is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
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When the weather warms up, if you're local and will work for beer, you're on. hehe
It's fetched 2000 thread title since my previous post. Probably be done in half an hour. Right now it's in a huge batch of threads that SI created in alphabetical order in one swoop (doubt they got used) for every single ticker under the sun. It's in about the mid-C's right now.
Actually, that's the smaller garage. The big one still isn't done. Haven't touched it for months. It's that tough to get helpers out here.
I just checked the thread list and it apparently only includes threads created before October 2000. Didn't realize it was that old.
I've modified the script and it's fetching the 15k threads since then right now. I'm sure the thread you're talking about is in this later group.
This'll take a while. Even with the kind of bandwidth I'm using to run this script, SI just doesn't run all that fast.
~~~~~~COMPX Wednesday's Close (January 30, 2002):~~~~
1878.35 (Bob Z)
1901 (JXM)
1906 (Poet)
1911 (BoP)
1920 (bbgold)
1926 (Muell)
1935 (xxrayeyes)
1949 (timhyma)
Tuesday's close: 1893
Need the tankage to last a little while so I can get money back into the short-term account.
Thanks Bob! Still have the Mustangs?
You mean these guys?
Yep. Still have and love 'em both. Especially the green one.
I'll only post this pic once. I know how touchy some people can be about spammed equines.
On my "SI Bob" homepage ( http://www.sibob.com ), one of the first links is to a list I compiled of all threads that were still accessible on SI at the time I made the list. This was done because thread searches on SI only go back so far.
Load that list (be patient -- it's about 2 meg) and use your browser to do a search on whatever words you think are in the title of the thread you're looking for.
Bob
I even more strenuously object to the fact that you're still posting this off-topic stuff here. Be glad I'm not the admin.
And the day you become an officer of iHub is the day I'll pay some attention to what you feel is appropriate conduct for an officer of this company.
Regards,
Bob Zumbrunnen
El Presidente, IH
PS. "springs at[sic] her defence[sic]"? Guess you missed the ass-chewing and the fact that I ran an ad-hoc query that basically reported the mistake with which you're trying to beat her over the head.
First, Tom, Welcome to iHub! Glad to see you here!
I've moved this board to a category that allows free members to post and will move it to a more appropriate category later when I have such a category set up.
Free members on iHub are currently limited to 5 posts per day. This is (of course) a subscription-inducer, and also a tool for restricting spam.
However, we like quality posts. Lots and lots of them.
If any of the folks who come here as free members specifically for this thread find that 5 posts per day is too limiting, there are two things you can do:
Get a Premium Membership (I'm not averse to money)
or
Send me an email at bobz@investorshub.com letting me know 5 posts is too restricting. I get enough of those or even just a few from people who write the kind of quality posts I'm proud to see on the site, and I'll bump up the limit.
Regards,
Bob Zumbrunnen
President/CEO, Investors Hub
yeah.... the former sheriff at Silicon Investor <g>
Wow! Just pulled up a chart for the first time today. I've largely been ignoring the market for weeks now, but may have to deploy some money into short-term long positions soon. Prolly just the Q's. I'll give it a few more days and see what happens.
Dood, this thread is crawling up the Top Boards list awfully quickly. And so are you on the Top Members list.
Slow it down or I may have to change the algorithm again if you start to overtake me. hehe
Seriously, heckuva thread. It's a daily read for me. And makes me glad we can view messages 10 at a time.
At it again, eh? Personally, I thought Matt made it pretty clear that he didn't want you/us doing this on this thread.
And this has to do with site Q&A in what way?
~~~~COMPX Tuesday's Close (January 29, 2002):~~~~
1899 (alexed)
1920 (JXM)
1924 (Muell)
1948 (Poet)
1956 (broderick_s)
1957.5 (Bernard Ng)
1959 (Matt)
1964 (ezcomngo2)
1972 (timhyma)
1978.05 (Bob Z)
1981 (xxrayeyes)
1999 (Bird of Prey)
Monday's close: 1944
Well, I guess I can say since I'm not the admin. And I already said over on SI anyway. I looked up her account. No suspension on it.
Interesting point of view. I happen to disagree, though. Very strongly.
If I've got any "issues" with her, it's with exactly the same kind of conduct you just exhibited in that low-rent bit of verbal tripe you just laid on us.
Changes in handling of Top Members list:
1. User's last activity date rather than last posting date is now used for determining "Active Peoplemarks".
2. Total posting volume now taken into account. But only if there are sufficient Active Peoplemarks. The more Active Peoplemarks, the more total posts count toward the score.
3. It's an even more convoluted set of queries than it was two versions ago, but I've taken extra care to ensure we don't get "divide by zero" errors anymore.
