Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site describing a decision by the site administrator to delete a post by one of the Buy-and-Hold Goons, followed by a reaction post by another one of the Goons that was also deleted by the site administrator:
Rob, let’s talk plain for a moment. You are what the British call “bone idle”. You hated working. The thought of having to go to a job and take direction from anyone makes you ill. But your ego prevents you from ever admitting that, hence these countless hours spent typing millions of words trying desperately to justify it. Is this how you intend to spend the next 15 years? Give yourself a break.
You put up essentially the same post five minutes ago, Dan. I wrote a brief response and, when I hit the “Submit” button, a message appeared saying that the comment that I was responding to had been deleted by the moderator. I don’t know if that will happen again this time or not. If your comment is deleted, I am of course fine with having my response to the deleted comment deleted as well.
On the possibility that your new comment (which contains only slightly different wording from the deleted version) may not be deleted, I will share here the text of my response to the deleted version:
I will give it my best shot, Dan. I can do no more and I can do no less.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Rob
You say I am not rational in suggesting you get a job in order to get income and then you repeat your fantasy of getting a $500 million windfall? Dan V has clearly zeroed in on your reality.
Anonymous says
I am sure you are happy to see deletions of comments at Valuewalk and you probably wish you could control or block all the comments there as you do on your own site.
Rob says
I want to see as many contributions from people of positive intent as possible, Anonymous. I STRONGLY believe that there is a need for moderation of You Goons. When you Goons get violent and nasty and ugly, good and smart people exit the conversation. I have seen this happen THOUSANDS of times. Yes, it is a great frustration to me to see this happen. It defeats the purpose of the site, which is usually to help people learn about the subject of investing.
It doesn’t matter to me whether I am the one doing the moderating or if someone else is doing it. The key is that a REASONABLE person be doing it. There are two big problems that I have seen in this area in the investing realm.
One is that most site owners are Buy-and-Holders because that is the dominant model for understanding how stock investing works. These site owners have an unavoidable bias that makes it hard for them to appreciate the new paradigm until they have been exposed to it for some time. I have no doubt but that they would come along in time. But your abusiveness makes it hard for others to engage in intelligent conversation and that turns these site owners off. I don’t see that there’s anything much that can be done about this particular problem. I expect that it will diminish dramatically following the next price crash. Until then, we just have to make the best of things.
Another is that many site owners are biased in favor of making a buck. Since most readers are Buy-and-Holders, they are reluctant to ban ANY Buy-and-Holders for fear of offending them and are quick to ban non-Buy-and-Holders who challenge Buy-and-Hold dogmas. I find this unethical. When you own a site offering investing advice, you have a responsibility to take into consideration that mistakes you promote can end up costing people their life savings. You should care enough about getting it right that you are always open to hearing both sides even if it costs you a few bucks to permit fair treatment.
I very much favor stronger enforcement of posting rules that what we have seen during the first 15 years. There is no place in discussions of stock investing of death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. I oppose all that smelly garbage in the strongest possible terms. I don’t really care who does the moderating, though, so long as a reasonable job is done.
Rob
Anonymous says
If a moderator is now on the job, does that mean all comments that are allowed to stand are acceptable?
Rob says
I don’t get the impression that the philosophy at Value Walk is to moderate strongly at all. My sense is that the site takes a libertarian approach, an anything goes style.
That’s not my style. I wouldn’t do it that way. But it’s not my site. I admire the people who run the site for doing what they do. Maybe they are right and I am wrong, you know? I have my opinion but my opinion is not necessarily Truth.
Many of the comments that you Goons post there are harassment posts. They serve zero positive purpose. They subtract from the discussion rather than add to it. Surprise! Surprise!
Rob