential future customers. If ET, IB, and its customers are to prevent the loss of this valuable interaction, then IB needs to recognize its value, and ET needs to convince IB to see it. If IB and ET are to do what is best for everybody concerned, then IB customers, I think, need to speak up and try to show IB and ET that they should nurture serious discussions on ET, rather than allowing them to be suffocated by abusive behavour.
