I am certain that the majority of people would appreciate collective2 removing the public nature of the system notebook comments.
I can see that it would be useful for people to keep notes on systems that they look at. But why have them displayed publicly? That doesn’t help anyone else at all. Indeed it simple provides an avenue for bad people to say rude comments about others. And indeed you can see quite clearly that there are a lot of these bad people around.
This whole concept of Web 2.0, where people provide the content on a site, will in the future be looked upon with disgust. That is, in a future where some solution exists to mitigate the bad people from doing vast reputational and defamatory damage to others who don’t deserve it. There is already a name for these scumbags who have become known as “trolls”.
Collective2 should recognise that the comments and opinions of people are not sufficiently valuable to offset the extremely childish and unprofessional nature of what can be seen on the site.
So please, do yourself and everyone else a favour, and remove the link and public access to individuals system notebook comments. It will make the site sooo much more professional.
And if you don’t take my word for it, then perhaps you can take a poll. You could just add a simple poll-box at the top of the screen for a while and then collate the results. You might be surprised to find that despite the obnoxious children screaming all the time, the majority of users are in fact mature adults who wish to silence them once and for all.
Hi, Island:
Your opinion about user-generated information is very interesting, and clearly is strongly held. But at this moment, it’s not an opinion I share.
That said, I’ll try to keep evaluating these kind of “big-picture” design decisions. That’s why I appreciate different points of view, even if they are radically different than my own. Being aware of contrary opinions will help keep the site fresh and relevant.
Matthew
I agree too. The system notes should be private only. Users use this to criticize a system without being current subscribers and does not give the option for a system owner to rebut the notes only give it a star rating. Not sure if "private only" is the sole solution, but I think notes need to be revised and improved.
Julio,
How about your own comments regarding some system where you wrote: "…If this system makes a recovery, it would be a miracle…"? That was on 4/10/12.
Were you a subscriber to the system then? I really doubt it.
However, using your own terminology, the "miracle" did happen.
Yeah I’m guilty…When I realized people were using the notes to gauge a system I stopped doing it. I thought I made all my notes private, I will check.
I guess I didn’t on two. They are all private now. Thanks for bringing that up. I think I remember why I left two of them for public view because at some point I was subscribed to those system.
I can think of several items that are far higher priority to improve Collective2:
1) More Gen3 brokers (especially for stocks, MB Trading alone won’t cut it)
2) More Gen3 brokers
3) Did I mention, more Gen3 brokers?
4) More engagement by C2 management with the press/better marketing to attract subscribers (a certain major competitor of C2 even has regular columns on Marketwatch)
5) Significant improvement in customer service (really, waiting for days for a response from help AT collective2.com, sometimes never to receive a response, is unacceptable)
6) The ability to offer a portfolio of systems, trading together as a package (i.e. a composite system)
7) An improved C2 score system/a better way to help subscribers find quality systems, and perhaps some kind of “Collective2 Index” that tracks the aggregate weighted performance of C2 systems vs. the S&P500. This might be an especially interesting move for C2, as it could enable C2 to create an ETF based on the index at some point
8) An improved messaging system
9) An improved forum system
10) A site redesign (still prefer the old pre-hacking site layout)
11) A real Android app
12) A better affiliate/white label system, including widgets that we can use to market on our own sites
etc. Come to think of it, perhaps we can put together some kind of wish list and vote on which features we would like to see implemented next. I suspect that eliminating system notebooks will rank rather low on such a list.
1,2,3) would be better
4) Yes…
5) Yes x3
6) would be nice
7) C2 score really needs to be revamped.
8) oh God, yes. Very poor, at the very least include the sender’s text in the reply.
9) I’m ok with this one, except that when I’m looking at topics on other pages and I go back to see more topics it always goes back to the first page. Very annoying.
10) I think the site is good
11) Don’t care.
I think Mathew keeps a wish list somewhere, but I’m not convinced at the priority he gives to the items on the list.
I give him credit for TOS and some other good changes, but a bad example is “inverse trading (you can go long when a system goes short, and vice-versa” while interesting, I don’t think it was worth the effort and time. It would have been better to spend the time on other to do list items or improvements. Then again, I’m not the boss.
I feel like some improvements are simple enough to be accomplished in days, but you never see the changes.
Don’t really want to jump on the hate on C2 bandwagon, but I feel like I have to.
I feel like this site is a brilliant idea and well thought out–just HORRIBLY executed. The C2 score seems to make absolutely no sense and jumps around sporadically for seemingly no reason. I also am very annoyed, and have commented previously, how embarrassingly poor the search function is. It seems to me the only practical way to get subscribers is to go out and pitch my system on my own, because nobody would ever find it on this site. On top of that, there seem to be MANY bugs that the developers pretend don’t exist. I frequently see incorrect prices on securities in my system that mysteriously correct themselves a few hours later. Sometimes I enter trades that just hang and appear that they are never executed… then the next day I look and there they are… sitting in my portfolio. For how much we pay, the system should function nearly flawlessly.
I’ve been tempted a few times to cancel my account for all the reasons that you all have mentioned (including the system notebooks aspect). Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other site that has the same concept as C2. If there is something else out there that actually works as advertised, I’ll jump ship in a second.
Here is an idea. Make the To do list or wish list public and set up a poll. Of course the list would be made up of things that can be accomplished and vetted by C2.
The possible ideas/items would move up with popularity, this way you have very good feedback on the improvements that the site members would really like to see. I think this is beneficial to all.
Fantastic idea.
Chris,
There are a few futures brokers who are in this type of business, but I’m not going to mention them out of respect for C2. They’re easy to find with a little effort on Google.
Their model is a bit different. First, they charge a very high commission–usually $20/contract. Second, the developer keeps the entire system fee, which is typically based on a per contract basis. This creates a more equitable arrangement for developers whose customers trade large size–they have to pay a multiple of the fee per each contract traded. Third, they have brokers who will market and sell these systems to clients aggressively. This is really a biggie in my opinion because the brokerage firm has a very large base of customer accounts.
Lastly, the systems run directly on the broker’s servers–there is no middleman to hand your order off to. The order goes drectly from the broker to the exchange. This reduces trade execution latency.
Mr. Wild,
It is good to know that you come from a background where, as you put it: “… they get the shit beaten out of them. I’ve seen guys heads put through flat screen monitors! And rightfully so…”.
Your subscribers are happy “…knowing that they will never get their heads punched in…”, while paying you $1000 per quarter.
Mr. Wild,
It sounds like you feel nostalgic for the environment, where they settled their differences using violence.
Insulting Lone Ranger, in your post, for his personal notebook comments, makes you a sore loser, no matter what you charge for your 65% dd system.
Your constant whining about the personal notebook is ridiculous.
Cameron,
I have the same concern. "Linda Davenport", "Inga Berman", "Ms Naivete", are probably the same person. same writing style.
If you go through the reviews you will notice that almost all systems that received a 4 or 5 star review were negatively bashed by a developer that uses fake aliases.
Never really noticed. All from outside the US, all pretty pictures which means they are fake. Similar notes. Matthew should take notice, this is very disturbing.
what I find REALLY interesting is that all 3 have the same last login status. what a coincidence!!!
Linda Davenport - Last Logged in: 12/21/2012
Ms Naivete - Last Logged in: 12/21/2012
Inga German - Last Logged in: 12/21/2012
Also Lisa Randall pretty picture and from outside the US too.
