The opinions expressed in these forums do not represent those of C2, and any discussion of profit/loss
is not indicative of future performance or success.
There is a substantial risk of loss in trading. You should therefore carefully consider
whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. You should read,
understand, and consider the Risk Disclosure Statement that is provided by your broker
before you consider trading. Most people who trade lose money.
Let me just start out by saying that I have been a loyal C2 customer for many, many years and I love the service. It may seem like I only post to make a gripe about the site, but hopefully Matthew realizes by now that I’m always just trying to share my thoughts in an attempt to improve it.
I mainly subscribe to trading systems (although I have dabbled unsuccessfully at being a system vendor) and usually use the Grid and the Reviews as the source of ideas for systems to subscribe to. However, the reviews tend to just trickle in at maybe just 1 or 2 per month. I believe the reason is that reviews can only be submitted by an invitation that is issued a couple of weeks after the subscription has started. As I wrote about in this post from September of '14:
…that timing rarely matches with the time one wants to write a review. So what you end up with is very few reviews, and only those people who are either very happy (because the system did great in the first 2 weeks) or very unhappy (because the system blew up within 2 weeks…like the most recent review on 1/16/16). There is also no way to change or append reviews, as I posted about here:
Perhaps it is a marketing decision. If having fewer negative reviews helps the site then I’m all for helping the C2 business model. However, I think there is something to be said for giving subscribers the ability to warn others of potentially dangerous systems that may not be apparent from the equity curve and track record. For example, a couple of weeks ago I subscribed to a system that was marketed as a protection against black swan events. Once I subscribed and traded it for a few days I realized that it was taking on more risk than I had anticipated and luckily I got out with a small profit – it ended up with a 15+% drawdown over the following 2 weeks! I probably would have posted a review on that system once I unsubscribed, but that was not an option.
I do fully subscribe to your idea of allowing subscribers to warn others of potentially dangerous systems that may not be apparent. I would have saved me a lot of money lost (more than $80000!). If it continues like that I will have to leave C2, so in the end, by having more transparency and accountability, C2 will gain respect and long term subscribers.
If the Reviews are not working for the community, why not start individual topics on the forum categorized by the system owner, e.g., Review: Cambridge Research. Under that topic, everyone could add comments about all Cambridge Research systems such as Ascendant TY, etc.
That’s not a bad idea, but definitely not as good as using the Reviews. When one researches a potential system to subscribe to, they usually view the equity curve, then the stats, and then the reviews (if there are any). Few will likely think to then go to the forums and search for the system name or vendor name – especially those new to the site.
I’m with you Gary but here’s the problem. C2 has tried over the years various procedures for writing reviews. I remember at one time the trolling and abuse became very bad and that’s when they changed to the current system. Right now your request to C2 isn’t enough. We need to offer solutions that would be effective in stopping the bad actors from writing fake reviews and then using multiple accounts to like the fake review etc.
One suggestion I have is to introduce Verified Accounts, that is to give the option for people to send a copy of their passport to C2 and then only those people are allowed to write reviews. They would also get a “Verified User” badge on their profile and system page right under the “TOS Badge”. This is being successfully used by the dating site OKCupid to solve the fake account problems inherent in their business model.
I like the an idea of verified accounts, though I think that it is excessive to request passports. C2 gathers credit card info of subscribers, why this info can’t be verification? Let say review can be written only by “Reliable Subscriber” which has paid subscription for at least N (N=1…3) months after trial subscription or after previous review written. So every subscriber will have a chance to write a review every N months.
Also in cases if system was closed/abandoned all subscribers should have a right to write a review.
Agree no one is going to send a passport copy to write some review , cc info should be enough plus a paid subscription , it is important to not allow free trial subscribers to write reviews , however i dont see the problem if a paid sub wants to write one , and if a system developer is willing to open a second account and pay for his own system just to write a shill review so be it .
I also received an invitation to review a system only after being member for about 2 weeks. This is too short to do any review. 2 months of paid subscription should be a good time to write anything decent about a system.
@MatthewKlein if I missed first c2 notices to make a review for system (in about a week or two after subscription started), will I be able to make a review later? and if yes, then when?
