Okay. Pretty sizable difference between 650 and 1000, but that's just my opinion.

Wait a minute. No, that's not just my opinion. It's fact. <g>

I haven't checked on SI, but using your correction factor, iHub had a little over 600 posts in the past 24 hours. A large percentage of which were in this thread.

I only step in if there is blatant manipulation. IN which case I ask the leader to leave.

Had this been considered to be an issue that would be my call, as I'd been led to believe it would've been, I might've stayed. A big issue for me was that I was, in no uncertain terms, not "empowered" to make the call that you're now making. This whole thing was a major issue and now that I'm out of the picture, you're changing it to very much the way I wanted it. <sigh>

Makes me wonder now why I was getting such a fight on it.

Edit: That aside, I think it's just as much a step in the right direction now as I did when I was getting over-ridden on it.

simply don't post things that will get you deleted. If you are civil, on topic, you *won't* and I will see to it.

Ummmm.... That's in essence how I wanted to deal with "personal boards" (I see to it that deletions are done only for valid reasons) but I was over-ridden on it at the time. My title and stated purpose for my being here aside, I was to remain completely hands-off where personal boards are concerned. Why is it now going to be my way now that I'm not part of it?

Was I "right", but only in hindsight? Actually, I expected to be proven so, but expected a lot more water to flow under the bridge before that proof was provided.

A well thought-out post but I'm not gonna get down and get to the specifics, although since you did mention a particular kind of grubbing, here's an example of my favorite kind of humor; the self-effacing kind:

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=5848150

I watched for *days* to get that one and had to call on some folks to give me a setup.

You did refuse to discuss all issues, did you not?

That is patently incorrect.

Shall I elaborate?

I believe I asked for a three way conference call on the matter and you outright refused. Offer still stands.

I don't see what purpose it could possibly serve. I can't imagine any conversation changing anything. None of us will change our minds about my leaving, so the only purpose would be to argue in vain. No, thanks.

Remember, SEVU Board, the Flagship thread on iHUB

I could say a mouthful just by leaving that quote as is with no reply, but instead I'll do a typical aside:

Actually, the pair of directors you've got on that board are exemplary. I tried to talk one of them into co-directing one of my threads to show people how it's done, but my offer was politely declined.

So much for the "mass exodus" that was predicting a few weeks ago.

That's something I also am not remotely proud of. Many people came here because of me and I was gloating a bit (definitely privately and maybe when talking to others) about what this would become. I feel badly that a number of credible people got caught in what was, to be as kind as possible, a lapse in judgment on my part. But I really do tend to trust everyone until they give me a reason not to. Once they've given me that reason, I'm unlikely to ever trust them again.

I'd like to see something from Bob in the WSJ

Forthcoming.

on the state of online chat sites. I doubt there are many people that understand this little niche better than him.

That could be an interesting thing for me to do. Maybe a weekly column that'll give me a bit of pocket money. I'll check into that tomorrow.

They had to know he was a work-a-holic. Single man, no kids.

Though I'm definitely a workaholic (I keep whatever hours are necessary to do the job), I'm not a single guy with no kids. I've been married for 14 years to the same wonderful woman, without whom none of the good that's happened to me could've happened. I think I once referred to her on SI as "SI Admin (Spouse)". Want to see a picture of her? Look up the word "indulgent" in the dictionary. It's not every married guy who is permitted to amass a toy chest the likes of mine or gets told to just spend the rest of his life playing.

I know all the ladies must surely be crest-fallen at this revelation of my marital status. Not! <g>

I could see Bob was unhappy.

That was apparent during my last week here, and I'm not even remotely proud of the fact that it showed. I've considered myself above that, but I'm human, too. To my credit, the full measure of my anger and disappointment never became visible to anyone but close friends and family, and even they never knew and never will know the whole story.

I don't think Matt and I are quite the adversaries your post portrays us to be. In a way, we're kindred spirits, sharing a love of online communities. I just happen to have a lot more campaigns under my belt, and notions of right and wrong that were forged in those campaigns.. We do strongly disagree on a few things, but I don't consider him an adversary.

It's possible to disagree with someone without them being "the enemy".

Actually, I've got a wife, kids (one starting college in 3 months), way too many cars and other toys. All but the house is paid for, though, and my wife makes decent money and though we'll have to tighten our belts substantially, we don't "need" any salary from me to survive. It's more a comfort thing than a necessity.

