MK
How did Gilberto manage to shed a lengthy track record via a new system "KC Partners" ???
He created a second C2 user identity, and started a new system. Not much I can do about this sort of thing. Since the site is self-policing to a certain extent, presumably people will be aware of this.
I don’t think he created a second identity. When you go to KC Partnerts, there is a note "Vendor has created 1 other system. (See all) " and if you click on “see all” then you see the old system. This is normal for C2, I saw many other vendors hiding their failures in this way.
In the spirit of Collective2’s philosophy that anyone putting themselves out as a trading-system vendor should stand by their trading record on a go-forward basis (i.e. not in hindsight, which is the way most systems, outside of C2, are marketed), I have modified the C2 Forums to display “killed” systems along with still-functioning systems. Please note this change was not solely in response this particular incident.
Good decision.
Matthew,
I agree totally with the intent, but unfortunately this seems to favor vendors who have joined since Mar 13, 2006, as their test systems aren’t shown, but older ones are.
It may be too soon to do this, but I’m hoping that at some point in the future you’ll only show killed systems since Mar 13, 2006 so we can all be on an even playing field.
In my case I have 2 test systems from July 2005 that were really more about testing how C2 worked, than testing a system. I then did a more serious test in Oct 2005, that was a mix of following my system and experimenting with C2. I abandoned it while slightly ahead as I knew it only made sense to trade on C2 if I could be confident of being among the best from a return-per-dollar-of-risk (APD) perspective.
Having restarted two years later in Oct 2007, I’m now comfortable with my progress towards my goal, but I’m starting to feel I should have restarted with a new C2 account, rather than using my existing one.
My first two experiments back in 2005 were aimed at understanding how the trading rules and constraints in C2 were implemented in practice, and were certainly NOT intended to attract subscribers!
The third “test” system, now called “Old Test 3” was more of a genuine system test, and I abandoned it when I realized I couldn’t make the time commitment necessary to getting amongst the best at that time.
It now seems those first two episodes of playing around with C2 to understand exactly how it works are going to haunt me forever!
Summary:
1. My personal view is that the forum should only show killed systems since Mar 13, 2006 - this gives one place in C2 where there is a “level playing field” between all vendors.
2. I’m now wishing I had restarted at C2 two months ago with a new account. I’m sure that’s not a behavior you want to encourage.
3. A reasonably fair solution could be: for vendors with killed systems prior to Mar 13, 2006 - your most recently killed system, prior to Mar 13, 2006 remains public, while any others (systems killed earlier) can be selected as “public” by you, but will default to “private test system”. A simple job of adding a field to the database and a bit of code logic for vendors to select their public systems.
This means that:
a) All vendors with killed systems prior to Mar 13, 2006 will have at least one of those killed systems showing as public.
b) They can’t control which system that is (it’s just the most recently killed system), so can’t hide a particularly nasty result. If they have multiple killed systems, one would hope the most recent one shows some evidence of “learning”!
c) Vendors with killed systems prior to Mar 13, 2006 are treated a little more fairly vis-a-vis those since who have had the test facility available to them.
5. Anyone else have a view on this?
I understand your reasoning but I don’t think you’re being truly honest with yourself. Let me put it this way, if your first three systems had been phenomenally successful would they have ended up being called test systems or would you have stuck with their original names and continued with them? I think you know the answer.
It is more than coincidence that every system with the word ‘test’ in it is always a failed one, and more often than not it is only called ‘test’ AFTER it has failed.
I have one system myself which is no longer supported. I tried trading on a completely discretionary basis as an experiment (made clear in the systems long description) and it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to work for me going forward so I abandoned it, BUT to now call it ‘test’ would be completely disingenuous of me because had it succeeded I would have gladly enjoyed the resulting benefits, so it’s conversely only right after it failed that it remains part of my record.
Regarding this, on my only live system it shows “vendor has created 2 other systems”. Both of those were designated as “Test” from the beginning. I killed one by mistake and now have a 2nd “test” system that I use to test strategies, connections from Ninjatrader, etc.
I’ve only had one live, public system and have had people ask me about the other 2 systems that are not and never were public but c2 says I have had 2 other ones.
If I had 4 test systems, would it say that I had 4 other systems?
- Seems a lot of thought is being put into this - certainly more than I had given it. My intent was to somehow be referred to as “KC Partners” as opposed to “Gilbert” - an idea I got when I noticed Ross is now referred to as “Future-Systems”.
After a couple attempts at doing this I couldn’t replicate it, yet still opted to be a vendor named “KC Partners”, even though “Gilbert” still shows up as my name on Forums.
Moving along, I killed my system since I am through with it and saw no reason from my equity to drag lower to $0 or for that matter for it to ramp back up to 100k - neither did I see any reason for the S&P to continue to perform while I stayed flat as the year(s) go by as others seem to do.