4. Active Peoplemarks given substantially more weight.
The net effect is that all points on the list have increased dramatically and are in a range more closely matching that of the Top Boards list. There has also been some reshuffling due to the new criteria being used.
I don't want to spell out the formula in any kind of detail (to avoid manipulation), but do need to point out one thing in particular lest it cause confusion if someone sees a score jump dramatically in the future:
I use integer division throughout the formula. No rounding and no decimal places.
For that reason, there are threshholds (every 100 posts and every 10 active peoplemarks are the first to come to mind) that, when reached, can cause substantial increases in points.
To put it another way, for purposes of this calculation, 199 total posts is considered the same as 100 total posts (throughout the formula) and 9 active peoplemarks is considered the same as zero (in part of the formula -- elsewhere 9 counts as 9 and is weighted very heavily).
If two people have identical posting volume for the past 30 days and identical total peoplemarks, but one of them has 200 total posts and 20 active peoplemarks while the other has 199 total posts and 19 active peoplemarks, the first person will have a substantially higher score. The difference could be as much as 20% if their total scores are relatively low. The difference the threshholds make should be relatively small for people with both a lot of posts and lots of active bookmarks.
This "problem" will remedy itself as the site gets busier and the list is working with larger average numbers of posts and peoplemarks.
Starting to compile some interesting stats about Chat. It's early in the morning, so I doubt Chat is as populated now as it typically would be. But here's what I see right now.
There are currently 45 users in chat.
10 of those users have written at least one post in the past 7 days.
12 of the 35 people who haven't posted in the last 7 days have at least posted sometime.
The other 23 people have never posted.
39 people are grandfathered premium members and the other 6 are free members.
I'll refine this query so it can give me an instant snapshot anytime today and give me more data. Then I might have something useful to work with.
At this point it does, however, seem to support my hypothesis that chat cannibalizes posting. Roughly half the people currently in chat have never posted.
COMPX Monday's Close (January 28, 2002):
1872 (alexed)
1910 (bbgold)
1915 (Matt)
1918 (xxrayeyes)
1925 (Muell)
1929 (Bird Of Prey)
1934 (JXM)
1944 (timhyma)
1947 (Poet)
1950 (Bernard)
1956 (broderick_s)
1964 (ezcomngo2)
1973 (Bob Z)
Excellent board so far! I really enjoyed your explanatory posts. I've always felt you're one of the best comedy fiction writers I've ever seen, but you do a darned fine job on non-fiction, too. Surprising.
Best of Luck,
Bob
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=258133
Information about changes to message-deletion handling.
Changes in the handling of message deletions:
1. Now the system prevents anyone (except the Admin) from deleting a post that is more than 24 hours old.
2. If Matt restores a message, only he can re-delete it now.
test
test
delete override test.
The IIS machine continues to reboot itself just about daily in the wee hours. We're trying to figure out what's up with that.
Also, I'm working on a new feature (from the BBS days and I think most folks will like it) but let me know if the site seems to be slowing down. Because of this new feature, just about every time you go to any page here, an UPDATE is done in the database. I've hammered on it and haven't seen any ill effects, but you never know.
Also let me know if any pages return funky error messages, as I've had to make changes to a lot of them to accomodate this new feature.
I guess that's the end of the Bela Fleck concerts this month on DirecTV, but I see they're going to be doing a concert in Cedar Rapids in a couple of weeks. Will see if I can get to it.
Now that the concerts are done, I can spend more time screwing things up on the site.
For tonight's screwup, I present a new Top Boards list modeled loosely after the new Top Members list. I liked the idea of awarding extra "points" for bookmarks placed by people who are currently really using the site, so I've applied that to the Top Boards list, along with calculations to take not only total posting activity into account, but also recent posting activity, which is weighted much more heavily than total posting.
I'm surprised you didn't recognize the real source of that twisted bit of geek humor. <g> Was one of the first things I did when I got here.
Site was apparently down for about 10 minutes tonight. And it did it in the wee hours the other night. I'll dig into it Monday.
Or you could make it a daily contest with a weekly overall winner based on their average score.
Actually, a solution that should suit both your desire to acknowledge daily winners and my desire to not add to my workload just presented itself: Keep a list of daily winners and I'll put it up every weekend. If the idea and the thread get active enough, I'll consider making it an automated process and enhancing it. Make it a REALLY big part of iHub, and I'll write an automated entry and scoring system.
If you'd be willing to make it a weekly thing where you calculate who got the closest on average for the week, I'd be willing to put it in there manually every weekend. I don't want to do that kind of updating daily.
I like the idea and hope it takes off.
SI got their start and was in their heydey because of the OTCBB stocks
That's what I was afraid you were saying.
Their heyday (in terms of posting volume) was largely driven by OTCBB (specifically, the huge flamewars in MTEI, RMIL, DGIV, etal) but that certainly isn't where they got their start.