But that doesn't change anything. I would rather live in a refrigerator box with my values than in a mansion for which I traded my code of ethics.

What I'll do now is still very much up in the air. I did promise my wife that I would at least not "work" for a month. She would rather that I retire and devote the rest of my life to maintaining and fixing up our spread and indulging myself in the things I love (working on the spread, racing, restoring old Japanese motorcycles).

However, I did set up SQL Server 2000 here a couple of nights ago and have started laying out a message-board database and have written a bit of code (in C -- speed is an altar at which I gladly sacrifice coding ease) to interact with it, but it's really just something to amuse myself when it's raining outside.

At this point, I doubt anything will seriously come of it, but it's a fun diversion and I finally get to do some serious coding again.

If I do roll something out in the future, it'll be without a lot of fanfare. I've gotten far more limelight than I deserve or want, and at the moment all I want to do is go back to having a life for the first time in quite a number of years. After all, I'm just an aging hippie geek who "lucked" onto this path.

Bob

Largely, but not completely correct. Although I won't discuss the biggie reason -- the one that put at least 60% of the load on that camel's back.

But the difference in philosophy regarding personal boards was a major issue to me as well, and served to underscore still further that the arrangement was not as I thought it was to be.

I also have no dislike of you individually. Get some gray in your hair and battlescars on your face and you'll be more than alright. And, believe me, doing this kind of work will have you gray as the proverbial mule in short order.

LOL!

A very good example, and very high on my list of reasons.

Well, I had a gentlemen's agreement with Matt not to publicly discuss this until receipt of "the paperwork", and didn't really mind giving them the head start, but I finally got emailed "the paperwork" tonight. I'll leave my disgust at the contents out of this since there're plenty more important things to me.

I resigned my position with Investors Hub around midnight on the 16th of this month. My resignation was immediately accepted.

I was going to list the many reasons for my departure here, but I'm noting with some amusement that the majority of the reason is making itself known on its own, so I'll reserve that post for later.

Regards,

Bob Zumbrunnen

PS. Full disclosure: I am in no way a part of Investors Hub anymore and apparently, so I'm now told, the ownership interest I thought I had never really existed and doesn't now. So no affiliation whatsoever.

Still waiting on "paperwork" that's supposed to be emailed to me.

Edit: Nah. Not gonna get into it.

Bob is a Market Fusion issue, which I am a partner in.

Huh?

Looks like it'll be tomorrow.

but rather point out the fact that you seem to disagree with those that post positive remarks. That is a bias in my book.

Bias in and of itself is understandable. If someone's posts betray a bias in favor of or against something, no biggie.

Bias as a motivation to delete posts is something entirely different, though.

If stockaholic is biased against UMCC, I don't see why that would make her any worse a chairperson than someone who is biased in favor of it.

If she were deleting posts because of her bias, I'd have a BIG problem with that. If she were deleting posts because her bias is due to a financial stake or potential financial stake, then I'd have a HUGE problem with it.

How can it be possible to debate when posts that are even actual fact posts, and nice posts, are deleted or the message is removed? All in the name of PERSONAL ATTACK on poster.

Not just in the name of "personal attacks". Remember that "because I don't want anyone thinking there's anything negative that can be said about this public/private company/point-of-view" is a valid reason in personal threads. And I initially made the mistake of thinking "personal thread" meant innocuous little subjects like "How to cook fish", when in fact they can be "Here's what I think about this company".

Promoters gain by stock price increases and selling at higher prices.

True.

Negative posters and bashers profit by shorting and covering at lower prices.

False.

Negative posters are typically unable to short the stock about which they're posting.

Their motivation can be and often is altruism and a certain amount of anger at seeing inexperienced "investors" getting fleeced. Many being former fleecees themselves.

This misconception of "negative posters are bashers, and bashers are in it for the money and should be stopped" is very problematic.

Do you have any interest! You seem to hate promoters. Yet you insist on negative views. That seems to be an interest in the company!

When talking about stocks, "interest", "financial stake", and "position" are generally regarded as being synonymous. Is that what you mean?

And when you say "you insist on negative views", that's pretty misleading because it's missing a word right before "negative". If that word were "having" ("insist on having negative views"), that's quite different from "allowing only" ("insist on allowing only negative views").

The former is not a problem and I don't see why it should be considered a problem. The latter is a big problem. Or, in my opinion, should be considered one.

