Replies to post #115913 on The Question and Answer Board (IHUB)

[Mattu]

Jeff,

Nice to see you here! Haven't heard from you in a long time.

>>1. Label all paid promoters with a red "Paid Promoter" tag that is clickable for a definition of what this means.

That's a bit much. Again, not trying to demonize them. I'm trying to encourage a status/crediblity thing here AND keep the community informed. Paid Promoter has such a bad negative connotation (regardless if appropriate or not). IRP sounds so much better.

>>2. No need to charge extra for such a membership, but-- no signatures that can be considered advertising unless they pay extra for an ad and thus members at a particular level are able to filter them out as they do now.

This is the one point that most seem to agree on - not charging them extra. Interesting. Not sure if that would help encourage the disclosure or not. Personally, if I were to be an IRP, I'd like to be part of the 'exclusive' club of IRPs that iHub recognizes, pays $X high fee per month to be here, and is fully above board.

Dave is going to shoot me for going off on this trail, but, one thing I strongly agree with is all this disclosure stuff in signatures. I hate it. Absolutely hate it. It's free advertising for their sites and it falls under the guise of "i'm a promoter, so I need it so I don't go to jail, please leave it, Matty."

How about we cut off ALL outside links in signatures; and require them to tick a box when they post about a stock they're promoting; and it includes a link to a disclosure page for them managed by them at the bottom of their posts.....and maybe we charge a hosting fee for this page?

I think they should have the star/triangle designation on all posts no matter what stock they're posting on. If nothing else, it will increase their credibility as an IR because they're capable of posting about stock they are not paid to post about. That's pretty groovy, yeah?

I think we may end up bringing this whole promotion/market awareness thing to a new level of trasparency if we do this right - let's face it, in the BB/Pinks it isn't going anywhere, no matter how much we/anybody else dislikes it.

[janice shell]

Good points, Jeff. I think it's also important to require the promoters (and IR people) to use their real names.