Its not just elitetrader that is full of lies, but the world of finance and trading in the broadest most general sense. Madoff is the most popular example. You will never truly know the real story unless you see account statements or tax returns and even then those can be faked. Many a fool has been duped out of his cash as a result of those on message boards.
Beyond trading and finance, the world, in the most broadest and general sense, is full of lies and misrepresentations. There is no way you will ever know "the truth". Everyone lies and misrepresents to a certain extent.
There are a few honest and upfront individuals in this world, but only a very few. No one is ever rewarded for being 100% honest, but just the opposite. The world encourages you to fib and lie to a certain extent.
Les say a trader on here appears to make all the right calls. They can still be bad traders with poor money and risk management skills. Anyone can make a call, but not everyone can trade with real money.
Tim Sykes seemed to manipulate Covestor so that is definately not the solution. In fact, I have seen young teenagers manipulate complex video games finding ways to cheat the program. If they can find cheats in complex video games then they will find a way to cheat covestor.
Ronald Reagan had a saying that he sourced from an old Russian proverb. "Trust, but verify" You should generally trust people, but each step of the way rigorously verify what they are saying.