The matter of whether or not messages should be removed from a site by people who don't want the other side of the story discussed is a major issue. It's a recipe for abusive manipulation of available information and has already been used that way.

And putting "editorial" power beyond the scope of a site's stated rules (or even a chairman's own stated rules) into the hands of participants with a financial stake in the nature of the conversations may very well change the site from "Carrier" (and therefore protected by CDA) to "Publisher" when that power inevitably gets abused, as it already has.

I'm not a lawyer (though I was wanting the input of one) but I do have a pretty good idea of how sites protect themselves from being named in shareholder lawsuits.

IMHO, Discrimination based on a biased financial interest is completely unethical and ought not be tolerated by any stock site.

That, in a nutshell, is where I'm coming from on the "personal boards" issue.

I removed the post I wrote to Poet because, for the first time in my roughly 4 years doing this kind of work, I showed that I'm human and can have my feelings hurt and can react pretty strongly to that.

I started off writing this as a long "diatribe" about how I'm just plain battle-weary and need to make this nonsense less important to myself, but I'll just leave it at what I just said.

I am, however, changing the name and chairmanship of this thread, as it has been utterly destroyed, primarily by a small number of people who want only to attack me and don't mind if the site becomes collateral damage in the process.

If anyone has any questions about how to use the site, please PM them to me.

Regards,

Bob

he knows about IHub's security holes.

No, I don't. Please share them with me.

I think he's an honest and fair man.

Oh. That explains the "horsesh*it" and "disingenuous". Wonder how I could've possibly misinterpreted that.

What if I work for CSCO and I don't want Vendit to know this. However, because of his shenanigans with redirects, etc. he finds out the source of my connection.

Emphasis mine.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're just capturing IP addresses, how do you determine which alias goes with which IP address?

Right. I accept the fact that Ihub can log my IP address anytime I access the site, but third parties should not be able to.

I can see your point. I can't think of many sites where this isn't possible, though. iHub does it. SI does it.

Personally, I'd prefer that we set it up so users can choose to include graphics in their posts but each user has an option to toggle them on and off if they're that concerned about fetching a link and having their IP addy anonymously logged.

So, the undertones of "this guy's a bad guy" in that post and the subsequent one are unintentional?

I think a LOT of people would like to know that iHub is a secure place to go Bob.

The internet itself is not a terribly secure place to be. While you are connected to it, your computer is subject to access that you didn't intend to permit. It's just another node hanging off a really enormous network.

It is my opinion that iHub isn't any less secure than any other site I'm aware of.

And this has *what* to do with Q&A about iHub?

But here's what I'll say on the matter: Any internet site you go to, whether directly or by fetching graphics from it, can log your IP address. It's the nature of the internet.

They can log what operating system you're using, which browser, etc.

To my knowledge, they can't grab things like your username or alias here. All they have is a list of IP addresses. Can't be prevented. It's an internet thing.

Did you really mean that? Now I'm even more confused about what the rules of IHub are.

To be perfectly honest, I'm at least as confused as you are at this point. I thought that the only rules in place were the written ones. The whole "unwritten rule" thing has always made me a bit queasy no matter where I encounter it.


When you were talking about
allowing the Clowns thread to do there thing here I got the impression that there would be no free-for-all threads.

That was my impression, as well, and it might've been a good time for me to have been made aware that my "Sure they're welcome here but the rudeness gets left at the door" bit was running counter to reality.

So where are the personal threads? How do I know that a given thread is a personal thread and not a market thread?

I'm not aware of it being covered in the rules, so here's my understanding, FWIW:

If it's not in the "Canadian Stocks", "OTCBB", or "Listed and Nasdaq" categories, AND no company ticker was keyed into the "Ticker" field when the thread was created, it's a personal thread.

I am still unclear on what all the implications of that are, so this, too, is my understanding, FWIW:

If it's a "Personal Thread" by the definition above, then the chairman or director can choose to delete or not delete posts as they see fit and deletions or non-deletions cannot be appealed to the Admin (myself) because the Admin will not intervene in any way.

This is the way I currently understand it. Please don't anyone ask me my opinions on this any further as they are currently of no consequence. I am just putting in writing (so we'll at least have it SOMEWHERE) what the whole "personal thread" thing means.

Matt, if this understanding is in any way incorrect, here is where you should correct it since what I've written here is "the rules" until we hear differently from those who make the rules.

Yes, but it's not an easy task, even for us geeks.

Not that I can blame you.

