Should ET limit users to one screen name?
- Thread starter Maverick74
- Start date
I wonder what would happen if the advertisers were made aware of this little ponzi scheme here to get advertising dollars.
Baron
ET Founder
As dbphoenix indicated, this has been discussed ad nauseum many times already but I will summarize the past discussions.
Elite Trader is not going to charge its members to participate.
Aside from the many reasons I have listed in the past, let me explain from a more philosophical perspective why I feel strongly about not charging our members to participate. Let's face it. Trading is a risky business that made even more difficult because of the many costs involved. A trader must pay for an education, either by paying a lot in educational resources or losing a ton of money in the market (or both) just to be able to learn the business. On top of that, there's data and software fees, exchange fees, advisory services, commissions, equipment costs, taxes, and the list just goes on and on. So in my opinion, the last thing that most traders need is another expense! The main reason why Elite Trader operates under an ad-supported business model is because I think that the companies who make money off traders should help support the trading community by enabling a site like Elite Trader to be a free resource for all traders. These companies include brokerage firms, software companies, advisory services, and any other businesses who are making money off traders whether or not the traders are actually making money themselves. Obviously, I also want the firms who support our site to get a return on their investment which is why we display their advertisments instead of just soliciting for donations.
I just feel like this model is the closest win-win for everybody. The traders get to interact with each other with no costs or strings attached, the trading companies are able to give something back to the community but yet still get some ROI for their efforts, and Elite Trader can function as a business and hopefully make a profit in the end by providing this platform for everybody to connect with each other.
The downside of course is that by being free you open the doors to everybody, even idiots who's sole purpose is to be disruptive, deceptive, etc. However, I think these users would still be present after money is required to participate. After all, look at Wall Street! There's no shortage of bad apples on that block, and that's where everybody pays to play!
Advertisers don't care about registered users because it's not the registered users who generate the traffic. The unregistered users are the ones the advertisers are mainly trying to reach because there are far more unregistered users than come to the site daily than their are users who have actually registered to participate.
ponzi scheme? That's funny. I can assure you that you don't get multi-million dollar companies like TradeStation, eSignal, RealTick, CyberTrader, etc. to advertise on your site year after year by running some sort of registered user scam. Get Real!
OK Baron, but you conveniently left out the most important issue, good for you. You would make a good politician. I can't wait to hear your answer to this. Explain to me like I'm a 6 year old, why you need to allow users to have multiple user names? Explain to me the the significance of this. Explain to me how this adds value to the site. Explain to me how this benefits the struggling trader. Having one person with 50 different identities that simply talks to his other screen names as if he's a schizophrenic in psyche ward. I will be eagerly awaiting your answer.
Technically, how could this work? How could Baron stop multi-ids? He already doesn't allow Yahoo/Hotmail accounts. Sure, there are plenty of other free email accounts, but what if you eliminate those? There are still as many domains as you want. How many people, traders especially, have more than one ISP? How many have cable with dialup. DSL and cable? More than one dialup. Work and home accounts? Should he do background and credit checks? Use a credit card for ident, but not charge? SS#s? Fingerprints? He could have cookies ident the computer, but you could delete those, everybody has more than one computer too.
Just don't see how it could workout...
Baron
ET Founder
You're making it sound like I somehow want people to post with multiple IDs. This is the farthest thing from the truth. We started tightening everything up a couple years ago by preventing people from registering multiple usernames under the same IP address but since most users have dynamic IPs, this had a very limited effect. So then we prevented users from registering multiple usernames under the same email account. That proved helpful, but not foolproof because certain users would just create a new email address using Yahoo or Hotmail everytime they wanted to register under a different username. So we banned the use of Hotmail and Yahoo accounts, which also helped out but it certainly doesn't cover the zillion other free email services out there that somebody could use to get a new email address in seconds. So then we implemented the use of cookies, which tells us whether somebody has registered previously under a different username no matter what their IP address or email account is, but people can just delete the cookies from their computer with a single click, so that measure has also had limited success.
The next step of course would be ID verification via credit card but that too won't be foolproof as there are many ways to get around that. Credit card companies wouldn't continue to lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year because of fraudulent transactions if verifying someone's identity was as simple and foolproof as you seem to imply it is.