The term "Silicon Investor" is a hint that the whole idea from the get-go was for the technology-inclined (at the time, most internet users were) to discuss technology stocks. That's why the URL used to be talk.techstocks.com
If you doubt this, go to http://www.sibob.com/threads.htm (only if you have lots of time or lots of bandwidth -- it's more than 2 meg) for a list of all SI threads that were in existence when I last published that list about a year ago.
The DGIV thread was created early in SI's "heyday". But 3 years after SI started. But if you'll search that list, you'll see that it's thread number 19292. About 18000 threads (containing about 3.5 Million messages) that're still accessible were created *before* that one. Most of which are for Nasdaq stocks.
So saying SI got its start in OTCBB discussion is a lot like saying MSFT started out as an OTCBB stock (I've seen that said -- many times). It just isn't even close to being true.
We're actually kind of unique in starting with an OTCBB focus then starting to get into other universes. Even RB started out with more of a Nasdaq/Listed focus but didn't really gain a large audience until the OTCBB people were booted off Yahoo and started leaving SI.
Actually, I was referring to what sounded like "SI started out being focused on OTCBB, too."
But regarding the point you raise, you're preaching to the choir. Not only is fraud present in some big-cap companies themselves, it's nothing short of rampant in the whole "analyst" game.
Someone else was saying earlier that it's easier in the OTCBB arena and were presented with the whole big-cap analyst game as a retort, which, though true, doesn't really refute the original comment about it being easier in OTCBB. To profitably manipulate big-caps, you have to somehow gain credibility with the people with the deep pockets. To profitably manipulate OTCBB, you only need to gain credibility with a few hundred people who don't have to have deep pockets. No experience, education, or spelling skills necessary.
I guess the OTCBB fraud game has a lower cost of admission. Which, I guess might seem fair since I'd further guess that far less money is stolen from people in the OTCBB arena than in the big-cap analyst game.
So both people were right. One was just offering a rebuttal that didn't rebut.
Getting back to the "big caps are fraud, too" idea, I've long been bothered by what I see as a far more insidious problem. That the whole market is standing on the wobbly toothpicks of a widely accepted notion of what stocks should be "worth". Why on earth are they not all priced only based on dividends or expected earnings? Isn't that really all that any company is "worth"?
As I became aware of this, I started buying companies for my LTB&H position based primarily on dividends. F and UCU are my current "hold 'em forever" positions. But, heck, even that isn't safe. No sooner did I buy Ford, than the dividend got cut in half, so now I'd have to hold it about 35 years before the accumulated dividends would make the stock "free". At least in UCU's case, it's more like 19 years.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that OTCBB fraud is easier to perpetrate, big-cap fraud takes more money from more people, the whole "analyst" game takes even more, and the market itself is largely based on a notion (that a company is "worth" something if it has earnings, whether or not it pays dividends) that would seem doomed for failure.
I think I see what you're saying. You're saying that if I do this:
Posts by cOUSIN SHORTY Board
Date/Time
I'm seeing what everyone else is seeing, it's The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:51:19 AM (ET)
LOL! Only had one cuppa so far, The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:39:56 AM (ET)
For some reason, I ended up with two The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:38:50 AM (ET)
Dear jenna, The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:36:16 AM (ET)
OK, I get it. A member of the The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:30:00 AM (ET)
OK, I get it. She has the right The Jailhouse
1/26/2002 7:23:21 AM (ET)
What? The Jailhouse
1/25/2002 10:04:24 PM (ET)
... that it's okay to do that as long as the posts themselves haven't been deleted? Or is it bad to do it in any case? Or okay to do that as long as I acknowledge (rather than assume) that what's being displayed is the "subject" lines?
At least he knows to spell it as one word. <g>
>>And you're right, there seems to be very little attention to investment quality stocks; it's almost all OTC and BB stuff. <<
Study the history of SI.
Explain, please.
Maybe once this Bela Fleck concert is done. Currently the guy who sings 3 notes at a time is on.
I can vouch for that. The only way an edit is possible would be to go directly into the db, and because of the way the messages are stored, that's far from an easy task. They're not like other fields.
Likely what TLC's seeing and thinking is an edit is the "subject" of the message, which is the first 8 words or first 100 characters, whichever comes first.
Edit: I'd type more but I'm watching Bela Fleck and the Flecktones for about the 6th time this month on DirecTV channel 103. Amazing music!
I'm guessing there are some skipped numbers. The latest user number is ahead of the actual member count by about 100.
Off-topic: If anyone out there has DirecTV, they really should check out channel 103 this weekend and catch Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I'm going to try to get my VCR working to record them this weekend. An amazing band with the only bass player I'd rank above Geddy Lee in terms of pure chops.