Deletion doesn't mean they can't be discussed.

Granted, if you didn't copy the post to a local document or your clipboard before submitting it and don't know how to navigate your browser's cache, then you don't have a copy you can post. No way around that one.

You're right. "Deleted" is a misnomer but I keep using it.

They're only removed from view. The only thing that changes on them is a flag that makes them not display. I can see them just fine. They continue to exist in every sense of the word.

Actually, I'm inclined to agree with you somewhat.

I feel that if a post violates one of the site's Terms of Use, the author forfeits the "right" to have the post on display here and possibly their "right" to post further messages. Hiding them is appropriate.

However, the "personal threads" thing throws another factor in there that, in my opinion, needs to be addressed. The site administrator didn't choose to remove the post from the site but is bound to let the post remain removed from the site because someone wanted it removed from their thread. No matter what the reason.

So, under the status quo, if someone posts on a personal thread "Wait a sec! You want people to buy this after your track record in [ticker list here]?" and the "owner" of the thread deletes it, end of story. The post is removed from the site because it wasn't wanted on the thread.

Not saying that I agree with it. Just acknowledging what the unwritten (but apparently binding) understanding with members prior to my arrival is.

As for the possibility of making all deleted posts available somewhere on the site, I'd say that I definitely wouldn't want that for invasions of privacy, but think a case could possibly be made for it otherwise. I'm opposed to it, but won't swear I'm "right", so I'd listen to both sides.

But not just yet. Currently dealing with something I feel is far more important that could make all other matters moot where I'm concerned.

All:

Okay, this may be a "personal" thread, but it's my personal thread and it's here to discuss post deletions.

Please take the other stuff to the Parking Lot.

So in other words, as long a member doesn't put a valid STOCK symbol in the title it is a PERSONAL THREAD...and the COB can rant all they want and the victims posts can be deleted.

Correct. And also, so there can later be no question about whether or not it's a "personal board" (which I don't believe is clearly defined anywhere), it shouldn't reside in any category like "Canadian Stocks", "Listed and Nasdaq", or "OTCBB".

Glad to know the parameters of Sam's new thread.

The understanding as presented to me is that there *are* no parameters.

I ask only as a person who would rather not see a site-destructive flamewar erupt (that I would be forbidden to address) that the people participating in it take the moral higher ground and not engage in personal attacks, but I can not insist on that in any official capacity and if people don't want to comply with my sincere wishes on the matter, that is entirely up to them.

Regards,

Bob Zumbrunnen
Operations Manager, Investors Hub

I have reviewed the posts being deleted from that thread and it is my opinion that the posts are (in both intent and reality) disruptions to the normal flow of the thread and I agree with the deletion reason of "Thread Disruption".

The intended spirit of that thread is for a group of people, likely share membership at another site in common, to talk about certain trading calls. Anything else is disruptive. Especially when it's continuation of a previously established pattern of participating in that thread solely for the purpose of disrupting it.

Someone has, however, asked that I remove the restriction on them creating another thread for these dissenting points of view to be aired, and I have told him to go ahead and do so as a Personal Thread. Though "the rules", as I'm led to understand them, don't forbid such a thread being used strictly as a personal attack forum (ie. It's a Personal Thread, so there are no rules), I've asked that the new thread not be used that way in the interests of not being destructive to the site.

I should note, however, that the same "the rules" I'm referring to also forbids me from taking any administrative action (such as restoration of posts), so what I'm offering here is solely my own opinion and the bottom line, as it currently apparently stands, is that posts can be deleted from that thread for any reason whatsoever, or even no reason at all.

Regards,

Bob Zumbrunnen
Operations Manager, Investors Hub

Actually, what you're looking for is under "Board Room". There you can add and delete directors.

"Board Manager" is just for deletion and undeletion of posts.

Bob

Well, I wanted to drop it, but I don't want to drop it at a point where the implication could be misunderstood.

The point I was trying to make (and that I arguably should've stated rather than relying on the reader to see) was that the original assertion was that you definitely have two accounts and it was evidence I wasn't doing my job (As an answer to my question about what my job is) and the second "version" of it was that maybe you do and I should look into it and that that's all that was originally being said.

Kinda like the Scott Adams excerpt I posted here a while back.

I won't say whether or not I was able to determine whether or not you really are using two accounts, but it would be within the spirit of this thread to state that if I find that someone is posting with multiple accounts, one of the accounts is terminated the other is at least suspended.