The Banning of Members [...] Who Seek to Recruit by Fair Means or Foul "Victims" Who May be Parted Easily From Their Wonga.
CV,
On TTW we have a few examples of the following -
1. Paying advertisers whose business and agenda are known. e.g spread betting companies, brokers, large software / data vendors. Presence on the site through advertisements and ideally also a suitably transparent username through which they answer questions regarding their business. These people are definitely recruiting and the site depends on them for its existence. If someone then chooses to be a victim by opening an account with one of them and betting £500 p/pt the wrong way on the Dow, that is hardly TTW's fault. Of course we try and restrict our sponsors to reputable businesses with a track record and relevant particulars in the public domain. (Hence we don't allow, say, pyramid scheme scammers based in Nigeria much leeway.
We delete posts and ban a few of these per month).
2. Members who may run a trading related business and are open about it, but don't pay for TTW advertising, e.g those selling a system or coaching on the side. This would include those who sell things in the TTW store. In this case we allow a www button but no direct linking or other overt forms of attracting potential customers. However it is inevitable that their business interest may become part of a discussion, which could be interpreted as free advertising to the detriment of paying advertisers. This is a tricky one and we are working on adding some type of "flag" that lets members know if someone has a declared commercial interest, while trying to ensure that they do not use the site with the sole intention of promoting this interest. Again, the obvious scammers are swiftly made to feel unwelcome.
3. Members who may have a commercial interest outside of the site, but who have never mentioned it on the fora or by way of PMs / Emails. What do we do here? I might sell trading software but I've never mentioned this fact on TTW in any way, or even alluded to it. Perhaps a half-hour's Googling might throw up a link to a dodgy Russian web site selling cut-price early versions of the Frugi Cyclone Congestion Analyser. Should I be banned on account of my failure to declare my interest, or to not declare it, or neither? Should Socrates be banned because (only when directly asked and after 2000 posts) he said he had the rights to an old version of VSA? I see no evidence of his touting it. Had he posted hindsight screenshots of it 'in action', with accompanying photoshopped blotter showing unrealistically large profits, you can guess the action we would take. Instead he has stated that he is not interested in selling a single copy of anything to which he has the rights. This seems fair enough to me.
As ever, nothing is black & white and we are discussing these issues daily.
In all cases members must diligently research any vendor with whom they might wish to do business.
This thread has thrown up some useful themes. We may have to -
Amend the site guidelines to provide more clarity regarding accepted behaviour.
Be more transparent about the reason for and length of bans & suspensions; provide nick history, where applicable.
Clamp down on thread disrupters, even if they are not being overtly rude. i.e. more post deletions/edits/moves, and possibly short suspensions for the persistent offender.
Ensure the members know when someone has a commercial interest which they could exploit in some way through the site. Though if they fall in category 3 I do not think this is necessary; how would we know, anyway?
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BTW if superciliousness was a bannable offence we'd lose a bunch of members in a twinkling, myself included.
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