Nope. That wouldn't be hard to do at all. Since manual renewal will be an option regardless of whether or not automatic renewal also becomes one, what you're describing is already in the plan.
I think what it boils down to is that personally, I'm averse to anything you have to opt out of. And if someone quit using the site for any reason and forgot to opt out of automatic renewal, I don't want them being "reminded" by a charge showing up on their monthly statement.
So, basically, I won't implement an auto-renew option unless I hear a really good argument for doing so. It's not really *that* inconvenient to go through the process each time you renew, and if it seems so, then an annual subscription can be selected.
I'll see if it's possible, though, to offer a link that can just be clicked and nothing further has to be done. Just click and the appropriate charge is made and the time added to your expiration date. I kinda doubt this'll be possible, though, doing it the way I'm going to with Verisign (with my not having the cc info). If I kept the info here, I could easily make renewal a "one click and you're done" proposition. I'll see if that's also possible the way I'm planning to handle cc stuff now.
Funny you should mention that. I've already asked them for clarification on the fees. I currently have the site set up to handle monthly, semi-annual, annual, and lifetime. But am going to figure out the total cost of the monthly route.
Back in the BBS days, monthly subscriptions were my bread and butter. The overhead on them wasn't very high and I hope that's still true.
Off-topic, sorta:
I know a lot of people are averse to using PayPal to subscribe to the site (personally, I trust them but use them mostly for EBay), and I'm looking into an additional provider to go along with PayPal.
Anyone have any positives or negatives about VeriSign?
I prefer to use outside providers (like VeriSign and PayPal) for credit card transactions so the site doesn't ever have that info (see Gary Dobry's recent failed attempt to subpoena precisely that info from SI) but if people wanted the whole process to stay completely in-house, I've written that software before and could do it again. Just rather not.
If I don't hear anything real dire about VeriSign, I'm going to continue down that path. Once I've got them set up, subscriptions (from both them and PayPal) will become a completely automated process rather than having to wait for Matt to see the transaction and do the necessary account changes here.
On a similar note, I'm going to make a monthly subscription option available (lifetime subscriptions won't be offered forever). I know that nobody who can reply here is affected by this, since you have to be grandfathered or a Subscriber to post here, but put yourself in the new users' shoes for this question: Is an automatic monthly renewal (until cancellation by the user) a desirable enough option that I should go through the effort to implement it? Personally, I'd prefer to have the system PM each user a few days prior to the subscription's expiration and just expire the account if they haven't renewed it. And if someone gets tired of renewing every month, they can just buy an annual subscription (or a lifetime one while they're available).
Thoughts?
Toss the 15 minutes of chat time out the window per public post. That's way too complex. Keep it simple.
As I was saying before, whether or not something's complex is really more of a Bob issue. And it wouldn't be complex really. If someone has posted 100 messages, they're alloted a total of 1500 minutes of chat. Easy.
But, that said, it was an off-the-cuff idea. Not one I'm married to.
It is similar in regards to private messages. We don't realize profit off of those (only 2 people see them), but they are an incentive to join the site.
The similarity ends when you factor in cost. PM's cost us nothing but the code it took to implement them. Okay, that can be equated with the cost of outright buying the DC package and bringing it in-house. But the cost of PM's ends there. Not so with DC. I don't remember -- are we paying an ongoing amount right now to have it available? If I remember correctly, we won't if we bring it in-house. But then comes the cost in terms of processor power and the possibility that it can slow down the rest of the site.
I would suspect (hope/dread) that the reason it's unreliable is that it's overwhelming their servers. I hope it's not that the software itself is just unreliable. I'm not interesting in shaky software any more than I'm interested in such software overwhelming or crashing my servers. Or having to buy another server and pay for its connection because it doesn't play well with others and exposes our bread and butter services to outages. I kinda dig the fact that our only real outages have been the brief timeframes when I've rebooted machines for one reason or another.
I want to realize some profit off of the DigiChat, but I don't want to make it too complicated.
If it's complicated, that's my problem. I wouldn't make it complicated for the users. Personally, I dont' mind a little work in the interest of profits. <g>
I'd be interested in the data mining results before I comment on it further.
Me, too, although I'm still a ways away from being able to implement anything like that. Unlikely to get it done before the cost of lifetime subscriptions gets raised at the end of February.
And if I do decide to make it a premium-only feature (the option I like best at this point), I want to make that decision soon enough to allow people plenty of time to decide whether it's worth the $50 cost of using it.
What it boils down to is that we're in the message board business; not the IRC one. Not if being in the IRC business means providing a free but expensive service like the existing IRC servers do.
I'll have to see if I can get enough of this other stuff off my plate to work on seeing what percentage of the users currently using chat are subscribers and what percentage *only* use chat.
I like it as an inducement to subscribe; not as an inducement to just register on the site.