Replies to post #9209 on The Question and Answer Board (IHUB)

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

You decided who was "right" and who was "wrong". Your decisions on suspensions therefore became tainted by the rightness or wrongness of the users opinion

I thought sentences or even paragraphs would provide enough separation that you couldn't parse words selectively from them and combine them into a meaning like that.

But I'd have to guess you weren't a member or even observer at SI, so it's somewhat understandable that you wouldn't know that I agree with the point your raise about the admin remaining neutral.

My standard response to "He's lying about our company" has always been "I don't know that and even if I did, I wouldn't and couldn't take action based on that."

In fact, I'm quite certain that I posted on this very thread some months back that I wouldn't allow a moderator to delete a post with "it's a lie" as a reason because once that becomes an allowable reason for deletion, one can make a strong case that goes something like "I bought the stock because every non-deleted post is true, so the post saying Microsoft was buying them had to be true."

An admin can *never* use the veracity of statements as a reason for deleting a post. The ramifications are horrendous. I can't believe you thought for even a second I would support doing that.

When I talk about "right vs wrong", that's not the same thing as "true vs correct". And I'm old enough to know that difference.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

100+ to 1, and the one was always an "angel" that never stepped out of line

Did I say "always"? If I did, it was a typo. And I'm pretty certain I didn't refer to anyone as an "angel".

You apparently weren't there when it was happening. Don't dismiss just because it's incredible. It *was* incredible, yet it *did* happen. Many times. Sometimes a few were happening at the same time.

In one instance (I think it was the MTEI thread), people with negative opinions were getting death threats via PM and email. People who were cheering companies on would mount email campaigns to flood my inbox with complaints about an individual, and *none* of them would attempt to identify a post that was a violation of the Terms of Use or cite which rule had been broken. I would cut and paste replies asking for the post number and the rule that was broken. If I got a reply back (perhaps 5% would reply), they would typically be ongoing rants completely absent of the information I'd requested.

It was an ugly scene. And I was right in the middle of it.

I hope Matt never has to deal with that, and really doubt he will. I doubt he could. I still can't believe I was ever able to.

Though any amount of time spent at Raging Bull might convince me otherwise, I'm currently pretty sure the kinds of people who were involved in those situations aren't around anymore (in the messageboard/stock market sense), and the survivors are jaded and wizened enough that they're not so easily led around by the nose by one or two touts.

Getting back to "right and wrong", it would have been "wrong" to bend to the will of the many and and remove a person only because a large number of people didn't like what they were saying (nevermind that they were later proven "true", as well). My job was to interpret and enforce the Terms of Use. It wasn't a popularity contest.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

I am somewhat peeved by this notion that megalomaniacal moderators are a "widespread problem" here at IHUB

I'm not sure from which paragraphs you selectively parsed words to arrive at that particular load of malarky. I think you might've gone inter-postal to have assembled that one. <g>

I very specifically said that it's not a widespread problem and that the few situations where that kind of "strife" is happening are mostly noteworthy because they stand out in starker relief (than at SI) against the norm here: civil conversations.

I think this illusion of IHUB being "Touter's Heaven" because it uses moderators for individual boards is ludicrous.

Are you saying that it's a bogus reason for anyone to think there's manipulation or are you saying that nobody thinks this and I'm lying when I say people tell me they won't join because they have this perception about it?

What I find even more troubling though is although those who oppose a "promoter" moderating a board, they seem to fully support the idea of a basher having a moderators position. That is a double standard.
Are there "promoters" here at IHUB? Sure, and they are at all of the other message sites too. So are bashers.


You're turning this into a CoB discussion, and it wasn't intended to be.

But I'll play along long enough to clarify.

Yes, it's arguable that *nobody* with a vested interest or even a strong opinion about a stock should be allowed to remove posts, but I'm not asserting that. Since the deletions are overseen by an uninvolved administrator. As long as that process works, I don't see why it matters who is at the "helm" of a board so long as the deletions all go through the admin.

I presented original question supporting argument based not on whether or not CoB works. In my opinion, it does.

I'm talking/asking about how to increase traffic on this site (which helps pay the bills so it doesn't have to run from my pockets for too long) by getting rid of or around the main reason I hear cited by people who tell me they won't be posting here. "Ludicrous" or not, it's a barrier to traffic and a dent in credibility that's hard to get rid of.

Do you have the answer? If you do, I'd appreciate hearing the answer instead of hearing my words spit back at me in random order to portray my statements as something they're not.