A. The "vast majority" of a handful of people doesn't add up to much.
Well sure it's not an adequate sample size - but to imply that everyone arguing against it were the prime candidates for it to be used on was simply not the case at all.
B. I don't see any potential negatives. There were a half dozen of us at TL with responsibilities for various forums and nobody ever complained. The owner thought it was great.
Surely you must recognize the the fact that you were on the benefitting side there. This is how we end up with crappy laws and excessive control of things - by one group not seeing how it's a problem because it benefits them directly.
C. I'd be happy to stop debating people -- both of them -- if they'd stop trying to hijack my threads. It's not an unreasonable expectation. The young can be excused to some extent, at least temporarily. The middle-aged have no excuse (arrested development is not an excuse).
Two way street. You're saying you'd be happy to stop debating if people would stop hijacking. They continue to hijack because you continue to debate. Both sides have involvement here. By debating them you're validating their presence as input important enough for you to recognize. While that's a good thing to not outright dismiss people just because you might not like what they say, the specific interaction between you and Surf has been going on in multiple threads with baiting going on from both sides.
In fact you dropped a little turd in Surf's thread without him even saying anything to you by the 4th page in:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...-short-shake-shack.291104/page-4#post-4115539
Your next reply was then another unprovoked stab at Surf:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...short-shake-shack.291104/page-13#post-4124638
I get it, Surf almost knowingly invites this type of stuff and is used to it at this point so it's almost not thought of as hijacking but it's the same damn thing he does to you so you're just as wrong here. I think it would be lame to come up with new censorship controls simply because you and Surf can't stop arguing with each other. Surf thinks PA is BS, I think he's wrong but I don't go on a crusade to prove it to him every time he reminds people of it nor do I comment on price drivers either. C'mon, there's probably less than 8 active troublemakers even present on the forum and they all have their own little interests. The site is not exactly a trollfest as it's made out to be and the regular axe grinders are easily self-dismissed if they're just talking nonsense.
If people have beefs in their journals they should simply report it to a mod and let the mod deal with it. They'll know what trolling is from simple smack talking and the site won't turn into a police state controlled by some clique.
I bet if one were to graph the amount of diverse posters per day on ET they'd see peaks and troughs near every major market build up and correction with a drop in traffic being more tied to people getting blown out of trading rather than everyone getting butt-hurt by threads and leaving. The site isn't *that* hardcore.