That being said, no other considerations were given, so when my closed system only showed up as vendors’ “other systems” as opposed to also being included as a listing in Forums does or doesn’t affect me equally. It seems there is more being read into this than is needed.
Gilbert
[LINKSYSTEM_29417555]
Hi Jon,
1. Re "if your first three systems had been phenomenally successful would they have ended up being called test systems or would you have stuck with their original names and continued with them? I think you know the answer."
I would have been very surprised indeed if either of the first two systems was phenomenally successful over anything more than the very short term. My experimentation with C2 included high leverage, no (or very wide) stop-losses etc. Not something I would have done “for real” in 2005 or now. But I recognized that some C2 vendors used very high leverage (by my standards) and I wanted to understand how the C2 rules and limitations handled this.
When I had successful trades in these two tests, I simply increased the trade size as I also wanted to know how C2 responded to huge losses and how “margin calls” were handled. I killed these systems after 7 or 8 trades so didn’t have any subscribers. I’m not sure how I would have responded if someone signed up! My guess is that they would have signed up for all the “wrong reasons” and I would still have wanted to kill the system … but it’s a bit hypothetical.
2. Re: "It is more than coincidence that every system with the word ‘test’ in it is always a failed one, and more often than not it is only called ‘test’ AFTER it has failed."
I’m not sure how you define “failed”, but my third killed system (Old Test 3) was killed when it was ahead $5400 after 5 months (about 14% pa) and had a mix of good (profit factor over 150:1, % winning = 80%) and average stats (APD = 0.28, max DD = 10.5%), so while it wasn’t a C2 leader it certainly also wasn’t a “failed system” - at least not by my standards.
But your response has got me thinking. You are right that when I launched this system I hoped it would be successful, and if it had been and I got subscribers, I guess I would have continued it. It’s more honest to describe this as an “abandoned system”. I realized that I simply had too many other commitments at the time and managing C2 trades was always at the bottom of my to-do list.
I simply didn’t give that system the care and attention it needed to thrive on C2. I’ll be re-naming it something like “Abandoned 1” to better reflect its true state, so your claim that all systems re-named to “test” are failed ones may soon be true … unless there’s others you’ve overlooked in your generalization?
In the end I have to answer to my own conscience and I’m pleased I’ve taken a closer look at those three systems. I remain comfortable with the first two being named “test” as they were genuine experimentation (with C2).
It’s not that they’re visible that bothers me as much as the difference in treatment between older test systems and newer ones.
3. I’ve suggested one solution to this already. Another one would be to retain all systems that ever had any subscribers in the public area and move others killed prior to Mar 13, 2006 into the private domain (but still listed in the total number of systems created, as per Woodside’s experience?)
4. Certainly I don’t think vendors should just be able to declare their worst systems as “test” ones and “disappear them” from public view (I’ve not suggested this) but I think there should be a more equitable solution than the current default state prevailing. I’ve now suggested two options. Any other ideas? Or is the status quo fine?
Thanks for your response. Re the second point, I was wrong to use the word ‘every’ and I should highlight I didn’t mean to imply that ‘your’ test systems were failures, my point was that the vast majority of test systems within C2 appear to be failed ones, and more significantly they have often had their name changed from an obviously marketable one ie. ‘e-mini futures fund’ to something like ‘test 1’, so the initial intent is clear, it was never meant to be a test system but because it didn’t work they designated it as such. Nothing wrong with starting over and learning from your mistakes, I like to see that, but I think it’s wrong to make it appear something that it was not, and I was merely making that observation. Your ‘abandoned’ tag certainly seems more appropriate in those cases but personally I’m fairly relaxed with how it is now as I think there is enough information elsewhere within vendors track records (ratings, name changes, other systems etc) for people to make up their own mind, bringing in other phrases for certain situations will require specific definitions and that might be hard to make exhaustive with so many variables.
Thanks for your response. Re the second point, I was wrong to use the word ‘every’ and I should highlight I didn’t mean to imply that ‘your’ test systems were failures, my point was that the vast majority of test systems within C2 appear to be failed ones, and more significantly they have often had their name changed from an obviously marketable one ie. ‘e-mini futures fund’ to something like ‘test 1’, so the initial intent is clear, it was never meant to be a test system but because it didn’t work they designated it as such. Nothing wrong with starting over and learning from your mistakes, I like to see that, but I think it’s wrong for the system to appear as something that it was not, and I was merely making that observation. Your ‘abandoned’ tag certainly seems more appropriate in those cases but personally I’m fairly relaxed with how it is now as I think there is enough information elsewhere within vendors track records (ratings, name changes, other systems etc) for people to make up their own mind, bringing in other phrases for certain situations will require specific definitions and that might be hard to make exhaustive with so many variables.