The people that post under multiple handles have an agenda. I have already pointed out on another thread that if you are even remotely tech saavy, you can create domains like there is no tomorrow, and you can have a zillion e-mails per domain.
What is funny is that once you hang out at ET for any period of time, you get to see the pattern that these "people" follow when creating these handles. The only thing you and I can do is not participate in those threads. But they already know "we" are not the "target."
In fact, I have noticed a trend recently on ET. Now, some of these very spammers are realizing that they need to be more coy. They, under one of their many handles, will begin to seem to complain against their other handles, seemingly giving them credibility.
The way to spot them as the very same spammers is to look for threads where they are trying to position themselves as gurus. In fact, you are on my suspect list Maverick. Learn to put two and two together.
I am a member of other groups on yahoo. For example, the wealth-lab group and other programming groups. On those groups, you get all kinds of spam about trading systems that make $1500 before lunch and other attempts at con'ing people out of their money.
It is so blatantly obvious, it is amazing that these people even do it. However, it _must_ generate some business for the spammers, otherwise it would make little sense to continue to do it.
You see, it isn't you or I they are after, it is the 1% of the sheep that come to these sites believing that someone has a way magic way to make money trading that they are willing to sell. Others pretend that there are people out there willing to teach them how to trade and are willing to pay for it.
I have confronted these wolfes in the past on ET and exposed them for what they are. However, it is a full time job and I simply don't care enough to continue to do it.
You will never change the sheep, and you will never change the wolf - it is simply the nature of them both. You can learn alot about life by reading "Little Red Riding Hood."
nitro
What is funny is that once you hang out at ET for any period of time, you get to see the pattern that these "people" follow when creating these handles. The only thing you and I can do is not participate in those threads. But they already know "we" are not the "target."
In fact, I have noticed a trend recently on ET. Now, some of these very spammers are realizing that they need to be more coy. They, under one of their many handles, will begin to seem to complain against their other handles, seemingly giving them credibility.
The way to spot them as the very same spammers is to look for threads where they are trying to position themselves as gurus. In fact, you are on my suspect list Maverick. Learn to put two and two together.
I am a member of other groups on yahoo. For example, the wealth-lab group and other programming groups. On those groups, you get all kinds of spam about trading systems that make $1500 before lunch and other attempts at con'ing people out of their money.
It is so blatantly obvious, it is amazing that these people even do it. However, it _must_ generate some business for the spammers, otherwise it would make little sense to continue to do it.
You see, it isn't you or I they are after, it is the 1% of the sheep that come to these sites believing that someone has a way magic way to make money trading that they are willing to sell. Others pretend that there are people out there willing to teach them how to trade and are willing to pay for it.
I have confronted these wolfes in the past on ET and exposed them for what they are. However, it is a full time job and I simply don't care enough to continue to do it.
You will never change the sheep, and you will never change the wolf - it is simply the nature of them both. You can learn alot about life by reading "Little Red Riding Hood."
nitro
The way to spot them as the very same spammers is to look for threads where they are trying to position themselves as gurus. In fact, you are on my suspect list Maverick. Learn to put two and two together.
Nitro please tell me why I am on your suspect list. I have been talking to you to you for two years on this site. Everyone on here always knows my first and last name and many on here know my address and phone number. So I would be curious as to how I have gotten on your suspect list?
And what benefit would it serve me to have a multiple alias? I for the most part only post under two different threads. One serious and the other not so serious. I don't have an agenda and I'm not trying to sell anything. I am also not trying to make any friends, anyone that reads the chit chat threads would come to this obvious conclusion. So please, with these amazing pattern recognition skills you have, tell me why I am suspect.
Nitro please tell me why I am on your suspect list. I have been talking to you to you for two years on this site. Everyone on here always knows my first and last name and many on here know my address and phone number. So I would be curious as to how I have gotten on your suspect list?
And what benefit would it serve me to have a multiple alias? I for the most part only post under two different threads. One serious and the other not so serious. I don't have an agenda and I'm not trying to sell anything. I am also not trying to make any friends, anyone that reads the chit chat threads would come to this obvious conclusion. So please, with these amazing pattern recognition skills you have, tell me why I am suspect.